Snoopy Presents: One-Of-A-Kind Marcie

 

AIRDATE: 8/18/2023

STORY: Marcie is a lot more than just Peppermint Patty's best friend...but she likes being Peppermint Patty's best friend. Marcie is a lot more than the bookish introvert...but she likes being the bookish introvert. She also likes being helpful, even if her efforts go under the radar. It's the results, not the renown, that matter. But when Marcie's grateful peers write her in as Class President, the world becomes a lot bigger...and that, she doesn't like.

MUSIC: Jeff Morrow again, very light and mellow piano. The ideal day is one where you can lay down and not feel like you're wasting time. 9

ANIMATION: Experimental yet fun. Abstract yet sensible. The art direction and shot composition give brilliant insight into a sweet, anxious mind. 10, my favorite animation of the Apple shows so far. 

VOICES: Everyone does their character proud. Lexi Perri isn't my favorite Pep Pat (still a 9) but Arianna McDonald is probably the best Marcie to date. She puts the "flower" in "wallflower." 10 Isabella Leo does triple duty as Lucy, Tapioca Pudding and "Crybaby" Boobie. I give her a 9 just off the strength of Lucy's Marcie impression, which is so solid gold it should have dancers.

The sleeper of the special is Carlin, the first TV-exclusive character in the Peanuts universe since Charles 1997's It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown. Antonina Battrick is marvelous as the little Marcie to Marcie's Peppermint Patty (even calls her "ma'am). 9

GOING OUTSIDE 

--Marcie doesn't use her outlier status as an excuse to demand others kowtow to her every whim or adjust their lives for her benefit or even expect everyone to understand, exactly, what makes her clock hands go. Lots of us can learn from her example.

--Nor does Marcie fundamentally change who she is. This is a young girl as comfortable in a library as she is on a golf course. She adapts. She thrives.

STAYING INSIDE

--Love Sally to death, but I didn't even notice her absence from this special until it was pointed out.

--For a second there, I thought Marcie was going to suggest a recipe for Fish Pizza.

--Can't grab screenshots off Apple programs, at least not the best way. So here, enjoy the photos I took of my computer during two of the absolute most hilarious scenes in animated Peanuts history. 

                                                     

SCORE

Strong 9. Calm and sweet as a sunrise, sincere and profound as heavy rainfall. If you love shopping at Hallmark, but hate watching Hallmark movies, you'll love Apple's Peanuts.

Old Bay Til I'm Old And Gray

 

72 SEASONS
4/14/2023

At first, the title doesn’t make much sense. As a band, Metallica is approaching 170 seasons. Each band member has clocked over 200. This is album 11, seven years after album 10. The runtime is 77 minutes, which is close at least. Oh, wait, James Hetfield is speaking.

“72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told 'who we are' by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are. I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”

It’s amazing what you can learn when you seek out information.

“72 Seasons”—Dumb but confident; like Load if the good bits had been actual songs instead of bits. The hammer falls without fanfare, and if the audience craved flash before smash, too bad. Here’s grit in yer grits. Those who try to exit via bridge shall be sliced to ribbons.

“Shadows Follow”—As they are wont to do. Far from hideous, but a distinct regression after track one.

“Screaming Suicide”—A tidy spring back with a compelling take on a tired topic.

The lessons of youth inform us. Maybe they deform us. My mud pit is your honey pot, and vice versa.

“Sleepwalk My Life Away”—Metallica is not now nor ever shall be intellectuals, furthermore their desire to craft meticulous sonic mosaics has dwindled into a a dust mite. The very human struggles of their frontman combined with said frontman’s very human desire to confront the demons responsible for those struggles has happened before, with disastrous results. Fortunately, Hetfield (and Lars Ulrich, who must receive his credit no matter how begrudgingly) remembered something vital: Metallica is a band as august as it is popular. If innovation is off the table, if complexity is no longer in the cards, fine. But ass-kicking cannot be forsaken. Metal music, no matter the permutation, depends on ass-kicking like the Earth depends on the Sun.  

“You Must Burn!”—Whatever you make of likening the online bully brigade to the marching murderous mobs of olden times (the erasure of history must not be allowed, is all I'll say in this space), “You Must Burn!” is a fine example of how dangerous the “calm yet wild” approach can be.

“Lux Æterna”—This smacks. Open-hand on bare skin. A bunny-boink at only 3:22, because looking back too long may turn a man into sand.

“Crown Of Barbed Wire”—Pop a Prilosec in honor of every poor decision you ever made in the name of the greater good.

“Chasing Light”—When turned on, Metallica’s light is still bright, still loud, still useful. But it’s an incadescent bulb in a world of LEDs.

“If Darkness Had A Son”—Initially teased on Metallica’s TikTok...which is not even jokingly one of the most depressing things I’ve ever published on this blog. 

 If Demon Boy cosplay helps Mr. Hetfield handle his temptations, who am I to raise an eyebrow at testosterone-soaked displays of vulnerability? It took a few tries, but he seems to comprehend how personal tragedy can lapse into professional comedy, and is not making the same mistakes that doomed past efforts.  

“Too Far Gone?”—I, I am unimpressed.

“Room Of Mirrors”—Oh, I like this. Mighty tight with a message for the listeners. The judgmental, the forgiving, the fans, the foes, the fisherfolk—this is for all them.

“Inamorata”—The epic, predictably placed. Three minutes over the limit. Why must “misery” be a woman? Jack Daniel, Johnnie Walker, Jose Cuervo, Jim Beam—now you tell me. 

72 Seasons is a stripped-back offering. It’s moody, bruised up, yet the taste for blood remains. I’d recommend it to any fan of the band, but I’ll make no promises. A Metallica album hasn’t attached itself to my skull since The Black Album, and I’ve adjusted my expectations accordingly. 

Salt Mines, Salt Yours: The Music Of Shonen Knife

 

2/15/2023

Four years after Sweet Candy Power, the Knife Most Shonen return to a world more sore and restless than ever before. Retirement is out of the question. Resignation is for sled dogs. Regret is the residue of shame. Naoko, Atsuko, and Risa have little to no time for gold watches, flower boxes, or witless mugs.  

"MUJINTO Rock"--Island power! The hand-painted signage is the first indicator that a place without rule is not necessarily a place without order. If it can be thought of, it can be partaken of, whether we're talking raspberry ice cream served in a gravy boat or spiritual delight attained on a mossy cliff.

"Nice Day"--A pretty pistol, strictly for display purposes. Sweet earth activities never-ending: walk the dog, talk to God. 

"The Story of Baumkuchen"--German or not, the SK ladies eat their cake with treble hooks 'stead-a forks. 

"Vamos Taquitos"--Ska is everything wrong with avocado; pop-punk is everything right with avocado. 

"Spicy Veggie Curry"--Joey Ramone never sang about the pure pleasure of a fat ravioli plate, and he should have. 

 "Girl's Rock"--An English-language re-do of a 2003 compilation track, that possessive-ass apostrophe is the signal to uplift. 

"Afternoon Tea"--A merry march meant to sell toys. Yes, Shonen Knife is/are cute, but the passion surpasses, somehow. 

"Ocean Sunfish"--I've never learned to swim, but I slash just fine. 

"Better"--Funny, the most underwhelming song here has the truest message: social media is designed to enrage and enervate. Sometimes, disconnection does a body good.

"Just A Smile"--The alternate universe where Shonen Knife reign as the world's greatest cover band bleeds over into our world yet again, to everyone's benefit. Brimming with harmonies and hand claps, this makes a prime album closer. Pilot definitely should've been a two-hit wonder, yeah? 

 

 

Better In Your Head? Pt. 2, Books vs. Movies, the Conclusion

61 novels turned into 70 movies. So what's the verdict? By my estimation, 15 1/2. Hmm? Ah, see, while the first adaptation of The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three surpassed the original, the second adaptation surpassed not even my lowest expectations. 

That's a frankly surprising 25.4%--over ten percent higher than the titles featured in Series One. 

It's still better in your head...but maybe not as often as you think.

Better In Your Head?--LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR

 

Spoiler Alert: Special Dark is the best in the bag.

THE BOOK-Written by Judith Roessner, released 1975

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Richard Brooks, released 1977

THE STORY- Terry Dunn lives a double life--teacher by day, cruiser by night. She insists on a carefree existence unimaginable for women even a decade prior. Loved ones long to ground her spirit, but the air up there is hot with sex, drugs, death...the stuff life is made of. 

MIND THE GAP-Based on the real-life-and-death story of Roseann Quinn, Looking For Mr. Goodbar is so emotionally devastating that two decades after first experiencing book and film (in that order), fragments of the ending still pop into my head on occasion. 

The truths Goodbar coaxes forth are simplistic and shattering. Every time you walk outside into the world, you take a risk. Human interaction is rife with possibility. One-night stands can result in furtive visits from unwanted guests. Death, although unlikely, cannot be ruled out, for anyone, anywhere. This sad reality is, we are told incessantly, the fault of the victim. In every man lurks a beast, and the others around them must act accordingly and keep the beast at bay.

Terry's case of "ugly duckling syndrome" is surpassed in meanness only by her Catholic guilt. The film overdoses on the latter whilst paying the former dust. Diane Keaton is pretty, outgoing, bratty even--accusations I can't level too boldly against the Terry in Judith Rossner's novel. Book Terry is driven by a self-destructive mindset undetectable onscreen. Keaton's performance is primarily faultless; her supple rhythms are so infectious, their absence acts as a portent. 

Richard Gere is magnetic as hyperactive lunkhead Tony, and Tom Berenger makes the most of his time as Gary, a man shrouded in discordant shames. William Atherton and Alan Feinstein, in sharp contrast, each shit the bed before the lights go out. Ahterton apparently prepared by carving a wooden lizard, and Feinstein's professor is so far from the matter-of-fact manipulator I imagined, I can safely assume he prepared for the role by not reading the book.

Looking For Mr. Goodbar is up there with Schindler's List and Marriage Story as great films I've no desire to watch again. Judith Rossner detested the thing, citing Terry's makeover into a "happy" seductress, and the script's decision to turn the relationship between Terry and her father from one of solemn misgivings into one of clamorous animosity. Rossner deliberately avoided "pop sociology" in her work, and her work is all the stronger.

Then and now, Terry Dunn stands a fair distance from society's ideal woman. She enjoys sex, but bristles at emotional commitment. She enjoys teaching children, but bristles at motherhood. Women are typically celebrated not for their ambition and carnality, but for their passivity and compliance. So much has changed. So much resists change.

Looking For Mr. Goodbar and Annie Hall in the same year, damn Diane Keaton had the range.

I mean, Christ, can't a broad go for a walk? Can't a chick down some drinks? Can't a girl pass out? Must every situation be a perilous one? If Terry's fate--Roseann's fate--was inevitable, isn't that a more devastating indictment of men? Why villainize the prey and protect the predator?

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD- Stroke. Scream. Snarl. Snap. Stab. Shit.

Movie over book? It's happened a bit this series. So is that how we see it out? Well, the execution of the ending alone almost tipped the scales for me here. I couldn't tear my eyes away; I wanted to tear my eyes out of my head. The novel, though it ends essentially the same, didn't leave me so physically affected. What it did give me that those visceral visuals did not, was a picture of a woman. Diane Keaton plays a woman whose present is paramount. The past happened, doesn't matter; the future hasn't yet happened, might not matter. It is now or never, literally. Day after day, class after class. Night after night, man after man. She survives on a diet of wine and praise (and for a bit, white powder). The film shows us a woman alive.

The book, meanwhile, shows us a woman living. If Rossner's prose comes off exhausted by the last few pages, that's understandable. The film shows us the woman Terry's become; the book shows us the becoming, wonderfully, without a smidgen of showiness. We see the mind games and power plays that harden her heart, culminating in a break-up so bad it leaves her bed-bound. We see the dreams and nightmares that make a more convincing case for monogamy than the sternest lecture ever could. I don't wonder the author was tired by the end. So was I. 

All hail the slow burn.

Rest in peace, Roseann Quinn. Better she had lived, than the story of Terry Dunn be told.

Better In Your Head?--THE HUMBLING

 

Spoiler Alert: bisexuals are magic.

THE BOOK-Written by Philip Roth, released 2009

THE MOVIE-Directed by Barry Levinson, written by Buck Henry & Michal Zebede (& Levinson, unc.)

THE STORY-What fate rates worst? Abrupt defeat or protracted decline? Whatever your answer, don't bother telling Simon Axler. The legendary stage actor has lost his gift for artifice, and found in its usual place a crisis of confidence. 

MIND THE GAP-Depressed old guy, of course he'll be seeking validation via virility. 

Roth's penultimate book was his fourth death-fixated volume in as many years. The start heaves with narrative promise: "He'd lost his magic." 140 pages later, hyper-indulgent old-man meandering heaves all over said promise, a bubbly, stinky sheet of sick that sometimes looks worse than it smells, the scrambled dregs of a slow and broken life. 

Little wonder The Humbling spoke so fiercely to the artistic soul of Alfredo Pacino. Veteran of the planks, effusively praised, seldom doubted--until he can no longer cut the butter. No longer a supple exemplar of the art of pretend, and unable to quit the production, Simon Axler holes up in the green room, waiting for a restorative jolt. An extended stay in a psychiatric hospital provides a twitch, but the surprise arrival of a woman from the past is a six-pack of lightning best enjoyed over multiple sittings. Her name is Pegeen (ugh) and she's the daughter of Simon's old theatre friends. For the last sixteen years, she's slept exclusively with women, but her last girlfriend transitioned into a heterosexual male, so why can't Pegeen try being a heterosexual woman?

Great casting is dishonored by a script equal parts inventive and indecisive. Pacino digs hardily into the ribs of the role, working every wrinkle and disheveled hair masterfully as he shuffles scene to scene. He is most compelling when at his most confounded. And if anyone can monologue on lost mojo more stirringly than Al Pacino...no, they can't.

From the moment of her sudden appearance to the moment of her drawn-out departure, Greta Gerwig is a prickly refugee from a wildly popular Nineties film of tenuous influence. She's both the great redeemer and humbled recipient of absolution. Physically, both she and Pacino are wrong for their parts--he's too short, too lank; she's a decade too young, and remains recognizably feminine whatever her fashion--but an alternative universe where an adaptation of The Humbling was made without them seems impossible. Although that might be because I don't want to imagine another realm of existence where this movie was made at all.

The love affair falls apart after a threesome. The mathematics of love dictate: two plus one is not addition, it is division.

"I don't think you fucked the lesbian outta me yet." Sometimes I question my commitment to Sparkle Motion, y'all.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-A strange specimen, The Humbling. The story (creative guy wracked by self-doubt and betrayed by his own instincts, meets another professionally vain creature, pair travel entwined down the last slime trail towards death's toothless maw) is well-told..if not always told well. Consider the author. When She Was Good, Portnoy's Complaint. Consider the director. Diner, Rain Man. Consider the cast. Dog Day Afternoon, Frances Ha, Hannah and Her Sisters, Kinky Boots. Whatever the medium, there is little worth recalling here, little worth revisiting, little to endorse or condemn. The film eases up on the bleakness and smut, to no benefit. There's a couple laugh-out-loud moments in the movie, one of them intentionally so, and that convinced me Levinson messed up by not making The Humbling a full-on comedy.

Stating a preference feels like faking an orgasm. 

Roth's concern--obsession?--is the intimacy of death and dying. The book's length prevents too deep a probe. A curse in 1989, a blessing in 2009. The screenplay is bloated in comparison. For the mercy of brevity, I proclaim the book less painful, and thus, "better."

Better In Your Head?--THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE

 

Spoiler Alert: weight counts.

THE BOOK-Written by John Godey, released 1973

THE MOVIE(S)-Directed by Joseph Sargent, written by Peter Stone, released 1974

(as "The Taking Of Pelham 123") Directed by Tony Scott, written by Brian Helgeland, released 2009

THE STORY-A nutbars notion: four acquaintances hijack a subway car and demand a million dollars. If said demand is disrespected, the shooting will start. Crumblier still, doing so in cash-strapped, crime-choked New York City. Hardly a sure shot caper. And that's just the way these guys want it. Legends are made by hands keen on sifting through the debris of hubris.

MIND THE GAP-Oh how rapidly a seed, once watered, can grow. One man's harebrained scheme becomes another man's ultimate challenge becomes an entire city's wide-awake nightmare. 

While the heart of the plot is too banger to change, both films applied unique modifications. Instead of nylon stockings, Stone's script calls for the hijackers to conceal their mugs with fake facial fuzz. Furthermore, each man responds to a color-coded alias. Helgeland's script dispenses with the caution of disguise altogether. Understandably, the 21st-century Pelham integrates contemporary technology and ups the ransom (sometimes I think I'm the only person alive who'd still be hog-happy with a million-dollar payday). It also alters the main characters in unnecessary ways, and frankly the whole thing reeks of a petulant need to be different from its predecessors. 

Sargent's film just rules. The script's adherence to essence is key. Ryder/"Mr. Blue" is a phlegmatic, pragmatic former mercenary, a fatalist whose emotional shortcomings permit him access onto miry roads closed off to most other men. Dude's pure C.C.C.--cool, collected, calm--and Robert Shaw embodies him superbly. In contrast, John Travolta's Ryder is a tattooed loose cannon weighed down by a vendetta against the crooked government. He dresses like a C-tier comic book villain and speaks like a callow Tarantino acolyte. (Shaw serenely informing command center he's taken over the train is immeasurably cooler, infinitely more bad-ass, than fitting "fuck" into every sentence.)

The disparity in casts is hilarious. Besides Shaw outshining Travolta....

*Luis Guzman suffering in comparison to Martin Balsam, who was born to play Longman/Mr. Green, the disgruntled former motorman who dreamed up the whole dang shebang. (He's renamed "Ramos" in the 2009 version, 'cause ethnicity.)

*Brutish, mute-ish Steever/Mr. Brown becomes "Enri"; failed mobster Joey Welcome/Mr. Gray becomes "Bashkin." Both men are played by indistinguishable meat slabs, whereas the 1974 film had the good fortune of men with personalities, specifically Hector Elizondo and Earl Hindman.

*Denzel as Lt. Garber was a win, but no shit, it's Denzel. Ah yes, what great actor doesn't have a filmography easily split into "For All Time," "For A Good Time," and "For The Love Of God, Why?!" And that includes Walter Matthau, who originated Garber as a grouchy negotiator fighting the good fight with merely a microphone and a working man's wit in his arsenal. (There's a reason Denzel's character is named Walter Garber, and it's not because the screenwriter was a huge Steely Dan fan.)

Apple doesn't want movie baddies using iPhones, but Breitling understands the Golden Rule of Exposure.

The fates of Ryder and Longman are changed across all three tellings. The book gives the most realistic conclusions. Sargent's film provides the most memorable. Scott's film, the most contrived.

It'd be funny to say The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three did for subways what Psycho did for showers, but how in hell else are New Yorkers gonna get around?

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Forget 2009, take me back to 1999, when Tony Scott's penultimate film would've blown my mind. When the empty calories--quick edits, guitar stabs, sterile lighting--would've sent a dopamine surge through my brain powerful enough to hallucinate a new galaxy. Take me back to 1974, and let me sully my shoes on Manhattan sidewalks, smear my face with grease from a Brooklyn slice, flee the Bronx seconds from suffocation, completely avoid Queens, spew on the ferry to and from Staten Island. 

For the first time in the BIYH? series, multiple adaptations split the difference. Pelham 1974 improves on the book by comprehending what works, what doesn't work, and what will work. Without a chaotic glut of POVs, the suspense is unbroken and thus heightened. The passengers are no longer caricatures--they act, and react, as a singular freaked-out organism. Beyond what is excised, what is added also distinguishes the film as a lean, mean, real-time good time. Oh, and it features one of cinema's greatest-ever final shots. And that soundtrack! Sweet funky Jesus.

The 2009 Pelham is better than two hours spent playing hide and seek at a dumpster during mid-August, sure.