Beetlejuice (1988)

 

If you’ve not seen the original Beetlejuice in a while – and I hadn’t seen it in decades until it was time to refresh my memory for the release of the sequel – you might have forgotten that Michael Keaton’s title character actually isn’t as much of a focus as you might think. A lot of the first half of the movie really involves the somewhat mundane lives of Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis) Maitland, a yuppie couple who are restoring a lovely but old-fashioned house in Connecticut until they die in an automobile accident and find themselves stuck in a sort of afterlife limbo. The Deetz family moves into the house, and Delia (the great Catherine O’Hara) decides to make it into the most postmodern nightmare of a house you could imagine. With the help of her clearly gay-coded “designer” Otho (Glenn Shadix, oozing with that bitchy gay demeanor for much of the film), she offends the aesthetic tastes of even the dead couple, who decide they need to find a way to rid their home of the Deetzes. They have just one issue: proto-goth child Lydia (Winona Ryder), who has the ability to see the couple even though they’re dead. Keaton takes over the plot about halfway through the film after his Betegeuse is hired (well, sorta?) by the couple to drive away the Deetz family. He’s a sort of “bio-exorcist,” someone who allegedly can frighten people in the real world away from a place like the Maitlands’ house, but really, he’s just a scam artist who wants to marry Lydia so that he will have the power to wreak havoc in the real world. Keaton brings such a crazy, insane, manic energy to the proceedings, a sharp contrast to the slower paced first half, that it’s probably good that we remember his character as having a bigger role than it actually does. He really does bring a level of spectacle that had been missing earlier in the movie. The film won an Academy Award for its makeup, and Keaton’s title character has to be a major part of that win. The edges of his face are masterfully done. However, it wasn’t nominated for its production design even though that too is spectacular. The house becomes such a focal point, which is appropriate since it’s the epicenter of so much of the film’s action, and the twists and turns in the bureaucratic halls of the afterlife are mesmerizing in their detail. The legendary Sylvia Sidney shines in a tiny part as the couple’s world-weary or afterworld-weary caseworker; that husky voice of hers is on full display in this film. Who knew the afterlife was so much like an overburdened social services administration? The original film is funnier than I initially remembered, and the running gag over trying to say (or not to say, as the case may be) the offensive demon’s name plays for solid laughs throughout the story. And any movie that puts the music of the great Harry Belafonte to this much effective use has to be applauded. You may never listen to “Day-O” or “Jump in the Line (Shake Senora)” the same again, and that’s a good thing.

Oscar Win: Best Makeup

Die Hard (1988)

Die Hard is one of the wildest Christmas movies ever made. New York City police officer John McClane (Bruce Willis in what has become his most iconic role, making fine use of his sarcastic edge) arrives in Los Angeles during the holiday season to attempt a reconciliation with his wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia, perfectly cast for her quick thinking and placid demeanor). He arrives at Nakatomi Tower in Century City where his wife works as an executive for a Japanese corporation. Unfortunately, John isn’t the only person to arrive at the tower that evening. A group of terrorists, led by the West German Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman, marvelously chewing all the scenery within his range and exhibiting such a sense of glee at playing a villain who is so evil), attack the tower at the same time. Gruber and his cohorts take control of the tower and hold everyone inside hostage except for John, who was changing clothes when the attack began, and the ones they kill to make a point to the rest. John only has contact with one person outside the tower, LAPD Sgt. Al Powell (the great Reggie VelJohnson, getting to have a range of reactions to what he’s hearing and seeing). Gruber claims that he and his cohorts want the release of prisoners from around the world, but that’s a cover for the real plan: they are after millions of dollars in bonds and artwork in the building. Much of the plot of the film is a series of successful steps by McClane to thwart Gruber’s men followed almost immediately by setbacks in foiling their plans. It’s truly an action-oriented film, with scenes involving elevator shafts and unfinished floors in the tower. McClane has to outsmart them, and it’s really you-win-some, you-lose-some for much of the movie. Well, that and explosions. Die Hard is a very special effects-heavy film, and the explosion of a helicopter is especially spectacular, which is saying quite a lot considering how much time was spent to make the effects so effective. It’s also a lot of fun, featuring moments of great comedy, such as the two FBI agents named Big Johnson and Little Johnson, and McClane’s tendency to swear in increasing inventive ways (“yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker” is justifiably famous). And, of course, McClane resorts to throwing one of the bodies of the dead villains out of a window onto Al’s car in order to get the policeman’s attention. It works, by the way. By the time Willis is barefoot and wearing just a soiled tank top and pants, you’ll also think Die Hard deserved a nod for its costume design. When Gruber learns (via the reporting of a particularly unctuous TV personality played by William Atherton) that Holly is McClane’s wife, the tension becomes even greater. At more than two hours in length, the film never loses the viewer’s interest, and it has rightly become one of the most loved and most popular action movies of the 1980s.

Oscar Nominations: Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Visual Effects

Mississippi Burning (1988)

Mississippi Burning, nominated for Best Picture of 1988, was filmed in part in Mississippi and fictionalizes a key historical moment in my home state's recent past. Ostensibly, it's about the investigations surrounding the disappearance of three civil rights workers in 1964. However, the filmmakers are not (apparently) attempting to represent what happened with historical accuracy. Instead, this film examines the culture of Mississippi that led to the three men being killed during Freedom Summer.

Can I admit to having never particularly liked this film? Of course, I can admire some aspects of it. The performances by Gene Hackman and Willem Defoe and Frances McDormand and even Brad Dourif are all strong. The visuals are pretty spectacular as well; it is a beautifully shot film, even when it depicts some of the uglier aspects of people's behavior at the time. Yet I still cannot watch the film without feeling as if the filmmakers are trying to ridicule all of the people of Mississippi, trying to depict everyone in the state (with one notable exception) as being racist and/or violent.

All you have to do is watch Defoe's character, a Northern FBI agent, tell Hackman's character about what is wrong with the people of the state to get a sense of what I mean. Hackman's Rupert Anderson is a native of the state, so he understands its people differently than Defoe's Alan Ward. This is a source of constant conflict between the two men, resulting at one point in Ward pointing a gun at Anderson's head in order to get him to submit to his more Northern way of thinking. (Apparently, there are no racists in the North or anywhere else but the South.) I suppose I could applaud the filmmakers for having these two men present a complex and varied understanding of what needs to be done in the state, but frankly, the story is too lopsided to support that sense of complexity.

The exception I mentioned above is, of course, McDormand's housewife. Married to the deputy sheriff who is involved in the murders of the three civil rights workers, her Mrs. Pell gets to deliver a speech about hatred of other races being a learned behavior rather than one that is genetic. She delivers it well, certainly, because McDormand is an enormously talented actor, but it is a rather condescending speech overall. And then she gets beaten up when it becomes clear that she has been helping the investigation. So in the state of Mississippi, any good white person, anyone who reaches out to support or help the black community, is going to be punished?

I particularly disliked the "interviews" with "real" residents that are used to simulate news broadcasts of the time. Almost everyone of the people who appears on camera during these moments says appalling things about blacks. And the director, Alan Parker, was rather infamous for having said that he wanted people who looked like "real Mississippians" for these moments. The fact that they all look like rednecks must have pleased him a great deal. And the words the screenplay puts in their mouths? Repulsive. (He did also say, upon leaving the state after filming, that he felt things hadn't really changed all that much in the intervening 24 years. Apparently, he left thinking that white Mississippi has not progressed much, and that attitude is rather evident in the final film.)

Look, I'm not defending white people or Mississippians. They don't need it and they don't really deserve it. This film covers an awful period in the state's past, and it's certainly accurate in many ways about the racism that was so widespread at the time. Evil things were done at the time, and those who committed these kinds of crimes deserved more severe punishment than they usually received. It just makes me cringe when the only good white people in the film seem to be from the North, except for one woman in an entire town and she has to be brutalized to show just how deep the racism is. Only the outsiders seem to know how to behave properly. Isn't that a bit heavy-handed? I know some will point to the portrayal of Hackman's Anderson as proof that someone from the state has a better understanding of the situation and is, therefore, more effective, but he only seems to be successful when he too uses brutality to achieve his goals. That's hardly a ringing endorsement for his approach.

I could also fault the film for its cowardice in not being more historically accurate. The true story of what happened to Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, the three young men whose bodies were found in an earthen dam, is still worthy of being told. However, this film does an injustice to them and their colleagues in the struggle for civil rights by exaggerating events surrounding the investigation and concentrating much of the time on the struggles between various white characters. As another blogger, also from Mississippi, put it, the real story is both far worse and far better than this movie attempts to show. I've actually never quite understood the admiration that people hold for this film, and after watching it again recently, my previous assessment of it was only reinforced. Someday, perhaps, these three young men will have the movie about them that both they and we deserve.

Rain Man (1988)

May I admit to having never been that impressed with Rain Man, which won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1988? It has always seemed far too slick a film, too certain of itself, too smug, to make me feel any true emotions about its characters and their situations. Even the much-lauded lead performance by Dustin Hoffman as an institutionalized autistic person who is taken out into the real world by his brother leaves me cold. I do understand that it's all well-made ("slickly produced," I'd suggest), but to me, it just doesn't have that much of a heart.

Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) is an importer of cars who's having some difficulty getting his latest purchases into the country when he hears of the death of his estranged father. He's left only two things in the will, the automobile he was never allowed to drive and the family rose bushes. The rest of his father's estate goes into a trust, a fact which infuriates Charlie, sending him in search of the lucky recipient of all of this wealth. By a series of rather unbelievable circumstances, he meets Raymond (Hoffman), his brother who has lived most of his adult life in an institution. Charlie decides to take Raymond to California with him, contest the trust, and use the money (or, at least, half of it) to solve his own financial problems.

What follows is a road movie that makes very little sense, frankly. If Charlie would listen even briefly to any one of the numerous health professionals who try to counsel him about Raymond, he would know better than to assume control of his brother's caretaking with so little preparation and understanding of autism. The reason they drive across America is even more astonishing; Raymond won't fly any airline that has ever crashed, leaving them only with Qantas, hardly a feasible option for getting from Ohio to California, at least directly. Time and again, Raymond's familiar patterns get interrupted, causing him to have some very violent and loud outbursts. You'd think Charlie would develop a sense that he isn't doing right by Raymond, but that never seems to happen.

I know what you're thinking. I've misunderstand. You see, this film is about the development of Charlie's conscience. He does indeed become a better man because of his contact with his long-lost brother. And they do build a relationship with each other. They just had to have the time to do it slowly so that Raymond could learn to adjust. Yeah, I got all of that. I'm still not buying it.

Perhaps the problem lies in Hoffman's performance most of all. I know he's considered one of the greatest actors of his generation, and he has certainly turned in any number of performances that I do like, but this isn't one of them. I just found it gimmicky. It's as if he learned one trait that is associated with autism and sticks with it for more than two hours of film time. There's no real sense that this is a person; it's a cardboard figure of someone with autism. And even the moments that are played for laughs--like the one about the airlines--are, to me, rather condescending to the struggles that real people with autism must endure.

Cruise, on the other hand, does what I consider to be some of his strongest early work. He seems to be at his best when he has to play shallow, self-centered characters, men who need to have something taken away from them so that they can begin to appreciate and understand life better. In Rain Man, he demonstrates a pretty remarkable range of emotions, and his performance rings truer for me than Hoffman's does.

I know my reaction to the film might strike some as odd. It's just that this film is a good example of the kind of movies that Hollywood started making around the middle of the 1980s. Actually, "making" might be the wrong word; "packaging" might be more accurate. Major stars? Check. Plot line sure to tug heart strings? Check. Serious topic being addressed with gravity? Check. Beautiful cinematography of the parts of the country that don't usually appear in movies? Check. A funny line every few minutes to break the monotony of seriousness with which we must handle the subject matter? Check. It's movie-making by committee, and it dominates too much of the product coming out of the studios these days. Rain Man just happens to be one of the first major examples of this trend, and I'm not a fan. Sorry about that.