Author: Ga2so

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

There have been multiple attempts to make a Beetlejuice sequel, and the final result seems to have come from throwing all the different scripts into a blender. Tons of disconnected stories that go nowhere, and lots of lazy writing. Example: when explaining why Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin’s characters aren’t in the movie, Lydia (Winona Ryder) says “we found a loophole that let them move on.” They never explain the loophole or reference it again. Also: Jeffery Jones, convicted as a sex offender for soliciting pictures from kids, wasn’t invited back for the sequel, but an animated character that’s clearly based on him has a major scene, and his photo is prominently featured in several major scenes, including one where altar boys sing “Day-O” at his grave. Creepy.

It’s fun to watch the cast play off each other, but it would be a lot more fun if the story didn’t feel like it was written in one draft by a second year improv team.

Fun side note: I teach at Luther Burbank Middle School. Tim Burton went here. He was not a fan.

Lover of Men: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln

The idea that Lincoln was gay is hardly new (as the Log Cabin Republicans would tell you), and the subject is a compelling idea for a documentary, but this film just doesn’t work. It meanders all over the place. The music is distractingly syrupy. There are far too many long, slow tracking shots and soft focus, slow motion shots. A short, focused look at the sexuality of Lincoln would be much more compelling.

And a side note: Just because David Bowie had a gender fluid life doesn’t mean it makes sense for this movie’s poster to feature Lincoln’s face with the Aladdin Sane lightning bolt.

I love a movie that tells you exactly what’s going to happen, but you have no idea they did it until it actually happens, and apparently Edgar Wright does as well.

It was also amusing to see Martin Freeman with a one word cameo as Declan (AKA Bizarro Liz).

Golly, I enjoy this movie. It’s a little rough picturing Emilio Estevez as punk, and there’s a big chunk toward the end that is for the most part incoherent, but the rest of it works well enough to hold the thing together.

…and remember: Harry Pace for City Controller!

It was… okay. Sort of a more Jewish Harold and Maude. I struggled to figure out why anyone would be interested in dating Jason Schwartzman’s sad sack cantor, but multiple women seem really excited to hang out with this mopey, lost guy. Carol Kane is unsurprisingly wonderful.

Side note: The NoHo Laemmle is a nice low-key change after the surface flashiness of AMC and the “we’re so cool” attitude of Alamo Drafthouse, but the Chipotle next door is a little rough.

Lots of fun, as long as you don’t think about any of the actions taken by most of the characters. Massive plot holes effectively spackled over by a crack team of scenery chewers.

Also: one of those movies that gives away waaaay to much in the trailer. Not everything, and not the end of the film, but still very spoilery. There should be a law that anything used in a trail from anywhere after the first act must be meaningless without context.

Exactly as depressing as you’d expect a documentary about kids living on the street in Seattle to be. From the opening with a 14 year old talking about how much she makes on “dates” and discussing her sexually transmitted infections with a doctor at a teen clinic, to the ending where some kids are in jail and one is dead from suicide, the film is endlessly bleak. The closest thing to a happy ending in the film for any of the kids is when one of them hops a train and leaves.

I loved this movie. It’s funny, and it has a great spin on vampire mythology that I’m fighting very hard to keep from spoiling. By the middle of the movie it’s pretty clear how the story will end, but it’s charming enough that I didn’t care. It’s in French, so be ready to read subtitles.

Also: it wasn’t playing at AMC or Alamo, so I actually had to pay for a ticket. The good news: tickets were only eight bucks! The bad news: parking was ten!

This movie is half the length (and probably a twentieth of the budget) of that thing I watched yesterday, and huge chunks of that are just people walking through the woods, but it’s about a thousand times more interesting. The three main characters- particularly Sam (Lily Collias)- feel like real humans. Great acting all around, but there is one scene in particular that’s the linchpin of the film, and they nail it.

I never watched the original 1979 release of Caligula, but I’d seen parts of it, and I was familiar with it’s history: Bob Guccione (the guy who did Penthouse magazine) hired a bunch of well-known actors and crew to make a version of the story that told a good story without holding back on the sexual aspects, then decided to fire the director and throw in some extra hardcore sex and violence, leading to a movie that most people who worked on it didn’t want to have associated with them.

This is a recut that cuts out the bonus porn and violence, and uses formerly lost footage to make a more cohesive story that includes more acting and less schtupping. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make a good movie. And even without the bonus porn, there’s so much background sex that it loses all meaning. The whole thing is long (about three hours!) and boring. I kept thinking “it must be almost over,” then looking at my watch and seeing only ten minutes had passed.

I realized something about two thirds of the way in: Caligula is the story of a deranged leader of a country that’s gaudy, loud, pointlessly expensive, ponderous, and around for too long. It’s the Donald Trump of art house movies.