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"Beetlejuice" and "Psycho" (And Tim Burton) (And Michael Keaton)

posted 3 months ago by roger1 (3626)
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It is September of 2024.

A few weeks ago, one of the rather rapid fire "Alien" sequels turned up. I must make special note here of the cruel directness of the poster ad: a person(looks more like a woman to me) with one of those horrific "face hugger creatures" affixed to their face, and direct sexual sense(as in the original film) of the creature "impregnating the victim through the mouth" by means of..a facehugger penis? Its been left unsaid for decades now. Still...grisly poster. Wouldn't have worked with the original film in 1979.

So..how many sequels to Alien? One big one -- AlienS in 1986 -- which, along with Godfather II, strikes me as one of the ONLY two great sequels made to an original -- in terms of production quality(and director? James Cameron directed Aliens.) And other than Aliens -- how many other sequels? I'll go count later.

But here is Beetlejuice(1988) getting its FIRST sequel 36 years after the original. That's a long time.

I remember back when Psycho II came out in 1983 after its 1960 original. Everybody thought it was insane, rather sacreligious -- what was the POINT in making a continuation of a story from 23 years ago?

Well, it turns out that 23 years was NUTHIN...with Beetlejuice..THIRTY SIX years.

And yet, yikes -- it seems like only yesterday that I first saw Beetlejuice. Or "a few years ago." Man how time flies as one gets older.

When Psycho II was made, all of the original cast was still alive. But Marion Crane and Arbogast were dead -- so Janet Leigh and Martin Balsam couldn't come back. (Though the LA Times reported an EARLIER version -- from a different script -- of Psycho II in which Balsam would come back to play ARBOGAST'S BROTHER -- "Dr. Axelberg." (Huh?)

Anyway, Psycho II lucked out in having Anthony Perkins still available to play Norman(when Perkins asked for too much money, the studio said they'd hire Christopher Walken instead and Perkins caved.) And Vera Miles came back as Lila, now married to Sam as "Lila Loomis." John Gavin -- Sam Loomis -- was still alive but busy as the Ambassador to Mexico for President Reagan. So Psycho II simply killed Sam off in one line from Lila: "My husband is dead." Why? How? My guess: a stress heart attack from Marion getting killed so close to his hometown and Lila's lifelong angst after.

Beetlejuice Two(now Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice) could bring back Michael Keaton AS Beetlejuice(as with Psycho II and Perkins there is no movie WITHOUT Keaton in his role). It could bring back Catherine O'Hara(an unsung comedy talent for the ages -- but i guess she had a hit streaming show -- Schitt's Creek, so I'm wrong.) O'Hara again plays Delia. And it could bring back Winona Ryder as Delia's daughter. And it could move O'Hara up from mother to grandmother and Ryder up from daughter to mother -- and bring in Jenna Ortega as GRANDDAUGHTER. (Ortega stars as Wednesday in Tim Burton's Addams Family spin off.)

Still alive but not able to be in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice: Jeffrey Jones, as Delia's husband and Ryder's dad (Jones had terrible offscreen legal troubles, not gone away); and Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin as the very nice married couple of ghosts -- they've aged, says Burton and of course, Alec Baldwin has HIS legal troubles (the case is over, but his troubles are not.)

So this 36-year old sequel could least bag the main star(Keaton) plus two others, and then supplant the cast with such talent as Ortega, and the beauteous Monica Belluci(now older but that don't stop 'em these days, hoo boy) and Willem Dafoe(sounds perfect to me.)

I haven't seen Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice yet, but its appearance stimulates these thoughts:

ONE: Tim Burton is bigger than ever. I'm a BIG Tim Burton fan and yet -- its clear that critics -- as critics do -- turned on him after about 10 years of great movies and never really let him back into their good graces. "Too predictably Goth, with too predictable a style." Yeah, yeah.

I saw Tim Burton as an adjunct of Hitchcock -- Burton didn't make thrillers perse, but there was also a sense of the macabre to him, and he cultivated his director's persona accordingly and became a "cult stylist" in the Hitchocck tradition.

Recall that the production designer on Burton's Batman (1989) said that in his opinion "the greatest special effect in the history of movies" was the Psycho Mansion on the Hill. I guess I'll agree. Its Gothic angles inspired EVERYTHING in Batman (giving THAT movie loads more style than Richard Donner's straight arrow Superman movie of 11 years earlier.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

Also recall that the haunted house in which the Deetz family lives in Beetlejuice looks a lot LIKE the Psycho house -- but with a taller tower and a more yellow-white sheen. Still...Psycho was influential.

Note in passing: there is a house, high atop a hill and overlooking a restaurant, in the Napa Valley of Northern California which looks a LOT like the Beetlejuice house -- but was built BEFORE Beetlejuice. Someone's inspiration?

A more direct connection between Beetlejuice and Psycho:

Beetlejuice was scored by Danny Elfman, who had also scored Burton's first film(the renknowned Pee Wee''s Big Adventure) and would go on to join John Williams in "big shot movie composer land" by scoring Burton's NEXT film after Beetlejuice : Batman. Elfman (originally a rocker with the group Oingo Boingo) became the John Williams to Burton's Spielberg, scoring most all of his movies save Ed Wood for ..a decade? Two? Three?

But in 1998, Danny Elfman took on a Herculean task: to reorchestrate -- frame by frame, moment by moment, scene by scene -- Bernard Herrmann's famous score for Psycho -- in Gus Van Sant's REMAKE of Psycho. What Danny Elfman did in and for the remake of Psycho is its most astonishing achievement IMHO. Elfman DID it.

But not without difficulty. If you know the Psycho score by heart, you can HEAR Elfman having to streeetttch certain musical notes to film new shots with shorter dialogue, etc.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

The key example:

In Hitchcock's original,

When Arbogast returns to the Bates Motel, he investigates the empty office and parlor, walks through the front door of the office onto the porch, walks left to the edge of the porch and looks up:

POV shot: THE HOUSE. (In one of the BEST shots of the house in the movie. Against a crystal clear sky.) Herrmann's notes hit BIG here on the house, its his "three notes of madness" theme: "DUH-- DUH--- DUMMMMM."

In the Van Sant:

When Arbogast returns to the Bates Motel, he investigates the empty office and parlor -- but Van Sant REMOVES a shot of Arbogast crossing back through the office to the porch.

So the shot is too short and Elfman HAS to play the three notes of madness "DUH--DUH__DUMMM" ...as Arbogast emerges from the door and BEFORE the POV of the house. This kind of ruins the musical effect(the house gets no such great music) but...what could Elfman DO? It was VAN SANT who cut the sequence down.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

Also:

In Hitchcock's original:

When Marion first arrives at the Bates Motel in the rain, and first looks up at the house from the porch in the rain:

POV: Mother's shadowy but clear figure glides past the window(clear because you can see the flowered pattern in her dress.)

NO music. Just the sound of RAIN.

In the Van Sant:

When Marion first arrives at the Bates Motel in the rain, and first looks up at the house from the porch in the rain:

POV: Mother's shadowy but clear figure glides past the window...

MUSIC. Not Herrmann's score reorhestrated by Elfman -- but a song echoing in the night from an unseen record player: "When I'm Calling You-ooo-ooo--ooo" by Slim Whitman -- a YODELING song that kills all the martians in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks of 1996, two years before Van Sant's Psycho.

I can usually take a joke, but I was not amused by this insertion of that dopey yodelling song into one of the most profound and mood-inducing shots(Mother first at the window) in Psycho.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

Psycho also features in Burton's "Batman Returns" of 1992 in which Keaton's Bruce Wayne worries to Michelle Pfieffer (not in Catwoman mode)..."Are you concerned I'm a kind of Norman Bates split personality type?"" This always made me wonder: did Bruce Wayne SEE "Psycho"? Or does Norman Bates exist for REAL in Batman's world?

''

But enough of Tim Burton and Psycho.

A quick look at why I love Tim Burton's career so much:

PeeWee's Big Adventure:

I thought PeeWee Herman WAS pretty funny. I still know -- TODAY -- two WOMEN who could/can separately imitate his cracked, strangled laugh to perfection. Its ALWAY funny(people explode in laughter when these attractive women suddenly emit THAT voice) and evidently..PeeWee was a bit hit WITH women. Go figure.

I didn't see PeeWee's Big Adventure on release. Saw it later. The opening sequence in PeeWee's home (devices cooking breakfast and feeding his dog) were incredibly inventive -- a mix, I guess of PeeWee's OWN imagination and Burton's.

Critics and Hollywood insiders thought PeeWee's Big Advanture was so good BECAUSE of PeeWee but soon Pee's next movie came out(PeeWee's Big Top?) and everybody figured it out: PeeWee was a funny dude BUT his Big Adventure was Tim Burton's triumph.

So Burton got the greenlight to direct the very weired Beetlejuice and THAT was a hit and THAT got him the very first major Batman movie and Burton was launched. Batman was as The Godtather to Coppola and Jaws to Spielberg. Burton was ON.

I"ve written of my excitement over Batman. It was Nicholson's casting as the Joker that did it. Batman would be as properly anchored by Nicholson as Superman had been by Brando. It was FITTING. It was NECESSARY. And Nicholson invested more time and effort into Batman than Brando did with Superman. Of course Nicholson earned about 60 million.

But right behind Nicholson as the Joker was Burton as the director...bringing Michael Keaton(Beetlejuice himself) along AS Batman.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

PeeWee's Big Adventure
Beetlejuice
Batman

and then

Edward Scissorhands(1990).

What I remember most about this movie was that the night I saw it was freezing cold. Cold as ice. So when the 20th Century Fox logo came up bathed in falling snow -- I felt that the movie was at one with the night I saw it.

Good movie, too. Vincent Price's final film -- he had the frailty that very old people have -- you could tell he was at his end.

Alan Arkin, hilariously accepting of this weird robot-like silent man in his surburban home, always calling him "Ed" in a familiar manner.

Batman Returns(1992): Nope, not as good as Batman. DeVito and Pfeiffer together couldn't bring Nicholson's massive gravitas and star power to the show -- but they sure were GOOD in yet another snow-covered Tim Burton movie. With Chris Walken as a bonus villain, offering Catwoman the bribe of "an enormous ball of string." I read that Batman Returns was too "dark"(always too broad a term) to sell Happy Meals or whatever. No matter, I thought it was fine entertainment for adults. Danny DeVito's Penguin was a face fix of the ages ; Pfeiffer was sexy AND funny. Keaton kept earning his keep. And by the NEXT Batman - Forever -- both Burton and Keaton were out.

Ed Wood(1994.) My favorite Tim Burton movie. And it would have been my favorite movie of 1994 if Pulp Fiction had not been released.

A great memory of first seeing "Ed Wood": it had a "midnight movie" premiere and the person I was with wanted to see it then and there. We were young but getting older, so we took a nap in the night before alarms woke us to get up in time to see the movie at midnight.

So....I was barely awake, really groggy, when I first started watching Ed Wood in the theater . And the combination of weirdly floating images and Howard Shore's eerie fifties-TV-horr music..made me feel that I was watching Ed Wood IN A DREAM. (It was,after all, after midnight.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

What a great movie. In black and white recreating the "loser side of Hollywood," the ones who were scrambling at the bottom when Hitchcock was safely cocooned at the top. Also that fifties ambiance and people like "The Amazing Kreskin" and that weird-looking Indian with the musical instrument.

Johnny Depp got my loyalty as a major star with his comedy chops undercutting his great looks. And his Ed Wood is for the ages: a true auteur with the slight problem that he has no writing talent and directs poorly on cheap budgets.

And the LINES:

Ed(in phone booth):

Ed: How'd you like my movie? (PAUSE as he listens.) Oh...the worst movie you've ever seen? Well, I'll just have to do better next time!

(After the big bald brute playing "Lobo" walks into a cardboard wall instead of the door.)
Ed: CUT and print!
Cameraman: Don't you want another take?
Ed: No. You know, in real life, Lobo would struggle with that problem every day.

And a great line from Ed's girlfriend Dolores(Sarah Jessica Parker) soon before she decides to leave him, looking at his cast and crew:

Dolores: Well, I see the usual cast of misfits and dope addicts are here.

And:

Woman: Ed's the only fella in this town who doesnt pass judgment on people.
Ed: That's right. If i did, I wouldn't have any friends.

But beyond Depp's Ed Wood and the lines are Martin Landau's magnificent (and Oscar winning) performance as Bela Lugosi, which manages to be a perfecdt impersonation AND a great human character at the same time.

And Bill Murray showing up to give his personal support to such an oddball project as "Bunny Breckenridge."

Just a great, great movie -- far from Goth, but weird -- and filled with human warmth and genuine emotion.

Burton's best.

But a few more good ones

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

Mars Attacks 1996.

It was that "flop everybody had been waiting for" and came after Ed Wood didn't make much box office -- but Ed Wood was demonstrably great. Mars Attacks seemed to have WAY too big a budget and WAY too great a cast -- for the gruesome often-animated tale it told(replete with an endless supply of goofy looking little green men.)

I felt Mars Attacks joined Spielberg's 1941 in "flopping with the Mad Mad World formula." But I enjoyed BOTH films and I thought Mars Attacks had great attitude. An all-star cast and the martians kill ALMOST ALL of them, in gruesome ways. The PROPER use of "When I'm Calling Yooooooo" -- to turn giant martian brain heads into green oatmeal.

Best Actor winners Jack Nicholson and Rod Steiger hilariously paired as a peace-hungry President and his nuke-crazy general. Steiger was funnier, actually.

Nicholson's joining Mars Attacks helped bring in other stars for the all-star cast. Alas, Nicholson no longer seemed like QUITE the superstar catch he was for Batman, but he brought great vocal gravitas to the President. Weirdly, though he took a SECOND role -- a rich Vegas land mogul with a perpetually stuffed nose -- and didn't have much effect in THAT role at all. Good thing he had the second roel to fall back on.

Burton was of good humor about Mars Attacks: "People said after I made a movie ABOUT Ed Wood, I made a movie about as bad AS one by Ed Wood." I disagree. Mars Attacks is all-star comedy slaughter in great bad taste.

As the critical world started to dismiss Tim Burton I felt he just kept delivering the goods, over and over, great fantastic movies, usually starring one of his girlfriends, all of whom were damn pretty. (Currently he's won Monica Bellucci -- good for him!)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

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[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

Two gruesome triumphs: "Sleepy Hollow"(with Johnny Depp) and a fusillade of perfect beheadings; "Sweeney Todd"(with Johnny Depp) and its gruesome combo of throat-slashing victims baked into human meat pies. (With some great, lovely songs by Sondheim -- this was my favorite movie of 2007 after Charlie Wilson's War, both released around Chirstmas.)

An emotional fable of triumph "Big Fish" -- far too hard to describe except to say its take on father-son relations brought me to tears at the end.

And -- "recently" -- 2012! Ha -- "Dark Shadows" a great Gothic party launched off of a so-so TV soap opera(and some bloody movies) in which I was personally hooked by its parade of 1972/73 radio rockers like Knights in White Satin, Superfly and No More Mr. Nice Guy(courtesy of Alice Cooper, who fit right in in person in the movie.)

Even Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie(with Johnny Depp , natch) made a billion.

No I can't say that Tim Burton has EVER really faded as a Hollywood force. He seems to have come back with a Beetlejuice sequel that looks to be a much bigger hit than the original and which put him right back in the spotlight(aided by his Wednesday star.)

Which brings me to Michael Keaton...

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

Some years ago around here, I opined aloud: who was going to take the place of our aging and retired male stars -- who could replace Nicholson, Hackman, Duvall, , Eastwood. Hackman and Duvall in particular were the kind of guys who would take ANY role, it seemed, to be working -- Tommy Lee Jones, too.

Well, NOBODY could replace them personally but in terms of "workload?"

Sam Jackson looks good for it. Kurt Russell. Jeff Bridges WAS looking good for it but cancer slowed him down(he beat it, for good, lets hope.) The surprise player to me was: Woody Harrelson. Works all the time has a certain twanging charisma.

But, now, of recent vintage: Michael Keaton.

In the begininng , Keaton was a comedy sort of guy. Debuting in " Night Shift(the manic energy foil to Henry Winkler's sad sack straight man). Securing comedy stardom with Mr. Mom ("Wanna beer?" "Its seven oclock in the morning! ...SCOTCH?") ..sort of hanging in there til the Big Bang of Beetlejuice. And then Batman -- Keaton's casting was unliked by the fans going in, overshadowed by Nicholson but he STILL pulled it off. ("Ya wanna get NUTS!? Let's get NUTS!!")

Batman was 35 years ago. Keaton's always been around though he himself revealed when the wife of his children died in 2010(she was his ex by then) he put career on the back burner.

And then he came back. Birdman did it, Oscar wise(one for the movie, one ALMOST for him) And then lots of roles where he had that Robert Duvall-style "improving the movie" appearance.

He shows up late in Sorkin's "Chicago 8" movie as former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and steals the movie out from other some OTHER good actors.

I believe it was swanstep here who noted that Keaton is in terrific shape for his age -- whippet-thin, fit, taut . He's a bit older now but still looks good.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 3 months ago

There are on streaming now that i have seen THREE movies in which an aged former hit man/governemnt agent reveals their powers to their grown child. One stars Ron Perlman(The Baker), one stars Nicholas Cage(The Retirement Plan) and one stars Michael Keaton(Knox Going Away.) They are all "formula" except "Knox" has an emotional gimmick(Keaton's Knox is "going way" because his memory is going away FAST). So "Knox" is more dramatic.

But Keaton is entertaining.

I've opined recently that acting seems to be a combination of "making great faces and making great readings of lines," and there is a moment in Knox Goes Away where Keaton offers it perfectly:

Knox is a former hit man whose son had just killed ONE man -- and only one man -- in rage.

Son: Still, I'm not a killer like you are.

Keaton makes a face -- squinting through one eye, moving his mouth a little. Then speaks.

Keaton: Well, actully...ya ARE. And a pretty good one too. You really stabbed that guy.

Yep, quintessential Keaton acting work there. I think he's going to be around a long time(and he got to play HIS Bruce Wayne in The Flash last year. I saw it. He was good.)

Leaving where I came in:

ONE: As with many other directors Tim Burton owes something to Hitchcock in general -- and to Psycho in particular. As does music man Danny Elfman.

TWO: Tim Burton has sustained over the decades. Maybe a few years in the wildnerness but back strong now.

THREE: Michael Keaton may claim he was never away, but he's back now -- front and center ready for the "older man roles" vacated by Hackman and Duvall (and Michael Caine now.)

[–] swanstep (2715) 3 months ago

Nicholson no longer seemed like QUITE the superstar catch he was for Batman, but he brought great vocal gravitas to the President.

After the Martians slaughter the whole of Congress....
President Dale: I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad.

So I concur with your general rundown of Burton's career. It does seem like he's continued to make at least one runaway hit each decade and that much of his lesser stuff like Charlie and the Cholcoate FActory and Planet of the Apes and Frankenweenie is still solidly profitable. It's still a rare Burton film that doesn't make a profit and despite usually working at very high budget levels Burton's never laid an egg with a big budget that makes almost no money - something that's a straight $100 million+ loss for a studio (Mars Attacks came closest to that losing $30-40 mill but must have come close to breaking even after dvds, tv , etc.). That sort of consistency of Bottom Line over 40 years, which Hitchcock also had, is pretty rare across studio history. Good for him.

I look forward to seeing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice... it sounds like it's OK which is good enough given the good will across generations from the first film. (I recently saw Inside Out 2... and that too was just OK but also good enough to be a big hit given the sky-high good will from its 2015 original.)

Starring in BB obviously agrees with Winona Ryder! She's suddenly looking/feeling about twenty years younger than she's seemed on Stranger Things, in Star Trek as Spock's mom, etc..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qAT_K_YQOA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5RySCPNPns
And speaking of defying time, here's a 97-year old Jerry Schatzberg in the Criterion closet;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHzWP5Pj2wM

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Nicholson no longer seemed like QUITE the superstar catch he was for Batman, but he brought great vocal gravitas to the President.

After the Martians slaughter the whole of Congress....
President Dale: I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad.

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Very funny line reading , and in Nicholson's middle-aged late career "stereophonic voice." Yet another "fantasy President" who -- vocally at least -- beats the real thing all to hell. (Though Nicholson's President is presented as delusional and naive about the "peaceful" intentions of the Martians.)

There's ANOTHER great line and great reading by the young Natalie Portman, as President Nicholson's deadpan daughter(I'll bet Winona Ryder was considered for the part...too old?)

The set-up: the Martians slaughtered everyone at a first "meet and greet " in the Nevada desert, but the rube-like American leadership think that a bird -- a "dove of peace" released towards the Martians -- scared the Martians into retalitory slaughter.

So the Martians have been invited to address Congress -- "no hard feelings" about their slaughtered victims in the desert.

And then, in the Congressional chamber for Joint Session...the Martians slaughter Congress(portrayed, amusingly, as all Old White Men.)

Quick cut to Natalie Portman watching this on TV with her Presidential parents: "Well, I guess it wasn't the bird." EVERYTHING about this joke -- the quick cut to it and the quick cut away from it, Portman's reading from a lazy position on the couch, Nicholson and First Lady Glenn Close nearby -- funny. I guess it wasn't the bird.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I found Mars Attacks to have an ongoing theme, somewhat conservative but more a matter of straight cynicism : these Americans are so CERTAIN that the Martians come in peace...they keep LETTING the Martians kill them off...until they HAVE to face the facts and by then when they try to fight back: its almost too late. (The way the Martians keep running amuck laser-killing everyone in sight as their loudspeakers blare "We come in Peace. We come in Peace." funny.)

Multimillionaire "outsider" Tim Burton in this movie makes sure that the "outsider underdogs" are the survivors. One, a kind-hearted teenage boy played by Lukas Haas, is coyly asked by Survivor Presidential daughter Natalie: "You got a girlfriend?" Success! And the boy's very nice grandma is a Hitchcock player -- Sylvia Sidney from all the way back at Sabotage(and more recently the original Beetlejuice.)

One year before her "big comeback" in Jackie Brown, Pam Grier got a solid role here as the wife of Jim Brown. A sweet storyline: when Mars attacks -- SHE and the kids are in DC at home, HE is working a job in Vegas to make ends meet -- will he cross the country and save his family?

Mars Attacks is a classic example of the kind of movie I can like -- because I'm not a professional critic and not paid to look down on stuff like this. It seems to get two-star reviews. That's OK by me, and I certainly see the flaws(given how GREAT Nicholson is as the President, its a head scratcher how unfunny his Vegas twanging hustler is.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

So I concur with your general rundown of Burton's career.

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Well, I am glad to hear that. Though even I see and know the weaknesses (evidenced, I suppose in HIS Willy Wonka movie)...I take note of how he keeps on succeeding at the box office. Hollywood keeps books on these things. Alice in Wonderland was maybe "too much" in the CGI overload, but it made a billion worldwide and...Hollywood therefore went right on hiring Burton, reviews be damned. (And I thought Johnny Depp was great in it -- as one of my favorite characters of all time -- the Mad Hatter - with "crazy CGI eyes," and Alan Rickman magnificently voiced the Blue Caterpillar.)

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It does seem like he's continued to make at least one runaway hit each decade and that much of his lesser stuff like Charlie and the Cholcoate FActory and Planet of the Apes and Frankenweenie is still solidly profitable.

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I"ve not seen Frankenweenie yet. In fact, I've also missed Nightmare Before Christmas (so cannily marketed as a Halloween movie AND a Christmas movie -- it played from the one to the other) and Corpse Bride. In short, I've missed the animated stuff. There's time.

Sidebar: a couple of years ago, I made a rare foray to California's original Disneyland. Childhood memories could not allay the sheer MASS of crowds and lines and general sense of a wonderland overrun. As my mood darkened, I lined up(forever) for the Haunted Mansion and thought: "well, at least it will be nice to re-live Paul Frees -- the narrator voice of my childhood."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I learned -- kind of to my horror -- that the entire ride was now a "Nightmare Before Christmas" themed ride. Only for the Halloween through Christmas crowds? Or permanently? I should look this up. I barely recall the voice of Paul Frees anywhere on the ride. Maybe it was gone entirely. It was very noisy(OK, so I've gotten older) and non-charming with all the "Burton figures" popping up all around me. But I did think THIS: "OK, so now Tim Burton is only RICHER." Shades of Disney. Shades of Hitchcock.

Sidebar on Burton's Planet of the Apes. I don't remember it well...I know they could do the apes "better" than the 1968 masks. I also recall that Burton didn't use Depp and went for the more macho Mark Wahlberg -- did Depp turn the role down? did Burton desire more macho?

The new Planet of the Apes had been marked for Arnold Schwarzenegger until his career started tanking. Enter Wahlberg.

But, this, this THIS: I"ve never been much of a fan of Planet of the Apes. I recall being taken to it as a pre-teen on the 1968 release and finding it nightmarish and a bit of a bore. Once one "got" the premise...that was it. Compared to something like North by Northwest...which keeps running fast to its great Rushmore climax, this Planet of the Apes film rather slowly wound down with Heston(the Arnold of his time THAT was a muscleman on screen) and the hot chick on the horses and of course, the twist ending (which I thought was cool but not exactly NxNW at Mount Rushmore.)

I saw the second one(BENEATH the Planet of the Apes, with Heston still "major" enough to grant only a short appearance at the end) and then...I gave up. All sorts of ever-cheaper "Planet of the Apes" movies were released in the 70s(they were really the kind of cheesy SciFi TV movies for the big screen that Star Wars upended) plus a TV show I didn't watch.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

So when Tim Burton took on the project, I was kind of bored going in. Not Burton's fault -- the material has always been self-limiting. His ending was different than the famous Statue of Liberty twist in the original( which isn't in the book), but not quite good enough. If there is one thing the WORLD knows, its Lady Liberty on the beach. (In an episode of Mad Men, Don Draper takes his young son to see Planet of the Apes, and they are both wow'ed by the ending. "Superdad"(just this once) Draper says to his boy, "That was powerful. Want to stay and see it again?")

Planet of the Apes has been back for the last decade. Another franchise. Better CGI. The Great Andy Serkis for motion capture performance(is that the term?)

I went to the first of those because I was drawn by the trailer of a battle on the Golden Gate Bridge( Saboteur, Vertigo, and NXNW live on in my memory) but...same old same old. And yet they STILL keep making these things. So I yield to the fanbase.

And I go ALL the way back to the 1968 original. It seemed not that great the first time, and never really improved. For me. Just me.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

It's still a rare Burton film that doesn't make a profit and despite usually working at very high budget levels Burton's never laid an egg with a big budget that makes almost no money

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Yep. Like I said, the studios trust him with their big budgets even if the critics left him some time ago(though it looks like they are back on a limited basis with Beetlejuice 2.)

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- something that's a straight $100 million+ loss for a studio (Mars Attacks came closest to that losing $30-40 mill but must have come close to breaking even after dvds, tv , etc.).

---

Anymore I think NO movie really loses money. It is made, added to the studio's library and lives on forever bringing in rentals of some sort. Plus the now-worldwide audience boosts things.

I believe the reputation of Mars Attacks has risen over the years. It got beat at the 1996 box office by Independence Day (the summer alien invasion movie that was, frankly , a bit less smart than Mars Attacks) but lives on as all-star weird meanness and abstract art (I mean, "lovers" Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Harper end up as a hideous experiment -- only his severed head is kept alive to talk and HER head is transplanted onto the body of her little vanity dog!)

---

That sort of consistency of Bottom Line over 40 years, which Hitchcock also had, is pretty rare across studio history. Good for him.

---

Yes. That's Tim Burton in a nutshell. And frankly, i think he's kept his entertaining brand alive better than Spielberg in HIS later years.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

I dunno. Looking at the years since Dark Shadows(which I LIKED)..Burton seems to almost take years off and does only occasional work: the interesting "little" Big Eyes, Dumbo for Disney(with Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito from Batman Returns and a GREAT concept of how the elephant's ears send him airborne), the Wednesday franchise for streaming. (An Addams Family offshoot -- and how about this flashback to North by Northwest, Grant to Mason, Saint and Landau: "The three of you together -- now that's a a picture only Charles Addams could draw." Hitch, again ahead of his time.)

I've not watched "Wednesday," but I did like one bit in a trailer: Wednesday dumps piranha fish into the competitive swimming pool

CONT

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

A bit on the Johnny Depp-Tim Burton collaboration.

It was one of the biggest, most famous partnerships in movie history, alongside Scorsese-DeNiro and Scorsese-Leo.

It started with Edward Scissorhands(when Depp was know more as the TV star of a teen-cop show) and solidified with Ed Wood(where Depp just went to TOWN with the wacky voice and crazed personality of Ed...always maintaining a certain knowing intelligence so he didn't seem like a total crazy.)

"Edward and Ed" rather locked Depp in as the star Tim Burton liked to work with the most..and boy did they milk it: Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd, Alice, Dark Shadows.

As Burton noted, though Depp had gorgeous, sexy male movie star looks, he usually played AGAINST them -- and almost always in make-up -- to recreate himself as "our generation's Lon Chaney" (not the sad sack Lon Chaney Jr. but the famous make-up wearing father.)

Dark Shadows (2012) was the last Depp-Burton collaboration though Depp did the Mad Hatter again in an Alice sequel(2016) not directed by Burton.

Then Depp had his personal problems but -- crucially, started getting un-cast in movies ALL THE TIME. Burton never commented one way or the other about Depp's fate, but I figure: given Burton's strong rep for handling big budgets, he simply couldn't risk casting Depp anymore (maybe that will change.)

Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Fctory was overkill, but I thought Depp's take on Wonka was quite funny and I went NUTS trying to figure out who his character seemed to sound like/look like. The Church Lady of SNL? Anna Winotar? I think the voice was Carol Channing sometimes. Whereas Gene Wilder(the best Wonka) basically did...Gene Wilder...Depp went all Lon Chaney visually and funny vocally. I enjoyed it.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

Burton's Sweeney Todd(which had the same credits as Charlie but with blood instead of chocolate) was overkill of a different sort. Murder by strait razor to the throat -- how Arbogast died in the book of Psycho(unfilmable in Hays Code 1960) -- is shown in a most graphic manner(with graphic sounds) over and over and OVER. A moving duet between Depp(in his upstairs barbershop) and a young male singer(on the street) called "Joanna" is beautiful -- but Burton and Depp revel in timing it to one, two, three, FOUR throat slashings (the bodies then dropped out of their barber chairs through a trap door to the basement below for pie filling duty.)

Rather like Hitchocck, there is a "childish" quality to his films that "grown adult" critics can't countenance, but these Sweeney Todd slashings seemed to announce a brutality in Burton that he had not matched before or after. (The anatomically correct beheadings in Sleepy Hollow came close.)

As for Depp, he did Sweeney in a British accent(for singing, too) and with Humphrey Bogart(!)'s gray streaked hairstyle from "The Return of Dr. X"(1939)

Rather like Mel Gibson before him and Will Smith after him, Johnny Depp is trying to get back into movies on "new terms." I wonder if Tim Burton will ever work with him again.

[–] roger1 (3626) 2 months ago

October 2024:

I just saw Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice -- a giant hit for Tim Burton late in his career -- and though I loved seeing and hearing Michael Keaton's famous character again(its rather like Psycho II in that same-guy-decades-later vibe) it, too, in the final analysis is..what Oscar winning screenwriter William Goldman called ALL sequels: ."a whore movie.}

"Old" characters spend most of the movie explaining the plot of the original movie to "new" characters and the movie just keeps checking off things that were NEW the first time around(giant sandworms, mouths sealed shut, a shrunken head man) but feel worn out now.

I'm reminded that the original Beetlejuice was a small, inexpensive film made by Tim Burton as he was exploding on the scene as a "young man with an avant garde vision." This new sequel is "homogenized" and pitched to a young-teen audience(ala the recent Ghostbuster sequels.) I rather missed the strangeness of those pseudo-intellectual dinner parties in the original -- with people like Robert Goulet and Dick Cavett among the guests(in 1988 those two were already camp and "of the past.")

I'm also reminded that just as Dark Shadows(2012) climaxed with a CGI laden action extravaganza of a climax -- it is rather matched in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice (with a few "Psycho" homages of its own -- stuffed birds on a wall, an "afterlife switchboard operator" who looks just like Mrs. B in the fruit cellar; certain camera angles on the house)) was given much more respect by its studio than in 1988, namely: a really big budget.

This is one of the biggest hits of Tim Burton's career. He's hit the billiion-dollar box office bell again (maybe)...certainly showing up Steven Spielberg's anemic grosses for West Side Story and The Fabelmans.

And in the end: seeing and hearing MIchael Keaton do his "Beetlejuice" thing was...worth the price of admission. And I did see it at a theater.

[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

This is one of the biggest hits of Tim Burton's career. He's hit the billiion-dollar box office bell again (maybe)...certainly showing up Steven Spielberg's anemic grosses for West Side Story and The Fabelmans.

According to boxofficemojo.com, BB sits at $405 Mill. worldwide gross (after just over a month of release) so I don't think $1 Billion is in the cards.... but with a 100 mill budget it's going to make well north of $100 mill profit and maybe as much as $200 mill if it continues to earn well out through Halloween and even up to Xmas. That's a tidy pile.

I just looked up what The Fabelmans made according to boxofficemjo and, yikes, $46 mill on a $40 mill budget =~ $20 mill loss. 7 Osc noms eases the pain I guess. Also it's just a nice, well-made movie I think. It felt a little conceited and self-congradulatory to me and others on release but I'm finding those problems with it haven't stuck with me and I'm actually looking forward to watching it again soon since it's now streaming on Netflix where I am.

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

According to boxofficemojo.com, BB sits at $405 Mill. worldwide gross (after just over a month of release) so I don't think $1 Billion is in the cards....

---

Ha. I think I was just throwing "billion" around because that seems to be what the big hits can get nowadays(Barbie, Oppenheimer, Wolverine/Deadpool)...but then I saw those REAL grosses and thought what you just said -- not a billion...but PLENTY.

--

but with a 100 mill budget it's going to make well north of $100 mill profit an may be as much as $200 mill if it continues to earn well out through Halloween and even up to Xmas.

---

There you go! And then streaming and everything else but, by comparison, the new Brad Pitt/George Clooney movie(Wolfs) was pretty much sent straight TO streaming so we will never know what THAT could have earned at theaters. Beetlejuice proved itself where it counts. Theaters.

I'm also mellowing on my tougher assessment of Beetlejuice 2. "Whore movie" is William Goldman's brutal term but all the "references back" in Beetlejuice 2" TECHNICALLY earn that title. Emotionally -- the callbacks are nostalgic and if the new one is more of a behemoth than the old one -- so be it.

----

That's a tidy pile.

I just looked up what The Fabelmans made according to boxofficemjo and, yikes, $46 mill on a $40 mill budget =~ $20 mill loss. 7 Osc noms eases the pain I guess.

---

That's the weird thing for Spielberg the last few times out. Low grosses and Oscar love -- a Best Supporting Actress win for West Side Story and that's a big award.

CONT.

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Spielberg was SORT of a "son of Hitchcock" with Duel, Jaws, Close Encounters, Indiana Jones and one-offs like Minority Report, but Spielberg clearly wanted to go his own way as a dramatist AND a historian of WWII(Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List) and other events(Lincoln, The Post.) And Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds are non-Hitchcock genre events (well, T.-Rex chasing Jeff Goldblum the first time is staged like the crop duster vs Grant in NXNW, come to think of it.).

But Tim Burton seems to, in a weird way, doing more to express himself as a "son of Hitchcock" than anyone else these days. DePalma is rather done. And outside of a few "nice" movies(Big Fish, Big Eyes) ..Burton does stick to the macabre. Oh, I suppose Dumbo was "nice," but Michael Keaton made a fine villain.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Also (The Fablemans) is just a nice, well-made movie I think.

---

Here is a funny issue -- personal to me -- about "problematic comparisions around the same time" to wit:

Back a couple of decades ago, I for some reason compared "Little Miss Sunshine" to "Sideways" and found that while I liked "Sunshine" enough, it seemed much less real and much more contrived -- as a "big indie" -- than "Sideways."

THIS time around, I found "The Fablemans" to pale in comparison to my weird obsession -- Licorice Pizza. They weren't THAT similar (neither were Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine) but it was as if they were "the same type."

---

It felt a little conceited and self-congradulatory to me and others on release

---

Seemed to me, too. Here's Spielberg trying to tell a "sad tale about the adultery/divorce break-up in a family" when it was the family OF...a man who grew up to be a world famous billiionaire director/producer/mogul.

We must remember that a bunch of "jealous sore losers" HATED Spielberg around the time he made 1941(a vulnerable flop), Raiders(a big hit), ET(a bigger hit) and Poltergeist(a big hit the same summer as ET.) This cadre included a number of critics AND lesser filmmakers (like a guy named Henry Jaglom.)

---

I daresay they wouldn't hold much support for a celebration of the guy who made those movies. They thought they were "infantile."

--

but I'm finding those problems with it haven't stuck with me and I'm actually looking forward to watching it again soon since it's now streaming on Netflix where I am.

---

Seeing as I have ALREADY softened my resistance to Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice...perhaps I can "come around" on The Fablemans. AND: That GREAT final scene with "John Ford" (David Lynch) and his mentoring on "finding the horizon" is wonderfully used in the final shot of the movie -- the horizon of the final shot...properly shifts. Beautiful.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

PS. Speaking of Licorice Pizza, the young man in that romance -- Cooper Hoffman (Phillip Seymour's son) has landed a key role in the "Saturday Night" movie opening this week. He plays executive Dick Ebersol, who went on to produce SNL for a few years between Lorne Michaels gigs.

Also speaking of Licorice Pizza, PTAs next film -- the one with Leo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Regina King and Alana "Licorice Pizza" Haim -- has a title (The Battle of Baktan Cross) and a release date: August 8, 2025. So I have to stay alive about another year. And then stay alive longer to see QT's final film when it is finally made. I may have to live to 98...

[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

That's the weird thing for Spielberg the last few times out. Low grosses and Oscar love -- a Best Supporting Actress win for West Side Story and that's a big award.

I recently saw WSS 2021 on a list of the biggest box office bombs of all time! so was led to check out the exact figures:
$100 mill production + $50 mill marketing = ~$300 million gross needed to break even.
Actual worldwide gross was $76 mil, so the standard calculation of its approximate loss is 150 - 76/2 = $112 million. That tracks roughly with the 'Biggest Flops' vid I saw which had it losing $104 million to become the (admittedly unadjusted for inflation) 31st worst box office loser of all time.

Note that according to the vid. what actually lost $112 million (for #24 biggest bomb ever) was a movie from 2021 that I'd never even heard of: Chaos Walking directed by Doug Liman and starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. Good grief have there been incredible numbers of studio-threatening loss-makers recently(>$100 mill loss).

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

I recently saw WSS 2021 on a list of the biggest box office bombs of all time!

---

This engages my recent personal observation that Spielberg has gone from being a filmmaker whose films EVERYBODY went to , to a filmmaker whose films NOBODY goes to.

Quite frankly, I can't say that even Hitchcock went out that badly. Actually, he went out SMALL..with medium to small budget movies(from Marnie on) that usually turned some sort of profit. I read an excerpt of a letter from Hitchcock to a friend about Frenzy (before its release), saying "whether it is liked or not, it will gross ten million dollars and make money." Actually, it made 16 million plus some change for two ABC TV showings(only one took place -- the Psycho too-horrible-for-TV issue again?)

---

so was led to check out the exact figures:
$100 mill production + $50 mill marketing = ~$300 million gross needed to break even.

---

These "marketing" add on costs "slay me." One wonders if even Barbie and Oppenheimer cleared all that much after marketing.

--
Actual worldwide gross was $76 mil,

--

That's bad. So the WORLD didn't care about West Side Story anymore(and why would they? Its NYC centric.)

---

o the standard calculation of its approximate loss is 150 - 76/2 = $112 million. That tracks roughly with the 'Biggest Flops' vid I saw which had it losing $104 million to become the (admittedly unadjusted for inflation) 31st worst box office loser of all time.

---

Wow. And yet Spielberg keeps announcing more projects -- because he can. One idea that I DON'T like is some sort of movie based on the Steve McQueen megahit Bullitt of 1968, with the great car chase. Except: no McQueen, and car chases are passe(and CGI in Fast/Furious.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Note that according to the vid. what actually lost $112 million (for #24 biggest bomb ever) was a movie from 2021 that I'd never even heard of: Chaos Walking directed by Doug Liman and starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley.

--

I ain't heard of that, either. But didn't Doug Limon recently "spring back" with some other movie? I'll have to look it up. Its a memory thing.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Good grief have there been incredible numbers of studio-threatening loss-makers recently(>$100 mill loss).

---

Its so weird to me. All these HUGE losses -- how do the studios survive?

The answer splits in so many directions to me:

ONE: Back in the late sixties/early 70's, there was all this news about studios collapsing outright(MGM) or being eaten up by other conglomerates.

Paramount was famously taken over by Charlie Bludhorn's Gulf and Western (renamed "Engulf and Devour" for Mel Brooks' so-so Silent Movie.)

And I remember this:

The first credit at the beginning of Bullitt(1968) was "Warner Brothers Seven Arts"(with a mixed logo).

The first credit at the begining of Dirty Harry(1971) was: "Warner Brothers -- A Kinney Company."

And with those two classics, those are STILL the first credits you see -- an ode to a time when Warners was passed around like a bad girlfriend to various suitors.

And yet -- hard to say that any studio after RKO ever TOTALLY collapsed.

Well..20th Century Fox is no more, it has a Disney-fied logo now.

TWO: The Los Angeles Times has been running articles about how, in the wake of the Writers and Actors strikes last year, Holywood is filled with "below the title craftworkers" who have been unemployed for a year or more.

And EXECS get fired all the time.

Meanwhile, the directors and actors and even WRITERS of hits like Barbie and Oppenheimer and the Marvel movies(er, the hits) are making paydays in the 50 million to 100 milliion range(100 million for RDJ to come back to Marvel in a new role.)

It is as if Hollywood -- now a global corporate affair with studios in Canada and Georgia and Europe AS WELL AS Hollywood -- is split between "starving peasants" and the ultrarich. I guess it always was. But a global marketplace keeps the studios alive.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Right now three big megaflops are keeping the internet movie columnists typing away:

Megalopolis -- from Auteur Francis Coppola
Horizon -- from Auteur Kevin Coster(Best Director Oscar and Picture winner, yes?)
and
Joker 2. THAT ones the surprise.

An article this week said that Warners has copped one of the biggest hits of the year(Beetlejuice 2) and one of the biggest bombs of the year(Joker 2) in the same fall -- evidently the Beetljuice profits even out the Joker losses.

Its all bizarre to me. But I suppose we live in an age where "billion dollar global grosses" and "400 million dollar global grosses" keep Hollywood alive for the 400 million dollar losses.

I think I did the math once on world population and figured that a movie EVERYONE went to should be able to make FORTY BILLION. So one billion in earnings is...a pittance. Except if it only goes in a few pockets well..RDJ makes $100 million off of one movie.

I SO prefer to go back to the simplicity of the costs of Psycho:

Entire movie: about $850,000
Perkins salary: $40,000 (on an old Paramount contract, his regular fee was $150,000.)
Leigh salary: $25,000
Gavin salary: $30,000 (some went to MCA Wasserman)
Balsam salary: $6,000

And Hitchcock deferred his "usual" director's salary -- $250,000 -- for a piece of the action. BOOM.

THOSE numbers, I can relate to ...even with inflation.

[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

This wikipedia page has a good list of all (inflation-adjusted) >$100 million loss-making films:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box-office_bombs

According to that list before 1997 there had never been a year when more than one Hollywood film lost more than $100 million in 2023 dollars. Then suddenly in 1997 there are 3, and in 1998 and 1999 there are 5 each. So *that's* when the 'Hollywood mostly just places very-big-bets' era started. Most years since then have had at least 5 >$100 million loss-making films with the worst years such as 2021 and 2022 having 7. While comparable lists of the the most profitable films don't seem to exist, for example 2021 and 2022 both had 15 films that grossed at least 300 mill worldwide and both had multiple > 1 billion grossers. If it's reasonable to guess that on-average each of the >300 mill grossers made at least 100 mill profit then it's reasonable to conclude that mega-profits outweigh mega-losses at least 2:1. So, very very roughly, that's the answer to the 'How do the Studios survive?' question. Old Hollywood, which now nets out to pre-1997! played a much lower stakes game.

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

According to that list before 1997 there had never been a year when more than one Hollywood film lost more than $100 million in 2023 dollars. Then suddenly in 1997 there are 3, and in 1998 and 1999 there are 5 each. So *that's* when the 'Hollywood mostly just places very-big-bets' era started.

---

That's a Hitchcock quote on the big bets(on one number on the roulette wheel). He made the "big bets" comment in a letter to a friend when Star Wars came out. Which is interesting. That bet WON BIG and Star Wars(the first one) wasn't all that expensive to make.

If it's reasonable to guess that on-average each of the >300 mill grossers made at least 100 mill profit then it's reasonable to conclude that mega-profits outweigh mega-losses at least 2:1. So, very very roughly, that's the answer to the 'How do the Studios survive?' question.

---

Yes, I think so. The budgets are huge ($200 to make a movie...for NETFLIX?) The profits CAN be huge (Barbenheimer, Deadpool, Wolverine). The losses CAN BE huge...but everything evens out.

--

Old Hollywood, which now nets out to pre-1997! played a much lower stakes game.

---

Aboslutely. Guys like John Ford, Hitchcock and Hawks WERE rich men, paid handsomely in their era. But the formula was pretty tight. Make a movie on time, on budget, and on schedule. Take a $250,000 paycheck up front(WAY MORE than most Americans were making 1940-1970 when these guys practiced.) MAYBE take a perecentage(rare, like Hitchcock with Psycho and Billy Wilder with producer's fees.)

Funny thing: the movie stars of the 30s-60s were paid big enough dollars to buy a second home in Palm Springs(100 plus miles east of Hollywood) but that's ALL they could afford. MODERN megastars can buy homes in France or Italy, or carve out a thousand acres in Montana or Wyoming. Or buy 20 homes(Johnny Depp.)

So those big bets DO pay off.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

PS. I recall reading one article one time that said "mid budget" movies are dangerous: not exciting enough to hit, if they flop en masse, it adds up, wheres cheap "indies" either make great profits or flop at a lower level of impact.

PPS. And what to make of Coppola and Costner "mortgaging their homes and selling their wineries" to make their vanity guargantuans Horizon and Megalopolis? I sense we aren't told the whole story there. Stars like Costner own a LOT of real estate, what's one mortgage?. Coppola can always open another winery.
And streaming revenue will help them. In short: I'm not so sure those guys REALLY risk ruin making those movies.

[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

I just saw Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice

Me too. I concur with a lot of your basic criticisms of the film... it was good to see Winona looking rejuvenated and Keaton's Beetlejuice is still quite fun and how they dealt with the actor-who-can't-return who played
lydia's/winona's father was pretty hilarious, but many of the new characters were underdone or underwritten. E.g., Astrid's crush/date turning out to be a ghost was nice, his turning out to be malevolent, completely at odds with how he presented himself was pushing it (him just being a ghost desperate to get back to the living would have been fine), but then they didn't follow any of the arguably excessive move through - Astrid never even learns that he killed his parents and *we're* never clear about how seriously to take his killing proclivities - Does his intended return to the living mean he's going to be a serial killer on the loose or not? And so on. E.g. 2 - Justin Theroux's unctuous fiancee just never worked at all (Lydia seems thick for ever giving him the time of day really) and it made me appreciate the flair with which the intentionally hateable characters in the original movie were written and acted. E.g. 3. And the less said about Monica Belluci's character the better. Still, BB's OK as a kind of inoffensive timewaster I suppose, but I'll never watch it again.

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

E.g. 2 - Justin Theroux's unctuous fiancee just never worked at all (Lydia seems thick for ever giving him the time of day really) and it made me appreciate the flair with which the intentionally hateable characters in the original movie were written and acted.

---

This guy Justin Theroux has been "trying to take hold" ever since his long ago days as Jennifer Anniston's husband OTHER than Brad Pitt. He reminds me of an actor named Tate Donovan who hung with Sandra Bullock for a long time, but...alas only as an appendage. These guys can't break loose of their starwoman shadows. BUT had Theroux been interesting as this jerk...BUT he wasn't. (I know he was in Mullholland Drive, but he wasn't interesting THERE either, what -- over 20 years ago?)

I'm reminded that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was missing such charismatic talent from the original as Young Alec Baldwin and Young Geena Davis. They simply aren't replaced here. How that missing actor was handled was...creative. BOTH times.

--
CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

E.g. 3. And the less said about Monica Belluci's character the better.

---

Well, she's still HOT. At her age. And evidently superrich director Tim Burton just added Bellucci to his one-by-one line of gorgeous girlfriends. For how long, who knows?

SPOILER PARAGRAPH I found her "talent" -- sucking the souls out of victims until they collapse in a heap rather interestingly used on Danny DeVito(Penguin to Keaton's Batman in Batman Returns, here CGIed to within an inch of his life) and I actually felt SAD when she used her powers to annhilate that sad eyed shrunken head man. He looked so INNOCENT. But..eh whatever. Except: still hot indeed. END SPOILER PARAGRAPH.

--

Still, BB's OK as a kind of inoffensive timewaster I suppose,

---

A key of sorts to Tim Burton's longevity even as I STILL see the creative semi-genius and showman in there

---

but I'll never watch it again.

---

Oh, well -- and just as I was announcing that I feel BETTER about Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. But then you've always been a tougher critic than me and that's as it should be.

[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

BUT had Theroux been interesting as this jerk...BUT he wasn't. (I know he was in Mullholland Drive, but he wasn't interesting THERE either, what -- over 20 years ago?)

I liked Theroux a lot in Mull Dr. (and he was fine as a one of Chistain Bale's finance bros in American Psycho) but he hasn't made a single positive impression with me in anything else since. I didn't know he dated or even married Aniston. Wow. He has a few screenplay co-credits on IMDb: Iron Man 2, Tropic Thunder, Zoolander 2, Rock of Ages (Tom Cruise-starring), etc.. Maybe he should concentrate on that side of things.

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

BUT had Theroux been interesting as this jerk...BUT he wasn't. (I know he was in Mullholland Drive, but he wasn't interesting THERE either, what -- over 20 years ago?)
--
I liked Theroux a lot in Mull Dr.

---

Oh, I remember he was IN it..he got a LOT to do and I kept figuring he was going to become some sort of star, but he didn't. The Anniston marriage put him in the news as "the lesser known guy she married after Brad Pitt," and he got all sorts of gossipy "male golddigger" bad press.

--(and he was fine as a one of Chistain Bale's finance bros in American Psycho)

---

I don't even remember him in that.

---

but he hasn't made a single positive impression with me in anything else since.

---

That's the thing: actors or actresses in Hollywood either MAKE it to some sort of major stardom(even "support" like Allison Janey and JK Simmons) or..they don't. They still work, but in their hearts they know they aren't putting butts in seats.

I didn't know he dated or even married Aniston. Wow.

Says here: Married to Pitt: 2000-2005 (Angie Jolie stole him away, revenge followed)
Married to Theroux(her boyfriend for many years): 2015-2018

I suppose this is "gossip," but it seems unavoidable these days on the net it "floats in on the feed."

Growing up, my family went to movies, but magazines like Photoplay and Modern Screen were banned in our house. This developed into my personal credo: "The movie, not the movie star." The value was the art(even if popular) not the private, oversexed, sometimes overdrugged, often messed up lives of the stars.

But anyway, so yeah, I knew that Justin Theroux was married to Anniston.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

(Theroux) has a few screenplay co-credits on IMDb: Iron Man 2, Tropic Thunder, Zoolander 2, Rock of Ages (Tom Cruise-starring), etc.. Maybe he should concentrate on that side of things.

--

I'm sure there's big money in writing those things. Speaking of Iron Man 2 -- a not-terribly handsome OK actor-writer named Jon Favreau made his name alongside Vince Vaughn in Swingers, but whereas VV became a star of sorts Favreau did not -- except he managed to get an Iron Man directing gig out of playing a SUPPORTING role there.

Now, Favreau acts AND directs and...I'm sure he's worth milliions. "Right place, right time."

Here is some on topic trivia:

After Favreau and VV made Swingers, they did a second, less successful movie called "Made." I remember two things about it (1) VV had done the Psycho remake so Favreau says "What are you gonna stab me in the shower? " at one ponit and (2) much of the story involves our two heroes trying to get into the innner circle of...P. Diddy. Can't wait to see THAT movie come back.

Justin Theroux landing those writing gigs reminds me of Blake Edwards too-broad-and-slapsticky Hollywood expose of 1981, SOB (William Holden's final film before breaking his head and bleeding out in a drunken fall -- as if part of the movie itself.)

Anyway, SOB postulated a Hollywood scene in which hangers on, sex partners, boyfriends, girlfriends(to all sexes), chefs, tennis pros EVERYBODY was hanging around to get some sort of foot in the Hollywood door, some sort of job.

Perhaps Mr. Theroux knows how to play that scene?

[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

Keaton's Beetlejuice is still quite fun

In the light of our discussion here (and because I currently have access to Disney+ where it's streaming) I decided to rewatch Keaton's Birdman (2014) for the first time since its release.

Looking back I was a little harsh on it at the time, e.g. it didn't make my top-whatever list at the end of the year. Now it strikes me as solid end-of-year list material and probably better than things like Gone Girl and American Sniper that were previously on that list for me. Birdman won a whole host of top Oscars (Picture, Director, Orig. Splay, and Cinematography but, strangely, no acting awards given that it's a very much an acting showcase (top 4 or 5 leads all near career bests I'd say)). I'd love to know how close the votes were for Actor. I imagine that Keaton must have been ever-so-close to a win. He must have been close again for Spotlight a few year later but Birdman was surely his biggest chance. The Academy probably regrets that decision to pass him over (for Eddie Redmayne playing Stephen Hawking in a forgettable/now forgotten Oscar biopic) but it did better at recognizing Birdman's quality at the time than I did so I can't poke at the Acad. too much for that miss!