Get "Peanutized" - Turn yourself into a PEANUTS character

Hooray! Snoopy and the Peanuts gang are coming to the big screen this holiday season.  For our family, as I'm sure as for many of yours, its a tradition to watch Peanuts animated television specials during the holidays.  Halloween just wouldn't be the same without a showing of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown nor would Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years without our family enjoying one of the classic Peanuts holiday TV specials.  Now we'll have another story featuring Charlie Brown, his dog Snoopy, and their gang of friends to enjoy when THE PEANUTS MOVIE arrives at theaters on November 6, 2015.



To help you get in the mood for upcoming movie, there is a great feature that let's people get "peanutized" where they can create their own personalized Peanuts avatar.  Visit PeanutizeMe.com to create your own customized image that can be used for a social media profile or as the wallpaper for your personal computer or laptop's screen.  They're very easy to create - just choose your character's gender, hair, clothes, and accessories and voila there you have it your very own Peanutizd persona.  Here are a few images of myself and my kids turned into Peanuts characters.  What do you think? Did PeanutizeMe.com capture our inner Charlie Brown?

THE PEANUTS MOVIE will be the big screen debut for Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, and the rest of the beloved "Peanuts" gang.  Not only will this be their first appearance in a theatrically released motion picture, but it will also be the first time the Peanuts are presented in state of the art 3D animation.  In this film, Snoopy, the world's most lovable beagle -- and flying ace -- embarks upon his greatest mission as he takes to the skies to pursue his arch nemesis The Red Baron (oh by the way Snoopy we found your missing biplane the other day) while his best pal, Charlie Brown, begins his own epic quest.  From the imagination of Charles M. Schulz and the creators of the ICE AGE films, THE PEANUTS MOVIE will prove that every underdog has his day!

For more information about the movie, visit PeanutsMovie.com or follow @PeanutsMovie on Twitter.  Our family is really looking forward to kicking off the holiday season with a trip to the move theater to see THE PEANUTS MOVIE this year plus looking forward to watching it again and again in future years as a brand new addition to our traditional seasonal entertainment.

Lost Piece of Star Wars Heritage Rediscovered & Restored

Short films running before the feature presentation at movie theaters have been a marketing niche for Disney & Pixar films in recent years so it is an interesting tie-in that as Star Wars joins the Walt Disney Studios family that a short tied to that franchise which was though lost has just recently been found and restored.  While filming scenes for Empire Strikes Back in England, the movie's art director Roger Christian pitched a script he had written to George Lucas.  Lucas was impressed enough with the script that he provided a budget for Christian to produce a 25 minute short film called Black Angel and committed to have it play in select European movie theaters (including 400 theaters in the United Kingdom) in front of the Empire Strikes Back.  Black Angel accompanied the original release of Empire Strikes Back and then it disappeared not to be seen again for nearly 35 years when the original production audio and video were recently discovered in storage at Universal Studios and restored.  For years because the short was never seen in U.S. theaters or re-released many Star Wars fans though Black Angel was just a legend or hoax.

It's real though and here is Roger Christian telling the story about the short film followed by Black Angel in its entirety:



At the time it was created Black Angel received kudos from the movie making community with director John Boorman motivating the cast and crew of his 1981 movie Excalibur by having them watch Black Angel and people who saw the short in theaters keeping its memory alive over the years until it was rediscovered.  Roger Christian also notes that George Lucas after watching Black Angel modified the light saber duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader on Dagobah in Empire Strikes Back to be in slow motion because he was impressed by a similar style used during a fight scene in the short film.

Christian is now attempting to create a film based upon the full script he originally presented to George Lucas to review and has launched an Indiegogo campaign to get production off the ground which has already raised more than $100,000.  CLICK HERE if you are interested in contributing or for more information on the Black Angel feature film.