The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 79

3 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 1988 HUTS CflTCATft.nfllCflT THE RECORD 1-17 A night with the living dead isn't exactly heaven on earth -t v. By Lou Lummick MOVIE REVIEW Record Movie Critic i irkvi BEETLEJUICE: Dlractad by Tim Burton. Written bv Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson, and Warren Skaaren. Photography, Thomai Ackerman. Music, Danny EHman.

Editor, Jane Kurson. Costumes, Aggie Guerard Rodgers. Production designer. Bo Watch. With Alec Baldwin (Adam), Geena Davit (Barbara), Jeffrey Jones (Charles), Catherine CHara (Delia), Winona Ryder (Lydia), Glenn Shadlx (Otho), Michael Keaton (Betelgeuse), Sylvia Sidney (Juno), Robert Goulet (Maxle Dean), Dick Cavett (Bernard), and others.

Produced bv Michael Bender, Larry Wilson, and Richard Hashimoto. A GeHen Co. presentation released by Warner Bros. Opens locally Wednesday Running time: 90 minutes. Rated PG: moderate vulgarity.

if iJ 7 ii yffci turn up in a waiting room where dead folks take bakery-style numbers for an appointment with a world-weary caseworker (Sylvia Sidney). "In heaven there wouldn't be dust." "Barb, we're dead," replies patient spouse Adam (Alec Baldwin). "I don't think we have much to worry about anymore." Not true. Not only are the Maitlands confined to their Colonial-style home for the next 125 years for some reason, gigantic lizard-like monsters lurk outside the doors and windows but they have to share it with Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones), a Manhattan real estate developer, along with his bizarre wife, a stranger daughter, and a live-in interior decorator bent on transforming their formerly comfy house into a riot of leather, steel, and patterned mauve wallpaper. If the makers of "Beetlejuice" had spent half as much effort on a decent script as on the film's won-'; drous special effects and sophisti-' cafed set design, they might have turned out one of the better fanta-sies of recent years.

Instead, Vvj've got an interesting failure, a mild "Topper" variation with a nod to "Ghostbusters." Tim Burton, the former anima-- tor who directed "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," imparts great style, if little clarity, to the unnecessarily confusing story of the Maitlands, a young couple who are killed when their car crashes through the side of a covered bridge in the picturesque New England village where they lived. "This can't be heaven," says Barbara (Geena Davis) when they NIGHT 200 (I Zee Ll NuH): Directed and written bv Jean-Claude Laujon. Photography, Guy Dufaux. Music, Jean Corrlveau. Editor, Yvon Benoil.

With Roger Le Bel (Albert), Gllles Maheu (Marcel), Lynne Adams (Julie), and others. Produced by Roger Frap-pler and Pierre Gendron. A Les Productions Oi Inc. presentation, In association with the National Film Board of Canada, Telefilm Canada, La Soclete Generate du Cinema du Quebec, and La Soclete Radio-Canada. Released bv FllmDallas Pictures.

Opens Wednesday at the Cinema II In Manhattan Running time: 1 15 minutes. Not rated: homosexual rapt, nudity, graphic violence. In French with English subtitles. I iT-l raVllflT. I Ha 'TTiTTTi I Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder In "Beetlejuice." When the horrified Maitlands resort to various ghost tricks from wearing sheets to transforming themselves into rotting corpses to scare the Deetzes out, it only prompts Charles to announce plans for opening a Supernatural Research Center and Amusement Park, in partnership with Robert Goulet.

So the Maitlands turn to Beetlejuice (also known as Betel- 81 ,00 For Usdiofi f. .1 11KT wr MIDOLETOWN THE MOVIES AT MIDOLETOWN (2011 671 1020 MOflfllSTOWN AMC HEADQUARTERS 10 (201I2K-06M PARAMUS ROUTE TENPLEX (201)417 7101 PARSIPPANY LOEWS TROY HILLS TWIN (201)3354(00 RIOGEWOOO WARNER OUAO (70D444-17J4 ROCKAWAY TOWNSHIP ROCKAWAY TWELVE (t) 3294916 UNION UNION TWIN I201IN64373 UPPER MONT CLAIR BELLEvuE WATCHUNO BLUE STAR CINEMA (2011322 7007 WWAVfE OUAO (201)1964131 WAYNE LOEWS WAYNE SIX r201laHO6 WEST ORANGE ESSEX GREEN (2011 731 7759 WOOO BRIDGE WOOOBR'DGE O011I3M474 A NATL AMUSEMENTS THEATRE SAYREVH.LE MULTIPLEX CINEMA (2011 721 3400 SECAUCUS iOEWS MEADOW SIX (20111664)11 shrewsbury Shrewsbury plaza (201)542 5395 SOUTH PLAINF1EU) MIDDLE SEX MALL CINEMA (201) 753- SUCCASUNNA CINEMA 10 S'XPLEX (2011 $944860 TOMS RIVER OCEAN COUNTY MALL (2D1)240-M EDGE WATER LOEWS SHOWBOAT OUAO Q0DMV3MO FLEMING TON CINEMA PLAZA FIVEPLEX Q0)1 712-2777 FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP RUTGERS PLAZA 12011 HM7I7 FREEHOLO LOEWS FREEHOLD CINEMA 6 (7011462-0900 JERSEY CITY NEWPORT CENTRE CINEMAS (201)1263200 LONO BRANCH LOEWS LONG BRANCH (201)170-2700 ARLINGTON LINCOLN TRIPLEX ROD 9174173 RICKTOWN LOEWS CINEMA CENTERS 001)4774911 CLIFTON CLIFTON OU AO Q01I395-Z020 CLOSTER CLOSTER fl 78M9D0 EAST BRUNSWICK LOEWS ROUTE 16 TWIN t291)7S4-9DI EAST WINDSOR LOEWS EAST WINDSOR TWIN WW 41231 VALLEY UA MOVIES AT SPRING VALLEY Hi 4) 4 1600 SPRING VALLEY PiX (H25432 PURL RIVER PEARL RIVER 1914)7354500 SPRING geuse, after the large red star in the Orion constellation, for reasons known only to the authors) a "bio-exorcist" who lives on the model railroad in the house and runs TV ads touting his services for removing unwanted humans from the residences of ghosts the reverse spin on "Ghostbusters." Though he doesn't figure prominently until late in the movie, Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice provides the only focus for the meandering plot. Under white makeup, blackened eyes, and a pot belly, Keaton is nearly unrecognizable in the first role that exploits his basic obnoxiousness, and quite effectively. (The part was reportedly written for Sammy Davis who unwisely declined it). When Keaton is offscreen as he is for most of the picture watching "Beetlejuice" is a little like being in a coma where you're vaguely aware of what's going on around you, yet none of it makes a whole lot of sense.

Screenwriters Michael McDowell (TV's "Amazing and Warren Skaaren never seem to decide on a level of sophistication for their humor, which ranges from crude sexual vulgarity (which on occasion seems to exceed the movie's PG rating) to jokes about equity and modern art. Besides Baldwin Davis and Jones Bueller's Day the large, underused cast includes Catherine O'Hara (TVs as Mrs. Deetz and Wynona Ryder as her suicide-prone daughter, who stumbles on the Maitland's copy of the "Handbook for the Recently Deceased" in the attic. Glenn Shadix, a large character actor, makes a somewhat impressive screen debut as the Maitland's fey decorator Otho, given to such outbursts as: "Don't mind her, she's still upset because someone dropped a house on her Bo Welch's expressionist-influenced sets are indeed a lot wittier than most of the lame jokes in this movie, handsomely photographed in burnished hues by Thomas Ackerman. "Beetlejuice" is one of a number of films that were rushed through production last spring in anticipation of a director's strike that failed to materialize.

If they had had more time, maybe its makers could have come up with something better than a confusing movie whose comic high point is Goulet being launched through a ceiling. In brief: "Night Zoo," which prompted walkouts at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, last week swept the Genie Awards, Canada's equivalent of the Oscars. It's neither as bad as the former might suggest nor as good as the latter promises. While Jean-Claude Lau-zon's French-Canadian film has a peculiar charm all its own, it's definitely not for all tastes. The film's hero is a drug dealer named Marcel (Gilles Maheu), who gets gang-raped in prison in the film's unsettling opening sequences.

Upon his release, Marcel sets out to retrieve $200,000 he squirreled away before his arrest and open a bar in Australia with his girlfriend, who has plans of her own. Further complicating matters are Marcel's elderly dad Albert (Roger Le Bel), who's dying of a bad heart, and a couple of corrupt cops who want to separate Marcel from his money. "Night Zoo" holds the interest because of the tension between its utterly incongruous elements: wildly sentimental one moment, violent the next. Le Bel is vastly appealing as the stricken father, whom Marcel eventually takes on a hunting expedition to a local zoo. It's a funny and tender scene, but audiences had better be willing to accept some gut-wrenching brutality as part of the bargain.

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721 3400 CBElTPVt EMT SfllAiSOSVKUCIWKA aEANAROStf ILL 7U 03S7 CINEMA SERVICES CMtU 10 SI1PLU SUCCASUNNA S4AAA60 LOEWS cucu mmu BAICMTOWM A 5A 5077 CINEMA SERVICES CLii)S( raiPLU ClWkU MOM TC LAIR 7A4 5564 LOEWS MAHUMfTT mm WTONTOWN CiNCRiEl OOEON CMrfodo ti CAANFORO 276 9120 LOEWS KV TWW TOMS Rivtff 244 5454 pwrmoPH ww HAWTHORNE 427 2S2a AMC fei. OOfOM NEWPORT CENTRE CINEMAS CftEAAL CiMCMA RUTOERS PLAZA SIXPLEX MANVILLE CINEMA Me Am LOEWS MEADOW PLAZA EIOHTPLEX SCCAUCUS W39XB MEAOTOWN MATiCMAL AM80Y MULTIPLEX CINEMAS' SAAEvtll J0C O0OM EAOEN MALL EflKLEY CINEMA ACUE MfMT5 A4 AHA CINEMA TWIN A7VM44 CINEMA ALLEY TWIN TOl5 roam CINEMA PiAZA FIVEPLEX MUf CINEMA 10 SIXPLEX SuCCASuMMA Price includes $2.00 deposit. Your choice of traditional, nursery, spring or fall background. Each additional person in portrait is $2.00 in addition to the package price. Poses our selection.

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