Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Your long-awaited review of ... Beetlejuice?

Yup. That's right, kids.

I had a fairly "busy" day (for me). I got up and puttered about and had a breakfast without milk, because we were 100% OUT. Then I jumped in the pool, after I had printed out the script for the short student film I'll be Scriptying (at the end of the month, not like in the next week or so, as I had originally predicted), in addition to printing my "facing pages" on the backs, and then I headed over to the casting session I'd planned to meet my student "shadow/sub" at, in Hollywood. Sorry if that was a run-on sentence; I hope you were able to keep up: print pages, jump in the pool, drive to Hollyweird for a casting session. Caught up? Yay.

Walking back to my car following the casting session, I discovered I'd parked on a street-sweeping side of the street on the street-sweeping "No Parking" day. Dammit. $73 poorer for a student film. Shit. "Good News" is that this may actually turn into a "paid" gig, because my experience is so freaking invaluable that they can't Not Pay Me. We'll see. In the meantime, I'm going to meet with my Student Scripty/Shadow (maybe tomorrow, maybe Thursday) to do the Script Supervisor's Breakdown and have Lesson One completed. Seriously, if you were to look at my Scripty resumé online or elsewhere, you would not expect me to have sufficient experience to train another human being. But so far, I'm not expecting either myself or my Shadow to get paid, so I'm happy to help another human being learn a few skills. The breakdown is the easy part of my gig. It's just a little time-consuming, is all.

Got home from there after a quick Trader Joe's run. We desperately needed milk, at the very least. Plus, Stephen wants to make an easy pie, if I would just pick up the appropriate chocolate and whipping cream ingredients. I hadn't had lunch yet, when I stopped at TJ's, so of course, in addition to my fave cereal and a gallon of milk, I also picked up pie ingredients plus wine. Yes, I've already had a couple glasses tonight before blogging. Of wine, not milk.

Put away all the groceries, caught up on my steps, and then jumped into the pool again after 5:30p.m. It was cold; there was no sun on it at all; I did a single lap and got out. I showered to wash my hair, because, seriously, it was major YUCK, and now it's major AWESOME (well, except for still being Too Damn Long and in Desperate Want For a Buzz-Cut). No, I'm not #Depressed anymore, but I still do a lot of chlorine-clean(s) instead of actual-bathing-for-clean(s). Sue Me. If I book work for pay, you can be sure I'll be "actually-bathed-for-clean" before I show up on set.

Decided to inform Stephen that he'd need to pick up a graham-cracker pie crust on his way home if he wanted to make that easy pie recipe. Realized it would be an easier "sell" upon his arrival if I had prepared a shit-load of rice and an actual Hot Meal for dinner, so I set about to do that. Submitted for some work, here and there. Tweeted, here and there. Hubby got home, and eventually, dinner was ready to eat, and we ate it.

And then, while he was doing an MLB-on-PS4 thing and I was Tweeting (or possibly something else), I asked him to pick A Movie. He picked our Long-Loved-But-Ready-To-Be-Upgraded-To-Blu-Ray-DVD of Beetlejuice, and we watched it. This is a movie from our college days. We both love this movie. Here are a few things we noticed tonight, either together (out loud), or separately (myself, essentially, in my own damn head). What the hell, let's call 'em Three Good Things:

1. There is No One other than Michael Keaton for the role of Betelgeuse. He's a phenomenal actor who, through his actions, can convince you that he's physically attractive and worthy of your notice. I'm sorry if this statement offends you. Michael Keaton is AMAZING. He is NOT, however, physically attractive. He IS, however, ALWAYS worthy of your notice. Not necessarily because of his performance in Beetlejuice. Certainly not in spite of it. I have yet to see a "bad" Michael Keaton vehicle, and I've watched Clean and Sober from start to finish (if you haven't, you should check it out). Okay, let me interject that I didn't love Birdman. Not Michael Keaton's fault, tho.

2. How the Hell Young was Alec Baldwin? 30, when the movie was released, so 28 or 29 (more likely) when they shot it. He didn't become our favorite "Fat Baldwin" until well after The Hunt For Red October (which was only two years after Beetlejuice). So Young. So Thin. So Much Great Baldwin. Not that he's necessarily "worse" as "Mature (and Bigger) Baldwin". I love me some Alec; I can't deny.

3. Seriously, How the Hell Young was Winona Ryder? 17 when the movie was released. See, the problem only arose because Geena Davis kept referring to her as "that little girl" and we could, in some moments, see maybe a 15-year-old, and in very few moments, we could see maybe a 13-year-old. But we never; Never Never Never saw a "little girl". Here's the biggest problem that I'm aware of, now that I'm linking IMDb pages. Yeah, Winona was only 17 by the time the movie was released, and maybe she wasn't yet as big a "name actor" as either Jeffrey Jones (her dad) or Catherine O'Hara (her stepmom). But her part is bigger/More Important To The Story than either of her parental units, yet, in the credits, she's not listed until AFTER the chick who plays Jane (the realtor), Ernie (who The Hell is Ernie?), Old Bill (I'm assuming this is the barber who sits outside his barbershop adjacent to Maitland Hardware and rambles on about the hippie), Betelgeuse (NATCH), LITTLE Jane Butterfield (the realtor's daugher? Are you FUCKING kidding me?), Delia (stepmom, NATCH), MOVING MEN #1 & #2 (are you Seriously FUCKING kidding me?), and Charles (dad, NATCH). Winona got a bum deal on the credits, yo. I don't care "In Order of Appearance". Ernie had One Line. Old Bill had One Monologue. The Fucking Moving Men? Had LOOKS, at best. LOOKS! Winona Ryder Was Robbed of Due Credit!

All right. Would you like my review? Here it is. This is a fantastically fun, if dated (by it's SFX), "paranormal" movie. It Always makes me laugh. If you have somehow Never Watched This Movie, you need to find it on Netflix (or other streaming device), and watch the hell outta it. I LOVE it. Pop yourself some popcorn, or grab a glass of wine with a serving of chocolate. Seriously, this movie is Nothing But Fun.

2 comments:

  1. Great movie. To this day I can't find an explanation of why the movie is called Beetlejuice, but in the film when you see his name spelled it's Betelgeuse. The closest thing I could find was that his name was Beetlejuice, but because he couldn't say his own name, he may not have been able to spell it either, so he had to spell it as phonetically as he could so that others could call his spirit. Anyway, just my own curiosity over something trivial.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The star that is named Betelgeuse is often mispronounced, until the reader is corrected. The makers of the film named the character Betelgeuse probably because the pronunciation is "Beetle Juice" and it's funny. Back in the day, would you have gone to see a movie called Betelgeuse? Maybe not, unless you thought it was about a star, not a ghost comedy. So Beetlejuice it is! Marketing, baby. Marketing.

      Delete

I LOVE your feedback; give it to me, Baby. Uh-huh, uh-huh.