Day 96: Beetlejuice

When sickeningly adorable couple, Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis), die they come back as ghosts who are stuck forever in their house. That would be fine but newcomers have arrived and they want to change the place up. It’s up to Adam and Barbara to try and scare them away but when they make friends with the daughter of the new people, it makes matters a little more complicated.

With all the other dead people we see it clearly shows how they died (suicide, cut in half, etc.) but Adam and Barbara just look normal. They drowned, so surely their ghostly forms would be all bloated from the water? I realise having them be bloated throughout the whole film would probably be rubbish but you can’t have everyone else depicted in the way they died and just ignore it completely with them. I think this is my only problem with the film?

Fun fact: in any film if there’s something about the number of times you have to say/do something for a scary character to appear, I will actively stop myself from saying/doing the things. Part of me thinks it’s silly because it’s fiction. The other part of me thinks that there’s no sense in risking it, y’know?

7/10

Day 59: The Hunt For Red October

Russians have made a fancy new submarine (Red October) that can go pretty much undetected in the water, which would be pretty devastating for any enemies they may have. Like America, let’s say. In order to make sure the submarine cannot be used to fight the Americans, Marko Ramius (Sean Connery), and some select crew members have decided to defect and take the submarine with them. The Russians are furious and attempt to find the Red October to stop any defection. And because the mission had to be kept completely secret, the Americans think the Red October is planning to attack them. It’s all close to potential war, but along comes Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) to save the day. He convinces the powers that be that Captain Ramius intends to defect and that they should help him to safely reach America.

All of that sounds like trouble enough but then they discover they have a saboteur aboard, which leads to just the saddest death (Sam Neill, my baby). Despite it being totally obvious who the saboteur was immediately it was still pretty exciting. Being on board a submarine seems so hectic, not entirely sure how they manage to hear or understand each other when all the sirens are going and orders are being shouted from all sides. But it also seems just so much fun!

Again, I didn’t think I was going to like this film (two hours of politics and an all male crew? Aaah) but it turns out it was super exciting. Apparently I’m a big kid and submarines are awesome. Never seen a submarine explode before but it was brilliant! Wasn’t too heavy on the politics either, which was nice. And Alec Baldwin’s a babe so I guess that made up for the lack of women. And Dr. Grant is in it! What more could you want on a submarine but a dinosaur expert and all round badass?

Listening to Sean Connery makes me want to talk with more of a Scottish accent. I’ve typed this whole blog out in his voice and it amused me no end.

8/10