Tim Burton is the creative force behind some of the most celebrated films of the last four decades, internationally recognised as a master of the comically grotesque and the endearingly misfit.
| Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara, Winona Ryder, and Jenna Ortega star in Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 comedy, “Beetlejuice.”Illustration by Ricardo Diseño |
Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice” (1988) derived its title, by way of a phonetically useful misspelling, from the name of Betelgeuse, a centuries-old demon who delighted in pranking the living and the dead alike. Played by a marvellously repugnant Michael Keaton, with a barf-smeared face, a sex pest’s leer, a charlatan’s patter, and a voice of boozy gravel, Betelgeuse was a figure of malevolent play—a puckish parasite of the afterlife. Dare to summon him, by saying his name three times in quick succession, and you were in for a hell of a headache. But you were also in for some fabulously macabre spectacle, realized with special effects that, seen today, are all the more captivating for their old-fashioned, handcrafted inventiveness. At Burton and Betelgeuse’s command, inanimate objects sprang to vicious life, staircase bannisters coiling into lethal serpents, and a jauntily stylized blue-green underworld—full of shrunken heads, plucked eyeballs, and other grisly evidence of violent death—beckoned to us from beyond.
The director’s long-imagined follow-up to his 1988 cult movie Beetlejuice revels in some gleefully silly moments while narrowly avoiding that dated feeling
Hollywood has a history of reanimating the decaying corpses of long-dead movies with belated sequels, so perhaps it was just a matter of time before somebody delved into the grave marked Beetlejuice. That someone was only ever going to be Tim Burton, director of the original 1988 film, and although discussions about a Beetlejuicesequel were reportedly under way for decades, Burton maintained that he would only consider it if Michael Keaton reprised the title role and any sequel remained faithful to the spirit of the morbidly eccentric original film. On both these counts, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice succeeds. As the prankster demon “bio-exorcist”, a suitably manic Keaton scuttles through the film like a giant cockroach in a striped suit, while the decaying DNA of the original picture is evident in every hyperstylised frame of the sequel.
| Ransom Riggs and Tim Burton |
By Tim Lammers
Ransom Riggs certainly doesn’t mind being called a peculiar person, and not just for the fact that he wrote the novel “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” which spawned into a best-selling book trilogy. He’s peculiar in Hollywood, especially, because he’s a novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker, and not necessarily in that order.
Sweet: Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton looked cosy on Thursday as they stepped out for their first red carpet experience together since confirming their romance
Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton looked cosy on Thursday as they stepped out for their first red carpet experience together since confirming their romance.
The Italian actress, 59, and iconic film director, 65, put on a loved-up display at the Diabolik Chi Sei premiere at the 18th Rome Film Festival.
Monica showed off her age-defying figure in a figure-hugging charcoal gown that complimented her gorgeous frame with a criss-cross neckline.