Oh ye is bot it's showtime.
People say, good money to see this movie.
When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas with a hot popcorn and no monsters.
In the protection booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Don it off.
We said, I can't believe Grandpa's dead.
That's what's hard.
Yeah, sometimes I think life is harder.
When I was a teenager, a trickster demon and terrorized our entire family and tried to force me to marry him. I believed he was gone.
Forever until you found this in the attic.
He's beetle Juice.
I don't ever say that name.
Beetlejuice.
Oh I am serious.
If you say the same three times, he will appear Beetlejuice.
The juice is loose.
I am going to make you so happy.
The living the dead can they coexist? That's what we're here to find out.
Whereas choice, why Beto Juice.
Beatle check feel afraid to express yourself? Don't be afraid you're a figment of my imagination? Really is this a figment of your imagination?
Hm hmm.
Welcome to the Projection Booth and the culture cast and midnight viewing. We're doing it all, all three of our shows. I am your host, Mike White. Joining me is my other host, Chris Tashue.
Nice fucking model.
Also joining us is my other host father Alone. Beetlejuice, Okay, whatever, we are back thirty six years after the original. We're back with Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, and you know what, that third one is going to be called, and they're probably gonna make a third one because this has had a pretty good box office opening. We're back with the sequel to Beetlejuice. It's not Beetlejuice Goes Hawaii or some of the other Beetle Juice movies that had been kicked around over the years.
It's not even a feature version of the cartoon. Because they had a cartoon of this.
They did it was amazing.
Yeah, watch it on Saturday mornings. We are back with some of the cast of the original film. We'll definitely be talking about that. We have a family tragedy that starts this off, and we are introduced to what's kind of a combination of the Wednesday Show mixed with the original Beatle Juice. We will be spoiling this movie as we talk about it, though, I don't think there's a whole lot you can spoil with this one unless you are a huge Richard Harris fan. So we'll get there,
trust me. Until then, Chris, what did you think of Beetlejuice? Beetlejuice?
I went to Los Angeles earlier in the year and I went to Universal Studios and they had as I was walking out the door, they had a guy a dressed up like Beetlejuice. Get your picture with Beetlejuice.
Look.
I find the original Beetle Juice probably to be my favorite Tim Burton movie. I would say it's probably in my top ten or fifteen movies. I think the character of Beetlejuice is one that I resonate with a lot, as I think a lot of people do, because he's a piece of shit, but he's a lovable piece of shit, which makes him at least he.
Wasn't the original.
I think we'll have plenty to talk about when it comes to this movie and Beetlejuice, But the original I think is a seminal film for me. A lot of the bits from the first movie are things that like the nice fucking model or that, hey, come here, got some good for you? Come on with the fucking zagnutbar. The original is a classic for a reason. Is this movie going to hold up to that in the long term? Thirty five years from now, will we be talking about Beetlejuice?
Beetlejuice which give them credit? The title is clever, I don't. It is just based on the premise alone of what the framing device of Beetlejuice as a character is. The title of the movie's great beal Juice Goheswainan is the thing we all wanted, obviously for the longest time and still do. But I think if we're talking legacy sequels, which this very much is, I think it's one of the better ones, if not up there with a good example of how you can.
Do this, if you want to do this. And that's the thing with this movie for me. Did we need this No?
Did we need this earlier than twenty twenty four, Yes, that's the problem.
Did we need it now?
No?
Did we need it twenty years ago? Yeah?
I kind of think so if we were going to be doing a Beetlejuice movie thirty five fucking years later, did people just wake up that Beetlejuice.
Was a character that we wanted to revisit.
No, I just I've never understood that the issue with legacy sequels that it took the industry twenty years to wisen up to we have all these things people like,
oh my god. Like, it doesn't take people going to Spirit Halloween and buying Beetlejuice shit for you to realize you have one of the more iconic characters that's been created, at least in terms of eighties movies, And it took thirty five years to get to this point for real, Like, it shocks me that we're talking about a Beetlejuice movie in twenty twenty four, not because I didn't think this movie would have ever come out, but because I didn't think it would have taken thirty five years to make
a movie about Beetlejuice. Again, given that there was a cartoon, given that the original was so successful, given that we are watching a second one thirty five years later.
Beetlejuice has multiple foreign parodies. Let's just put that out there. There are multiple it's been that long. Edward Penis Hands came out so quickly after the original. Edward Scissorhands. Okay, it makes sense to me that we're not really getting a sequel for that, but maybe we will. Maybe we'll get an Edward Scissorhands too, where we don't explain why Johnny Depp is aged all these years or something. Yeah, how about you, father Mallon, what did you think about Beetlejuice?
Beetlejuice. Here's a fun fact, gentlemen. When when Beetlejuice, the original Beetle Juice came out, studios used to do preview nights. They would do it like a week before the film was scheduled to come out, usually on a Thursday, and they would always partner it up with whatever was sort of failing at the box office. In this case, Beetlejuice was partnered up with Police Academy assignment to Miami Beach. And so I attended this special screening of Beetlejuice with
HP fellow weirding Way Media mogul HP. That was the first thing we ever went to the movies to see together as freshmen in high school. And I loved the fucking movie. Obviously went out about the soundtrack, was obsessed with it for years and years and was especially proud because Michael McDowell lived in Medford, which was the town over from my hometown, and wrote Beetlejuice because he hated his neighbors and wanted to imagine a way to fucking kill them all, and a bio exorcist seemed like a
good idea. So that movie hasn't diminished in any way for me over the years. Every time I watch Beetle Juice, it's just as good as when I first watched it. I don't have any problems with that movie like at all. So I wasn't surprised that they made another one, and I'm not surprised it took them as long as they did. The fact is the movie was never getting made unless it was Burton and Keaton right. Neither was going to
make the movie without the other. I am surprised it took as long as it did, and I suspect it went into production finally because of Jenna or Tega. I think once he figured that out and had Goff and Miller retool the screenplay to have this daughter character, I think that's why we got a movie. Here's the thing, though, I think that's unfortunate because I think that character is superfluous to the movie that we got. I agree with you, Chris, I think this is the best of the Legacy sequels
that we've seen. I think there's more to recommend this movie than not. I think the fan service sucks. I'm sorry it's in here, because I think the innovative stuff that they do in here is really fun. I like all the stuff we spent, all the time we spend in the fucking paranormal world, all the ghostly stuff is all great. It's so great, in fact, that I wish they had just done a reverse to the first film.
It spent the little time that we spend in the human world as opposed to it should have taken place entirely in the ghost world, is my point. But having said that, and I do have even greater problems with it, namely justin Thuru's character. I liked it overall. It was
a good time. It's when I saw the early trailers I was really scared because it seemed like whatever takes they were using of Michael Keaton, he seemed really tired, and I was worried that this was just going to be sad, and it's that was not the case at all. There's more of him in this movie than the first film, and it's welcome. I wish there was more of it. That's my take on Beetlejuice, Beetle Chips. What about you, Mike.
I don't think I liked it as much as you did. I think I liked it, okay, but it just it felt scattered. It didn't really feel like there was a real clear through line to this.
Yeah.
I'm also a huge fan of the original, saw that theatrically back in eighty eight, watched it a ton when it was on cable and vahs and just really enjoyed it. This one, it, this one almost felt more like a Men in Black sequel than a Beetlejuice sequel, especially with the Monica Belushi character, who just she gets like what two lines maybe during this whole thing, And there were times where I was looking at her going is that
Catherine Zeta Jones from Wednesday? Or is that did Tim Burton finally make amends with Alisa Marie and get her back? Because he certainly has a type and apparently he and Monica Blucci are now dating, which okay, I guess that's one of his rules, is that he has to date some of the cast members. I was, how and why Helena Bonham Carter, who is a fucking fantastic actress, gets
in here and I love into his world. I should say I love Monica Blucci, but she has nothing to do in this movie other than walk around, and it just felt like there was nothing going on with her, and I was like, where is she in relation to the rest of these characters. I thought Catherine O'Hara Delia had mellowed incredibly over the years, and maybe that's just
the way that life works. And of course just the introduction of the Jeffrey Jones character and that how that becomes a thing throughout the whole movie, this corpse walking around without a head and with a person doing at Jeffrey Jones in person Nation's voice coming out of it. Did we even need this? I thought it was nice having the sharp shaped tombstone, and I thought the production design of this was very good. I don't know if
we needed the musical act. I guess they were like, we did Dio in the first one, so we have to do MacArthur Park in this one, and I love MacArthur Park, and so this one was perversely enjoyable in that part, especially seeing all of the people lip syncing MacArthur Park. But and it's such a ridiculous song that I think that it fits this perfectly. But I missed
more of that Danny Elfman score. To your point, this is one of his best scores, and I know he did music for this, but it just wasn't as present as it could have been. There are characters in here that just drop in and drop out, like Wollem Dafoe, and I just I was like, please, guys, just give this another pass or two or three at the typewriter, because I think that it could have been way better.
But to both of your points, if you are here or Beetlejuice, I think it satisfies in that regard, right, Yeah, Beetlejuice is a tough character.
I don't know if you guys read those sequel scripts to Beetlejuice, Like there were at least two out there, and I know there's probably been more, but's it's a tough thing because he's like the shark from Jaws, Like you don't want him on screen too much, and it's smart to keep him away from things here I am complaining about Monica Balucci is too far away from things.
But I think they give us just the right amount of Beetlejuice because too much would have been way even more would have been way too much.
Can I disagree with that?
Actually?
Please? Because here's the thing. I honestly wish this had been a movie beginning to end Beetlejuice and then he has to come to our world to like fucking deal with his Monica Balucci problem. Look, I did not in any let me deal with Michael Keaton first, because I think I was worried too, and everyone keeps saying that but little of them goes a long way, which is true. And he's in that first movie only like twelve minutes.
It's the perfect amount, right. But the thing is, the human stuff going on in that movie is so fucking compelling that having this chaotic character show up every once in a while, it's just the right amount in this movie. I don't give a fuck about Jenna Ortaegis character, or her boyfriend or or anything else swirling around here. There's a lot that I really like in the movie, but it is, as you said, they needed another pass on
the screenplay. If this had been a even Okay, putting aside my fucking fan fictioning that it should have been from Beetlejuice's point of view, it seems to me, and maybe I'm crazy, that this at one point was going to be a love triangle movie between Lydia, her boyfriend, and Beetlejuice. Doesn't it seem like it was constructed.
That way a little bit?
Yeah, and not the fucking stupid boob of a character that fucking justin Thurrose playing, which, by the way, when you do that in a movie like this, you have one of our lead characters, one of our most beloved characters, fall in love with this fucking moron like it cheapens her, Sorry everybody, but making her in love with this boob does not aid her character in any way, shape or
for him. It's really it's hurtful. But if Lyddia had been in love with a ghost and she's and this other ghost is vying for attention, that could have been fucking great. It would have streamlined everything. But no, we have to have jan Or take in it because she's she's his real new muse in the movie.
Well, no offense to the actor that played the ex husband with all the piranhas on him. But who is he? Because I was expecting somebody big to show up. I was like, Oh, this guy's got to be at least like Pedro Pascal level or something, or somebody who I knew, And then this guy shows up, I'm like, uh, okay.
Yeah, how about Ewan McGregor or somebody Tim Burton's worked with. Danny DeVito was a fucking janitor for two second. Give us some Johnny Depp.
Yes, I don't know what to say, Like it's twenty twenty four, Give us some Johnny Depp for fuck's sake.
I don't know they work together enough.
They sure did.
And if you're worried about the optics that got rid of Jeffrey Jones, I didn't know.
If they didn't they Here's the thing. Does a claimation pedophile somehow.
Real pedophile?
Yeah?
It's all, But does it not? Does it take you out of the movie because it took me out of the movie.
Yeah, sure, there's a thing.
I loved the idea of a flashback being claimation.
I thought it was great.
Oh yeah, it really recalled Cabin Boy because it was that same style of animation that was in Cabin Boy.
But it's just Jeffrey Jones. And I'm like, there's a reason he's not in this movie. Guys, they didn't write his character as dead for just dramatic purposes, because if there had been no scandal, rest is sure Charles Deets would be in this movie.
Yeah, still acting weird thirty five years later.
Well, and she even gives a what's the name of the guy that Robert Guley played?
Oh shit, Maxi Priest.
Yeah.
They She even says at one point during the funeral, oh, was that Matchie Priest?
And I was like, oh, okay, the.
No I know that.
But also, isn't the character in the universe dead? He got shot through the roof of the house.
Oh that's true.
Yeah, that is.
We tend not to think of what happened to him, but he's most likely dead. He was launched through a ceiling of a century old house. By the way, one of my favorite bits in the entire movie is after Charles's funeral that the house itself is in mourning, that they've draped the entire house in black gossamer. I thought that was fucking hilarious. That actually made me laugh out loud. Also, I wish the trailer had not ruined the child choir singing the Banana Boat song because it being sung at
his funeral. That's the other that made me laugh really hard as well.
I was glad I hadn't seen the trailer. But there were several times during the movie where I was like, Oh, this has got to be a trailer shot. There's one where like the camera's tracking across faces. It might be at that funeral, and I was like, Oh, this is a trailer shot. And then there's another one where it's the City Model and they're inside of the attic and somebody comes in and goes, oh wow or whatever. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is totally from the trailer to it.
He has to be Yeah, you thought that he was gone. All you have to do.
Name Beatles us Beatles. Yeah, pretty much. And we did the fucking advertising for this.
This summer. Michael Keaton returns, Yeah, all right, we're good.
I'm the Blues with the most Babes, And he's the.
Best part of this movie other than the practical effects.
Oh, the practical effects are off the charts, They're great. That is the best part of this movie. Ultimately, what you will about Beetlejuice as a character. Say what you will about your my leg will vary with Beetlejuice, And I agree with you, Father Malone.
Look the first movie.
It's not that they didn't know what they had, but they knew what they had enough to keep beetle Juice off the screen so that.
He didn't get in the way.
Now I agree it would have benefited them if they had just given us more goddamn Beetlejuice and less of everything else. Because is it okay to say I don't get I get it with Jenna Ortega, but it doesn't do anything for me.
Does that make sense? Can I say that? Is that a thing to say it doesn't do anything for me?
I would rather watch Kieran Shipka because I think Kieran Shipka is what I think Jenna Ortega for a lot of people is, which is a very talented young person who got their start acting on a TV show that was on Netflix or is ostensibly known for it. And Kieran Shipka played Sabrina, which much better show than Wednesday
in a lot of ways. It doesn't have Louis Guzman in it, I get it, but I found Sabrina to be a much more interesting show that's talking about the same things, if not very similar things.
Look, I fundamentally think that that character should not be in the movies for the Goths, baby, and and the thing is like, the actual prototypical goth girl is Lydia dats like that's where it all begin. The modern goth starts with her. There's just no question about that. You've got her. We don't need another her. I would have appreciated something different. I don't need a little clone of Winona Ryder, the sort of brooding team.
No, it should have been if anything, her kids should have been the complete one eighty of her.
Right.
She should have been like Wednesday's roommate.
Whatever, Mom, okay, Mom, I like.
Would that have been a little on the nose, sir, But I think what they did was equally on the nose, if not, just as I don't know, I don't know. I did not think that her character was needed in this movie any more than you did, Father Malone. And again, I'm also just over the Jenna or take it of it, Jenna or take of it all, because she is just everywhere now and I have only really seen her.
Used well in a handful of things. This is not one of them.
She was good in Scream. She's great in Scream. Both of those screen movies, she's pretty good. Even a second one that's not as good as the first one, but she's great in it. But this is not that caliber. And again, to your point, it's what's the point of having just another version of Winona Ryder on screen that now they're competing with each other. That's a good idea, Like, no, like it would be like putting another Beetlejuice in the movie.
Do we really need to do that?
Do people really not realize how big of a deal Lydiadets is in this universe to so many people, like you said, Father Malone, like, she's as big of a character as Beatlejuice. She's the character that people probably resonate more with from these movies than Beatle Juice. Let's be
honest here, it's the weirdos that like Beatlejuice. It's the less weirdos that like Lydia Deats because she's the likable, understandable quote unquote character in the first movie, and especially for people who were y'all age seeing it at the time.
Winona Ryder, I don't know if she's trying to do an homage to that speech that was given at what was it where she had that confused look on her face, because that's what she's doing. Every time what's the guy's name, Rory, the justin Throw character speaks, she keeps doing that. What huh like totally confused.
I was like, is that is this?
Are we making a reference now to that? I guess that's what's happening. And then, really to your point with Jenna Ortega, so much of her story is taken up by this Jeremy character, the Arthur Kanti character, who you just see all of that stuff coming a mile away. As soon as they showed his parents and you didn't see their faces, I'm like, oh, okay, they're probably dead or their demons or something. And of course Jenna Artaga cancy spirits because she is the daughter of lead Lydia
Dead's okay, I guess this makes sense. And this is all within the first few minutes of this character showing up. I'm like, oh, yeah, no, I have this guy figured out, and he's going to be her entree into the underworld. I think it would have been better had she had a different entree into the underworld. Maybe if that tied into the Dolores story, the Monica Baluchi story, Baluchi story,
there we go something. It just it didn't like I said, It just feels like a whole bunch of stuff all thrown together, even when it comes to Lydia Deets in her psychic program, show me more, give me a little bit more of that stuff rather than I'm assuming all kinds of stuff with that show. But I really would have liked to have seen it, and I would have liked to have seen much more of They cut us off from before we find out what's going on with
the little dog and the family. I was like, Okay, I want to see what is possessing this house, but no, we'll get away from that. I'm like, this could have been some high comedy in this area, but instead we have to hurry up and get away from it.
Who would have thunk that this movie would steal from the best Ghostbusters sequel ever, Ghostbusters Too. It literally opens with hairless cats.
Weird.
It's literally that, which to me is this movie dates itself. These that's not a thing. This is not a thing anymore. Oh they're driving an electric vehicle. Okay, so it's twenty twenty four, but a lot of the sentimentality and sensibilities of this movie are trapped in nineteen eighty five, still in nineteen eighty seven, nineteen eighty nine, Like it feels like an eighties movie more so than a lot of
legacy sequels do, which is fine. I'm not complaining about it, but if it's going to be made in twenty twenty four, there needs to be a pass for the twenty twenty four of it all or the modernity of it all, and it doesn't seem to be interested in doing that
at all, which is fine, I get it. But this movie is set in the future, and they're juxtaposing it against a time and a place that time doesn't seem to exist in, and it just it's so strange to me that some of the choices that are made in this movie feel like straight out of other eighties movies and other eighties sequels that this movie, again is, in a lot of ways a comparative to This movie is
a comparative to Ghostbusters too. Did it take a much longer time to come out, Yes, but it is technically a sequel to a very successful eighties movie, and it literally has a plotline from one of those movies, dragged out and thrown right on screen, almost identical to the way that that movie opens with one of its main characters.
I think this is a better movie than Ghostbusters too. And as for Martin, but the sort of modern aspect of this movie, what are you talking about? The entire last third of the movie takes place as a giant joke for Soul Training.
Oh god, yeah, man, I'm a hep cat and I can dig it, can't you?
Like?
You know, it's wild? I was just like, how many of the kids watching this are getting this at all? How many as in this theater even know who Don Cornelius is.
Burton obviously has a seventies fat like The Dark Shadows was also set in this oh yeah name sort of seventies universe. And here's the thing. Had this movie come out fucking twenty years ago or in nineteen ninety eight or something, then this would all be fantastic, Like it would be like groundbreaking in a way.
Here.
It's just I loved it. I look, I love a soul Train joke. I love that there was a ghostly Don Cornelius there. That was all great as far as I can tell, but everything seems just a little too late to the game. Mike, you mentioned Monica Belu, She
like she doesn't really get much to do here. I would say further, like this character Dolores, who is the antagonist of the piece, what we end up with is once again a fucking jilted girlfriend or wife, the sort of crazy ex girlfriend character, Like she's coming to fucking kill because she's a nutcase. But then we get a flashback here, so we get to see Beetlejuice before he died. We get to see how Beetlejuice died, and she's a murderer. She poisons him and kills him, and in turn, before
he dies, he kills her. And now this movie she's out for revenge against him, but she killed him. Yeah, correct, So that's her only motivation. And you know, Mike you said about Tim Burton like constantly having a type and constant this is like this is more Titia mixed with Yeah, it's it's the patchwork Girl, but like a more goth version. Like when she went into a dry cleaners and started like picking off clothes and like turning them black by touching them. All I could think about is the sales
and hot topic. Oh and speaking of that, I am very excited to get a lot of undead hot dog on a stick girls this Halloween. Very much looking forward to it. Thank you, Tim.
Yeah, I also like you. I find the Afterlife to be the most interesting part and really would have liked to have had more there. I would have liked to have seen more of what Danny DeVito's up to as this Jaz character. But they also missed this whole idea, and this might have just moved the original movie along, the whole idea of when you're in the afterlife, time moves differently. There there's the whole thing of oh, you've
been gone for three months. It's three months. I was just there for half an hour, And of course that makes it so that, oh, what have the beats is done to the house. But at the same time, it's come on, guys, and I don't know the the Maitlands were supposed to be there for one hundred and twenty five years, but we're not seeing them anymore. I guess they'll last. So that was odd too. If you stay away from the house, you don't have to worry about the Maitland part of it.
But we got to go back to the house. We got to do this again. We gotta do that again.
I'm surprised that they didn't get I know, we've moved down from Tony Cox as being the little person of choice for Tim Burton, but I'm surprised we didn't get deep Roy coming back as like that same little priest character from the first movie too, because again we end with the marriage. It's again, we're doing this. We're doing the marriage again.
It's a legacy sequel, baby, and we got to do the things again. But yeah, where's Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis and all this. That's the real one of the real big questions I had here, because, like you mentioned, Father Malone. The first movie is ostensibly named Beetlejuice, but it has him in it as much as Jaws is in Jaws. His purpose is needed but not overdone. In this movie, they don't even are they even mentioned.
They are mentioned at one point, okay, so it's just says they moved on. I'm like, oh, okay, So.
In a world where the undead are the most important thing that we're talking about in the afterlife is this whole thing.
But they just moved on.
Okay, it's like they got mudded, like from Indiana Jones and Dial Destiny. They pucci themselves. They didn't make it back to their home plan and they died on the way home, like all right, whatever, fine Will Smith and Independence Day Resurgence. He just died off screen. This is his son Man legacy sequels. I don't think we should be making them if we can't get all the people involved.
I don't know.
Seems like a thing that we should be taking under advisement. If we continue to make these, which at this point, are there any left to make?
I guess there are.
I guess there are.
But in terms of eighties movies, I think they've run out. I think now it's going to be nineties in two thousand. But it's got to be because it's got.
To start.
Projects fair Speeders, Other Day Off.
Oh yeah, Edward Scissor Hands and spoon Feet.
Forty seven candles, what's the one they are already in? Pink Er, the next to last star Fighter. They are working at a last star Fighter as far as I know.
Two pretty too.
Pink Screeze every last drop of blood from every property that's already come before fucking kill them, destroy all the culture.
So we have to start new, or we could just have it at world's end, just an emp grenade set off and just destroy all of this. So we have to start over and new, because yeah, we've we've really worked ourselves into a shoot here in the entertainment industry. Because again I mentioned the idea that it took them thirty years to realize they could do legacy sequels. We didn't need to wait this long for this, And you said, Father Billam like, I get where you were getting at.
I know that they weren't waiting or whatever, and I know that Tim Burton and the Michael Keaton of it all make this a little bit different than everything else. But there was going to be a time where they were going to make this without Michael Keaton and Tim Burton.
Well, that would have been a terrible idea.
But look at how many sequels got made in the eighties and nineties without those primary people to begin with. Yeah, I think maybe this movie did benefit from waiting this long because now it's put on a pedestal. The spirit Halloween of it all does that, the universal studios of it all does that, The Beetlejuice is Halloween Review did that at Universal Studios. There was plenty of beetlejuice to
be had in the last thirty five years. It's just there was no more beetlejuice to be had in the last thirty five years, and so we just drove around the same racetrack looking at the same things. Oh, Big Ben Parliament, we've seen it a million times. So now
they're giving us more. I'm surprised that it is taking an industry who loves to give more this long to give us more of something that they clearly understood, for at least the last ten to fifteen years, was a thing that people really clearly wanted and were willing to spend money on. Because I don't know where you guys see the movies, but they had beetlejuice, fucking merch and all sorts of shit at the movie theater. I went to popcorn buckets and everything else, and by said, when
I say they had nobody were sold out. They didn't have any because everybody bought them. So I don't think that this.
Movie's hurting I nineteen eighty eight until now, the studio would have made this movie any year I believe that the actual holdouts here are Burton in which is a unique situation comparatively to a lot of them. It's your point, yeah, But mixed into that is the fact that because of this ip fucking madness, they've boxed everyone into fucking corners here. It's make this or don't make anything at all. So it makes making a Beetlejuice sequel a little more tantalizing.
Maybe Tim Burton gets to make some other fucking cuckoo movie after this. Oh I don't think for me one for you type thing.
I think what he's going to be doing is looking for his next maybe TV property to do, or other beloved film like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Planet of the Apes. What else can I ruin for people?
Did he ruin Planet of the Apes? Or did Planet of the Apes ruin itself?
He ruined Planet of the Apes? That movie is a piece of shit. I mean especially compare, yeah, compared to the Matt Reeves films, and you're.
Like, wow, compared, But again that's compared to the Matt Reeves films I'm talking about. When it originally came out, it was disappointing, yes, but some of those later Planet of the Apes movies weren't great anyways, is also my point.
It was only the fifth one for me was bad other than that fourth one, maybe second one, but I know some people love the second one. But the fourth Planet of the Apes movie is just as strong, if not stronger than the third, than the second, and maybe even the first.
Maybe I should rewatch them then I don't remember enjoying them all. The Conquest to the Planet of the Apes is my favorite. It's like the fifth one in the series, or fourth one.
No, Yeah, conquest is for battle for the Plan of the Apes is five. That's where the fifth face off against the mole Men. And that's got John Houston as the Longgiver and Paul Williams as Virgil. I think his name is wasted character.
But hey, we got some good talk show, late night talk show with Paul Williams and Ape an ape outfit that showed.
Show was great.
Yeah, and hey we got a lot of Beetlejuice doing Michael Keaton doing the exact same thing here out of playing Beetlejuice and advertising and all sorts of stuff. It's for as much as dead Pool and Wolverine was the beginning of the summer. This is like the waning days of the summer in terms of the big ip. Right, Like you asked me what my experience was like in the theaters. I went this afternoon and it was fucking full. Fuck it, it was full the way Alien Romulus was full.
And it was not surprised. But when I looked at the the ages of the people in there, there were children in the theater for this movie, and I was like, yeah, I was like, wait in a second, here, Beatle Okay, it's the Halloween of it all.
But not not a kids movie either, not really.
I feel like a kid would watch this movie and be bored, because again, there's a lot going on, but I don't think it's necessarily a lot going on for someone who's seven or eight right now in twenty twenty four, and there were those age kids in the movie theater. It was where the parents were there. I get it, But I don't know. Beetlejuice has been such as been kitty kitty ified down to like it's a kiddy thing now. The original Beetlejuice never struck me as a kids thing.
I guess I get where it is now.
Chris there was cartoon, remember right.
I don't know how many of the people that I know now are watching that cartoon with their kids.
Though, is my point? All of them, what are you talking about?
I don't know that for a fact, is my point. If you know that, it's perfectly fine.
But when I talk to my friends about Beatle Juice, I've never heard them mention the cartoon. They just mentioned watching the original movie with their kids. And the original movie is again for me, didn't strike me as a kids movie. But maybe it is, and I just don't realize.
It, just knowing the level of fear of Beatle Juice fans, just looking at their output on social media, They're watching that cartoon with their kids. They're consuming as much Beatle Juice as they can with their children. Should we call it?
Do you?
How many?
How many of the kids watching this movie in the past weekend were named Lydia?
You think a good A good lot of them? None named Beetlejuice, though I bet hopefully not.
Yeah.
I will be curious if this movie genuinely stands that test of time the way the original has. And I don't want to say it won't because that's to throw it out immediately, But does this have the staying power of the original Beatle Juice.
I'm interested to watch it again. Honestly, I liked it that much. I had it sounds like I'm really down in this movie. I'm not. I had a really good time watching it. It's just that you're stacking it against one of the perfect films of the nineteen eighties, right, we have to that's the fuck. It's the way it is, Like, I really liked that prequel to the Thing, but it's nowhere near the league of the original film. Like, yeah, it's actually I was thinking about that yesterday. I was
watching some YouTube videos about it. Was like, you should re watch that movie.
It's not half bad.
Oh, I like that movie a lot, But is it in the same caliber?
No, we're dear Well, that becomes the question, right, like, is our expectation that it should be in the same caliber or should do something different?
Or what's the expectation.
Maybe five years later? I want it to be perfect. That's the thing. If this were ten years later, all the faults with that, I'd be like, God, they did a really fucking good job considering.
Well, it's the alien three of it, all, right, Like we have fifteen months to make this movie. Why are you rushing?
Why not wait?
Let David Fincher make the movie, like make a movie here, like, don't rush? And yet here we are thirty five years later and we're now getting There have been how many sequels to Alien since? There have been one sequel to Beatlejuice? All of them, literally all of them. Think about that for just two fucking seconds. It took this long to get a second beal Juice movie. And we've had all of the Alien movies since essentially well other than Alien two.
Other than Alien two. Literally that's it, everybody would agree, or the first two best ones that barely get ragged on. Everything else beyond that is where your mileage is going to vary. But yeah, it took that long to get anything else for this, and it's wow. I would put this up against all of those as better sequels.
For the most part.
I can't believe you guys have talked this long without discussing Bob and Question and James or whoever. These other guys are rich characters, so good. I guess that Headshrinker was very angry at Century twenty one representatives and shrank all these guys' heads that I'll have the same yellow jackets. What so, Beetlejuice is working in hell now and he has office workers. I thought that was an interesting twist.
I don't know how successful it was. I guess Monica Blue she's pretty stupid since she thinks that Bob in the Beetlejuice costume is Beetlejuice. But yeah, that was a that was a choice too. That's one of those where I'm just like, Okay, we could have done something more with this, and we even end the film with all of the guys except for Bob out in the real world. I was really expecting a mid credit teaser or some sort of joke sequence with what these guys are up to.
I thought that would have actually worked out.
Well yeah, oh okay, well yeah, if that had happened like half way through the movie where they just started running amuck in the real world, like that could have been really really good. As it is now, it just feels like fan service, Like you like that fucking headshrinking guy right, like, well, here's a lot of them, Like what don't I don't need a lot of them.
Well, apparently Beetlejuice got his head unshrunk, because that's how we last see him in the movie.
I guess that's how you're promoted it in that particular department, I liked that. I liked that it was like a complaint department where everyone who was answering the phones had their mouths so and shut. I thought that was a nice metaphor in there. And again everything in the in the Afterlife, Like we haven't even mentioned that Willem Dafoe is a character in this movie. Is this like eighties action star who is often that he's investigating the Monica
Ballucci character, like he's really going for it. Willem Dafoe has never been more excited to be in a movie than than this, Like you just I really liked his character here.
The thing I liked the most about his character was his assistant who would show up and hand him the cup of coffee, and I noticed he crushed it at one point, threw it against the wall. And there's this whole basket of empty coffee cups that have been crushed, and I was hoping that would be a thing that he has to crush the cup. But at least she's there, and at least there are times where she just shows up out of nowhere and hands them a cup of coffee,
and I really like that. I also really liked the use of the Pino Dinagio score at the end when it's almost like Wednesday, when it's asterid stream sequence, and as soon as that music starts up, I'm just like, Okay, so we're doing a carry homage. We're gonna have something horrible happen. But then it ends up being the end of the fly and I'm just like, oh, this is another Geena Davis performance. I'd much rather see than having the the baby from Trainspotting show up and crawl across the ceiling.
I'm like, oh, okay, great.
Little juice Baby. How we five minutes without talking about Beetlejuice Baby.
I know we're gonna get beetlejuice Baby all over hot topic this year, and that's gonna be the new thing. It's going to crawl and its head will spin around and it'll make little noises. Maybe if you pull the string, it'll be like I'm the most with the most, babe, or something like that will come out of it.
Do you know what?
I realized The thing we haven't mentioned that is probably the bigger inroad to Beetlejuice Father Malone than even the animated cartoon has been for people. At this point, there was a musical, Oh my God, I forgot any award winning musical that the three of us all forgot about, And now we collectively have egg on our faces. Because that is why Beetlejuice is so popular now is because of it.
It has toe. I disagree fundamentally it.
It is a It is a well regarded musical just because we don't like it does it But the popularity of it makes it easier to stomach something like this.
I don't ay. I'm not agreeing with it.
I'm not giving it a pass, but I think it's weird how it reverse eats its own tail. It's we're going to make a movie that gets made into a TV show, that gets made into a musical, and now all those things are popular enough to go, Hey, let's start eating in reverse and get back to another movie, because that's where we are. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another Beetlejuice animated thing that comes out after this
on Netflix or something, would you guys? At this point, we don't know how much money this movie is going to ultimately end up making and how successful it's going to be. On the other side of this, I know Tim Burton has joked that it took thirty five years to make Beetlejuice too, and it's going to take another hundred to make the next one.
Lies, fucking lies. Don't lie to us. Don't lie.
If this movie makes a ton of money, you're going to do the next one immediately, because why wouldn't you. At this point, I'm not saying this movie is set up a sequel, but it didn't leave it completely close off at the end. If anything, the ending of the movie is a little strange. It ends on a weird note with Beetlejuice and Lydia, which could be explored further down the road.
Frankly, a couple of things. I saw an interview with win Oda Ryder who said, for all the years it took that she had been talking with Burton, whatever they would mention that this possibility of a sequel, she would always say that in her mind, Lydia should end up with Beetle Juice, right, And I completely agree with her. And when he woke up next to her in that dream, I went Oh my god, are they doing it? But they actually, that's great, And then she wakes up again.
Oh no, it's another horrible dream, and I'm like, oh, but that could have been interesting. That's something okay. And now I would also like to do fundamentally disagree with you, sir. A couple of years ago, my wife and I turned the front of our place into the Dante's inferner Room from the original Beetle Juice. Had nothing to do with that fucking musical. Ten years ago I worked at a haunted house, a year round haunted house. We did weddings there.
You have no fucking idea how many Beetlejuice weddings I was witnessed to there. That was in twenty twelve. That musical is a flash in the pan. Bullshit. It is an addendum to be able. It is a product of its continued popularity amongst the people it is. It is influencing zero.
I get where you're coming from, and we are at log your heads on this, but I think at the end of the day, to both of our points, Beetlejuice is still in the public conscience one way or another, regardless of what it is from. Because people having Beetlejuice weddings or again, the amount of stuff at Spirit that is Beatlejuice is more than I think anything else at Spirit in terms of branded merchandising for a singular movie. There are other horror things, but they're not getting as
much stuff as Beetlejuice does. And I think it's I think it's like almost the de facto Halloween movie too in a lot of ways, Like it's part of that conversation in the what is the you know, we're going to talk about all kinds of those movies this year in October, But I think this is one of the ones, if not like the one clearly they're not. I guess the other is hocus Pocus. Really, that's the other thing
that they have a lot of merchandise for. But that's one A and one B of the same coin in a lot of ways.
I imagine if I ran over to hot topic right now, if I can find one that, I would find more Nightmare before Christmas stuff than I would Beetlejuice stuff.
No, you would find more Beetle Juice than Night Member before Christmas. Night Before Christmas is past a now for people my age, it was nightmer Before Christmas. But now for younger people, I think Jenna Ortega is that inroad to Beetlejuice for them that Liken and ELM's Nightmer Before Christmas does not have because it's a it's characters being voiced by people, as opposed to oh look it's Wednesday Adams again doing that thing.
There were actually children who grew up on Night Christmas. Now it's beneath them. We're looking for the next as the slaver, and this is it.
I'm not sitting here talking about the quality of Beetlejuice the musical. I've listened to it. It's fine, it doesn't need any of our help. But I think the different thing is just like it opened up an avenue for Beetlejuice to be popular with a whole group of people. I'm not sure they even gave a shit about Beetlejuice. Frankly, the statement that it's influential at all is false.
That's all. That's It's like your opinion, man.
According to Beetlejuice Broadway dot Com, it's a screamingly funny musical. It is a dropping funhouse.
I heard that it's the best thing you could get jerked off to in Denver in twenty twenty three.
Holy shit, that's oh I missed connection.
That's right.
That's the only time I had ever heard of Beetlejuice the music right from that news story.
Holy shit, it sure was for a lot of people.
It also was Wow, there's a Beetlejuice musical and it's good enough for someone to get stroked to.
So you're saying that we have this legacy sequel. We need to thank Lauren Bobert for.
This, I hope.
So Wow, there's a lot of black and white all over it. I'll accept that that I could get by all right, or in front of, or however.
You want to interpret it.
It looks like Beetlejuice the Musical is on tour. Unfortunately, they're going nowhere near Michigan, but they are going to be in El Paso in November December. Chris, if you want to head down to that in Texas, because I'm sure Texas is very close wherever you're at. Actually, they're going to be in Toledo in February, so I might you know, I.
Already have my tickets to the other movie based musical that's coming through Lincoln this year. Back to the Future the Musical the other thing that literally I'm going to see it. Of course, not what in God's name is wrong with you, but the fact that I had to the fact that every time I drive home from Omaha, I see a billboard saying check out Back to the Future the Musical this summer.
It's Oh, I'm good, I'm real good.
And I felt the same way about Beatle Juice. Like the opening song for Beetlejuice the Musical is pretty catchy, but beyond that, these movie musical things are a dime a dozen.
They really There's.
American Psycho the Musical, and it wasn't an opera, it was a musical musical.
Wait stop, please get help. Like Michael Jordan.
Said, I see chimps and that's the best one.
I love you Doctor Zaias. That's the best one.
Yeah, we have the whole arc. He hates all the chimpanzees, but then by the end he loves doctor Sayas.
That's true.
I love yous. Been on Yeah, Selm of the Fish, great episode of that show. A fish named Selma as a fish nat that's right, ye, holy shit.
Tickets for this musical in Toledo two hundred and ninety five dollars a person. I wasn't kidding, Go fuck yourself.
That's instane DNA.
That's the cheapest.
Now you can go all the way after five hundred and eighty five.
This is fucking crazy.
Beatlejuice in the musical for six hundred dollars.
Who would want to spend one thousand for two people that go see a musical.
About a movie that you can watch undoubtedly on a streaming platform.
God, this is crazy. Who are these people that buy these seats?
But those are Hamilton prices for Beetlejuice musical quality?
This is yeah, this is Toledo, man, this is fucking tele.
It hit us with one might come on? What holy Toledo?
Oh sorry God.
I guess that is the ultimate question though with something like this, because we have seen legacy sequels take a while to come out, and then another movie has come out pretty quickly afterwards. We talked about a Ghostbusters sequel not being a thing for a long time, and now there have been two in the last decade.
Do y'all think that there will be a third Beetlejuice movie?
Two?
I thought, Oh agree? Are you forgetting the all female.
One talking about canonical one. We're talking about the ones that people want to acknowledge. Look, I know that there are some people that like that twenty sixteen Ghostbuster movie. Have at it.
I was not talking about that movie, correct.
I think that it's there's one hundred percent guarantee you we're gonna get a Beatle Juice, Beetle Juice, Beetlejuice. And if instead Tim Burton wants to give us a television series set in the paranormal world, I'm comfortable with that.
I know that Sylvia Sydney has been gone for a long time, but I really would have liked to homage to you know, your caseworker. Yeah, it was sad for me to not get hurt. Yeah, I just have. I'm damning this movie with faint praise, and I do mean damning. Yeah. It was all right, but it just I'm not gonna be watching this like I watched the first one. I went back and rewatched the first one just earlier this week,
and I still love it, absolutely love it. That joy at the end with the other Harry Balafonte song is so fun and with Lyddy up there floating in the air and all the football players showing up on the steps. Everything is so joyous in that movie, and I just didn't get the joy in this one, or even the frights. Even when Beatle just shows up as that giant snake and tries to scare everybody away, I thought that was really effective, and I didn't get any of that with
this Is It because I'm so many years older. Maybe, but I just again I felt like it was just thrown together.
Does this movie even attempt to do what that first movie does in terms of any horror beats?
Not really.
That is a pretty pretty successful horror beat in that first movie, The thing with Beetlejuice becoming the handrail on the stairwell and then the snake, that scene is pretty I remember that scene scaring me as a kid, like straight up, because I saw Beetle Juice the first one as a kid, and I remember that scene scaring me as a kid. I don't think there's anything in this that comes close, because again, I think to your point, Mike,
you put it very aptly. And I think the more I've sat here and I've had it on in the background and I've just been thinking about it, like the Men in Black of it all is really shocking. And again I guess it's the whole bureauification of the undead experience that translates the one to one to the bureauification of the alien experience right with Men in Black. But I would spend more time in this world without Beetlejuice.
It's like I would spend more time in the world of Men in Black without Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The world that they've created is almost more interesting than the character. I get that the Beetlejuice character is the center of all of this, but he doesn't have to be the next thing that they do. They could do something else in this world if Tim Burton wanted someone
else to, because, like you said, botim alone. Tim Burton kind of controls the keys to the kingdom on this because this is this is like so many things for him, his baby clearly, So there you go.
Please don't sticking to the other side of it, because it just so reminds me of I don't know, RIPD or some of the other ones where it's just like ah, and maybe that's where the Wulm Defoe character was rubbing me the wrong way, just that he was Wolf Jackson and you barely see the poster behind him. I'm just like, I really would have liked to have known more of Wolf Jackson and his movies and all these things, and
just that he's a pompous asshole. Maybe cast somebody younger in that role, because I think that would have been cool to be like, oh, he's the hip young detective type of thing. But seemwol and Dafoe's I was great, and seeing has Green exposed was pretty darn cool as well.
But yeah, it just there are so many bad ways that could have gone with this, and I'm glad they didn't go as fully bad, even though they had to cop out and use the sandworm to destroy the bad guy at the end of this, which I'm just like, Okay, we just saw that. We just saw that in the first movie back in nineteen eighty eight.
Come on, we need a bit of fans service.
It's just a lot of fans. We didn't really talk about the fan service a whole lot, Father Malone. You alluded to it being not great, Like the fan service in this movie is fucking bad, like Poller Well, and what the question becomes when is fan service not? For the most part, I think the times it's not. Are the ones we're impressed by more than when they are? Because is this more or less intolerable than Ghostbusters Afterlife, which I found to be just as intolerable in terms
of its fan service? Is this for y'all as intolerable because I found it to be.
It's more intolerable in this movie for me because I was really enjoying every other as not every other aspect, but a lot of this movie. I enjoy ghost of it or more than the Ghostbusters movie. I like this movie. I'm going to watch this movie again.
At least the fan service didn't factor into the overall conclusion of the movie entirely because having that Harold Ramus ghost thing show up at the end of that movie will never be a will never be a choice that I understand why they made, other than to just fan service your movie. Daveus X raymis style. Okay, thank god this movie didn't do that and have Jeffrey Jones show up as the headless corpse to do something. But the Sandworm is a close second.
It really is.
When you watch this again, please tell me if anything ever becomes of that. I guess he's Portuguese. The Tigre I believe it's the character name. He gets hit in the head, he dies, he's got the big nod on his head. We see him a few times in the End of the World, and then he just disappears, and I'm like, again, like the headshrink, guys, I'm like, where are these guys? I was hoping for more of him.
I thought he might actually play a part in this, but instead, by having him in here several times, it draws attention to him, and I don't think we're supposed to be paying that much attention.
To him now. I was going to ask you guys as well, if you saw him show up again, like maybe he was on the soul train at the very end, because it did seem like they were sitting him up for a more important character than he was, because he's featured a few times, Like I thought he was going to be some sort of bumbling character throughout he keeps
coming up against the bureaucracy of the afterlife. But nope, if he's just going to be the way we get to the after life, which I thought was clever because he falls into an open manhole clever and dies and then suddenly we're in the fucking cuckoo all the angles and checkerboards world. But then like, well, why go back to him at all? If he figures into it, not a I wonder if he's if stuff cut out for time.
I've got to assume that that's what it is, because I and again I think it's either cut out for time or again a ever changing script that has spent thirty five years being written, and who knows how much of it. They were like, we'll just leave that in. You can be wandering around in the background versus ken. We've got a whole sandworm segment where they're on the where they're on Jupiter, and here are the sandworms that
we've seen this before? Is this doing cgi sandworms doesn't doesn't help anything here?
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
When she gets there and she says, I must conquer the worm, I must conquer shi Halued, I was like, that's a little on the nose. Doesn't that talk about.
Fans without rhythm walk without rhythm?
Both Lydia and Astrid end up on Mars at a certain point with the sandworm, and then they come back and no time has changed at all, And even a moment in that world gave you a few hours of difference. Where was that all about? And what I was saying was, I'm very, very curious to read the Seth Graham Smith version of this script, like the script that they almost made, that they kept almost making and then Goff and Miller came in and rewrote.
It for this final was that Beetlejuice in Love?
Well, look, Seth Maraham Smith is still a creditive writer on this movie. So, like I said, I'm curious where what his draft was like before they rewrote it, because obviously there's enough of his left in it that they give him a credit.
And here I was thinking when I saw Goff's name show up, I was just like, oh, he must be related to Michael Goff who was Alfred in those two Betman films.
But no, he's not. He This guy was born in Baltimore. Yeah, I know. These are the guys who did Wednesday and Smallville and the fucking one of those those Jankie Chan movies with the Rush Hour Old West No, no, no, the Old West Ones, Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knight. Yeah, they wrote those great films, a cinema classics, and then Beatlejuice.
Yes, gim beetlejuice to these people, please, Yeah, they could have given it to Freeberg and Seltzer and did Yeah.
Thank that for that.
I want to thank my co host Chris and Father Malone for joining me on this episode as we talk about beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. But before we head out, Chris, what are you working on these days?
Sir?
All the things that I work on can be found over at culturecast dot com, where this month we're talking all about films that Father Malone picked for a little foray into things that I had not gotten a chance to watch up until this point in my life, which is a list of things that if you join us in September you'll get to hear all about. It's some Batman Returns, Little Untouchables, a whole lot more coming your way over Weirdingwaymedia dot com.
What about you bottom alone, I'm over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com too. You can hear my show Midnight Viewing. It's on twice a week Mondays. It is a weekly round up show of streaming and current things, and on Friday the show alternates between the Horror Anthology podcast, where we're taking a look at Talents from the Dark Side. That's the show I do with these two gentlemen. And the alternate show is Anthology's Attack, which is a show we do about anthologies of every kind of genre. I do
that with Antonio Laport. You can check us out over there, and if you want to support us, go to patreon dot com slash Father Alone.
As for me, everything that I do is also over at Readingwaymedia dot com except for a little thing that Chris and I and Richard Adam do, and we will be joined by our good friend Father Malone as well. As we talk about the movie. I think that's is that two from now or is that the next one? Because we just did Diamonds Are Forever, We're about to do our first Roger Moore, is that.
Okay?
Wow, all right, I'm excited for you in your heart? Well yeah, come on over there to patreon dot com slash Projection Booth and patreon dot com slash Culturecast, where you can hear us talk all about Rankin on Bond. You can also join our community over there at our patreons get all the good stuff. You can also join Father Malone's Patreon. He also drops episodes early and probably commercial free, a lot freer than what Spreaker is doing to us right now. So yeah, come on over there
and check us out. Please rate and review the shows. All of these shows, where we get them, we would greatly appreciate it.
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