It's a Sad Day Charlie Brown -- Remembering Peanuts Animator Bill Melendez

Before I continue, I'd like everyone to take a moment of silence to reflect on how Bill Melendez affected your childhood. Melendez, who died on Tuesday at St. Johns Hospital in Santa Monica at the age of 91, was the "official" animator for the Peanuts movie specials in addition to working on the animated version of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe." He worked on a number of other projects, to be sure, but those properties are the ones that had the greatest affect on me as I was growing up.

Here's one way that he affected me.

A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN (1969), which Variety erroneously -- at least according to IMDB -- attributes to 1971, was one of my favorite movies growing up. It was also the story that made me most desire typical "Hollywood Endings," both in life and in film/tv. I hated that Charlie Brown lost the spelling bee. I was even more appalled that his loss was related to the thing he loved most in the world -- his pet beagle. You see, his misspells beagle at the climax of the story. I was heartbroken as a child, and I'm still heartbroken. I know that Charlie Brown, who is representative of the everyman, rarely gets to win in the Peanuts-verse, but I have always seen that as a kind of injustice. I want everyone to succeed in life.

Sure, I know that not everyone can become a successful actor, author, director, rock star, or statesman. That isn't what I am talking about. I am referring to the little successes that allow us to marvel at the world in which we live, the most important of which is a loving family that is free from tragedy. This is the stuff that dreams are made of. I want this for everyone. To further illustrate how the Charlie Brown film reinforced this desire, consider for a moment the role of Charlie's parents at the end of the film -- the lack thereof. Where is the loving embrace of a mother, or father, to console Charlie at the end of the story? Lost in "wah wah wah wah wah" land, no where to be seen by the audience. Charlie certainly has friends, Linus and Snoopy in particular, but what of family?

The Charlie Brown films made me long for a happy and loving family -- though like Charlie my experience was mixed. Certainly, my family loved me and let it be known. In fact, I had many a consolation hug after a tragic defeat. But my family life wasn't free of tragedy. In my late teens and throughout my twenties, I watched my mother as she struggled through addiction. More accurately, I watched as she slowly died from addiction. My younger sister, who lived at home with my mother, witnessed it more than I. It was a terrible struggle to which she eventually succumbed, more on that will be written on October 7th. But one moment comes to mind as I reflect on the absence of Charlie's parents after Charlie's loss, it is a memory of my mom in recovery -- in treatment at a center somewhere near Lake Tahoe.

My mom's parents, my grandparents, were still reeling from the hurt of having a daughter addicted to heroin and were looking for ways to cope. They latched on to the concept of "tough love," an important concept to keep in mind when one is an enabler which my grandparents weren't, seeking some magic trick to snap my mom out of the addictive cycle. They seemed to think that if they were "tough" that would help my mom, they focused on that more than the outward expression of love. I am certain they did what they did exactly because they loved their daughter, but their focus on one aspect of being a family in recovery prevented them from being ready for the likely inevitable "relapses" my mom would cycle through. That is, she would cycle through them if she was lucky enough to survive addiction. Sadly, my mom wasn't and I think that my grandparents regretted that they didn't spend more time giving comforting embraces to my mom and less time worrying about whether they were being tough enough.

I know I certainly felt that way. How many times have I asked myself whether I let my mom know how much, and how unconditionally, I loved her? Too many, and I have not always been satisfied with the answer.

What does this have to do with Peanuts? Well, in many ways my mom was Charlie Brown. She was "trying to kick the football" in life, only to have it frequently pulled away at the last second. This often happened as she attempted to advance her career. Unlike Charlie Brown, she had no Linus to offer "timeless truths." Her family was more present, and listened more than Charlie's, but her friends' consolation which she sought more often than the embrace of her children was rarely wise advice -- rather it was usually a detrimental escape.

Before this piece becomes too maudlin and makes it seem that Mr. Schulz creation was merely a catalyst that made me desire happy family life -- as well as appreciate the family I have, I should mention that Peanuts has also been a part of someone I dearly love's ongoing journey to success. My wife Jody is a winner of the 1996 prestigious Charles M. Schulz award for her college cartooning. It was winning this award that let Jody know that her dreams of entertaining people were possible. Not to sound too prideful -- I was able to be her Linus after she didn't win in 1992, a year so "bad" in the judges' mind that no one was awarded the prize. I told her that this only made the prize more legitimate and I let her know how convinced I was that she would eventually win the prize. She continued developing her craft and won the prize four years later when she thought her comic had improved enough. Jody is, if anything, her harshest critic.

Interesting Media Bits -- A Sporadic Geek Update

• Brian Lowry shares some interesting observations regarding television today and television in 1993. It's amazing how much, and how little, has changed in the offerings available.



• LA Observed shares what the Los Angeles Times consider to be the best "LA Movies" that were made between two extraordinarily arbitrary dates. LA STORY is at #20, which is too low. THE BIG LEBOWSKI is at #10, which seems about right. DAY OF THE LOCUST (1975) is nowhere to be seen, which is two words -- first begins with a c, second ends with a k -- "crazy talk," but is excluded due to the strange "Best 25 in the past 25 years" rule, which enables them to leave out an abundance of other great movies.



• Stephen Sommers is slated to helm a new Tarzan movie. Had you asked me after the first MUMMY movie he made, I would have been unreservedly overjoyed. He maintained the proper balance of humor and pulp excitement necessary to pull off that film. After MUMMY II, I would have been more hesitant. In the years after VAN HELSING, that is to say NOW, I am actually a little worried. His live action JUNGLE BOOK was pretty good and his upcoming GI JOE movie might redeem all past misdeeds, or magnify them. It's a Tarzan movie, and I'm a big fan of Burroughs, so it is a must see. Though in my heart of hearts, I think it is unlikely to pass GREYSTOKE and the Disney animated TARZAN as a translation of the character and stories, but we'll see.
  
  Speaking of being a Burroughs fan. There is a meme going around the internets that Tarzan was named after Tarzana (which isn't true) as opposed to Tarzana Ranch -- which became Tarzana -- being named after Tarzan (which is true). Most of the misunderstanding is rooted in a spoof Snopes article from their "Lost Legends" section of the website, the urban legend site "All-Lies" falls for the gag. Most people read the article and say, "Aha, I knew that no one would name a town after Tarzan!" But they fail to follow links to this page "The Repository of Lost Legends" (TRoLL for short), where they let you know they were kidding. Or they could look at this well researched ERBzine page, where Burroughs obsessives live, and find the story of Tarzana. One could even go to the Tarzana Chamber of Commerce page where they discuss the topic. Sadly, too many people want to be "smarter than the obvious" and think that Tarzana being named after Tarzan is a myth.
  
  It isn't, the town was named after a fictional character. The internet can be wrong folks. Go read the Irwin Porges biography of Burroughs, then come back to me.



• Jerry Bruckheimer, Randall Wallace, and Steven Pressfield to make "Killing Rommel," based on Pressfield's novel of the same name. I have been a fan of Pressfield's since I first read his novel "Gates of Fire" years ago. I look forward to seeing a Bruckheimerstravaganza WWII movie based on one of Pressfield's books.

Why Copyright Theft is Bad

Look, I know as well as anyone that "free is easier than paying." Given the power of the internet, "free is often better than buying." If I want to buy something, I usually have to either leave the house or wait for product delivery. The rare exception to this is ebooks, but if I buy them I still have to pay for them and as I wrote earlier "free is easier than paying."

But you also know what getting all your stuff for free means? It means that people will stop making the stuff that entertains you. If there is no money to be made, then people will stop working hard to produce things that entertain you. Case in point? Stephanie Meyer. Somebody leaked part of an early draft of her next book, and she's postponed indefinitely the writing of that installment.

It's hard work to write something worth reading and that work can be devoted to other profitable ventures. Those who have the talent, and discipline, to be creative in an entertainment field are also fully capable of making money other ways, and they will migrate away.

Don't tell me that "advertising" will eventually pay for all this great free stuff, and perpetuate the myth of the "economy of free." Sure, a lot of stuff we are currently paying for -- maybe even Meyer's books -- will be free due to ads, but at some point there has to be a purchased product to pay for the advertising that supports the "economy of free." It's economics 101. Heck, it's even more basic than that. Rousseau understood this when he wrote ON THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY. If you want people to create entertainment, then they need time and resources to be able to make that entertainment. If you want talented people, then the compensation has to be commensurate.

Go ahead and disagree, but don't come crying to me when all that is available to entertain you are mmorpgs, porn made in someone's basement, and Kirk/Picard slash fiction.

In A World...without "Voiceover Guy"

According to Variety, Don LaFontaine died on Monday. The official cause of death has not yet been released.

I cannot recall how many movies this man convinced me to see with his trademark "In a world..." tagline. Part of me knows that "In a world without Don LaFontaine, future voiceover guys will seem like pale imitations."

Help Save Superman!

On June 14th, 1938, seventy years before the virus quarantine goes into effect in the alternate future of Season 2 of Heroes, the LOS ANGELES TIMES front page was covering a trial that resulted in a guilty verdict for Police Capt. Earle Kynette with regard to the Harry Raymond bombing. It is also the date that some claim as the publication date for Action Comics #1.

Recent legal battles have revealed the "actual" publication date as April 18th, 1938, on which date the LOS ANGELES TIMES covered "the lawsuit brought by former child star Jackie Coogan against his mother and stepfather over the money he made as a youngster" -- a lawsuit with long term repercussions in the entertainment industry and a better starting point for the following commentary. You see, I'm one of those crazy people who believes that people should actually be paid for the things they create.

Like Jackie Coogan, the creators of Superman -- and their heirs -- had to wait a long time to receive copyrights to the contents of Action Comics #1 (unless you don't consider 70 years to be a long time). As everyone knows, Action Comics #1 is possibly the most important superhero comic book ever published. The book itself has an Overstreet value, in Very Fine condition, of $275,000 and which sold recently at auction in Very Fine minus condition for $69,000 (according to Heritage Auction Galleries). For decades Superman's creators, and their heirs, have been cheated by a claim that the comic was "work for hire" and thus the creators had sold their rights. In case you're wondering, while I am a "copyright stickler" I am not a fan of work for hire. I believe in creator ownership and limited rights for publishers.

Yet this injustice has been largely ignored by most, with the exception of hard core Superman fans. But then popular culture, and even hard core fans, tend to neglect those who entertain us as soon as those people move from the limelight -- even as their creations remain in the limelight. Who waits in Jerry Robinson's line at San Diego's famous Comic Con? Far fewer than the number of fans attending the conference who are fans of his collaborated creations -- Robin and the Joker. Americans -- even when they are die hard fans -- it seems, have no sense of history.

How else can one explain the fate of Joe Shuster's childhood home which was demolished in 1978, the same year that Richard Donner's SUPERMAN movie was released in movie theaters across the world. In a way that sentence describes the American attitude toward history. We had a "new" Superman, why do we need to remember or preserve historic locations associated with the old?

Thankfully, we Americans aren't always so fickle. Project Pride bought and restored the home of quintessential pulp author Robert E. Howard, and now author Brad Meltzer is working toward doing something similar with the childhood home of Jerry Siegel. It seems that exterior repairs of the site will cost around $50,000. Given my personal desire to make pilgrimages to the homes, childhood or otherwise, of the people who have entertained me, it shouldn't be surprising that I am so excited by Mr. Meltzer's efforts.

I only find it to be a shame that Meltzer has to have an auction at his website -- ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com -- and that we couldn't just come together as a community without some material incentive.

To put it another way. I would rather someone invest $50,000 into a project that might be shared by thousands (hopefully more) of fans for years to come, than for someone to spend $275,000 for something that will remain encased in plastic locked away in someone's safe deposit box.

DEATH RACE (2008): How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Watching a Commercial for a Video Game

When I entered the theater on Saturday to watch DEATH RACE (2008), starring Jason Statham, I had a huge chip on my shoulder. I fully expected the film to be as bad, if not worse, than Uwe Boll's IN THE NAME OF THE KING -- which also starred Jason Statham. What I forgot was that DEATH RACE is directed by "geek-media to film" über-director Paul W.S. Anderson (MORTAL COMBAT) -- who should in no way be confused with arthouse über-director Paul T. Anderson -- and in my mind having Anderson as a director is a positive thing.

One might ask why that is a positive thing. To answer, I will say that Anderson has in the past done what I thought was a complete impossibility. He directed an entertaining movie based upon a video game intellectual property, the aforementioned MORTAL COMBAT. He thankfully had nothing to do with the abomination that is MORTAL COMBAT 2. Anderson's ability to translate property from one geek medium to another isn't a one time fluke either. His 2002 screen adaptation of RESIDENT EVIL, starring his fiancé Milla Jovovich, was as entertaining an adaptation of a video game as has yet been made. I also believe that his Kurt Russell vehicle SOLDIER and his Gothic SF film EVENT HORIZON are highly underrated. Anderson's films are by no stretch of the imagination classics to be cherished, but they tend to be fun popcorn fare -- and to be honest that is what I hoped for in my heart of hearts when I went to see the new DEATH RACE.

I should have kept this in mind when I walked into the theater on Saturday afternoon, because I left the theater entertained.

Anderson's DEATH RACE begins with an opening scroll reminiscent of ROAD WARRIOR's description of how the world changes from the modern day -- a description seemingly based almost word for word on the future history described in Steve Jackson Games CAR WARS DELUXE EDITION. Essentially, the US economy collapses in 2012 (Corman's classic had the world's economy collapse), unemployment is ridiculously high, crime soars, corporations take over the prison system, the world watches its first "prison death match," eventually they become bored with fights to the death, and finally the DEATH RACE is born to satisfy their bloodlust.

Whew! That was quite a sentence. Needless to say, the script by Anderson attempts -- though ultimately fails -- to address one of my concerns regarding the remake. He also ties this film to the original by using David Carradine to do the voice over for Frankenstein in the film's opening race. I wanted some social commentary about our society's long history of bloodlust and Anderson hinted he would give that commentary to me. In the end though, he skipped over that part of the narrative to focus on the story of the racer, which brings me to the actual narrative of the film.

Anderson's script views like a bizarre combination of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE LONGEST YARD (the Burt Reynold's version), and the original DEATH RACE 2000. Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) is a down on his luck blue collar worker who loses his job at the local steel mill when that mill closes down -- as an aside, I knew I was watching fiction when the film depicted a working steel mill within the US. Ames returns home, his family is murdered, he gets framed for the murder and sentenced to life in prison. Shortly after his arrival at the prison, he is made an offer by the warden (Joan Allen). She needs him, you see. The fans love Frankenstein, but Frankenstein died at the end of the last race -- a race that he won according to the pay-per-view telecast. As incentive to participate in the race, Ames is offered his freedom. Frankenstein has already won four races, if he wins a fifth then he gets to go free and return to society. Ames, as the new Frankenstein, would only have to win one race to be reunited with his daughter.

The script is all pretty standard stuff and doesn't offer any of the criticism I had hoped for, but it does serve as a skeleton (even though a weak one) for what turns out to be an entertaining film.

What makes the film entertaining is the fact that it unabashedly acknowledges the fact that there will be a video game based on the film. The best example of this occurs during the first race, and all subsequent races, when the audience is shown how the various offensive and defensive devices on the vehicles are activated. In order to activate their weapons, the drivers must drive over lit up sword icons on the track. Shield icons activate the defensive items on the vehicles, and skulls activate death traps which destroy the vehicle that activated the skull. As the film portrays it, the DEATH RACE is a kind of bloody and fatal version of MARIO CART -- silly laughter and all. One might say the DEATH RACE is live action WARIO CART. I could almost hear Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson) shouting, "I'ma Machina Guna Joe-a...I'ma Gonna Weeen."

Though the premise might seem cartoony, the action is anything but. Anderson brings his signature style of quick cuts and hyperkinetic action to the screen. The action sequences run the gamut from fast cars with guns blazing to Ames opening up a can of whoop ass on those who annoy him.

One only wishes he had taken things a little bit further. It's one thing to acknowledge as a part of your film that a video game will be made about it. It is another thing to use that as an opportunity to criticize overly violent video games. I'm not one that is overly worried about the influence of violent games on society, but I enjoy a good SF criticism as much as anyone. Anderson drops the ball with regard to the video game criticism by both choosing MARIO CART style games as the basis for his action and by not taking the violence far enough...or at least not showing how much the fans love and obsess about the violence. It isn't enough to hear that the DEATH RACE has 70 million subscribers, I want to hear some obsessed fans talk about the race. Better yet, have those same hard working steel workers at the beginning of the film talk about their favorite racers. Both the original story and the first movie showed us the world outside the race, or at least gave glimpses. Anderson's DEATH RACE seems to take place outside the surrounding world and its fans are only those who order the streaming video on the internet.

It isn't only in the area of social criticism where Anderson drops the ball. Most disappointing to me was the fact that Robin Shou, who plays the character 14K, is never allowed to showcase his significant movie martial arts skills. Shou was one of the highlights of Anderson's MORTAL COMBAT, and it is nice to see him on the screen, but one laments that the film spends so much time focused on Statham that Shou never gets his time in the spotlight.

I could continue with a long list of places where Anderson failed to deliver on the promise of the film's potential, especially aggravating since Anderson has been wanting to do this project for more than a decade, but such a list would undermine my actual feelings regarding the film.

I have written, and said, many times that sometimes the only important thing about a film is whether or not it entertains you. Not all film is meant to be high art and DEATH RACE certainly falls into that category of film.

To play around a little with something I wrote above, "Anderson has done something I never would have never thought possible. He has made an entertaining movie that seems to have as its sole purpose the promotion of an affiliated video game." If the video game can live up to its big screen commercial, it should be a heck of a fun time.

RATING: 2.5/5 STARS

My Apprehensions Regarding DEATH RACE (2008)

In his 1973 book THE PRIMAL SCREEN, Andrew Sarris describes a "complication unique to cinema in the curiously uneasy relationship between critic and audience." A part of this uneasy relationship is that audiences want critics to like what they like, and critics want audiences to appreciate films that should be appreciated. This is why we see so many stories about the disconnect, particularly acute in the current era of film, that exists between audiences and critics. Many a successful film has been panned by the critics. But this relationship isn't the whole of what makes the interaction between the critic and the audience in film so complicated. There is an additional complication called the "Primal Screen." The Primal Screen is "that factor of childhood reverie which forms a barrier between what we think about movies and what we feel about them."

THE PRIMAL SCREEN's foreword is a discussion of how, and why, critics themselves are never fully able to extricate the Primal Screen from their viewing habits. Sure, they may adopt the language of criticism and art -- though that is certainly rarer today than it was for Sarris in the 70s -- but there is some part of their criticism that is either informed by, or in reaction to, their Primal Screen. One critic may get carried away with praise regarding a particular film and fawn unceasingly, my attempt to avoid such pandering is why my TROPIC THUNDER review has yet to be posted. Another critic may enjoy a film on a primal level, but "know" that the film isn't "good" and thus draft a diatribe against a film that is otherwise enjoyable. It is this tendency I believe leads to the current disconnect between critics and audiences. Critics too often seem to be saying, "I'm supposed to be above enjoying panem et circenses aren't I?" When, like the rest of us, they really do like spectacle.

I think that it is too rare that critics share their Primal Screen biases with audiences, and I want to do so before I review DEATH RACE which was released in theaters today. My review will be posted on Monday. Having shared my Primal Screen expectations with you now, I won't feel overly compelled to moderate them later. You will know them, and be able to read the DEATH RACE review with those perceptions in mind. So without further ado, here are my prejudices regarding the most recent DEATH RACE film -- a film I will see tomorrow evening.

"I wanted to tell you," he said, "to tell you -- I -- I am not a butcher!"

The girl looked at him for a long moment. Then she leaned down and whispered to him:

"Nor a Racer!"

Ib Melchior's story "The Racer," published in the October 1956 issue of Escapade, ends with those wonderfully ambiguous lines. At the beginning of the tale, Willie "The Bull" Connors is a confident driver who is willing to commit "Tragi-Accs" and who is ruthlessly in pursuit of the $100,000 prize for winning a cross country race where a combination of quick Time and accumulated Points (earned through causing casualties) is the way to win. Being an "anti-racer" is a crime, but when Willie is confronted by the young woman Muriel his world view begins to change. First Muriel calls Willie a butcher, and then she stands in the road holding a baby -- daring Willie to run her over for the valuable points. An act, that if performed, would have given Willie the world record for most points scored in a race.

Melchior's tale is sharp and straight to the point. In the end, the woman who gave our "hero" the heart to stop killing is the first to vilify him. It is an indictment of our love for violent spectator sports. There is not satire in Melchior's piece, only disdain for our bloodlust.

... and the most popular spectator sports of the latter half of the 20th Century were such mildly exciting pursuits as boxing and wrestling. Of course the spectators enjoyed seeing the combatants trying to maim each other, and there was always the chance of the hoped-for fatal accident.

Motor Racing, however, gave a much greater opportunity for the Tragic Accidents so exciting to the spectator. One of the most famed old speedways, Indianapolis, where many drivers and spectators alike ended in bloody Tragi-Accs, is today the nation's racing shrine.

With those words, Melchior makes it clear that our society has a propensity for bloodlust and that with motor racing we finally found our ultimate sport. Well, almost -- it only became perfect after making Tragi-Accs intentional. Melchior's critique of the bloodthirsty nature of motor sports fans was also displayed in the excellent John Frankenheimer film GRAND PRIX (1966) starring James Garner. One wonders what Melchior and Frankenheimer would think about today's safety obsessed racing -- especially Formula One, but it goes without saying that even with racing having been partially sanitized mixed martial arts fighting seems to hint that our lust for blood hasn't subsided in the past 50 years.

"The Racer" was the inspiration behind Roger Corman's New World Studios classic 1975 B-Movie DEATH RACE 2000, starring David Carradine (and Sylvester Stallone) and directed by Paul Bartel. The Robert Thom and Charles Griffith screenplay drips with satire regarding America's obsession with power. It is an indictment of political imperialism, of Bolshevik revolution, and of blood sport. America is a totalitarian state and the rebels who seek to return a more just America are torn between revolutionaries inspired by our Founding Fathers and those who look like they stepped of the set of BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. Bartel's direction perfectly captures the tone intended and his representations of the way sports media panders to celebrity are some of the most enjoyable parts of the film. Add to this the addition of B-movie starlets, and you get a magical combination. As Joe Bob Briggs put it, "This is the best cross-country road- race movie--and the most violent, and the funniest--despite the efforts of many crash-and-burn specialists to come up with a better one. It is also one of the most successful pictures ever produced by New World Pictures, Roger Corman's studio."

I worry that the current release of DEATH RACE doesn't get it. It has taken a story about sport, and society, that transform together -- becoming increasingly bloodthirsty -- and turned it into an adaptation of THE RUNNING MAN, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and THE FUGITIVE. Instead of professional athletes who are participating in a legitimate and well accepted form of entertainment, remember being an "anti-racer" was a crime in Melchior's tale, we now have the framed man wrongfully imprisoned and forced to participate in a race to the death. While it may contain some underlying criticism of the penal system, and to some extent our bloodlust, it seems to lack the completely scathing rebuke against all of society. The style of the film is more reminiscent of the post-apocalyptic imagery of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that the advertising riddled paddocks one can see at any Formula One race.

My fear is that the directors and screenwriters spent too much time trying to remake the wheel in order to "bring it up to date," when they should have been looking at how the sport being criticized has evolved and used that as a jumping point. I seem to remember another movie in the recent past that made a similar mistake. It was called ROLLERBALL, and it not only paled in comparison to the original -- it never should have been made.