The latest film releases include Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Front Room, The Thicket, His Three Daughters, and Seeking Mavis Beacon. Weighing in are Katie Walsh, film reviewer for the Tribune News Service and The Los Angeles Times, and William Bibbiani, film critic for the Wrap and co-host of the Critically Acclaimed Network.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
This is a sequel to the 1988 movie about a young girl who can summon a mischievous ghost exorcist named Beetlejuice. Tim Burton is the director again here. The cast includes Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, and Michael Keaton.
Walsh: “The first one has such a singular handcrafted charm, especially with all of the practical effects. And this felt a little mass-produced to me.
… Everyone's back, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, we love them, and they have really fun, wonderful chemistry as Lydia Deetz and Beetlejuice. But there's a lot of celebrities in this. Monica Bellucci shows up as this ex-wife of Beetlejuice, who's glowering around. And Danny DeVito makes a cameo. Willem Dafoe is in it. Jenna Ortega plays Lydia Deetz's daughter. It just felt busy and chaotic, and at the end of the day a little bit generic, almost a little bit bland.
I did have fun with it in moments. I think it still maintains that irreverent, naughty sense of humor. And it has a beautiful style, and still tries to maintain some of that practical quality, while combining that with CGI. But I just felt it was a little flimsy and disposable.”
Bibbiani: “I don't think anything can possibly hit the same as the first one. We take it for granted now because it's been so popular for so long. But when Beetlejuice came out, it was really weird. It is an odd motion picture, from the perspective of the ghosts in a haunted house, and it's a bureaucracy, and it's a comedy, and all of a sudden we're on Saturn being chased by the worms from Dune. So what we have here is basically, ‘Hey, remember Beetlejuice?’ And I say, ‘Yes, movie, I do remember Beetlejuice, and I think I remember it better than you, because you contradict a lot of stuff from the original movie.’ And the movie's like, ‘No one's gonna care. Here's a bunch of random stuff we assembled in a vague chronological order.’”
The Front Room
This psychological horror is about an expectant mother who must take care of her partner’s crazy racist stepmom. This stars Brandy Norwood in the lead role, and British American actress/theater director Kathryn Hunter as the stepmom.
Bibbiani: “I think this is a really, really wonderful film. It's also spectacularly funny in a way that is clearly 100% intentional. They're selling it as a dark psychological thriller, and it's that too. But Brandy and Kathryn Hunter have a remarkable chemistry in which Brandy gets to play the straight person to Kathryn Hunter camping it up like nobody's business.
… It is so sharp about the way earlier generations have the ability to lord things over and manipulate younger generations, whether that's through a religious holier-than-thou attitude or through economic manipulation.”
The Thicket
When a bounty hunter and a group of unlikely heroes go after a killer, they end up in a dangerous landscape called the Thicket. From the streaming channel Tubi, this Western flick stars Peter Dinklage, Juliette Lewis, and Metallica’s James Hetfield.
Walsh: “This is based on a book by Joe R. Lansdale. It's one of those hyper-stylized, hyper-violent Westerns that, to me, felt just a little dated … it would have been edgy maybe 10 years ago. But it has a real pushing-the-boundaries vibe to it. … I think the film is trying to use the period setting, the Western genre, to talk about gender issues, especially whether it's the exploitation of women or people who are gender non-conforming. I just don't know that the movie really has a clear idea on what it wants to say about that. But it's pretty high quality. It looks good. Good actors. I'm not sure that I was all that impressed with it, but it's not bad.”
Bibbiani: “What they're doing … is attempting to make a film in the vein of True Grit, in the vein of The Searchers, with a different visual aesthetic. This is cold, this is icy. … It's interesting that they have a character who is clearly gender non-conforming and who doesn't have the vocabulary in order to deal with that, and is making their way in a time where no one knows how to respond. And now they've found themselves becoming quite the … unapologetic villain. … And I think that's an interesting, complicated conversation to have. I think it's unusual that the film doesn't really come down in any meaningful way about its take on that. But I also think it's good that we can have a film in which a character who is gender non-conforming can just be treated as is.”
His Three Daughters
This follows three sisters — played by Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olson — who must take care of their ailing father. The filmmaker, Azazel Jacobs, focused on small, intimate stories about family relationships in his previous works.
Bibbiani: “I think this is a really wonderful acting showcase for everyone involved. They play three sisters. Their father is dying, and they all have very different personalities. … They didn't really grow up together. … Carrie Coon is very controlling and passive-aggressive. Natasha Lyonne is very easy-going, but also very non-confrontational with her overbearing sisters. And Elizabeth Olsen is a bit more of the spacey maternal type. And half of this movie is just them not communicating. And yet we learn so much about them. And the actors have such strong interpretations of this material, and it really becomes both funny and sad at the same time.”
Walsh: “I think that the film is really special. And it gets to this idea about family and relationships, and what everybody wants out of this process of the end of someone's life. And I actually am the middle of three sisters, this really hit home for me in a lot of ways. And the person who stands out the most for me in this is Natasha Lyonne, and her performance is just really authentic, and gutting, and just really struck a chord with me.”
Seeking Mavis Beacon
This documentary is about a search for the fictional character whose face and name adorns a program that teaches typing skills.
Walsh: “If you were of Beetlejuice original-loving age, you probably remember Mavis Beacon. It was the typing program that I learned in a computer lab in elementary school … Mavis Beacon, this AI woman but based on an actual model's face, taught you how to type. And so this Black female filmmaker, Jazmin Jones, and her collaborator, Olivia McKayla Ross, they [work] on this film, which is an academic exploration, spiritual journey, and actual investigation into trying to find who the model was, who represented Mavis Beacon for this software program that was written by three white guys who made a lot of money because it became the most successful educational software program in schools. So it's a really interesting documentary because they're combining these academic ideas and theories, and also this investigation … coming at it from a place of real strong ethical questions about digital privacy and personal privacy. Does this woman want to be found? And what does it mean that these young Black children were able to see a representation of a Black person and technology? And what does it mean also for, primarily, the AI helper bots that we interact with, like Alexa or Siri, why are they always coded or represented as female?”
Bibbiani: “This is actually, I think, my favorite documentary I've seen so far this year. On the surface, it's an investigation. Can we find this person? And that's interesting. … But what they're really talking about … is the place that women and people of color have had in the world of computing, and how Seeking Mavis Beacon gave a lot of people an entryway. But also, where are we now? It's funny, it's sad, it's fascinating. It's a very deeply rich experience, and I recommend it to anybody.”