Beetlejuice

I love the shit out of this film and watched it far too many times as a lad, seriously hundreds.

It holds up incredibly well today and for my money is still one of Burtons most completely successful film, on par with Ed Wood and Mars Attacks. Keaton is brilliant, the afterlife world and it's design is incredibly well realised and imaginative and this is also the film that made me an Alec Baldwin fan for life.

I have nothing but a deep and abiding love for this movie.

I thought the tv series spin-off was very imaginative for its time.
The Burton influences were all over it.

I too saw this flick way too many times as a kid. The last time I saw it was not too long ago on tv. I really need to pick up that new Deluxe Edition. Everyone brings their A-game. Jeffrey Jones as the long suffering Dad who just wants to relax, and Catherine O'Hara as his eccentric artist wife. They play great against each other. Can't forget about Otho and Keaton owns as Beetlegeuse, and of course Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin.

...and lets not forget the unsung musical star of the movie besides Elfman, Mr.Harry Belafonte.

I totally agree, Arjen, regarding the comparison between this and Burton's more recent output. I've heard him say he has no insight into what makes a script good, but there's a very personal, weird energy to all his best films that I don't think he gives himself credit for.

And Geena Davis is so cute in this. I think her wardrobe might be what gave me a thing for Mennonites.

This is one of the few Burton films I like.

I love how the afterlife is also full of pointless paperwork and red tape. Love the new family that move into the house and of course Keyton just rocks in this role.

Great film full of brilliant moments but for some reason my favorate is still the bit where after being snubbed by Davies and Baldwin he takes his frustration out on the model town.

"I've seen 'The Exorcist' about 167 times and it keeps getting funnier EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT!"

The sand worms still give me nightmares. And when I was a kid, one of the creepiest things on film was when Beetlejuice turns into the carnival game. Memory is hazy, but I think it was a test your strength game.

Oh thank God. I thought this was another thread trashing one of my favorite childhood films. Love this film to death.

Awesome bit because it's begun with Keatons iconic "It's showtime"

Likewise. I still have a lot of time for this. Very entertaining, endearing stuff, and a timely reminder that Tim Burton can do great things when he gets his finger out. The film's reputation reminds me of Robert Hardy's quote about In The Airplane Over The Sea; as a teenager, love of this film helped gauge potential friends.

I still get goosebumps when the theme starts to play and Beetlejuice is in his trademark striped suit.

"Nice fucking model!"

When I was ten years old this line made me laugh more than anything else in the film.

Now we're talking.

I had forgotten about the *honk* *honk*! Thanks Ed, that made me laugh.

My favorite Burton film with Keaton knocking it out of the park. The final scene in the waiting room never fails to get me.

"Hey, this could be a good look for me"

Adore it.

...and a favorite song of my youth thanks to this movie.

I'll always be grateful to this movie for introducing me to one Mr. Harry Belafonte.

That, and it's a first-rate movie in its own rite. (see what I did there?)

I love how the whole flick makes death and ghouls palatable to kids, then throws the scary limbo souls out at you. Creepy.

One of the few Burton films I still really like (and one of the few Danny Elfman scores, for that matter- the man's become increasingly generic)
It's a shame that nothing he's been invovled with since Nightmare feels as creative.

The Martians beg to differ sir...

Visually inventive, but too immature for its own good.

I think that this movie has a lot going for it, but it never really feels like one movie. The afterlife stuff is funny, Keaton is awesome, as is Baldwin, etc, but BEETLEJUICE still feels like it's slightly schizophrenic, and not in a good way. If anything, it feels like there's stuff missing in the story as the movie fails to entirely successfully juggle all of its ideas and plots.

I almost wish that it was a TV show to give a lot of its elements some space to breathe better.

The limbo souls and the Beetlejuice snake terrified me as a kid.

It's not nearly as effective a final film, though.

Unfortunately, I bet we'll see a reboot of this film with a new, "younger" Beetlejuice than Michael Keaton ever reprising the role in a sequel.

http://www.moviehole.net/201025098-k...in-a-heartbeat

Haha, I was just about to post, "so, when's the remake coming"? Cuz you KNOW it's gonna happen, and we're all gonna FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU-

I need to watch this again, haven't seen it in years. Same with the cartoon which I thought was decent.

So who gets pegged as the new Beetlejuice, Jack Black or Russell Brand?

Bite your fucking tongue with that talk!

Aziz Ansari. The remake's going in a whole different direction.

Also one of my favorites. I'm joining the chorus that the Tim Burton who made this film seems to have disappeared. On the other hand, everyone is allowed to grow and transform as an artist. The sad thing, though, is he was never this purely entertaining again. Post Batman, BUrton's work had a dark streak to it that leaned towards the deppressive. This movie has gothic darkness, but it's always done in fun.

It's one of Keaton's best performances. 1988 was a banner year for the man. I still wonder how he didn't get an Oscar nomination for this or Clean And Sober (released the same year). It's movies like this that remind you just what a gifted actor he is. And what a shame it is that he just doesn't have the career he deserves.

I'll be showing this number to my 5th graders at the end of the trimester. (My whole thing has been to show them the movies I grew up with and enjoyed when I was their age. And also they can see how this stuff kicks the shit out of Percy Jackson or How To Train Your Dragon or whatever the fuck kids are into now.) Like... I showed them The Goonies last term and they fucking loved it.

If such a horror were to take place... Out of those two, Brand seems the best fit.

But, in this age of nostalgic sequels, I see no reason why we can't just get a new Beetlejuice with Keaton reprising the role. The make-up is enough to hide that he's 20 years older. And I'm sure he can still find the character inside him.

It would also be an opportunity for Burton to go back and just have some fun again.

Still... They should probably leave it well enough alone.

Say what you want about Percy Jackson, but you shut your whore mouth about How to Train Your Dragon.

It's weird to think that Burton was able to so effortlessly make the dark and macabre fun in such honest ways. The centerpiece of the film is a Harry Belafonte dance number! For God's sake, the movie is about a self-centered goth bore ("I myself AM...straaange and unusual.") learning to lighten up and have some goddamned fun with life. If Burton made this today, it'd be patting her on the back for being so different.

If he made it today, Beetlejuice would be played by Johnny Depp and would be the way he is because his father wasn't around when he was alive. He'd be defeated in the end by Adam and Barbara reaching out to him as the child they never had and the father Beetlejuice never had.

Picked up the Blu-Ray last summer and LOVED IT after not having seen it since those many times as a kid, before the tape got messed up.

Beetlegeuse is so hilariously SLEAZY! Even after the sandworm gets him, he's rubbing the legs of the woman cut in half. Brilliant.

"Coach? I don't think we survived that crash."
"Howdja guess?"

Ugh. Terrifyingly plausible.

Oh, and Helena Bonham Carter plays Juno.

I was actually thinking of a way she could play Lydia and fall in love with Beetlejuice.

That would mean someone else would have to be the villain. Ooh! Mr and Mrs Deetz are really demons... and they came to this house FOR A REASON!

Yup, Burton's best when there are no typical-3-act-structure rails to jump off in the first place. His early "series of WTF events" films are my faves of his.
You just made my heart shrink 3 sizes this day.

No, Bonham-Carter's Lydia buys the house and Mr. Deetz is an unscrupulous real estate developer who wants to buy her out.

Jeffrey Jones is salivating in his jail cell right now.

Well... In all fairness, I haven't actually seen either of those films. They may both be perfectly wonderful. I'm just saying that, in general, kids films today lack that spark of magic that we had in the 80s. Genre films in general.

Though, as a child of the 80s, that might be a typical point of view. But I don't remember my father lamenting that "they don't make kids movies like the ones they used to make in the 60s!" when he would take me to see these 80s filcks. If anything, he loved them as much as - if not more than - I did.

So... Yeah, movies are kind of shitty now I guess.

This is so true that it's painful.

But this is also not that new, if you think about it. Edward Scissorhands had daddy issues. Jesus! Even The Penguin had daddy issues. Burton pretty much got on this train and hasn't looked back since 1991. The truth is, Burton's "change" came after he had the success of Batman, that he could finally do whatever he wanted (there were notes and studio mandates on both Pee Wee and Beetlejuice, I'm certain). I know it's counter productive to say this (and he did make great work afterwards, as well as a better Batman film) but maybe he would be purely incapable of just doing something like Beetlejuice now. The Tim Burton in him wouldn't let him.

Oh god Rich don't. Just don't. Thats so spot-on as to be depressing.

Why oh why did Mars Attack have to tank - why??!?!?!

One could make the argument that the character of Pee Wee Herman is nothing more than one colossal daddy issue.

Hey! The daddy issues have been there since Vincent. Poor kid.

It wasn't just that flick. I'd actually say the three headed hydra of film failures--Batman Returns (popular), Ed Wood (financial), and Mars Attacks (critical)--bit in sequence, and he's never fully recovered.

The difference is that we're not supposed to feel sorry for Pee-wee, and he doesn't fucking feel sorry for himself. That starts with Edward S.