This weekend on the big screen

At the movies: Beats, rhymes, and aliens (sans cowboys)

Movie theaters dot the Austin landscape and, through a barrage of marketing tactics of every conceivable variety, you're well aware of the summer's biggest blockbusters and Hollywood hits. Here, though, we'll focus on the other stuff—the indie films and special screenings that will hopefully expand your cinematic horizons just a bit.

We're lucky to live in a town where we can enjoy both a brand new documentary about A Tribe Called Quest and an original print of an early 90s Chinese fantasy action film in the very same weekend. Let's take a tour of what various theaters have to offer to this weekend.

This Weekend at Violet Crown

Actor Michael Rapaport (Higher Learning, Boston Public) directs the new documentary Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, a chronicle of the pioneering rap collective's past, present and potential future. Praised at this year's Sundance Film Festival for its candid look into the band, drama and all, Beats Rhymes & Life is a treat for the group's established fans and those only casually familiar alike. Violet Crown Cinema premiered the film at midnight on Thursday with a live hip-hop showcase of local artists and the film is now enjoying a full run at the theater.

A recent addition to the theater's Friday lineup is The Joy Luck Club director Wayne Wang's latest, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. The film tells the story of Nina (Li Bingbing) and her best friend, the comatose writer Sophia (Gianna Jun), paralleled with the world of Lily and Snow Flower (Li and Jun, again, respectively), 19th century Shanghai women whose forbidden friendship is communicated via a secret language written in the folds of a silk fan. It would appear Wang has found the perfect vessel for his powerful ability to connect the ancient lives and customs of Chinese women to their contemporaries, while providing insight into humanity at large.

This Weekend at Alamo Drafthouse

Alamo Drafthouse's South Lamar location is opening both the biggest new alien movie this weekend—Cowboys and Aliens—and the best: Attack the Block. Produced by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) and written and directed by first time filmmaker Joe Cornish, Attack the Block is the story of Moses (John Boyega), a teenage thug who freely terrorizes a South London council estate until aliens of the intensely unfriendly variety decide to land in his neighborhood. Moses and his crew take up arms against the vicious lifeforms and learn some valuable life lessons in the process. Featuring economical storytelling, loads of humor and a few splashes of blood, Attack the Block is an amazingly assured genre film debut and a treat to watch over and over again (I will be seeing it for the 5th time on Saturday). CultureMap's own Chase Whale recently interviewed writer/director Joe Cornish and star John Boyega about the film.

Fun for everyone: the last Saturday of every month, Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar hosts the free show Saturday Morning Kid's Club. This month's feature is The Puppetoon Movie, a Gumby-hosted collection of stop-motion puppet animated shorts created by animator George Pal. Kid's Club always features interactive games before the movie as well as goodies courtesy of Toy Joy. Don't worry, Alamo Drafthouse's no texting/talking policy is enforced, but you'll find out quickly that most kids are better behaved during films than some adults.

Finally, Sunday at the downtown Alamo Ritz you can catch two signature Drafthouse series. First, enjoy some more refined entertainment during Cinema Club, a monthly series focusing on classic films complete with a guest speaker and an interactive post-movie discussion. This month, Austin Chronicle critic Marc Savlov will present the 1958 feature Bell Book and Candle, an urban occult comedy that pairs stars Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak for the second time that year (the other being, of course, Vertigo). Immediately following Cinema Club is the Drafthouse's newest monthly series, Asian Invasion. Kicking off with a film by one of my favorite directors, Johnny To (Election, Fulltime Killer), Asian Invasion blasts into Austin with The Heroic Trio, an action fantasy shoestring-budget epic featuring the talents of Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, and Anita Mui. The best part about these screenings? They are both in glorious 35mm!

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Movie Review

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice full of nostalgia for fans of '80s original

Winona Ryder Michael Keaton Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Unless you’re a Tim Burton superfan, it’s easy to forget that 1988’s Beetlejuice was only the director’s second feature film, one that would set the template for all the other weird stories and images he would later bring to the big screen. Now, like so many other beloved ‘80s properties, it is being resurrected 36 years later with the legacyequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

It focuses on Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), now hosting a ghost hunter show while still occasionally seeing glimpses of her old nemesis, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton). When her father dies in tragic-but-funny fashion, she returns to her family home with daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) and boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) to be with her mom, Delia (Catherine O’Hara).

It isn’t long before a series of events summons Beetlejuice back from the underworld, bringing with him mayhem and unexpected people, including a group of people with shrunken heads; Delores (Monica Bellucci), a woman looking for revenge on Beetlejuice; and Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), a deceased former actor who now fashions himself as a type of detective.

Directed by Burton and written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (the creators of Netflix’s Wednesday), the film has many of the familiar touches of the original, including multiple grotesque and scary characters. However, Burton’s filmmaking ability turns the images of reanimated bloody corpses, people having their souls sucked from their bodies, and more into fun entertainment, a trick that not many other directors would be able to pull off as well.

What’s missing this time around, though, is a coherent story. Instead of trying to tell one story with some side plots, the filmmakers give equal attention to multiple side plots, never properly bringing them together. Every major character has something different going on, to the point that it feels like there are five different short films vying for the audience’s attention. Beetlejuice is supposed to be the character that ties them all together, but his appearances are so sporadic that it never works.

Naturally, the film is also full of nostalgia for those who loved the original film. The talents of Keaton, Ryder, and O’Hara means the mere presence of their characters will be enjoyable for fans, as will the appearance of the original house and Bob the shrunken head. But other elements don’t work, most notably the awkward centralization of the deceased Charles Deetz, played by the now-disgraced Jeffrey Jones in the first film. They try to be creative in showing him, but it would have been better to explore a different reason to get the gang back together.

The 73-year-old Keaton is still as amusing as ever in the title role, even if he feels like a sidekick to everyone else. Ryder and O’Hara have seemingly turned into their movie personas over the years, so they both feel natural in reprising their roles. Ortega is a rising star, but she’s weirdly not showcased as much as you might expect in the film. Bellucci and Dafoe are given parts that amount to nothing, which is indicative of the larger story problems.

Ultimately, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t give a good enough reason for it to have been made. It doesn’t move the characters forward in any significant way, it puts forth retreads of jokes that were funny in the first film, and it has way too much going on storywise. It might have been better for Beetlejuice to remain in the underworld, where he belongs.

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens in theaters on September 6.

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This weekend on the big screen

At the movies: Beats, rhymes, and aliens (sans cowboys)

Movie Review

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice full of nostalgia for fans of '80s original

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