Lamar Reviews - "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!"(Airdate 9/13/2024)



Beetlejuice was a huge hit in 1988. There has been a call for a sequel for a long time. We even had Beetlejuice the Musical, which I saw, and was fantastic. Now after 36 years it is finally here.

Tim Burton has said that this film would only be made if Michael Keaton would return to reprise his role. Keaton said in March of 2014 that this is the only sequel he's interested in doing. Winona Ryder’s one condition for doing “Stranger Things” was, if “Beetlejuice 2” ever got off a ground that she could take a break and do it.

As always, making a sequel, especially 36 years later, is not only difficult, but also very risky. The fact there is an entire generation of people who haven’t seen the original is a two-edged sword. You have a fresh new audience, but they won’t get the references to the old one.

The good news is, Tim Burton and the cast not only accomplished the task, they did a superior job!

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice brings back three actors from the first movie: Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, Winona Ryder as middle-aged Lydia Deetz, and Catherine O’Hara as Lydia’s stepmom, Delia. Charles Deetz is deceased but shows up in a way that does not require actor Jeffery Jones to be in the movie since he is now a registered sex offender. He wanders through the afterlife without a head after a shark bite.

Charles’ death is what brings the family together. Lydia, who now hosts a tv show where she sees dead people, called “Ghost House with Lydia Deetz is there along with her slimy producer/love interest, Rory, played by Justin Theroux. Jenna Ortega plays Lydia’s estranged daughter, Astrid, who thinks her mother’s “seeing dead people” is all fake, and she does her best to avoid her mother at all costs. While doing so she meets Jeremy, played by Arthur Conti, an awkward possible romantic interest. Bettlejuice comes up with a plan to get with Lydia, but before that he must escape his ex-wife/soul sucker Delores, played by Monica Bellucci.

The movie is a quick 1hour and 45 minutes, Rated PG-13 for violent content, and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use.

Keaton could not have been more “on point” as Bettlejuice. He looked and played the part like it wasn’t 36 days, much less 36 years after the original.

The entire cast was awesome, including Catherine O’Hara, who was extra great, and never disappoints. Danny Devito was a welcome surprise, as was Willem Dafoe. He plays Wolf Jackson, an over-the-top dead action star who is head of the afterlife’s police force.

All in all, a great sequel that is equal to the task!

My Score: 5 Solid Ice Cold Budweisers

Lamar Reviews - "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!"(Airdate 9/13/2024)
 
Beetlejuice was a huge hit in 1988. There has been a call for a sequel for a long time. We even had Beetlejuice the Musical, which I saw, and was fantastic. Now after 36 years it is finally here.
Tim Burton has said that this film would only be made if <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000474/?ref_=tttrv_tr">Michael Keaton</a> would return to reprise his role. Keaton said in March of 2014 that this is the only sequel he's interested in doing. Winona Ryder’s one condition for doing “Stranger Things” was, if “Beetlejuice 2” ever got off a ground that she could take a break and do it.
As always, making a sequel, especially 36 years later, is not only difficult, but also very risky. The fact there is an entire generation of people who haven’t seen the original is a two-edged sword. You have a fresh new audience, but they won’t get the references to the old one.
The good news is, Tim Burton and the cast not only accomplished the task, they did a superior job!
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice brings back three actors from the first movie: Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, Winona Ryder as middle-aged Lydia Deetz, and Catherine O’Hara as Lydia’s stepmom, Delia. Charles Deetz is deceased but shows up in a way that does not require actor Jeffery Jones to be in the movie since he is now a registered sex offender. He wanders through the afterlife without a head after a shark bite.
Charles’ death is what brings the family together. Lydia, who now hosts a tv show where she sees dead people, called “Ghost House with Lydia Deetz is there along with her slimy producer/love interest, Rory, played by Justin Theroux. Jenna Ortega plays Lydia’s estranged daughter, Astrid, who thinks her mother’s “seeing dead people” is all fake, and she does her best to avoid her mother at all costs. While doing so she meets Jeremy, played by Arthur Conti, an awkward possible romantic interest. Bettlejuice comes up with a plan to get with Lydia, but before that he must escape his ex-wife/soul sucker Delores, played by Monica Bellucci.
The movie is a quick 1hour and 45 minutes, Rated PG-13 for violent content, and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use.
Keaton could not have been more “on point” as Bettlejuice. He looked and played the part like it wasn’t 36 days, much less 36 years after the original.
The entire cast was awesome, including Catherine O’Hara, who was extra great, and never disappoints. Danny Devito was a welcome surprise, as was Willem Dafoe. He plays Wolf Jackson, an over-the-top dead action star who is head of the afterlife’s police force.
All in all, a great sequel that is equal to the task!
My Score: 5 Solid Ice Cold Budweisers

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Lamar's Reviews

Lamar Reviews - "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!"(Airdate 9/13/2024)

When you are strolling though Netflix looking for a movie and you come across one with two beautiful actors set in an exotic location you think, “This should be good”. Sometimes you are right, and you find a hidden gem. But sometimes you are wrong and come up with a dirty piece of gravel. At least you feel strongly one way or the other. This movie does not fall into either one of these categories. This is what I call a “Nothing Movie”, and that is the worst movie to review.

If a movie is good, it is exciting to talk about, and if it is terrible, it is exciting to talk about. But if it evokes no emotion at all, who cares?

I am not a huge fan of Laura Dern, but she has been good in everything I’ve seen her in. The main two that come to mind are Jurassic Park with dinosaurs and Wild at Heart with Nicolas Cage. Liam Hemsworth was good in the Hunger Games movies, and Expendables 2. In none of the movies I named were Dern and Hemsworth the main thing you were looking at.

In Lonely planet they are doing the heavy lifting. They have to have chemistry. They have to be interesting. We have to care about the decisions they make, and the outcome of what they do.

Laura Dern plays Katherine Loewe, a successful writer who goes to a writer’s retreat to break her writers’ block and finish her novel after a messy breakup. Liam Hemsworth plays Owen Brophy, some sort of investor that is never quite explained. His girlfriend Lily, played by Diana Silvers has written a best seller and has dragged Owen to the same retreat. Owen is an outsider in this situation and is left to walk around trying to find a cell signal so that he can buy a property for the investment company he works for. In doing so he meets Katherine. We know instantly that they are the stars, this is a romantic movie, and they are destined to be together. Sadly, there are no sparks. No titillating conversations, and at no time do you really care if they get together or not.

When the thing that you know is going to happen to separate them so that we can cheer for them to get back together does happen, you don’t care. In fact, you don’t care enough to pause the movie while you go to the bathroom and get something to drink.

The movie is 1 hour and 34 minutes, or as I call it 94 minutes I can never get back, it is Rated-R for regret, and language, but mostly regret.

It was never going to be good, but it didn’t even have the decency to be bad. To say it was bland would give it too much credit for some type of flavor. I wish I had seen it in a theater and paid money to see it. At least I would have the satisfaction of being pissed off, it robbed me of even that.

My Score: Nothing

When you are strolling though Netflix looking for a movie and you come across one with two beautiful actors set in an exotic location you think, “This should be good”. Sometimes you are right, and you find a hidden gem. But sometimes you are wrong and come up with a dirty piece of gravel. At least you feel strongly one way or the other. This movie does not fall into either one of these categories. This is what I call a “Nothing Movie”, and that is the worst movie to review.
If a movie is good, it is exciting to talk about, and if it is terrible, it is exciting to talk about. But if it evokes no emotion at all, who cares?
I am not a huge fan of Laura Dern, but she has been good in everything I’ve seen her in. The main two that come to mind are Jurassic Park with dinosaurs and Wild at Heart with Nicolas Cage. Liam Hemsworth was good in the Hunger Games movies, and Expendables 2. In none of the movies I named were Dern and Hemsworth the main thing you were looking at.
In Lonely planet they are doing the heavy lifting. They have to have chemistry. They have to be interesting. We have to care about the decisions they make, and the outcome of what they do.
Laura Dern plays Katherine Loewe, a successful writer who goes to a writer’s retreat to break her writers’ block and finish her novel after a messy breakup. Liam Hemsworth plays Owen Brophy, some sort of investor that is never quite explained. His girlfriend Lily, played by Diana Silvers has written a best seller and has dragged Owen to the same retreat. Owen is an outsider in this situation and is left to walk around trying to find a cell signal so that he can buy a property for the investment company he works for. In doing so he meets Katherine. We know instantly that they are the stars, this is a romantic movie, and they are destined to be together. Sadly, there are no sparks. No titillating conversations, and at no time do you really care if they get together or not.
When the thing that you know is going to happen to separate them so that we can cheer for them to get back together does happen, you don’t care. In fact, you don’t care enough to pause the movie while you go to the bathroom and get something to drink.
The movie is 1 hour and 34 minutes, or as I call it 94 minutes I can never get back, it is Rated-R for regret, and language, but mostly regret.
It was never going to be good, but it didn’t even have the decency to be bad. To say it was bland would give it too much credit for some type of flavor. I wish I had seen it in a theater and paid money to see it. At least I would have the satisfaction of being pissed off, it robbed me of even that.
My Score: Nothing

Lamar Reviews - "Lonely Planet" (Airdate 11/15/2024)

Lamar Reviews - "Martha" (Airdate 11/8/2024)



Martha Stewart has had one of the most interesting lives I’ve ever heard of. Also, she is one of the strongest, most determined, and definitely most focused women you’ll ever come across. She was a “daddy’s girl” that learned about gardening from a man that demanded perfection. She spent hours in the kitchen with her mother. She became a model at 16 so she could pay for college. She went from 50 cents an hour babysitting, to 50 dollars an hour posing. From there she became the first woman stockbroker on the New York Stock Exchange. She started a catering business, then started writing cookbooks. She developed a new magazine, Martha Stewart Living that sold more than 2 million copies per issue. Turned that into a TV show, and eventually put it all under Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and went public to become the first female self-made billionaire in the United States. She continues to be the majority shareholder. Went to prison for insider trading that saved her $45,673.

She was sentenced to 5 months in prison. Of her trial she said, “Those prosecutors should have been put in a Cuisinart and turned on high.”

She returned to daytime tv with the Martha Stewart Show, which was not her wheelhouse. It was not her brand. She said, “Mark Burnett, the producer, missed the point of “Martha Stewart”, live audience and crummy music, ugh!” That was more like prison than being at Alderson Federal Prison.”

Because she could not be the CEO of her company, it went down the tubes, and she sold it off, losing over a billion dollars. But she has 2 mottos, “Learn something new every day, and “When you are through changing, you’re through.” She said, ‘If you don’t like the garden, change it, rip it out and start all over again.” Which is exactly what she did.

She got invited to Justin Bieber’s roast on Comedy Central. In the introduction Kevin Hart said, “For all the black people that are confused about that old white woman on the couch, that’s Martha Stewart.” Nobody had warned her that she would be roasted too. They all expected her to go soft, she did not! She was the star of the evening. I re-wounded and watched her jokes 3 times. For those of you that don’t understand the term re-wounded, there was this thing called a videotape, that you could re-wind, and if you didn’t before you returned it, you had to pay $2. But that’s another story. She sat beside Snoop Dogg and she said, “For 7 hours he was smoking blunt after blunt and I was just getting higher and higher sitting there.”  Snoop asked her to hang out, and the comeback was on!”

Netflix 1 hour 55 minutes, Rated-R for language.

Oldest Sports Illustrated Cover ever, she is the original Influencer. The is a very interesting, eye-opening, and inspiring documentary. It really is a must see, just to watch how she handles the questions, and how honest and frank she is.

My Score: 5 Ice Cold Budweisers

Lamar Reviews - "Martha" (Airdate 11/8/2024)
 
Martha Stewart has had one of the most interesting lives I’ve ever heard of. Also, she is one of the strongest, most determined, and definitely most focused women you’ll ever come across. She was a “daddy’s girl” that learned about gardening from a man that demanded perfection. She spent hours in the kitchen with her mother. She became a model at 16 so she could pay for college. She went from 50 cents an hour babysitting, to 50 dollars an hour posing. From there she became the first woman stockbroker on the New York Stock Exchange. She started a catering business, then started writing cookbooks. She developed a new magazine, Martha Stewart Living that sold more than 2 million copies per issue. Turned that into a TV show, and eventually put it all under Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and went public to become the first female self-made billionaire in the United States. She continues to be the majority shareholder. Went to prison for insider trading that saved her $45,673.
She was sentenced to 5 months in prison. Of her trial she said, “Those prosecutors should have been put in a Cuisinart and turned on high.”
She returned to daytime tv with the Martha Stewart Show, which was not her wheelhouse. It was not her brand. She said, “Mark Burnett, the producer, missed the point of “Martha Stewart”, live audience and crummy music, ugh!” That was more like prison than being at Alderson Federal Prison.”
Because she could not be the CEO of her company, it went down the tubes, and she sold it off, losing over a billion dollars. But she has 2 mottos, “Learn something new every day, and “When you are through changing, you’re through.” She said, ‘If you don’t like the garden, change it, rip it out and start all over again.” Which is exactly what she did.
She got invited to Justin Bieber’s roast on Comedy Central. In the introduction Kevin Hart said, “For all the black people that are confused about that old white woman on the couch, that’s Martha Stewart.” Nobody had warned her that she would be roasted too. They all expected her to go soft, she did not! She was the star of the evening. I re-wounded and watched her jokes 3 times. For those of you that don’t understand the term re-wounded, there was this thing called a videotape, that you could re-wind, and if you didn’t before you returned it, you had to pay $2. But that’s another story. She sat beside Snoop Dogg and she said, “For 7 hours he was smoking blunt after blunt and I was just getting higher and higher sitting there.”  Snoop asked her to hang out, and the comeback was on!”
Netflix 1 hour 55 minutes, Rated-R for language.
Oldest Sports Illustrated Cover ever, she is the original Influencer. The is a very interesting, eye-opening, and inspiring documentary. It really is a must see, just to watch how she handles the questions, and how honest and frank she is.
My Score: 5 Ice Cold Budweisers

Lamar Reviews - "Martha" (Airdate 11/8/2024)

Lamar Reviews - "Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare" (Airdate 11/1/2024)



The first thing I look at on Netflix is documentaries. I was slow on the uptake of documentaries but I quickly discovered that the majority of them are very interesting, and really good. Just the title alone drew my interest. When I first started to hear about the “Catfishing” thing I was very skeptical as to why anybody would fall for that. I do understand it a lot better now that I’m familiar with more and more stories. I still look at these stories and immediately see tons of moments that in my opinion the person should have suspected what was happening. But I have to remind myself that I’m not emotionally connected to what was happening, and the victim is.

In the Sweet Bobby story, Kirat, a young Indian woman who is feeling the pressure to be married. In that culture to be of a certain age and not be married is looked down upon. She is contacted by this handsome, well to do man that is interested in her.They started an online relationship that lasted 10 years. 10 years without ever having sat down and seen each other face to face. How do you have a 10 year relationship without ever physically meeting? That really is the question. In this situation the desperation she feels in not letting down her parents in front of their community is enormous. I think that is the main reason she did not see the red flags in this relationship that were constantly popping up. It is very easy to judge her and blame her, while seeing all of this in hindsight. But, you have to put yourself in her place. 

There is also a second victim, Bobby. The real Bobby who did absolutely nothing to get involved in this situation. His images were taken and used one hundred percent without his knowledge. He knew nothing until an unknown woman showed up at his door, hysterical and accusing him of stuff.

This is on Netflix, the movie is 1 hour 22 minutes, Rated -TV14.



While I was watching this I was yelling at the TV, “how are you falling for this? Can’t you see this doesn’t make any sense? Well, if you are believing this, I can’t feel sorry for you!” But I did feel sorry for her. She truly did not do anything wrong. She just trusted someone who loved her, someone she was prepared to spend the rest of her life with. The only person in this situation to be mad at is the “Catfisher”, not the catfish, or the bait. And I honestly don’t get what that person got out of all of this. In some catfishing stories there is a scam for money, but there was no money involved in this story. The only commodity given or lost was love. And in Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare, love can be a cruel and dangerous thing.



My Score: 4 Buds

Lamar Reviews - "Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare" (Airdate 11/1/2024)
 
The first thing I look at on Netflix is documentaries. I was slow on the uptake of documentaries but I quickly discovered that the majority of them are very interesting, and really good. Just the title alone drew my interest. When I first started to hear about the “Catfishing” thing I was very skeptical as to why anybody would fall for that. I do understand it a lot better now that I’m familiar with more and more stories. I still look at these stories and immediately see tons of moments that in my opinion the person should have suspected what was happening. But I have to remind myself that I’m not emotionally connected to what was happening, and the victim is.
In the Sweet Bobby story, Kirat, a young Indian woman who is feeling the pressure to be married. In that culture to be of a certain age and not be married is looked down upon. She is contacted by this handsome, well to do man that is interested in her.They started an online relationship that lasted 10 years. 10 years without ever having sat down and seen each other face to face. How do you have a 10 year relationship without ever physically meeting? That really is the question. In this situation the desperation she feels in not letting down her parents in front of their community is enormous. I think that is the main reason she did not see the red flags in this relationship that were constantly popping up. It is very easy to judge her and blame her, while seeing all of this in hindsight. But, you have to put yourself in her place. 
There is also a second victim, Bobby. The real Bobby who did absolutely nothing to get involved in this situation. His images were taken and used one hundred percent without his knowledge. He knew nothing until an unknown woman showed up at his door, hysterical and accusing him of stuff.
This is on Netflix, the movie is 1 hour 22 minutes, Rated -TV14.
 
While I was watching this I was yelling at the TV, “how are you falling for this? Can’t you see this doesn’t make any sense? Well, if you are believing this, I can’t feel sorry for you!” But I did feel sorry for her. She truly did not do anything wrong. She just trusted someone who loved her, someone she was prepared to spend the rest of her life with. The only person in this situation to be mad at is the “Catfisher”, not the catfish, or the bait. And I honestly don’t get what that person got out of all of this. In some catfishing stories there is a scam for money, but there was no money involved in this story. The only commodity given or lost was love. And in Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare, love can be a cruel and dangerous thing.
 
My Score: 4 Buds

Lamar Reviews - "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!"(Airdate 9/13/2024)

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