Entertainment
‘Snoopy and Charlie Brown…’: Trite but entertaining (Movie Review – **1/2)
By Troy Ribeiro
Film: “Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie”; Voices of: Noah Schnapp, Hadley Miller, Bill Melendez, Kristin Chenoweth, Alexander Garfin; Director: Steve Martino; Rating: **1/2
Based on the daily newspaper comic strip, Peanuts, created by the late Charles M. Schulz in 1950, “Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie” is a decent Christmas release for children and adults alike.
Whether you’ve followed “Peanuts” for decades or not, this is your introduction to Charlie Brown, the everyman with ever-changing mood and grace who is befriended by all and ostracised by everyone — and you’ll relate to the film.
The tale with the premise “Dreams come true” details the travails of Charlie Brown (Noah Schnapp) to impress his new neighbour.
Scripted by Charles’s son and grandson Craig and Bryan Schulz along with Cornelius Uliano, this is the first computer-animated film of the franchise. It plays safe with the strips tropes along with the characters of the “Peanuts” gang which include the acerbic Lucy (Hadley Miller), Lucy’s brother and peace-maker Linus (Alex Garfin), Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally (Mariel Sheets), the piano-playing Schroeder (Noah Johnston) and Charlie Brown’s pet dog Snoopy (Bill Melendez) along with his love interest Fifi (Kristin Chenoweth).
The narration begins with the “Peanuts” gang celebrating the snowfall after the first day of the new session at school is cancelled. Charlie is determined to fly a kite in winter, but he is soon distracted with the arrival of “The little red head” (Francesca Capaldi) in his neighbourhood and class.
He falls head-over-heels for her and is hell-bent on seeking her attention. While he plots his way to impress her, he panics due to lack of self-confidence as he wants her to accept him for what he is.
And as usual, he is the loser — “kind and gullible”, yet a hero — who rises after every downfall with shining hope, “determination and dedication”.
The story is original to the franchise, but the episodic plot, packed with references, is a bit trite in reality. And the frolicsome action with some airborne escapades gets a bit tedious after a while.
Coming from Blue Sky Studios, the makers of “Ice-Age”, the frames are lively and the palette colourful but the style and texture of the visuals may appear to be odd at first glance.
The images of the characters — with flat, squiggle-lines for mouths and eyelashes — are very much like the ones seen in Charles Schultz’s characteristically shaky, inky black lines, in the newspapers. But then you soon get used to these computer-generated images in 3D effects.
As for the background score, the director has wisely retained the jazzy themes of Vince Guaraldi’s famous music from the TV show “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. Here it is performed by David Benoit and it seamlessly meshes with Christophe Beck’s original score.
This is a sweet amusing film that will charm, but you will not get bowled over.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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