Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Did you notice I didn't say his name three times in the last review? This ain't my first rodeo.

Okay then! I really don't know where to start with this honestly. When I first heard news of getting Beetlejuice 2 I wasn't fist pumping in victory or groaning in defeat, I was more curious if anything to see it and now that I finally have I am pretty happy to have watched it. It's a busy movie that almost makes the first one seem tame as we catch up with the Deetz' as Charles passes away, we get introduced to Lydia's daughter Astrid, and Mr. Juice is making moves in the world of the living to keep away from his psycho ex-wife. Shit happens. I am thrilled that it undoubtedly is a movie that just kinda does it's own thing, the nods and callbacks are there but there is way more new stuff to where it's not nostalgia shipping, it's very much a take it or leave it film and is unapologetic in how it tells the story. I respect such films. It was a lot of fun to see Michael, Winona, and Catherine back prominently and they haven't lost their edge. First bloody words out of Lydia and I was like damn she's still got it, and to see her very much having a midlife crisis with so much that has happened before and during this movie is understandable and it makes sense having her as the protagonist. Catherine O'Hara I feel is even funnier than the first, still a drama queen but a queen nonetheless! And well I'm a fucking mark for Michael Keaton and I sure as hell ain't gonna bash him here, they go more out there with Beetlejuice than even I thought possible but he pulls it off with a lot of humor and personality. All the new additions are equally welcome in my opinion, Jenna Ortega is a good balance playing a straightforward no bullshit teenager thrown in the mix of all this paranormal nonsense and I liked her avenue through the story. Justin Theroux is an oddball in this movie but may kinda sorta possibly be the funniest character in the movie, I dare say it's campy but not at all in a negative light. I honestly forgot Willem Dafoe was in this and though it's a bit part undoubtedly, the amount of character and this offshoot in the world of the dead was a nice surprise. I do however give just a teeny bit of good grief to this movie, Monica Belluci babe you need a better agent. I'm always so thrilled to see her in movies and then she's there for like 10 minutes and I'm just adoring the design of her character Delores and just wanted more. I'm not saying...cause that would be weird, but I'm just saying even stapled together the woman is a work of art. Moving swiftly on! The production design hasn't lost it's touch and is able to do much more with modern filmmaking, just to see more of the town in that exquisite fall atmosphere needless to say made me a happy camper! The humor hit more often than not from chuckles to wheezing guffaws even if it got weird at times. Though side note, maaaan this movie is gruesome when it wants to be like you wouldn't think this movie would have a fair share of blood and gnarly ass effects but you see blood spurts, exposed brains a plenty, and inventive background deceased characters that kinda wowed me. It's an odd sequel to an odd movie but entertaining regardless and I think even if you're a hardcore fan or just a casual moviegoer you can dig it. I give it 3 stars, 8/10, and with a title like that it's no mystery we are getting a third. Never thought this would be a trilogy but life can surprise you more often than you think.

And this is gonna be the start of a brief detour for me for the next few weeks, but I shall return before the end of September as always. It really is the deadest month for films, until then keep it real.

Beetlejuice

What the hell have I been doing for the past 9 years?? It worked out in the end but Christ!

I would have bet any amount of money I already reviewed Beetlejuice in the past, shit I've watched the movie several times since this shindig has started but never wrote a review. So how on earth do I sum up the plot of Beetlejuice? It's rather involved and has variety if nothing else. Centered around an everyday normal couple Barbara and Adam whose lives are cut short soon find themselves having to acclimate to the world of the afterlife, taking up haunting their house as new residents arrive but with no avail as a young girl takes a liking to their strange and unusual company. Enter our eponymous character as a proclaimed bio-exorcist who aids or more rather terrorizes both parties, leading to them trying to get the metaphorical genie back in the bottle. I haven't the foggiest idea how or why I got this tape before I even hit maybe even double digits so I've been a fan of this movie for quite some time, it was easy enough to roll with and it made me laugh. No friggin' clue either how Tim Burton got anyone to sign off on this or even sell it but it was a pretty big hit in 1988 and clearly has left an impact on pop culture in the 36 years since. The imagination of the world and the creativity to make that world real truly must be applauded, I wish I was that creative to come up with some of the imagery seen here. From waiting rooms of various deceased people, to sand worms on Saturn, to a spontaneous calypso dance performance it's kind of a marvel how unforgettable this movie is. But I think I can narrow it down to why, there just isn't anything else like it. I really love the cast here, with a script this broad the actors are that tether to grounding it so it isn't utter madness from start to finish. Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin are a really cute couple who navigate through the comedy and scares seamlessly, and you do want the best outcome for them. Winona Ryder as Lydia has become a cornerstone of goth culture and weird girls globally but she actually plays it pretty straight and humble, she's got some teenage attitude but is very likeable and is a breath of fresh air to see a more positive interaction with ghosts. And of course now comes the part where we get to talk about Michael Keaton and holy cow do I wish him and Tim made a lot more movies together! He really is one hell of a versatile actor and can somehow take this wise ass, slobbish, and pretty perverted character yet still make him enjoyable to watch! By all accounts we should despise this guy but iconic, quotable, and hilarious are the words that spring to mind when I see him. Shoutout also of course to Catherine, Jeffrey, and Glenn who fit just right in this movie and help make it better than it already was. The production design and special effects are half the fun of the film in my opinion mixing the mundane with the marvellously macabre, it just covers all the bases. Visually striking sets, prosthetics, creature effects with costumes and stop motion, it's a home run in that department. The score by Danny Elfman strikes that mischievous and eerie quality, not my favorite soundtrack of his filmography but a very good one nevertheless. It's just an entertaining and very funny movie, not in an overtly comedic way where they set stuff up for a joke a minute it's more natural in the dialogue, but hey it certainly works for me. I wish I could say it works for everyone, I won't divulge the name of the hapless dipshit who made the equation of weird=bad in their final thoughts on this film but I burned the bridge with them on it and never looked back. This is a great, odd, funny movie that hasn't lost a smidge of it's luster in the 20 years I have viewed it. 4 stars, 8/10, and boy howdy let me tell you I never thought the day would come where a sequel would be made so stay tuned for that!

Alien Ressurection

God fuck almighty.

I think I can sum up this movie in one single quote so thank Carrie Fisher for this when she told George Lucas "You know you can write this stuff but you can't say it.". I would so rather be doing better things with my time than talking about Alien Ressurection. Who the hell is this movie made for? I am serious, I demand an answer. It's not Alien fans I can tell you that right now. Alright well, the story is set about 200 years after Alien 3 when a different compnay it's not even Weyland-Yutani anymore they don't exist clones Ripley, how they achieved this makes somehow even less sense than when she had a chestburster in her last movie which made 0% sense, in an attempt to mass breed Xenomorphs. Mercenaries enter the fray, shit goes south, and it's a race to escape as per usual. I truly do not like bashing on movies, it takes so much effort and creativity to make a movie even if it's not objectively good, but I ain't got much good to say. The whole thing just feels off, I can't tell if it's going for a campy cheesy space monster movie vibe due to mainly the performances and plot progression, and it really didn't work if it did. Maybe it's partly on the directing but I personally put it all on the script written by Joss Whedon hack fuck extraordinaire, because no director could make this work. Toss all the details of the production in the garbage and just read it like it's a bare bones script, and you will find precisely dick right with it. So you take the script, you get a french director who somehow recovered from this and directed Amèlie 4 years later, get a fairly noteworthy cast of actors, obviously Sigourney Weaver returns, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, and Brad Dourif among several others, and nothing could save it. It's not turn your brain off entertainment, it's IQ crippling entertainment. I almost said you just have to see some examples to understand that, but absolutely not. It isn't worth the time or money. And truth be told it's not a shoddy production, pretty diverse selection of sets and thusly scenarios, the alien suits look damn good, the gore is quick admittedly but gnarly just the same, and even the CG for a 1997 film is pretty well executed! It certainly wasn't a phone it in movie and had some talent on it, but it really was torpedoed by the writing. Way to spit on the actual ending to this damn series by cloning Ripley and I guess somehow when you clone people alien DNA can get mixed right on in there so Ripley is like 95% human 5% Xenomorph, because science. Now Sigourney ain't acting bad here but there isn't much to do. Winona Ryder I feel suffers the worst here, again not due to her acting ability cause I've seen her act and she does fine, but it's the directing that makes her this insufferable ass character with so little to contribute to...anything, even existing to be candid. Also how in the ever loving circles of hell itself did you make Ron Perlman completely unlikeable? The man has charm and a lot of affability that is pretty present in his body of work, I've never seen a movie where I wasn't happy to see him until today! There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this treachery! Just no. And Brad Dourif, well he practically gets a universal pass for anything, regardless of how weird the part is and it's plenty out there in this damn movie, I love him too much to be mean. God bless them they are all trying but I couldn't do any better myself trying to juggle this bloody movie. I never thought I'd bitch about set design in my life but you wanna talk tryhard? They attempted so hard to have the spaceship feel like the Nostromo from the first Alien movie and got absolutely nothing right about it, it's too well lit, it doesn't have an ounce of atmosphere, and it's not shot even effectively enough to where they could fake it until they make it. I could not recommend it under any circumstance or personal preference. It is just a dumb, idiotic, moronic, stupid piece of entertainment that was made in 1997 and hasn't been relevant since. 1.5 stars, 4.5/10, oh let Romulus be good!

Dracula (1992)

Yeah I'm pretty happy with this one.

I don't know whether or not the reception of this film has went up or down over the three decades since it's release, but I'm in the camp of liking it a good deal. Easily the most lavishly produced, faithful, and striking adaptation of the story in film, Francis Ford Coppola bet it all on this movie to save his sinking film company with a solid budget of 40 million and pulled in over 200 million when all was said and done, and I can understand why. True the movie leans a bit more into romance than abject horror, but it didn't bother me all that much. The stuff that is creepy, freaky, and just plain horrific had a strong effect on me. Never once in all vampire media have I ever cringed and shirked away from seeing a vampire consume blood, but the razor scene in this movie mm-mmm. No way, that creeped me right the fuck out man, gave me the heebie-jeebies! And the romance while assuredly dramatic I bought into, it strangely worked for me. Only a handful of details I noticed didn't make the jump from page to screen, but all the things that did make it give a lotta brownie points to this film! The production is batshit insane, I cannot believe the visuals in this movie, and to think everything was done in camera with next to zero post production or computer graphics work kinda blows my socks off. The sets, the costumes, the scope of it all, it's almost illegal how grand this movie looks. Star studded cast and I gotta just say real quick oh ho boy this is gonna be sacreligious, Gary Oldman had such a perfect voice and presence for what was required in this role. I know, Bela Lugosi is THE voice, he is friggin' Dracula as long as the world keeps turning. However! Gary got me creeped out, entranced, and invested. The hair at the beginning though, absurd. But I can't change it so I gotta live with it, and everything else was great about him. Winona Ryder as Mina was very nice, and I'm actually happy she has more of a role to play cause in all seriousness Mina and Lucy are barely even there in any adaptation. Anthony Hopkins was riding a high and beautiful wave in the early 90s due to Silence Of The Lambs and I did like him a fair bit, I mean this is the most exotic and foreign Van Helsing I've seen since Edward Van Sloan. Keanu my son, I'm thrilled you have a shining career nowadays and I understand you were burnt the hell out making this, so I will not trash you here but I do feel a different actor would have worked more. I do however wish we got more Cary Elwes, Richard E. Grant, and Billy Campbell as Arthur, Seward, and Quincey respectively cause well I'm a sucker for Cary and Richard, and huzzah Quincey is proper texan and was kinda awesome! I do find it hilarious though they had to cut about 20 minutes of gore effects out though the film was in no danger of getting a higher rating than an R, but they absolutely kept every breastises and charged erotic moment in this movie no problem. I mean I think they were in a moooood making this movie, my God Hammer wasn't this gratuitous and revelling in the sexy aspects, but here? Make sure the kids are in bed or out of the house before flipping this on. Lawd have mercy! Moving swiftly on. I really digged this movie, I loved the lavish design and tone, I was most definitely entertained, I give it 3.5 stars and an 8/10! Next week, it is high past time we pay our respects to the king of low budget pictures with his acclaimed and memorable Poe series.

Heathers

Huh. Well that was interesting.

Now trust me, I get it. I get the message, the characters, and the story. Did I love it? No. Did I like it? Yes, very much! I feel the movie is more in the vein of say, American Psycho in terms of humor, story elements, and characters. I feel American Psycho did it way better, but there were many parts of this movie that I really enjoyed. Basic story follows a girl named Veronica, she's in the popular girl group at high school where you guessed correctly, they are all insufferable, miserable, bordering sociopathic bitches. Veronica flat out hates being with them, why does she hang out with them? I don't know. Is it like an abused spouse just coming back for more? Beats me. But one days she meets this guy, JD he's a bit of a lone wolf, bit odd, and pretty much just says, "Hey you wanna kill all the popular kids?" and Veronica's all, "Yeah sure." so they do that in hopes of making their school a better place. Do they succeed? Short answer, no. Long answer, watch the movie. Onto the good stuff! I loved the feel of the movie, it's very offbeat, with dark humor, blunt characters (albeit very stereotyped but that is the film's intention), and just plain odd circumstances. I know exactly how the film was supposed to be potrayed and was potrayed, I greatly appreciate the message at the end and find it downright genius, and the whole subjugation and analysis of teenage culture, specifically high school groups is correct. But I feel it works mainly in the 80s. High schools have changed significantly, not every kid wants to be the popular kid, in fact while there are still those groups, you got your popular kids, your geeky kids, your punk rock rebels, whatever, most kids while part of groups still do their own thing. It's like they grew a brain stem and just said, "Hey I'm gonna be me. Screw you guys.". And that's awesome! I was in high school not that long ago, I remember this stuff. But again, the film is satirizing and without a doubt putting these stereotypes on steroids, I get the point. I really do. I can see why the movie has a cult fanbase. But not everyone is going to like it. If you watched and enjoyed a movie like American Psycho, Heathers is more or less likely to be up your alley. I can only recommend the movie if your taste in movies slides that way or if you really love absurdist satirical works of cultures. It's not a bad movie! Winona Ryder is a very good lead, you understand her situation and why she does these things, the film does not glorify the murders of schoolmates and shows that it does have consequences, Christian Slater really was made for this part, but again you have to be in the right mindset and have the correct....I guess taste in movies for you to get it. If not you're probably just going to wonder why you spent nearly 2 hours of your life watching this. I understand the movie, it's fans, and the satire. But I do not love this movie, though I do think it is a very good movie.