Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

There's been 36 years til Beetlejuice.

Beetlejuice 2 aka Beetlejuice Beetlejuice does not feel like a cash-in but a really feel-good movie.

They had the most fun doing it, I had most fun watching it.

In short, It Rocks !

Also Tim Burton's back. With a Bang. He seemed to have got his Juice back. C'mon, from Dumbo (2019) he didn't do any film for the big screen, he directed some episodes of Wednesday in Romania (4 actually!). Also Dumbo? Why? His last great film for me was Sleepy Hollow in 1999, Big Fish being too pretentious (they thought is Oscar material, like a more fantastic Forrest Gump...), I have a soft spot for Dark Shadows (2012), which I saw again 2 years ago and accepted it as it was. Sweeney Todd is grand guignol but Burton didn't fulfill his early promises that became with the shorts animated (Vincent & Frankenweenie) went into Beetlejuice, his 1st "Burtonesque" film. Pee-Wee was just an essay ;). That's what made us (me and some buddy) say in the mid 2000's that Burton is the most overrated director. Well, make room, there's plenty who took that place ever since. So, take it as you please, BB is Tim Burton's comeback film, a fun to watch, fun to make, roller-coaster of sandworms and a true Burton-o-rama.

Warning, this is for the fans of the original, it got all the ties so if you haven't seen the 1988 original, pls. do. Now it's streaming on Max, they were smart enough to put it in today. 

BB opened the Venice film festival and opened worldwide on 6.9.24 or the American way -9.6.24, all reversed adds up to 6.6.6 but that is another story.  

Michael Keaton (who just got 73!!!) is even wackier than in Beetlejuice, and he looks exactly the same!

Winona Ryder looks great as grown-up (& still haunted) Lydia Deedz.

Ctaherine O'Hara is back as Delia Dee.

And Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) is in as Astrid, Lydia's daughter /less troubled teenager than Winona was in the original.

They got rid of Jeremy Jones -Charles Deetz-(who's now a known sex offender :( in a very classy and smart way (the stop motion animation sequence is a blast!) 

Monica Bellucci is an addition to the cast as Delores (a sort of Corpse's Bride), with nods to Mario Bava in an insane Italian B & W sequence, she is now Burton's partner (lucky Tim ;)

Justin Theroux is Rory, Lydia's producer & manager.

Also Burn Gorman (The Offer) is Father Damien (!).

Willem Defoe is here in his 1st part on a Burton film, as Wolf Jackson, he's great ("Keep it real") but I can't think of how it would have been if Christopher Walken would have accepted this part as he was offered it initially (at least that is what I read). 

Oh, and that excellent Danny de Vito cameo...

Groovy soundtrack (Songs by Donna Summer, Richard Harris-yes, that Richard Harris !, The Bee Gees, Scott Weiland, Sigur Ros, Richard Marx-!-), fantastic musical scenes (MacArthur Park, Tragedy, Day-O choir), and a great score by Danny Elfman (& Steve Bartek), with all the riffs of the old one. 

There's also a riff on a classic Brian De Palma film that I won't spoil here ;) , i spotted the Monty Python fattest man in the world riff (from Meaning of Life), but hey...

Probably the most fun film about Death and the Underworld !

7 out of 10/ 3 1/2 out of 5.  

It's a seven for me because it's too light in its darkness, and some character scenes are really just expository and you don't feel the suspense or the weight of death upon life or life upon death. But then again, you have Bob in it...

Kaos (2024)

 Fullfill thy prophecy

or

ther will be KAOS

It might as well be the best thing on TV this year (so far...), except Ripley... 

(streaming on netflix)

brush up your Greek and drink up your Meander water, I mean yr Olympus yoghurts..

TBC...

Blink Twice (2024)

Worth a trip to the theaters !

and Blink Twice

Blink Twice is a term used for people who are in danger. 

It's stylish, it's widescreen, it's evil under the sun (plus champagne and strawberries), wild soundscape and it's pretty creepy (add some black humor too) !

a bit of woke (...2024?!), but also some R rated weird cutting and ambiguity.

I really enjoyed this in a theater, I'd somehow make it a double bill with Rose Glass 's film Love Lies Bleeding.

Blink Twice is Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut at 35, I guess ya all know who Zoe is (from Hollywoodland royalty -Lenny K. and Lisa Bonet). 

She co-produced and co-wrote the film, which she started in 2017 as "Pussy Island" ! Rewroted as the #metoo movemement moved on. Of course MGM blinked 'til the title was changed. See here why. & how.

Channing Tatum (Zoe's fiancee) plays his 1st mature and risque part on the screen (ok, he was in Foxcatcher 10 years ago...), Slater, a cross of Jeffrey Epstein  (for power) and Arnie Hammer (for charisma) as a rich Tech CEO who has his own island where he brings selected people to party...

Cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie from the Whitney Huston biopic) is all spellbound by this and on board for the ride, this is her story and her POV.

A new entry in the "evil rich people" doing bad s**t on an island (that started with The Most Dangerous Game in 1932 and recently goes into The Hunt, The Menu, Ready or Not, The Invitation, even Old) . Just that BT is better, way more stylish, poignant and...fun.

More value to the screen:

-Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra's first main credit, vivid colors & panache. 2.39: 1. Shot in Yucatan, Mexico.

-A very effective soundtrack by Chanda Dancy 

-and songs (James Brown, Chaka Khan -Ain't Nobody, one Yoko One song-Don't Be Scared. Really ;)? 

-Strong supporting cast, including the likes of Haley Joel Osment, Christian Slater, Kyle MacLachan and Geena Davis. Slater in particular seems to have a groovy time. He's the one with the Polaroid camera.

...So what you need to do, is to Follow the Red Rabbit ;)

7 out of 10/ 3.5 out of 5 !!!

The Killer (2024)

 *not to be confused with David Fincher's thriller with the same name of 2023. 

This is John Woo's THE KILLER, his own remake to his famous cult film The Killer from 1989, that premiered (streaming :( on Peacock on Aug. 23 2024.

it's woke but is more than that.

It is John Woo's French film, it's an homage to Le Samourai (1967) even more than the original Killer was. In the circumstance of recent Alain Delon's demise, this works more nostalgic than intended. Shot in Paris of no limits A budget and in touristic spots, plus the church from the original and the pigeons TM. And a goldfish. A samurai (!) sword. A black hat. And a crossword pun. And bikers on relanti. In flames. Woo-ish. 

Woo will be 78 this September (22), so he's not getting any younger. His influences on the action cinema were in the '90's. That's why they called him overseas, after hardboiled (1992). He started with Hard Target (soft spot as I was a publicist on it, back in 1994's Media Pro Pictures distribution), moved on to Broken Arrow and hit the mark with Face/Off. His last great film was Mission: Impossible in 2000. After the failure of Paycheck he went back to China but I didn't resonate with any of his films there (actually I only saw the 1st Red Cliff). 

The man is surely a woman now -Zee-Nathalie Emmanuel-from the Fast & Furious series ( a la Nikita, there's even a quote of that, and that's Tcheky Karyo's cameo) and the cop -Sey-Omar Sy-international star since Inotochables- is black. The singer is given more to do and done, and the plot is mambojumbo-ish to the maxxx. The remake has been in the works from the 90's and I think it's great that finally Woo gets to re-do it and in Paris of all places. The script is credited to Brian Helgeland, Josh Sanders and Matt Stueken (surely not all together, , but Woo sure added up his own marks. The whole thing is marred by the need to switch to English all the time, and keep some French just for the picturesque. 

But Omar Sy could've been Belmondo. Le Flic.And Nathalie Emmanuel, Delon, Le Samourai.

Woo's daughter, Angeles Woo is acting in it as a killer. Name of her character, Chi Mai ;)

She's also a co-producer.

Lots of juicy parts, Eric Cantona is a Top gangster, Said Taghmaoui is an Arab prince, Diana Silvers is Jenn, the singer, victim and target, Sam Worthington is Finn, the contracter of Zee, he does a Strong Irish accent complete with the annoying "beat of my heart' bit in Irish. A stand-out, stunt woman Aurelia Ager as the baddie blonde evil henchie with ponytails Juliet, her 1st real acting part (hope she goes Zoe Bell's way). 

The music is key, Marco Beltrami at the helm, with Buck Sanders helping him, doing an Ennio Morricone tribute, with whisting, a woman operatic voice, complete with a song (that integrates the film-"Introuvable", sang by Jorane), Eric Serra style. There's even a cue from Le Samourai, "Costello dans la ville", from the score by Francois de Roubaix. 

Very well lit cinematography by Mauro Fiore, Antoine Fuqua and Oscar winner for Avatar cinematographer. Edited by Zach Staenberg, the guy who cut all the Matrix trilogy.

So, it's flawed, it's naive but I could feel it's goodhearted as opposed to cringe, and someone else would've done it worse. 

It looks like a Europacorps prod. from the 90's, it's been in development for so long, Universal studios bound, and though it ended on streaming.

Pity it wasn't in theaters, even if it's not John Wick (a series that took from Woo big time), it's his Grandfather and granddaughters. Inc. 

3 out of 5, 6 out of 10 !