Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

The Juice is loose...all over the front of my pants.

36 years later, everyone's favorite trickster demon is back! And this time, he's NOT going Hawaiian (?). One of the most anticipated releases of my inner child, it feels appropriate to nut this one after the franchise had been dormant for so long. The results are mixed, to be sure, but enough of it works if you hold your memories of the original in high regard. If nostalgia is more your speed, this will stoke your childhood delights. Keaton, as in the original, is the highlight and major draw here, but Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Monica Bellucci and Jenna Ortega all bring something to the table. Beetlejuice remains a lovable miscreant as ever, and best yet, it doesn't tarnish the legacy of the original. One only hopes it won't be so many years before the whole gang gets back together once again.

3½ cakes left out in the rain out of 5

Out of the frying pan, into the fire...

Hey all. Bud here. You may remember me from...well, a long time ago. Can you believe it's been 13 long years since Doc and cuckoo created In a Nutshell? I've always loved this blog and it's held a special place in my nether regions for all this time. I know I've been MIA for a decade or more, but now I'm back to exact my revenge! My reign begins anew! Bwa ha ha ha ha! Err...I'm probably just talking to myself at this point, aren't I?

In honor of the 13th anniversary of In a Nutshell (and 4 years since the last new post), what better way to commemorate this momentous occasion than with a revival series of reviews? I've got a backlog of material in my back pocket, and my nuts have been backed up for quite some time, so I'm ready to explode it up into the rafters and unto the world. Tissues optional.

We'll see how long this goes. Consider it a figurative 'passing of the nuts' from Doc to bud. Maybe one day we can wrangle back the rest of the crew and have a merry old shindig reminiscing over past, better days. For now, sit back and enjoy the ride! Here's to ushering in a new era of Nutty goodness. Long live our hairy, twisted, gnarled, malformed nuts!

Those Who Do Not . . .

In September 2020 Blogger forced a complete dashboard overhaul upon all users of its service. As a desktop PC user, the push toward a phone + tablet style interface has greatly soured the joy I'd typically feel at creating posts.

In response, I'm lessening my Blogger activities. Presently, that means no more In a Nutshell for the foreseeable future. (I'm shutting the door, but keeping a light on.) I'm extremely proud of how it's evolved over the years and have really enjoyed the time spent on it, initially with companions and the final few years as a solo reviewer. Often, it helped me achieve peace.

Before I confront the Nutshell-shaped void that will no doubt be felt in my life, I want to sincerely thank everyone who made me laugh and/or took the time to read my ramblings. It was just a blog, but it was more than that, too.

- CLOSE -

The Iron Giant (1999)

Based on Ted Hughes' 1968 novel The Iron Man: A Children's Story in Five Nights, it tells of a friendship between a spirited nine-year-old youth named Hogarth and a fifty-foot iron giant from space who eats metal, which is an activity that doesn't go unnoticed by the townspeople. When a busybody federal agent begins snooping around, believing the visitor to be a foreign threat, he causes more problems than he had intended to solve.

The 1957 setting has a wonderfully rich aesthetic, populated with well-fleshed out secondary characters, purposeful cold-war caricatures that personify governmental paranoia and coercion, and many loving nods to 'atomic age' science-fiction movies. Crucially, beneath its era-specific strengths is an inspiring emotional layer that's uplifting and unquestionably timeless.

5 duck + cover sirens out of 5

The Water Babies (1978)

A loose adaptation of Charles Kingsley's 1863 book of the same name, the film is notable for its blending of live action and animation, which likely doesn't seem as special now as it did back in the late 70s. Set in 1850 in England, it's the story of twelve-year-old Tom (Tommy Pender), apprentice to a cruel chimney sweep (James Mason). When Tom is blamed for something he didn't do, he escapes to an animated fantasy world, which gives the film its name.
The animation side of things is colourful and the primary moral lesson is straightforward and easily understood, but there's some broad cultural stereotyping that may seem crude by today's standards. Billie Whitelaw plays multiple roles, which doesn't make a lot of sense, but she brings a welcome level of real-world wonder to what at times is a pretty grim way of life.

3 transformations out of 5

The Aardman Collection

I didn't know it at the time, but as a regular viewer of children's art shows Take Hart (1977–83) and its successor Hartbeat (1984–93) I got my introduction to Aardman Studios through Morph, the show's loveable claymation character (far right in pic above). But it's as creators of the Wallace and Gromit stop-motion animations that the studio is best known - at least in the UK, further afield it may be as makers of Chicken Run (2000). Regardless of which of their creations you think of first, there's no denying that the Bristol based studio is deserving of a Collection post all of their own. I bet even Chas would agree.

Wallace and Gromit:
01. A Grand Day Out (1989)
02. The Wrong Trousers (1993)
03. A Close Shave (1995)
04. Cracking Contraptions (2002) TV Series on Nut Box
05. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
06. A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008)
07. World of Invention (2010)  TV Series on Nut Box

08. Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)

Other Works:
A Grand Night In: The Story of Aardman (2015)

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)
Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

Asylum (1972)

In the best of Amicus' anthology films, Robert Powell plays a psychiatrist seeking employment at the Lovecraftian sounding Dunsmoor Asylum. To prove his suitability he must identify a specific inmate by interviewing each one briefly. However, the stories they tell, written by Robert Bloch (adapted from his own works), may themselves be the product of an insane mind. There's a murderous husband who's final insult is his undoing, a struggling tailor who's asked by Peter Cushing to make a suit with "special" material, a deadly alter ego, and a man with some odd ideas about dolls. The frame narrative is better integrated than usual, and the music more memorable, making great use of Mussorgsky's superb Night on Bald Mountain.

3½ occupational hazards out of 5

The Minion (1998)

Maintenance work on NY's subway leads to the discovery of an ancient chamber with an unusual resident, around whose neck is a strange artefact, the discovery of which plunges struggling archaeologist Karen (Françoise Robertson) into the centre of a long-running conflict between good and evil.
The title refers to a body-hopping, growling spirit in service to the Antichrist, who wants to bring on the Apocalypse. Between the minion and his goal stands Dolph, with faith in his heart and a spiked glove on his killing hand.
There's a commendable amount of fictional lore in the story, and the attempt at establishing a common thread between two very different belief systems was interesting, if unsuccessful, but the production, acting and action are weak. It has two different musical scores; my version was the shit US one.

1½ warrior monks out of 5

A Study in Terror (1965)

A story that puts the fictional Sherlock Holmes (John Neville) into a real life historical setting, namely Whitechapel, on the trail of Jack the Ripper.
It must be a difficult thing to make Holmes seem ineffability clever without also being arrogant or smug; Neville manages it some of the time, but his sleuth definitely crosses over into the less likable sphere from time to time.
With the exception of Carry On queen Barbara Windsor, who gets colourful attire and some actual characterisation, the prostitutes are blank tools. The city fares better, with dingy alleyways and rain-soaked cobbles. The sound of night-walking heels on the latter is suitably atmospheric.
The murders are violent for the era, even when they aren't shown directly; the most unsettling of which is surely the lengthy POV scene that puts us into the killer's world while simultaneously masking the perpetrator's identity.

2½ maxims out of 5

Criminal Justice (1990)

A slow-burning TV drama about a father with priors (Forest Whitaker) accused of assaulting a Brooklyn prostitute (Rosie Perez) who was someplace she ought not to have been, doing something that would land her behind bars for the night. The viewer doesn't see the woman's assailant, so it comes down to her world against his, and only one of them puts any value in truth.
The story would hold its own ordinarily, but the passion and believability of both Whitaker and Perez take it to another level. It shows both sides of the argument, as the months roll by. But more than that it examines the justice system itself. Presented as something that isn't just broken, it never functioned to begin with, as anything other than a self-serving entity that prioritises saving time and money over the thing for which it was named.

3½ burdens of proof out of 5

Over the Top (1987)

Stallone plays Lincoln Hawk, a father who's been estranged from his ten-year-old son (David Mendenhall) for the boy's entire life. The kid is a US military school brat, bordering on insufferable when we first meet him. At the behest of the youth's mother, Hawk spends time with the kid, hoping to get to know him during a lengthy truck ride across states. Trouble comes from the boy's overbearing grandfather, who wants trucker Hawk out of the picture.
It's a pretty clichéd story of an absent father who has to fight to knock down the walls of his child's preconceived notions and feelings of abandonment, and the bonding can be disappointingly mawkish at times, but it has the charm of a 1980's VHS rental, and I have a fondness for that kind of thing, When in Vegas it tries to be the Rocky of arm wrestling, and it does a half-decent job at it. I was inwardly (but assuredly) cheering for pops during the finale.

3 shoulder pillows out of 5

A Prayer for the Dying (1987)

Based on a 1973 Jack Higgins novel of the same name that I haven't read, it stars Mickey Rourke as an IRA member named Martin Fallon. When a plan to murder members of the British Army goes wrong, the bomber flees from the North of Ireland to London. He claims to have had enough of killing, but accepts a job to kill once more in order to fully escape. There's probably meant to be a tragic irony in the situation, but asking an audience to sympathise with the likes of Fallon with little justification is asking too much.
Alan Bates does well as a cultured funeral director who's also a gangster, but Bob Hoskins is miscast as a catholic priest who has a past of his own. The film strives for a remorseful moodiness, but achieves mostly unevenness.

2½ changed tunes out of 5

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)

The first horror anthology from Amicus Productions stars two of the genre's greatest actors, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. The former is the titular Doctor, but the House isn't literal - the setting is a night-time train carriage into which he steps. He tells the fortunes of the other passengers, each of whom experience a glimpse into their individual futures.
In no particular order, there's creatures of the night, voodoo happenings, and killer vines, among others, with an occasional just deserts situation, and the frame narrative having a twist of its own. I can't say without going into spoiler territory why I thought the frame ending was detrimental to the whole, but maybe I expected too much from the studio's first attempt. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the various settings and the performances of the lauded cast.

2½ conveyance predictions out of 5

Warning from Space (1956)

We're told that mysterious objects from space have landed in a number of major cities around the globe, but the story takes place in Tokyo. As a lifelong fan of 1950s sci-fi, I've seen some odd creatures onscreen, but the ones in Japan on this occasion are pretty darn unusual. When their first attempt to infiltrate the population is unsuccessful, they try another way, which is good for the budget. And for a while it seems as if the story is laying groundwork for a commentary on atomic power that’s distinct from most films of the era, but it really doesn’t stay on that track. In the end, it’s a sober tale of aliens on Earth and scientists battling impending doom that has a quick-fix ending.

2½ luminous bodies out of 5

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)

A  feature-length episode of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror that's the film equivalent of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. Limited choices appear onscreen; to advance the narrative you must pick one only. It starts simple, such as what music the character will listen to, but it gets increasingly dark as the story goes on. At least, my experience did. I opted for choices that I'd take, not what I thought was best for the character (Fionn Whitehead). Sadly, it led me to what in video game parlance would be the 'bad ending'.
Usually when deciding what score to end my thoughts with it's on a like-for-like scale, but I've not seen a film like Bandersnatch before, which poses a problem. And the story as I experienced it might not be the same as the one that you get, which makes scoring an even more meaningless concept.

␦␦ pathways out of ⑃