Beetlejuice



“Barb, honey... we're dead. I don't think we have very much to worry about anymore.”

            I can remember watching Beetlejuice all the time when I was little. This is one of my childhood movies. I just recently bought this on DVD and I seriously do not know what took me so long to get it. Watching Beetlejuice again after such a long time it felt like I had just watched it yesterday I remembered all the scenes.

            Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) are a young couple. They live in a very rural area of the Northeast in a house they have lovingly decorated and made their own. When the movie starts they are finally on vacation from work and planning to spend the week in their home working on things and relaxing. Adam wants to run out and Barbara goes with him. On the way home their vacation becomes a prolonged one when their car crashes in to the local river. Next thing they know they are wet and back in their house with no memory of how they got there.

            When they look into a mirror they realize they are dead they drowned when their car went into the river. They are given a guide book on how to live in the afterlife but the book is really confusing. They take a travel to the other side and are told by their advisor Juno (Sylvia Sidney) in order to stay in their house forever they must scare the yuppie hipster New Yorkers that have just moved in. Adam and Barbara have no idea how to scare these people they try the whole sheet thing but that totally backfires. The only person in the family who can really see them in human form is the morbid daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder).

        The couple really does not know how to get these people to leave. There is however this one strange ghoul they have been hearing about named Beetlejuice. To talk to Beetlejuice they have to say his name three times. When Adam and Barbara come face to face with the “bio-exorcist” he is nothing but a disgusting menace.

            Ever since Lydia took the pictures of Adam and Barbara in the sheets her parents have and their friends have been nagging for her to show them the ghost to make them come out. One of their friends reads from the recently deceased book along with other paranormal readings and he gets Barbara and Adam to appear in their human form. Their human forms start to disintegrate. Lydia in desperation runs to Beetlejuice for help to save them. He does but then the troublemaker is sent on his way back to the other side.

            Good God where to even begin on why I love this movie so much. I am such a loser but I actually started tearing up in happiness over seeing the ending when “Jump in the Line” comes on because I remember loving it so much as a kid.

            Watching it now I love the cast. Geen Davis is one of my favorite actresses she was so adorable as Barbara. Alec Baldwin for as much as he is an asshole now he is a good actor and I cannot even believe how handsome he once was (I am so used to seeing him as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock that it is weird to not see him as a fat man with a really low voice). Catharine O’Hara was such a bitch in this movie but I love her she could really do no wrong in whatever she is in. Winona Ryder was good this was before she went really weird. Michael Keaton amazes me I mean anyone who can pull of this role then do all kinds of serious movies is a very good actor in my book. I never knew who Sylvia Sidney was and I only just noticed her name. It is odd to think she was a classic actress who made films with actors like Cary Grant and James Cagney. I guess in a way I have always loved the cast even when I was little and I just never knew it.

            Tim Burton is a genius. The way his mind works is kind of scary and unusual but that is what makes him so different and stand out from other directors. The world he creates and captures is what really makes Beetlejuice awesome.

        Best scenes of the whole movie:



No explanations are needed they are just awesome. They’re two of my all time favorite scenes from the movies.

            If you have a good sense of humor you will enjoy Beetlejuice if you have been living under a rock for the past twenty-three years and have not seen it. The best thing about the DVD- there are three episodes from the Beetlejuice cartoon in the extras!! Now how many of you remember that cartoon?

A League of Their Own



“There’s no crying in baseball!”

            A League of Their Own is one of my all time favorite movies. I can quote it all day and never tire of doing so. Pretty much everyone in my family can say one word or line from the movie and we are all off saying the next line. My family is a bunch of baseball fanatics. We are a house divided with two of my brothers and my dad liking the Mets and me, my mom, and another brother liking the Yankees. My grandpa almost got to play for the Mets and Yankees when he was younger. My uncle is a diehard Yankees fan who played a ton of baseball when he was younger. So as you can see we are a big baseball family all around.

            As a whole the movie is about the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) put together during World War II but specifically it is about two sisters from Oregon who are in a local baseball club. The sisters Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller are total opposites: Dottie is gorgeous with all eyes on her and Kit feels like a total outcast and that she is nothing compared to her sister. The sisters argue and fight but deep down they really care for each other; Dottie would not go to try outs unless Kit got to go too. Kit wants to live life but Dottie has a husband she feels she has all she wants in her life that playing baseball is just something to do. These things the sisters want and desire most keep them at odds.

            Kit and Dottie are recruited to the Rockford Peaches. They are one of the best teams in the league. The team is managed by former Major League Baseball player Jimmy Dugan. He is a wreck he is always drunk and just does not care about the team. Dottie takes over the first came after Jimmy barges in drunk and pees in the sink! After a while he comes to realize his team has great talent.

            The AAGPBL almost gets shut down but as the women in the league begin to show what they can really do game attendance picks up and the league becomes very popular. The first World Series for the league is played between the Peaches and the Racine Belles.

            The cast is amazing. It is one of the best casted movies. Geena Davis is incredible as Dottie she makes the character so believable. Tom Hanks is just awesome as Jimmy Dugan from the moment he comes up on screen he is a panic. Madonna pretty much plays herself as Mae Mortabito. Rosie O’Donnell is also a laugh as Mae’s sidekick Doris Murphy. Perhaps the best character of the movie is Stillwell who is the character Evelyn’s son. He makes so much trouble that Jimmy and a couple of the other players want to kill him haha. The rest of the cast is perfect they all do a fantastic job. They all look like ball players.



"What if at a key moment in the game by shirt pops open and uh oops my bosoms come out?"
"Mae you think there are men in this country that ain't seen your bosoms?"



            What I really like about A League of Their Own is how it shows a part of American history not many people may know. I certainly did not know that there was a women’s professional baseball league during World War II when all the male ball players had to go overseas to fight. The movie is based off Dottie Kamenshenk who played for the AAGPBL. She played in the league for six years and pitched seventeen shut out games. My uncle got a chance to meet Collins and he said she was really nice and how great it was to sit and talk to her about her time playing baseball.

            A League of Their Own is one of the best baseball movies around. It is not about a world class player from the Yankees or about an against all odds story. It is about women coming out of their homes to play a game they love and to say they did something in their lives that they are proud of. They are doing something that men do. The story is also about the nation coming together during tough times. World War II is a fascinating time to study in American history. Everyone was united coming together to help each other. Studying women’s roles and fashion during the war in very interesting.

            A League of Their Own is so much fun to watch especially with people who know the movie and you can quote the lines with. To me it is almost movie perfection there is drama and plenty of comedy all excellently played without going over the top in any direction. If you have not seen this movie yet then I have no idea what you are waiting for get going and watch it!!



The real Rockford Peaches team



Dottie Kamenshenk