Cool World

 This movie was released in July 1992.  It stars Brad Pitt as Frank Harris, Kim Basinger as Holly Would, Gabriel Byrnes as Jack Deebs (the artist that allegedly drew the place) and Candi Milo as Linette, Frank's love interest.  In the movie, Frank is a real person detective in the Doodle's place "Cool World."  He loves Linette, but as sex between a person and a doodle would cause great havoc and destruction, he isn't actually with Linette.  Holly doesn't care about rules or propriety and would do anything, including sleeping with real people to become a real girl, herself.  Holly leads everyone on a nightmarish roller coaster ride in her quest to become human, and ends up calling the artist to the world in her quest.  Jack Deebs is warned about the dangers of possessing a fountain pen, here and the actor, Byrnes does a good job playing a confused and overwhelmed artist.

This movie came out on the heels of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." and improved and expanded the genre of movies that mixes animation with real people.  Its actually my favorite crossover animation movie of all time.  I decided since I did a review of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, I was going to review other favorite movies.  "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is actually my third favorite movie of this type.  Its almost like, back in the early 90s, Apple invented Windows applications and technology, but IBM perfected it.  The plot of this movie is intricate.  Kim Basinger does a bang up job with her vixen + villain role in this movie and the ending is somewhat, poetic justice.  Brad Pitt is a reliable and professional actor who does an awesome job in this movie.  His skepticism of Holly is refreshing.  Holly expects everyone to fall for her see-through charms and Frank isn't having any of it.  Holly's malice toward everyone isn't instantly obvious and that is Basinger's success here.  I think there needs to be more mixed genre's of movies like this and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" but I gather the type of movie is probably somewhat complicated to pull off.

Holly is probably best classified as a "maneater."  She cloaks all of her bad intentions in flirtatious and deceptive sexual aggression that looks like coercion.  Even the audience doesn't realize the extent of her malice till near the end of the movie.  I'm guessing Basinger has met a few of these types of chicks in real life, as have I, and I think Basinger's portrayal is awesome.  The way men fall for Holly and drool over her is certainly similar to real life examples of the diva.  Too bad, so few of them get even close to the just desserts that Holly gets by the end of the movie.

5 stars

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

 

This is the second installment of the Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz story.  It was released in early September this year.  It stars Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz, Catherine O'Hara as Lydia's stepmother, newcomer Jenna Taylor as Lydia's daughter, Astrid and was directed, of course, by Tim Burton.  Lydia loses her husband in a tragedy in this installment, and is still haunted by Beetlejuice who still wants to marry her.  Astrid is a troubled teen who doesn't believe the first thing about ghosts.  Clearly Astrid inherited her mother's smart alecky ways and intelligence in this movie.  Her disbelief in such things leads to an accidentally foray into the afterlife and Lydia is forced to call on Beetlejuice, once again for help.

This is a dark comedy, just like the original.  I must say that this wasn't quite as good or complex a plot as the first movie, but for a new movie to aspire to displace my favorite movie (the first installment) would be a great accomplishment.  Having said this, this is an engaging, amusing and non-disappointing movie.  Any movie that includes Keaton, my favorite actor, is an awesome movie.  Keaton is very much a pro and is also a hilarious and intelligent in all of his roles on the silver screen.  I've never seen a movie where Keaton did not make the movie work, if not cause it to be extremely popular.   Burton makes blockbusters and  Keaton makes movies.  Winona Ryder is one of those people that seems to live by the "well behaved women don't make history" and her star is bright in this movie.  Her career was not hurt by "Stranger Things," and she almost seems kind-of bored when she made this movie.  But it was very good to see her return for the sequel.  And there was plenty of meat on the bones of this plot.  It was almost like Lydia just turned down Beetlejuice out of habit in this one, too.  Astrid is a thoughtful and bold teenager just like her mother was, (without the suicide note part) and Taylor did a bang up job in her debut in Hollyweird.  A familiarity with the original movie is somewhat necessary to understand the plot of this one; it is not a standalone story.  Missed the Maitlands in this movie, but the movie works fine without them.

Beetlejuice will always be my favorite movie -- even if a technically more perfect version of the storytelling mechanism were to come out.  I have several favorite things that challenge everything about all the dogma in the world with skilled satire, wit and humor.  Beetlejuice, Final Fantasy XIII, and the Sword of Shannara to name some of my favorite examples of engaging and humorous looks at prophecies, dogma and other garbage generated by flawed world religions.  I just love this movie.

5 stars.