Movies You Need to See: Beetlejuice...

Alright Joan... Here goes nothing...

I am going to kick off a potentially never-ending series of movie reviews here. I plan to focus on movies people should have seen years ago. (At the very least, if you weren't around back then, your parents should have introduced them to you. If they haven't, you are well within your rights to accuse them of child abuse and file for custodial divorce. They are clearly not doing their jobs properly.) If you haven't seen any of the movies I decide to focus on, see them. Now. Or else...

Anyway... Here is some background for those of you who might have missed it...

A while ago, shortly after I started this here blog thingie, I did a couple of posts pertaining to old movies people ought to see during childhood or early adolescence. I am fairly certain that a fair few of them will be reviewed here as well but for now I am starting with one that wasn't on my list last time around.

Personally, I think that the foreign language in the video makes it even funnier! What language is that anyway?

Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!

Who hasn't seen this film?... Anybody?... (I am choosing to believe that you are all rational, well adjusted people who are aware of the glory we are addressing here.) Alright, good... Now, is there anyone here who didn't like it? (As it turns out there are people out there who didn't. The first time I met one of them, I would have sworn they were just saying that to fuck with me.)

Gods I hope not.

I remember this as being one of the best movies of my childhood and, having watched it again last night, it is still one of the best movies out there.

We learned so very very much from this film. First of all, Michael Keaton (I know you remember the old Batman films.. he was the Batman that started it all back then.) can do comedy! I don't mean Mr. Mom-tough guy style comedy here either. I mean balls-out, loud, physical humor! Hell, a lot of folks I knew back then had no idea it was even him and refused to believe it until the box was shoved under their noses. I suspect that, were the movie to be done these days, Jim Carey would be cast as Betelgeuse and I suspect that the world would be a little bit sadder for that. I know for a fact that I would be.

But wait, there's more! This is the movie that, for all intents and purposes, gave us Winona Ryder and, through her, the birth of Goth! Before this, she did two other roles in movies I have never heard of and afterward she was a staple of my generation. A couple years later she would give us both Welcome Home Roxie Carmichael and Edward Scissorhands. If that weren't enough, she would come back after another two years to become the gothic wet dream that was Bram Stoker's Dracula. (Oh come on now... If you are now or ever were a goth, you know as well as I do that you had some very specific fantasies surrounding that film...)

There were plenty of other notable faces in the movie for those with fuzzy memories as well. Geena Davis played her role to a T. (The same role we see her in just about every time we see her at all. Alright, that's not really true. She can act well enough. Anyone know where she is now? Last I heard she was trying to become an Olympic archer or some such. Swear to god!)

Alec Baldwin allowed us to keep up the fantasy that the Baldwin Brothers could act. (And yes, I do know for sure it was Alec. Admittedly I had to go double check on IMDB but I am dead certain now!)

And Glenn Shadix defined an entire career as Otho. (I mean it. he defined his entire career. I can't see him as anything or anyone else ever!)

Oh yeah. Jeffery Jones was there too but since he was playing the same role as he has played in every other movie ever, I didn't think it worth more than a one line note.

Anyway... About the movie...

I thought it was good. Two thumbs up and all that.

Oh hell... Just go watch it again. You know you want to!

Heheheheheheh!!! I wish I could make this kind of thing happen every day!

And now to find the perfect quote to wrap this up...

We've come for your daughter, Chuck.
-Betelgeuse-