The Honoraries: Harry Belafonte, Beetlejuice (1988)... and Selma (2014)?

In our miniseries "The Honoraries" we're celebrating the four talents that'll be honored by the Academy at the Governor's Awards this year. Here's Nathaniel...

Or, rather, here's soon to be Jean Hersholt Humanitarian winner Harry Belafonte's immeasurable contribution to Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988) - included below since it seemed appropriate for Halloween. When I was a kid these Belafonte songs weren't new to me since my parents had a few of his records but I imagine for a whole swath of young moviegoers in the 1980s this was quite an introduction. Two of the movie's key scenes were basically handed over to his joyful voice and catchy songs.

"Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" was originally from Harry Belafonte's "Calypso" album, his third, in 1956. The song was a top five hit but the album was an even bigger sensation spending over half a year as the #1 selling LP in the country. "Jump in the Line" the Belafonte number that closes the film through Noni's floating dance was a cover recorded for his 1961 album "Jump Up Calypso".

Beetlejuice (1988) and political activism after the jump...

Click to read more ...

"Beetlelink! Beetlelink! Beetlelink!"

If you say it three times, a link roundup appears from the other side!

By now you've heard that Tim Burton and Michael Keaton are prepping a sequel to the 1988 comedy classic Beetlejuice, largely because Burton has long since run out of ideas and better a sequel than another remake, right?! If they name it "Beetlejuice 2" instead of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" I will be disappointed in their mundanity. I love that movie but honestly if this project does not star Winona Ryder I hope whoever deigns to see it will sit in the theater alone... *utterly* alone... because the rest of us should boycott. Noni was the best thing about the original aside from its playfully smart comic visuals including the Oscar winning makeup.

Now a few links...

E! Online reactions to the awful Parks and Recreations hiatus news
Women and Hollywood on male directors and depictions of female sexuality: Chile's awesome Gloria and France's buzzy Blue is the Warmest Color discussed 
Film School Rejects on the short film Next Floor by Denis Villeneuve. You should see it. It's so good and Villeneuve is having a prolific "moment", what with the 1-2-3 punch of Incendies, Prisoners and Enemy.

Oscar Horrors: Makeup for the Recently Deceased

Daily Oscar Horrors until Halloween!

HERE LIES...Beetlejuice which heard its name repeated just once at the 1988 Oscars when it won Robert Short, Steve LaPorte and Ve Neill the award for Best Achievement in Makeup, banishing Scrooged and Coming to America to play with the sandworms.

Michael C. here. As a child of the Eighties I spent my formative years inundated with every variety of gore, slasher, and massacre Hollywood could throw at me, and yet it was this zany ghost story, more comedy than horror, that succeeded in getting under my skin where so many so many escaped mental patients failed. Such is the ability of a little twisted imagination to triumph over buckets of blood. There was just something about the sight of Alec Baldwin popping eyeballs on his fingers like so many olives that never failed to creep my seven-year old self out. Tim Burton knows - or at least used to know - that there is excitement in skirting the line between enjoyably goofy and genuinely unsettling. (See also: Large Marge)

There are many moments in Beetlejuice for the makeup team to show off. There is the rotting of Baldwin and Davis during the exorcism, the general moldiness of the title character and the hilariously slow-on-the-uptake football team ("Coach, I don't think we survived the crash.")

Best Most Fun Achievements in MakeUp

A big reason I harbor such affection for this work is that it never for a second attempts anything approaching realism. The makeup team aims instead for the more admirable goal of being fun. Keaton's look as Beetlejuice, for example, is so unapologetically theatrical with his fright wig hair and the dark circles around his eyes that he wouldn't be out of place in a silent movie. 

But this is to the film's credit, and why the Oscar was justly awarded. The creative character design of Beetlejuice is still fondly remembered while thousands of more technically impressive ghoulies have blended together into a late-night cable blur.

Oh, and I can't be the only one who has always wanted to see this from Adam and Barbara's point of view, right?

Beetlejuice costume ideas for Halloween
Makeup and Hair posts 
"80s Oscars" articles
Previously on Oscar Horrors

Curio: Costume Dramas

Alexa here.  Every year my desire to arrive at the perfect Halloween costume sees me trolling the internet for ideas.  Unlike my husband, who can throw together the perfect Carl Spackler costume in 10 minutes, I need to plan ahead, and I can't sew well enough to get really creative.  Someday I'll create the perfect Maude Lebowski Valkyrie look, but this year, on my daughter's orders, I'm going as a chicken.  Here are some looks I'd rather be wearing for Halloween.

A Black Swan Rodarte replica, $700, from this shop.

Take a flowered house dress, some duct tape, and this book, and you'd have the perfect Geena Davis Beetlejuice look.

Click for more including Marilyn, Catwoman, and Mattie Ross...

Click to read more ...

"Introducing" Winona Ryder. Here's to 25 Years in Movies

Congratulations to our Noni on a quarter century in the movies. Twenty-five years ago yesterday her first film (Lucas) hit movie theaters. Jump forward a quarter century and here she is again; Black Swan hits DVD today as if celebrating that very silver screen anniversary. People will be popping in the Black Swan DVD and Blu-Ray all over the place today and there she'll be, glass raised perversely. On her own behalf?

Oh sure, it's an in-character moment as "Beth", retiring prima ballerina, but don't think for a second that Black Swan's casting wasn't carefully orchestrated for the mirror affect of all those dark pale beauties not to mention the the cruel passing of the stardom and movie goddess batons.

I bring up this unpublicized anniversary because Noni could use a little public love... or at least Hollywood could use a public reminder that she still has many fans. When she's used correctly, as she was in Black Swan, she's really something else.

I fell instantly and madly in love with her the very first second I saw her in Lucas, which is as stated the first time anybody had the opportunity to see her onscreen. She was all of 14 but it wasn't pervy. This was 25 years ago and we were both babies... so age appropriate! Just look at her. This was the thunderous moment, burned forever into my brain.

I was bursting in my seat "who is this?!" Truth: This is the very first time I ever looked for a name in the movie credits. This was four years before IMDb even existed y'all. I memorized her name and hoped against all hope I'd see her again. Beetlejuice rescued me two years later. People kept calling it a "Michael Keaton Movie" and I'm like "WINONA RYDER! Squeeeee!!!" and everyone is like "who?" and after Beetlejuice nobody asked little me that anymore.

Lucas is a sweet movie but it fell apart right then and there because the whole movie is about how 14 year old Lucas (Corey Haim) has a crush on 16 year old Maggie (Kerri Green) and then THIS girl walks in, his friend Rina (Noni) and you immediately realize she loves him and he barely even notices her. So Winona is forced to look at Corey Haim (RIP) longingly for the whole movie. Like SHE is unworthy of him.

Oh, the humanity!

Do you remember the first time you saw Winona? And for those of you old enough to remember movie-watching before the internet (That would be 30somethings on up), did you ever have that "I must find out who this is!" credit scroll moment with anyone?

New to the Film Experience? Try us out for a few weeks to see if you like.
Related Posts of Note: Overheard: Black Swan, Sassy Gay Swan, Aronofsky's Favorite Actors