Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

My View:  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice  (2024) PG-13  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice begins after an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family have come home to Winter River and the house we all know so well. Lydia (Winona Ryder) is still haunted by Beetlejuice, and to make things worse, her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), has discovered that mysterious model of the town. It’s only a matter of time before someone’s name will be uttered three times. So Tim Burton and Michael Keaton decided it was time to revisit the weird house up on the hill. So the big question is, does going back to see the ‘Juiceman’ work? Yeah, it does. Is it anywhere close to the original? No, but it’s still a good, funny popcorn film that you will have a great time watching. One thing that Burton did is realize that Keaton is in only about 15 minutes of the 1988 film because most of the film is about Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis’s characters dealing with being dead and then trying to get their unwanted houseguests the heck out of there. So Keaton is in this film a lot more; in fact, there seem to be about four plots going on simultaneously, and Keaton’s Beetlejuice is involved in all of them. Catherine O’Hara is back as Delia Deetz, and O’Hara steals every scene she is in, just as you would expect, with some of the film’s best lines. Ryder does an admirable job of playing the mom who has made a career as a woman who can see ghosts. Lydia is just trying to keep things together after her ex-husband disappeared on a trip to the Amazon. Besides Keaton, this is Ortega’s film, as she plays a young woman who had to grow up as the daughter of the ghost whisper, and she misses her father, who made things seem not quite as weird when he was around. Ortega does a great job of selling us on a person who is constantly giving the side eye to her mom, especially when she brings up seeing the afterlife around them. Keaton has a blast as the man we all came to see and he doesn’t disappoint with lots of quips that only Beetlejuice can say (or do). The film is a little bloated by a secondary plot led by a character played by Monica Bellucci, who never quite feels like her character really was needed. The film also has a bit of trouble trying to tie all the loose ends together, and some of the resolutions to big plot lines seem rushed. Still, I had a great time watching this film, and yes, there are plenty of callbacks to the first film, including the shrunken-head guys (one of who plays a pretty big part). I also loved that a lot of the special effects weren’t done with CGI but with things that made the first film so much fun to watch, with lots of strange and creepy puppet-controlled ghouls and some stop-motion animation. So get ready to say a certain guy’s name three times and go back to the world of the weird and creepy. You will have a fun time.  My Rating: Full Price  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Website  Now playing in theaters nationwide. 

Indiefest:  His Three Daughters  (2024)  R  His Three Daughters is the story of three daughters (Elizabeth Olsen, Natasha Lyonne, and Carrie Coon) who converge on their father’s New York apartment to care for him in his last days. In the next three days, the daughters will try to heal old wounds and come together to patch together a family that has been separated for far too long. This is a film about how families aren’t always what they seem. Katie (Carrie Coon) is the woman who wants to plan everything, has opinions on everybody, and can’t seem to sit still. Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) is a free spirit who does yoga, tries to be the peacemaker, and seems to have a successful life. Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) is the daughter who has been living with their father for the past few years, taking care of him as his sickness took control of both their lives. Rachel, who has a different mother than the other two sisters, spends most of her days doing off-track betting and getting high. She would rather spend time in her room than interact with her sisters. The three are forced to work together to make their father’s last days as comfortable (aided by a couple of hostel nurses to help them make his death as painless as possible. His Three Daughters is a warm, funny, and touching film that also has a few tearful moments. All three women are wonderful in their roles. Coon has the most demanding role because Katie is not a likable person, and it’s Coon’s job to let us see beyond the hard shell that Katie has put up. Coon lets us know she does care but couldn’t always deal with the fact that her father was sick and dying. Olsen is fun to watch as the seemingly always positive Christina, who tries to keep things moving along but uses her yoga to escape when things get too tough. Of the three, Natasha Lyonne is the actor who shines throughout as a woman who just wants the whole thing to be over and uses her betting and getting high to escape the reality of her father’s soon-to-be death. Lyonne is perfect in the role, delivering the film’s center, as we see things through her (sometimes bloodshot) eyes. There are some incredible moments in this film, one of which is when Rachel’s boyfriend, played by Jovan Adepo, who knows how much Rachel has done for her father and lets the other two sisters have a piece of his mind on how they don’t known Rachel and what she has done this past year. I loved everything about His Three Daughters (though there is a section near the end that I wish wasn’t a part of the film, but that’s nitpicking), and the performances by these three outstanding actors are worth the price of admission alone. Just bring a tissue or two.  My Rating: Full Price  His Three Daughters Website    Now playing in select theaters and on the Netflix platform on September 20th. 

Sorry I Missed It (A film that I didn’t see in theatres but have seen recently):  The Killer  (2024) R   In The Killer, Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel) is the most lethal and feared assassin in the business. In fact, she is known by the name Queen of the Dead. Zee takes a job to kill a young blind woman (Jenna Silvers) and has a change of heart. Now, every hitman in Paris is out to kill her, and her only ally is a French detective (Omar Sy). A few directors have remade their own films through the years. Hitchcock is the one everyone remembers when he remade The Man Who Knew too Much. Was it a better film? I am a fan of Hitchcock’s early work, so I don’t think any film that has Doris Day sing Que Sera, Sera about a million times is a better film. In 1989, John Woo brought us The Killer, considered one of the best action films of all time, and brought Woo to Hollywood. So why would Woo remake this film? Sure, you can do a few more things with CGI than you could with actual stunts in 1989, but that’s what made that film stand out. Its action sequences are brilliant, and I loved how Ah Jong, the hitman played by the totally cool Chow Yun-fat, didn’t just shoot a person once (like so many of Hollywood’s action heroes). No, he shot them 6 to 10 times before moving on to the next guy. So, in this remake, Woo has our hero as a woman, Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel), known as the Queen of the Dead. It’s basically the same setup: our hero goes out to do a hit, and a singer gets caught up in the gunfire and is blinded by the firefight. Zee feels guilty, and instead of killing the singer, the only person who can testify against Zee, she saves her instead. The Killer has plenty of gunplay, some fun chase sequences, and a couple of well-choreographed firefights. However, Nathalie Emmanuel doesn’t have the star power to pull off the most feared assassin in the business. I also did not like the chemistry between Emmanuel and Omar Sy, who plays the cop who can’t be bought and slowly becomes Zee’s ally in bringing down the bad guys. One of the great things about the original was the chemistry and friendship that developed between the assassin and the cop. There just isn’t much there for us to care about either character. Woo pulls a few changes to the script (which I won’t give away), but I am incredibly disappointed by the ending of this film. It’s hard to revisit your old haunts, especially when they are shown so brightly in the past. Sometimes, it is best to let things stay in the past.   My Rating: Cable  The Killer Website   Now playing on the Peacock platform.

Indiefest:  Red Rooms  (2023)  Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) is a model by day and an online poker player at night. Although she excels at both, she doesn't find much pleasure in either (although she enjoys watching men lose). She starts attending a high-profile trial of a serial killer, but not just any serial killer, but one where the man kidnapped young teen women, held them captive, and tortured them to death, all while videotaping them. Kelly-Anne's obsession with the trial is so great that she sleeps outside the courthouse to be first in line to get into the proceedings. Kelly-Anne has started on a path that will become such an obsession that she will risk her career to keep going. Not only that, she is willing to pay any amount to obtain the missing footage of one of the girls. Red Rooms is a dark and disturbing film that looks at how people get so involved with serial killers, making them almost part of a weird kind of religion where they worship at the feet of the killer. We don't exactly understand why Kelly-Anne does what she does, but we watch her become more and more obsessed with the murderer and what he did. Juliette Gariépy does a magnificent job of keeping Kelly-Anne at an arm’s length from us, the audience, and we never see her waver, even when things seem at their most desperate. I saw the film at the 2024 Atlanta Film Festival and could hear the audience occasionally gasp as we followed Kelly-Anne down the rabbit hole. Red Rooms is a horror film without the bloodshed (we never see the footage, only hear the screams), but it’s still scary as a young woman seems to lose her self-worth as she delves deeper and deeper into an abyss that she may never come out of.  My Rating: Full Price  Red Rooms Website   Now playing in theaters.

Forgotten Film:  Boomerang (1992)  R  Marcus (Eddie Murphy) is a successful cosmetic company executive who loves to date women like they are just another conquest, another notch on his bedroom headboard. He meets his match when Jacqueline (Robin Givens) becomes his boss and plays Marcus like all the women he used to date. She flirts with him, sleeps with him, then dumps him, and then does it again. Marcus soon realizes he is being played with like he used to play women. His eyes are opened when he realizes there has been a remarkable woman right there all along, Angela (Halle Berry). The cast shines in this film with Givens perfect as the man-eater who doesn’t care who she hurts, as long as she is in power, and Berry as the sweet and wonderful Angela, a woman who is perfect for Marcus, if he would only realize it. Boomerang is one of those movies that makes me mad at Murphy because he is brilliant in this film and plays Marcus perfectly, but too often in Murphy’s career, he took the easy money and made a bunch of crap films that were below his talent. So see this film, revel in Berry and Murphy’s chemistry, and have fun with Givens giving Marcus his just turn at being used. My Rating: Full Price  Boomerang Info  Available on Amazon and Apple TV to rent or buy.

Weird Credits:  From the credits of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: Shrinker Performers 

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You:  Never Let Go  (2024)  R  A mother (Halle Berry) and her two sons (Anthony B. Jenkins, Percy Daggs IV) have been haunted by an evil spirit for years. They stay connected at all times, even tethering themselves with ropes when they travel outside so they are always connected back to their house. When one of the boys questions if the evil is real and the ties that bind them together are severed, their fight for survival becomes life and death. I’ll go see Halle Berry in anything where she has to kick some evil butt.  Never Let Go Website   The film is in theaters on Friday, September 20, 2024. 

Until Next Time!

Midnight Special

My View:  Midnight Special  (2016)  PG-13   A father (Michael Shannon) and son (Jaeden Lieberher) go on the run after the father finds out his son has special powers. When I watched this movie, I kept flashing back to “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Firestarter,” with a little “E.T.” thrown in. Just how far will Roy go to protect his son and what kind of powers does Alton possess that would make both a cult-like religious group and the government want him so badly? It is to the credit of Nichols’ writing and Shannon’s acting ability that we get this feeling from the start of the film, and there is never a time in the movie where Shannon’s character has to explain fully how deeply he cares for his son. Nichols lets Roy show how much he loves his son through his actions rather than his words. I was a little disappointed in the ending, and without giving anything away, I would have liked the ending to come just a little sooner than it did. I feel the ending would have been more impactful and moving if Nichols would have left some things to the imagination. However, the ending doesn’t take away from the idea this is an exquisite movie that touches you immensely. “Midnight Special” is a film that places the love of a father for his son above everything else.        My Rating: Full Price   Midnight Special Website

Indiefest:  I Saw the Light  (2016)  R   The story of the country-western superstar singer Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston), whose short life is the stuff of legends.  This is another one of those films where the performances outweigh the script. Hiddleston gives a moving and intense performance of the troubled singer who never met a woman he didn’t want to sleep with and beer he didn’t want to drink. Hiddleston sounds and looks like Williams, especially in the scenes where he is on-stage. Elizabeth Olsen plays Hank’s wife, Audrey, a woman whose drive, ambition and spunk do not match her level of talent in the singing department. But the movie doesn’t give us much explanation behind why Williams is such a tormented soul other than he has a bad back. I also would have loved to have more of a back story of Hank and Audrey, but when the film starts they are already together.  We also never really get the impact that Williams and his songs had on the music world. The film feels much longer than the 2-hour running time.  Maybe, someday, we will get a movie that is worthy of Hank Williams music and talent, unfortunately, this isn’t the one.   My Rating: Bargain Matinee   I Saw the Light Website

Indiefest:  My Golden Days  (2015)  R   Paul (Mathieu Amalric) is about to leave Tajikistan while he reflects on his adolescent years and the girl who got away.  This is a love story about two tortured souls who are attracted to each other, even though both know they are wrong for each other. Paul starts out as the pursuer of the unattainable girl, Esther (Lou Roy-Lecollinet). Soon, Paul has gotten the girl, but it’s a love/hate relationship that goes hot and cold at a moment’s notice.  The first 1/3 of the film is not about Paul and Esther but centers around Paul’s earlier unhappy home life and an adventure that Paul takes to aid a Jew in Russia. The last two-thirds of the film are about Paul and Esther, and the focus of the movie shifts from them to a 16-year-old girl who goes from being a confident young woman to someone who feels their whole world revolves around someone else. Amalric and Roy-Lecollinet are magical together, and their scenes can be fun, sad and tormenting all in a matter of minutes.  While I did not enjoy the ending, it is probably the only way to wrap up this love story of two people who will never be happy.      My Rating: Full Price   My Golden Days Website

Forgotten Film: I Capture the Castle  (2003) R  This is a surprisingly marvelous film about a family in 1930’s England who moves into an ancient and dilapidated castle. Most of the family is made up of characters who are unique and charming in their own way. The film centers around the life and loves of Cassandra (Romola Garai), and Garai gives a performance that makes you root for her right from the start of the film. I also loved Bill Nighy as the father of the family who is a writer suffering from a bout of writer’s block.  You will love this family and their kooky ways.    My Rating: Full Price   I Capture the Castle Info

In Memory of Ed Wood (A Movie I've only seen in Trailers but just looks like a bad idea):  Angry Birds  (2016)  PG  “Find out why the birds are so angry” is the phrase they use in the promo copy. How about because they are in this stupid movie based on a simple game? How about a film based on Candy Crush or Farmville?   Angry Birds Website

Weird Credits:   From the credits of Midnight Special:  Pre-visualization Artist

Coming to a Theatre Near You:  Elvis & Nixon (2016)  R   The meeting that still makes people wonder what the heck that was about. The casting is what is going to make this film a must see; Michael Shannon, Kevin Spacey, and Colin Hanks.    Elvis & Nixon Info

Until Next Time!

  

Godzilla

My View:  Godzilla (2014)  PG-13  Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and his wife, Sandra (Juliette Binoche) work at a nuclear reactor site in Japan.  Joe is concerned about unusual seismic activity that has been occurring in the past weeks.  He soon discovers that something big is coming toward the reactor, and  it’s not an earthquake.   If you are a fan of the Godzilla films, you will not be disappointed.  The film does a great job of honoring the Godzilla film heritage, making the monster bigger and badder than ever before.  This is without a doubt the best cast of any Godzilla film, but other than Cranston, very few of the cast are used to their full advantage.  I love Elizabeth Olsen, but most of her screen time is dedicated to either worrying or crying about her family.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays her husband and is the son of Joe and Sandra.  Taylor-Johnson does most of the action sequences well, but he has no charisma, and there isn’t any chemistry between his and Olsen’s character.  But you don’t go to a film like this for the humans, it’s all about the monsters and the destruction, and there is plenty to go around.  The film is loud, fun and had the audience cheering when Godzilla did any of his signature moves. The film does a great job of teasing us with glimpses of Godzilla before we finally get to see him in all his glory.  The film was not shot in 3-D, so save a few extra bucks, but you will want to see this one in the theatre, so you can see, full-on, the massive monster destroy a few cities.  The bigger the screen, the better.  My Rating: Full Price  Godzilla Website

Family Faire: Million Dollar Arm (2014) PG  A sports agent, JB (Jon Hamm,) who has seen better days, needs the next big thing to resurrect his career.  He gets the idea to go to India and find cricket players who could make it in Major League Baseball.  I liked the first hour of this film, though you don’t like JB as he is a vain jerk who only complains about being in India, instead of marveling at the sites, as the Taj Mahal. Lake Bell plays the love interest, a doctor who rents out his guest house, and as cute as Bell is, you never see why she would be interested in JB. The problem with this film is the whole second half of the movie is filled with every cliché in the book.  By the end of the two hours (did we really need a full two hours to tell this story), you  don’t care what happens.  My Rating: Bargain Matinee Million Dollar Arm Website 

Indiefest:  The Double  (2013) R  Simon (Jesse Eisenberg) is the type of guy whom nobody notices.  He works as a clerk in a government job and is secretly in love with a co-worker named, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska).  One day Jesse (Jesse Eisenberg) shows up, looking exactly like Simon, and he’s everything that Simon isn’t; confident, brash and has a winning personality that everyone loves.  Worst yet, Hannah likes him too. This is an insane film where Jesse Eisenberg plays two characters who look exactly alike but act very differently.  Part comedy, part tragedy, it’s a film that you have trouble keeping up with, but it has such good performances, you are willing to go along for the ride.  My Rating: Full Price  The Double Website

Indiefest: God’s Pocket  (2014) R   Mickey’s (Philip Seymour Hoffman) stepson dies in a construction job.  When he is asked to investigate, by the boy’s mother (Christina Hendricks), to investigate the death, he learns that it wasn’t an accident.  Investigating it further could cost Mickey his life. It’s sad that this is one of Hoffman’s last roles on-screen as the film isn’t very good, and he isn’t given much material to work with.  Hendricks gives the better performance as her character is multi-layered, whereas most of the other characters in the film are very one dimensional.  It’s a film that had great potential, mostly due to its cast, but never finds a voice and becomes boring very quickly.  My Rating: Bargain Matinee  God's Pocket Website

Forgotten Film:  Paper Clips (2004) G  This is a fascinating documentary about a group of children from a middle school in Tennessee who, after learning about the Holocaust, decide to collect six million paper clips, one for each victim.  The film explores, through the kids, our understanding of what happened, but also they get to meet some of the survivors of a horrible time in history.  My Rating:  Full Price  Paper Clips Info

Weird Credits:  From the credits of Godzilla:  Roto Artist: Double Negative

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You:  The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)  Helen Mirren stars in this film as an owner of a prestigious restaurant in France.  Her world is changed when a family from India moves in across the street and open their own restaurant. The Hundred-Foot Journey Info

Until Next Time!