718: Review of 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice'

travel back in time to the 80s reliving the pop culture i want my mtv i want my mtv the lingo 30

inches of thigh slapping blood pumping nuclear brain damage and the love casey could you please

play waiting for a girl like you because just like you we're stuck in the 80s can you say stuck

in the 80s

hey sweetie what is it we're not supposed to say again

nobody says the

b word benji our dog no no come on you know oh you mean beetlejuice close but come on say the

words that we both thought after seeing the new movie ah gotcha hollywood please stop making

sequels to 80s classics hey it's okay you know why i don't want to do business with you dead

beats anyway thank you

hey everyone welcome to stuck in the 80s it's your old pal spears and today we give you a quick

review of beetlejuice beetlejuice the juice is loose with me today it's the return of mrs spears

hey say hi to melissa braverman happy to be back here from all the way across the house

yeah i think we are approximately 12 yards away from each other i think so with benji standing

watch yeah benji the dog is is going back and forth between our two offices as we record this

um here's why we're doing this today we went to see the new

beetlejuice sequel last night here in orlando we went to the theaters at disney springs there's an

amc cineplex there and it was a pretty full house and what was really fun to see was there were

several people in costume dressed as beetlejuice wearing beetlejuice t-shirts so you could

definitely feel the nostalgia in the air when you were in the coach shop um shopping before the

movie this whole family went by and they all had on different beetlejuice t-shirts and then they

had these two little girls that were dressed up in like these lime green monster dresses it was

adorable i still remember watching it at one of my slumber parties as a teenager on vhs wait a minute

i want to hear more about this slumber party where this was in new york this was in uh our

toronto days okay okay so you're okay so circa how old were you about this time uh i would have been

14 15 14 or 15 slumber parties okay well that's interesting so what so

you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're

girls only or is it a mixed crowd or what's the story uh girls only very g-rated other than the

movies we were watching so your parents just like let all your female friends come over and crash

at the at the house well what was lovely is the apartment building we lived in had a party room

in the basement so we were able to go downstairs with our sleeping bags schlep the vcr down there

and have our all-night movie festivals with plenty of junk food without disturbing mom and dad

is the junk food in canada any different than the junk food here uh i don't think so i'd probably

argue the chocolate is better but it's usually better anywhere outside the u.s okay i remember

seeing the original movie which came out in 1988 i would have been in college probably my junior

year and i think we went to the theaters to see it and i remember i wasn't really

hip to the idea of like a dark comedy i didn't really know what it was i didn't get the genre

at that time i didn't know what it was i didn't get the genre at that time i didn't get the genre

at that point ah well i attended juliar i'm a graduate of the harvard business school i travel

quite extensively i lived through the black plague and i had a pretty good time during that i've seen

the exorcist about 167 times and it keeps getting funnier every single time i see it not to mention

the fact that you're talking to a dead guy now what do you think i just remember being kind of

confused for maybe the first 15 minutes or so and then suddenly it just kind of it all clicks into

place and you're like ah this is this is something really different this is something really fun

well i think really tim burton style you you have to be a little older to fully appreciate it but

certainly the comedy was there and the chemistry between the cast and i just remember laughing a

lot with my friends when we watched it that makes sense so here's a quick plot summary of the new

movie and we're going to try not to give away anything too important so beetlejuice beetlejuice

is set about 30 or so years later from the original picture

lydia deets reprised by winona rider is now a single mother and a host of a paranormal tv show

called ghost house her daughter is astrid played by jenny ortega delia deets played by the great

katherine o'hara returns as lydia's stepmother she is now a accomplished artist in new york

and lydia is still haunted by the memories and the occasional appearance of beetlejuice

yes you know reprised of course by the great michael keaton uh and it turns out beetlejuice

is still kind of pining away for his lost love in the afterworld where he's now probably

appropriately in charge of the afterlife call center first of all i want you two kids to know

this is a safe space okay feel free to express yourself don't be afraid i sense there's an

enabler here but we'll get to that so the family returns to the sleepy little town of winter river

for the funeral of charles deets meanwhile in the afterworld it turns out that beetlejuice

had a wife previously who makes to escape her confines and seek revenge on him and we'll end

it there because it's at this point that we'd have way too many spoilers yes so what did we think um

there there was a point maybe 20 minutes into the movie where i was really tempted to turn to you

and say do you want to go do something else i was thinking the same thing as usual always on the

same page as as a whole it's not bad

that that first half of the movie though i'm just disappointed long-distance relationships

could be difficult especially when one of you is dead and the other is ignoring it for 30 years

but lydia and i we have a definite psychic connection and i'll tell you something she

definitely saw me that last time i felt a little tingle it's not it's not as bad as

the coming to america sequel i don't think any sequel could be as bad as that no

and it's but it's nowhere near as good as go

after life or top gun maverick agreed the first half the first third of the movie is kind of dull

but it does come together in the second half after a really unexpected interesting twist and i loved

the the nods and easter eggs to the original that you see throughout the sequel um delia's very

strange oversized sculptures handbook for the recently deceased which plays an important role

in the plot and if you look closely in one of the first half of the movie you'll see that the

scene you'll see a plate of shrimp which is a fun call back to the infamous dayo dinner party scene

in the first movie yeah no in fact you spotted those a lot quicker than i did i had i didn't in

fact until you we were driving home that you told me about the shrimp and i'm like oh i totally

totally missed that one i'm sure there's probably 10 or 20 other easter eggs that we missed

here's my issue though i've read that this has been a project that's been in the works

uh more or less for about a year and a half ago and i've been thinking about it for a long time

about 10 years and so i have to ask is is this really the best they could do i mean it just feels

like it could have been written over a long weekend agreed it definitely feels like they

put more thought into the soundtrack which is awesome and we'll talk about in a minute

um you know the interviews that you read with the cast you can see how much they loved working

together which i think is what really fueled the sequel and i just read an interview with

michael keaton where he said it was the most fun he had on a movie set in years

and that definitely shows in the movie and once again his character is given the best lines i

would say the biggest laughs in the movie definitely come from beetlejuice is there

a little bit more profanity in this one than i remember from the original uh a little bit but

what's interesting is um i heard that the the beetlejuice musical was a lot bodier so i don't

know if that maybe you know had some inspiration in making this one a little saucier than than the

first one

yeah i'll give you that the chemistry between the cast is incredible and even jenny ortega who

wasn't obviously in the original she just slipped right into the to the cast with everybody else

and just acts like she was there from the beginning perfectly cast as winona ryder's

daughter definitely uh justin theroux is in the movie as sort of the uh boyfriend of lydia

and i gotta admit that i i don't i'm not a real

completist when it comes to the justin theroux catalog of that makes two of us so but i i was

just like this this is a role that could have you know been done better well it's just he's a very

one-dimensional odious character from the beginning yeah i guess i guess that's that's it i just

sometimes i can't separate the actor from the role there's some interesting speaking of actors

and roles and separating them from each other interesting issue here and i think a lot of

people are gonna

are wondering about this the trailer for the movie made it clear that charles deets is dead

and that the family is coming together for the funeral um charles deets was played by the actor

jeffrey jones who most people probably remember had some legal issues in the early 2000s

was actually a convicted sex offender and pretty much retired from acting but you hear you you hear

his voice from time to time in the movie and that's the movie that's the movie that's the movie that's

it's it's kind of odd right it is and it actually is another actor but whoever they found the voice

is dead on i mean you really do think that it's him and and you had said to me after you thought

that maybe they had just pulled dialogue from the previous movie because it sounds so much like him

yeah it does uh the special effects in this movie are still old school and i i've read that that's

the way tim burton and michael keaton wanted it they didn't want it to look over the top of the

topic they wanted it to be really realistic they wanted it to have the same feel that the original

movie had so you still have that that uh jerky style animation yeah yeah mission accomplished

i will say some of the sight gags were bigger and the a little more uh nausea inducing but yes the

old school 80s feel is there and and i like that because so many movies today you could just feel

cgi all over them and in that setting i think it was like a different kind of commitment to the

this one it really had that same spirit of the original movie right i there was we were sitting

in the fourth row uh and it was a dolby theater and there was a couple times where i just i had

to turn my head i closed my eyes a few times too speaking of tim burton i i read that uh he said

the only way that he would uh do another film is if michael keaton would return to reprise his role

keaton i guess said as as long as 10 years ago that this is the only sequel he'd be interested

in doing so you couldn't do this movie without michael keaton no of course why would you want

to well not a writer actually had it uh something in her contract when she did stranger things

that if beetlejuice 2 ever got off the ground they'd have to let her take a break from the

series to film it and they agreed to it yeah i mean she really captures you know lydia's same

spirit as she had in the first movie and as i said to you as well i don't know what

skincare regimen she has but her skin still looks like a teenager in those close-ups exactly um you

mentioned this soundtrack what do you want to talk about that how much shit with that do you

want to give away uh i would say one of the bg songs from the 70s is going to be stuck in your

head afterwards as an earworm uh donna summer song macarthur park has a big role and there's

a richard mark song that's a big role in the movie and there's a big role in the movie and

that's used to fantastic effect in a pivotal moment of the movie so that's all that's all i'll

say about that but uh that part is pretty funny the music is definitely another character in this

film to great effect okay so give it an overall grade for me i'd say a b minus because the

nostalgia factor was there it was nice to see the characters again um including you know some of the

like bob um but uh a a solid b minus i i wrote down earlier today that i was going to give this

a c plus but the more we talk about it now the more i'm kind of willing to edge the grade up

just a little bit maybe to the b minus i i think it had potential but it squandered it but i still

think that the chemistry alone is is worth watching the movie now do i say it's worth a movie ticket

no i think you wait and watch this one on streaming exactly and thankfully we were

able to use an amc gift card so we actually didn't have to pay for seeing it on the big screen

but uh completely agree it's it's one to watch in the comfort of your living room

you know what else we could do from the comfort of our own living room

hey it's time for spin me round we're gonna play a

song from the movie i'm gonna play a song from the movie i'm gonna play a song from the movie i'm...

i'm gonna play a song from the movie i'm...

From the 80s backwards, and if you can name the clip, you are entered into the drawing for the postal-friendly bottle opener.

Where is Brad today?

Brad is in California, but he hasn't seen the movie yet, so Melissa and I decided to take it on instead.

This is from back in, oh my gosh, early July, episode 710.

Here was the backwards clip.

That's Stir It Up by Patti LaBelle.

Love that one.

A lot of people thought when they heard this, because it's from the Beverly Hills Cop.

Some people thought it was New Attitude.

Or some people thought it was Neutron Dance.

Neutron Dance.

But no, Stir It Up by Patti LaBelle.

We had some winners.

Not everybody was fooled.

The winners this week include Anastasia in Colorado, Rock the Good Ag, Dave from Southern New Hampshire, Kevin Wench, Steve, not the singer Perry, Lou, Sweet Lou, Greeley, Matt in Fishers Island, New York.

Where is Fishers Island?

New York.

I can say that I've never heard of Fishers Island.

Okay.

So, I mean, you grew up in Manhattan.

You did not grow up.

I mean, so it's probably outside the city.

Oh, yes.

Fishers Island is definitely not in Manhattan.

Hence the name Island.

Okay.

Other winners include Roger Carpenter, Dave Estelle, Dave Wiener, and Jeanan Hollister.

Okay.

Pay attention.

Here's this week's Spin Me Round Backwards Challenge.

If you know it, email us at podcast at SIT80s.com and tune in soon to find out if you're a winner.

TV party tonight.

Time to play TV party tonight.

We will play a snippet of a TV theme song from the 80s to get it right again.

You're entered into the drawing for the Shot at Glory poster-friendly bottle openers, which

You've gotten good at saying that.

We only had 700 episodes to practice it.

I don't know when we started the segies or the giveaways.

It was

That's before my time.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it was made.

I don't even know if it was the first year that we did it.

If someone remembers, if someone can pinpoint the first time we started doing segies, I'd

be curious.

Somewhere there's a spreadsheet, too.

Of all the shows that we use and all the answers and so that I don't repeat them.

But I have since lost that spreadsheet and I do not care if I repeat myself.

So from episode 710, here was the mystery theme song.

That's the theme from Stingray.

Melissa, you were a fan of TV in the 80s.

Did you watch Stingray?

No, that's another deep cut spearsy.

I can't say I've heard of.

1985.

What would I have been watching?

I would have been watching more sitcoms.

I feel like Give Me a Break was certainly in the rotation.

Cheers.

But Stingray does not ring a bell.

What were we doing the other night?

We were in like a YouTube rabbit hole, which

Oh, we were watching Cheers clips.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

That was that.

Talk about an 80s show that still holds up.

Oh, and that's that's what I think to take away.

That was it.

Because we were just like, this is just as funny today as it was then.

It doesn't.

Absolutely.

At all.

So good.

Stingray was the drama that started on the NBC in 1985.

It only lasted two seasons, according to my research, because I did not watch it.

It started Nick Mancuso, who plays a character only known as Ray, whose trademark is a black

1965 Corvette Stingray.

Okay, then.

Wouldn't that also have been around the time of Knight Rider?

So I feel like when it comes to series with cars, that would have been the one that got

more attention.

Maybe.

What was I doing in 1985?

Okay, so I would have graduated high school.

I was not watching television at this point.

I could tell you that.

I would have been if this came out in the summer of 85, I was already at college.

So you're sharing a TV.

You're sharing a TV in the lounge with 50 other guys.

I guarantee you, you're not worried about what Knight Stingray comes on TV.

So I hate to take this.

This is it at TV in the 80s.

It's just, you know, you missed a lot.

Okay.

We only had one winner for this.

Brian in San Francisco.

Congratulations.

You're the only one who got this one right.

So clearly it's not just us that weren't paying attention to Stingray.

Yeah.

So Brian, if you don't already have a postal friendly bottle opener, please, please let

me know.

We'll send you one.

But in the meantime, we are going to spin to see who wins the bottle opener for the

spin me like me.

So why don't you go ahead?

Well, is it spin the wheel?

Oh,

scared the dog.

I'll tell you that.

Looks like it's going to land on Matt and Fisher's Island, New York.

Of course it does.

So now we'll finally figure out where the hell it is.

Matt, send us your postal address and we will get some out to you soon.

In the meantime, pay attention.

Here's this week's mystery TV theme song.

If you know it, email us at podcast.

At SIT80s.com.

Did I get that right?

Because for some reason, it doesn't seem right today.

Yes, you got that right.

It's just usually you do the little sing song at the end of the email address.

Okay, that's right.

Usually go podcast at SIT80s.com.

That's it.

Podcast at SIT80s.com.

So and tune in soon to find out if you're a winner.

We'll be right back after this commercial break.

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Okay, I got a quick question for you.

So we've seen lately sequels to Beverly Hills Cop and obviously Top Gun and Coming to America now.

Well, to be fair, I only got through the first 10 minutes of Coming to America.

That's good.

You should have watched the last 10 minutes of it because that's the best part of the movie.

Oh, yes, you showed me the last 10 minutes, but I did not watch anything in between those two moments.

If you could pick one movie from the 80s and give Hollywood...

Play with the green light to a sequel to, what would it be?

I think, you know, at the risk of selecting a cliched choice, it would have to be The Breakfast Club because that's such a character-driven piece.

You know, and it's just, you could see them coming to a reunion years later.

And I feel like that would be interesting, you know, in the same way that Cobra Kai, at least in the first season, was interesting in terms of picking up and seeing where the characters are so many years later.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny you mentioned reunion.

We were talking last night at dinner after we watched Beetlejuice, and you were asking me about the 20-year high school reunion that I went to 20 years ago, which is what was the spark behind Stuck in the 80s.

And I told you something which I don't even think I'd even really told myself yet, which was that 2025 would be the 40th high school reunion, and I have no intention of going back and doing that again.

I just...

The 20-year reunion was really...

It was really special to me.

The memories were still kind of there from high school.

20 years later, I just, I don't know.

I don't want to ruin the fond memories I have by, you know, trying to go back and do it again.

No, that makes sense.

Some things can't have a sequel.

They just stand on their own.

Yeah.

And I think an event like that is one of them.

For my sequel...

You and I have talked about this before, too.

Dirty Dancing.

And I have a...

Of course you can't do it.

Here's the thing.

You can't do it because Patrick Swayze...

Exactly.

Is no longer with us.

But if he were, I had this idea that, you know, 30 years in the future, he owns like his own dance studio in Manhattan.

And he bumps into Baby again because she's gone to the...

Dance studio with her fiancé to learn how to do a dance for their first dance at their wedding.

And so that's how they...

Just like we did?

Just like we did.

So I'm kind of combining a little bit of real life with I have no idea where it goes from there.

I can only give you the premise of it.

That's...

I think it's a great premise.

Well, we'll see.

Hey, gang.

If you decide to go see Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice in the theaters, please email us and let us know what you think.

If you...

If you want to give us a fuller review, we'll read them on the show for you.

It's...

I say it's worth seeing, but it's probably worth seeing when it hits Amazon Prime or HBO.

You agree?

100%.

So until that happens, Melissa and I remain here, hopelessly stuck in the 80s.

Stuck in the 80s is now on Patreon.

If you'd like to support the show, go to patreon.com slash stuckinthe80spodcast.

Special thanks to Check Battery Daily for our theme music.

And thanks for listening.

And when she dances, oh brother, she's a hurricane in all kinds of weather.

Jump in the line, rock your body in time.

Okay, I believe you.

Jump in the line, rock your body in time.

Okay, I believe you.

Jump in the line, rock your body in time.