Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Must See Movie...

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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.

I did not grow up on Charlie Brown (cartoon or animation), and saw a first animated movie of this show only last year ('A Charlie Brown Christmas') - I really liked it, and this one is at least just as much fun. Charlie is sort of an everyman, or better yet, an everykid, and its not hard to relate to his problems. The tempo is slow, very slow, but the characters each have their charms, and there's always Snoopy for some comic relief.There are a couple of scenes that stand out completely from the story, such as the piano dream sequence (in which the dead come alive and what not) and Snoopy On Ice, but it is not annoying in any way - they only add to the charm. The film is simply a charming and clever string of events with a terrific conclusion, when Linus sees things clearly (finally, since he has his blankie back), and Charlie aims to kick the ball properly this time...I'll be looking forward to more of this, though I'm having big doubts with that recent one with the new animation style... A big 8 out of 10 for this one.

I would say that in parts of this movie, this is possibly the ultimate showcasing of Charlie Brown's loser persona in animation. The first part of the movie, as well as the last part, were the best. It was fabulous up until the introduction of the spelling bee storyline. It then flagged, being moderately enjoyable, but rather bland, slow-moving, and not quite in its element. The songs, I have to admit, are really, really boring. There were a few good parts, like Schroeder's Beethoven Fantasia and Snoopy's skating sequence, but overall the main story section was mediocre. However, the quality leaped hugely the moment Charlie Brown lost the spelling bee. The silent, unaddressed, but cruelly obvious dejection and failure in Charlie Brown's trip back home, and the getting ready for bed was painful in its realism and depressiveness. Even though the Peanuts specials were so much more kid-friendly than the comic strip, they still never broke the golden rule that things don't ever, ever turn out right, unless there's a very, very good reason (i.e. "A Charlie Brown Christmas"), and they stayed faithful to that concept in the movie.I think that the very beginning and very ending of the movie were the best. I loved the beginning sequence. To the viciously saccharine lyrics of "A Boy Named Charlie Brown", Charlie Brown happily makes a kite, pats it fondly and goes outside. It is immediately pulverized by the wind. Silent and dogged, he goes back inside and makes another kite, the reused animation here doing much, much more here than being a shortcut. He then goes out, is taunted by the Kite-Eating tree, and in a fit of bravado, tries to fly the kite. It fails so pathetically that you laugh despite your sympathy. It then goes on to Charlie Brown's woes, Lucy's cruelty, etc., which flows beautifully until the spelling bee.The very end, after Charlie Brown's aforementioned silent misery, Linus, the only one who cares about Charlie Brown, of course comes by. Charlie Brown is apathetic, limp, and uncaring. No anger or self-pity here, he has simply been quietly crushed under this final defeat. And here, Linus utters one of the most simple yet deep pieces of philosophy he has ever uttered, in true Schulz language: "Well, I can understand how you feel. You worked hard, studying for the spelling bee, and I suppose you feel you let everyone down, and you made a fool of yourself and everything." He goes to the door and pauses."But did you notice something, Charlie Brown?" Charlie Brown: "What's that?" "The world didn't come to an end." And with that, he leaves, dragging his blanket behind him.And slowly, rather painfully, but without a word, Charlie Brown sits up, dresses, and goes outside, where "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" strikes up again to mirror the beginning. Charlie Brown has gone nowhere, he has failed, he's stuck in the same position as he was before. But as Linus said, the world didn't come to an end. Just like in "A Charlie Brown Christmas", Linus comes unobtrusively to the rescue, without any proper acknowledgment of his role. Linus is the kind of person everyone in the whole world probably wishes they knew. The song is right, "We're all a boy named Charlie." We all fail, get let down for no good reason, wallow in self-pity, and never understand. There are many Charlie Browns in this world, and very few Linuses. No one relates to him, but everyone recognizes and thanks him with awed respect. And in spite of all this meaningless and unwarranted failure, Charlie Brown goes on like a real person. In most fiction, good people win, hard work is paid off, and somehow, sometime, everyone gets what they deserve and all loose ends are tied up. Not so in Peanuts. Charles Schulz's world is cruel and illogical. There is no real ending, only dull reality and a resigned step back into square one. But Charlie Brown, unlike most real people, has Linus.And that, despite the movie's awful blah-ness throughout the middle, makes this movie get a great 9/10.

"A Boy Named Charlie Brown" is the first of 4 Peanuts specials and also the first full-length Peanuts movie. It is the movie that made Charlie Brown and his friends movie stars.As the movie's title suggests, it is about a boy named Charlie Brown, the main character of Peanuts. Here, more than in any other movie or episode, Charlie Brown shows his emotions at the maximum: when he's shy or nervous, when he's sad and depressed, when he's angry, when he's hopeful or desperate, when he feels that nothing seems to be going well in his life and so on...Charlie Brown is a lovable loser. He's the kind of character that wins our hearts with his losing ways. And yet, he is also a funny little guy.This movie has some of the best known scenes of Charlie Brown's lack of luck: his failures on the baseball games and the infamous trick that Lucy always does to Charlie Brown whenever he is about to kick the football - she pulls it away!Charlie Brown even asks for help on Lucy's Psychiatry Booth in this film. She claims that her method is "unique" and what does she do? With a slide projector and a screen, she shows all of Charlie's faults, which only makes poor Charlie feel more miserable than ever.An interesting and distinguish detail about this film is that Charlie Brown often spells the letters of the words he is saying, something called «spelling bee». The spelling bee is going fine (even the most difficult words) until he has to spell the word "Beagle" (Snoopy's breed). Unfortunately, he misspells it as "B-E-A-G-E-L". I believe it is because of the nerves - after all, it was an easy word for him to say. But the screams given by him and the whole gang are hilarious, as well as Charlie's face when he realizes he misspelled the word.Funnily, Linus borrows Charlie Brown his blue blanket to wish him good luck. Not much later, Linus feels miserable without his blue blanket. He just keeps passing out! I guess one could say «What would Linus be without his blanket?». A funny scene related to this is that, when Charlie Brown is shining his shoes, Linus stares in shock because the cloth he's using is Linus' blanket - Linus yells "Arrrgh!" and quickly grabs it and holds it. The blanket even seems to win a life of its own.The kite sequence, for some reason, reminds me about the kite scenes in "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" and "Mary Poppins", especially the one in the first movie I mentioned because they both deal with a kite's failed attempt.Surprisingly, there are 2 characters that do not appear in this movie: Woodstock and Marcie. Peppermint Patty (aka «Sir») practically doesn't appear either, but if you look carefully, you'll clearly see her appearing twice, although very briefly.The movie's major downside is, in my opinion, some bizarre and strange sequences that I hardly can explain. All I can say is that they remind me about the segment "Night on Bald Mountain" from Walt Disney's "Fantasia", which is my least favorite part of that great Disney classic. But at least those scenes have the touch of Beethoven's classical music as background. As for the rest of the soundtrack, it is nothing special, but I like the songs "I before E Except after C" and "A Boy Named Charlie Brown".The artwork here is quite simple, typically Peanuts. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a critic, just an honest evaluation. However, the movies "Race for your life, Charlie Brown" and "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown" have far superior artwork. Nevertheless, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" is an okay movie, even if not as unique or distinguish as "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown".