UnowPriceless hyped garbage

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

TOMASBBloodhound This late 60's gem is a terrific showcase for everything there is to love about the Peanuts gang. Many themes and ideas from the legendary comic strip are woven together into this feature length story about Charlie Brown and his world. Unlike the less-successful Snoopy Come Home, this film is a better blend of the emotional highs and lows that a little boy can experience. Snoopy Come Home is almost like an extended wake by comparison.Much of A Boy Named Charlie Brown deals with him entering a school spelling bee, doing surprisingly well, and then heading to NYC for a national competition. But we also see plenty of other Peanuts themes play out along the way. We see Charlie Brown and his team get demolished in a baseball game, we see Lucy pull the football away when he attempts to kick it, we see Snoopy have some interesting adventures, we see Lucy flirt with Schroeder, Sally flirt with Linus.... all the things we'd expect from a Peanuts strip. And Charlie Brown also cannot fly a kite to save his life. Plenty of funny moments abound. Perhaps my favorite is where Schroeder, who plays catcher for the baseball team, walks out to the pitcher's mound to go over the signs for the days game. He says to Charlie Brown, "One finger will mean the high straight ball, two fingers will mean the low straight ball." Charlie Brown is miffed. "What about my curve? Or my slider..." and other pitches he doesn't really know how to throw. Schroeder simply repeats, "One finger will mean the high straight ball, two fingers will mean the low straight ball." Good Stuff.Does Charlie Brown win the national spelling bee? Does he finally get to kick the football?? This is a feel-good story, but its still a movie about Charlie Brown. In addition to the funny moments, the film strikes gold with its innovative (for the time) art design, and some truly wonderful musical bits. The instrumental bits actually work much better than Rod Mckuen's lyrical ones. Vince Guaraldi's jazz score is outstanding. The music we hear when Snoopy is skating at Rockefeller Center was used briefly in the 1965 Christmas Special. It still works. And anyone who insists that Charles Schulz didn't believe in God needs to pay attention during Schroeder's piano solo and re-evaluate their thinking on the matter. 9 of 10 stars.The Hound.

PeachHamBeach Yep, that's what I said: this cartoon feature-length film featuring the beloved "Peanuts" gang is, like the comics of Schulz, a very realistic and intimate look inside the human psyche, not just of Charlie Brown, but of the Van Pelt kids.Charlie Brown believes he's a complete loser. Albeit, 6-8 year olds may not usually consciously form such a concise opinion of themselves, but, like the comic strip, Charlie Brown's voice is not only that of a perceptive adult, but of the inner child left behind. I don't know why people believe childhood is such a wonderful time. It SHOULD be. By rights, it ought to be our most precious, sacred, worry-free time, and adulthood ought to be the bummer. But in reality, childhood, when adults tower over you controlling your life and people your own size pick mercilessly at you for being the least bit different, is a time we look forward to leaving behind us, but unfortunately drag along with us for the rest of our days. I am now in my late 30s, and stressful career and all, health problems and all, I'll gladly move forward. I'd never revisit childhood, not for a million dollars! Charlie's kite won't fly right, his baseball team is on a 99 game losing streak, and he can't even get his toy boat to sail in the bathtub. He feels miserable, unwanted and depressed. He seeks out the advice of wanna-be psychiatrist Lucy, all the while knowing that Miss Van Pelt is one of his biggest antagonists. She eagerly points out everything wrong with him and how hopelessly dumb and worthless he is, which is what abusive people do when they, deep down, hate themselves worse than they could ever hate you, but need to use you to build up their own meager self esteem. The one trait that spells doom for Charlie every time is his own admission that he believes himself a failure. That only makes Lucy and the other mean girls Violet and Patty, feel more powerful.Desperately seeking self-worth, Charlie Brown decides to try out for the school spelling bee. First he wins against his home classmates, then he wins Spelling Champion of his school. Is this not a victory? Indeed it is, but instead of finding that self worth, and basking in the victory, Charlie dreads his next task, the National Elimination spelling bee in the big city. He berates himself for "getting himself into this mess," and not only makes himself sick with stress and worry, but exhausts himself studying all night before the competition, refusing even to take a nap, fearful that he will let the kids back home down if he doesn't use every minute for study. So it's no wonder he misspells a simple word like "beagle".Second place, 1st runner up, the last to be eliminated. Do these things spell "loser"? You would think not, but naturally, poor lovable self-doubting Charlie Brown thinks its worse than if he had just been beaten earlier, or had never even made it out of his school contests. He took a risk, put himself out there, tried something out, and the results were not what he wanted. Now he feels like a failure as usual and is afraid to ever do anything again, because the humiliation he feels is unbearable.The one "peanut" who seems to genuinely route for Charlie, without any selfish motives, is Linus. If Charlie would open his eyes, he would see that he has at least one true friend in the world, someone who believes in him and doesn't think of him as a total loser just because he didn't win first in the national bee. He even gave Charlie his beloved security blanket for good luck. Somehow, he coaxes Charlie Brown out of his shell of fear and humiliation.The ending is realistic. Things seem not to have changed much since the spelling bee. Snoopy and Linus are still Charlie's closest frients, Lucy is the same ol' conniving meanie yanking the ball away just as Charlie is about to kick it.But Charlie IS changed. Even though he didn't win first place, he has returned home someone new, someone who takes risks and tries new things and works very hard toward a goal, and even though you'll never hear Lucy and the mean girls admit it, this is his victory.Deep down, at some point in our lives, "we're all a boy named Charlie Brown."

MartinHafer As a kid, I loved this film when I saw it in the theater and when I saw it years later as an adult, I found it still had a lot to offer. You can't say that about MOST kids' movies! Charlie Brown is, as usual, an outcast and nothing goes right for him when the movie begins. However, when he decides to enter a spelling bee and he wins, he is thrilled because he finally is good at something and the other kids treat him better. He doesn't realize that because he won he will be going to the state competition, and when he does, he's a nervous wreck. However, in the state competition, he comes in second. The kids reward this performance by once again demeaning him by calling him a block-head! Despite the very simple outline I gave above, the film actually has a lot more depth and character development. Plus, being the funky 1960s, the visuals at times are pretty indicative of the era (i.e., splashy and loud).I know he never would have been allowed to do it, but when Charlie Brown came home after having come in second, I really wanted to see him administer a well-deserved butt-kicking to Lucy and the other nasty kids!

mycats66 I saw this movie as a child in the theater when it was released. Seeing this movie at that age, in that environment leaves a big impression on me. I think what makes a good children's movie is if it has clean and witty appeal you get later on as an adult. This movie has excellent music sequences with classic Anime style, deserving of the Academy Award nomination for it's music. Charlie Brown goes to the city to participate in the spelling bee championship. Snoopy goes along on the trip and goes out to explore the city on his own. This movie has a presence of psychelic omniance that comes from being made in 1969. This is the Peanuts at it's best. This is the ultimate Peanuts movie bar none.(I keep seeing a message that keeps telling my I must have 10 lines. Now in the editing box I am typing this into, it shows that I have typed 11 lines, so what's the deal. Instead of telling me how many lines to type without clearly defining exactly how many words or characters define a line, why don't you just tell me exactly how many words or bytes you want as a minimum.)