Beetlejuice Beetlejuice / Transformers One in 4DX

i watched these two weeks apart from each other.

I’ve gotten mildly into astrology. How womanly of me. I leave the Co-Star app open on my horoscope and refer back to it if I ever feel like I need guidance in making a decision. An uncomplicated process that makes life a tad simpler. I do not personally believe in any religion, suffering through all-male Episcopal school shattered that facet of my identity and then some, but I do possess a peculiar relationship towards faith where belief in a higher power is sometimes what it takes to keep me alive; this higher power ranges from an abstract theistic entity to Manhattan-based app developers. I bring this up because Co-Star was the driving force leading me to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in 4DX on opening Friday night, as opposed to a more serene Sunday afternoon showing. I cannot remember what in my horoscope spurred me to think this. I really should be striving to save money throughout this endeavor; that would require attending screenings at odd hours where I can purchase a ticket for another movie, sneak into the 4DX theater and avoid the premium surcharge (even with a Regal subscription you have to cough up $10). Just this once though, something compelled me to attend a 4DX screening with a sold out crowd. I purchased my tickets and walked to Times Square to see what Tim Burton had in store for me.

I have seen every feature-length Tim Burton movie, even though I have never once considered him a favorite of mine. I adore Ed Wood and Batman Returns, two formative pictures that shaped how I view film as a medium, but little else has burrowed itself into the crevices of my brain even if I enjoy several of his films on a superficial level. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure stands as one of his greatest accomplishments, a sheer force of exuberance unlike anything else he accomplished afterwards, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also harbor a soft spot for Mars Attacks!. That’s about as far as my affection stretches. A couple years ago I may have gone to bat for Big Eyes and Big Fish, the former for my fond memories of seeing it in a theater at age 11, the latter for its ending that made me sob, but time has softened me on both films. This is of course without mentioning his mostly dire late period, oscillating between stop-motion works burdened by mediocrity or rank abominations burdened by Johnny Depp-isms. At one point in time I held Ed Wood as one of my favorite movies and Alice in Wonderland as my all time least favorite. A land of contrasts!

I arrived at Times Square and went to purchase a box of Sour Patch Watermelon from concessions. My usual aversion to eating during movies is wearing off and I’ve noticed an increasing desire to grab snacks for films, especially when I have low expectations. The unbelievably long line caused me to realize if I stood here for 15-20 minutes I would miss previews and be unable to scope out a more optimal unoccupied seat prior to the movie. I grabbed a bag of candy, stuffed it in my purse and walked away. No one said a word. My inner kleptomaniac desires could not be contained. I walked into the auditorium and immediately realized my back corner seat was fucking horrible. I had to crane my neck to even come close to optimal perspective of the screen and was surrounded on both sides by other people already. I scouted a seat in the second row from the front, towards the center, that was just close enough that it only drove me slightly insane. The screen subsumed me and a sense of immersion overwhelmed me. Close to achieving the immersive effect that 4DX touts while rarely ever delivering; it often functions more as a distancing effect from the action at hand. Not even the smoke effects served to distract me. In fact, they complemented Beetlejuice’s entrances quite well. The only instance my immersion broke was about 30 minutes into the movie when I almost choked on a Sour Patch Watermelon and had to briefly flee the theater to cough up a storm. Karmic punishment. The powers that be refused to grant me the satisfaction of stealing a box of candy.

my go-to snack since i was 4 years old. idk i wanted a picture in here.

I had never attended a screening at a prime hour with a packed house and relished in delight when I found out they had theater employees acting as 4DX hypemen prior to the screening. During the previews, they verbally warned us several times that the effects were about to turn on, asked the audience to raise their hands if they had never attended a 4DX showing, and warned us that shit was about to get nuts. They received two rounds of applause. They did a tremendous job.

My opinions on Beetlejuice prior to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice were that of enjoyment yet indifference. I had seen it maybe twice and continued to absorb it through cultural osmosis but never possessed residual fondness towards it. A movie to enjoy while watching and accept that it’s okay for a movie to not leave any lasting impression on your psyche. This reads backhanded but I really like it, I promise. I had fun with the sequel in a similar regard. Within the context of seeing it in a theater in 2024, it felt nice to watch a movie that I liked in the same way I like certain disposable blockbuster movies from the 80s; well-designed, competently performed, a degree of craft present yet never feeling too belabored, over and out in under 100 minutes. Mix in a couple half-baked sequences of familial melodrama that I nevertheless bought into and you have a blockbuster. Of course, because it is a studio movie made in 2024, it is ever so marginally worse than Beetlejuice in subtle yet not dealbreaking ways. Much like the original, one feels a genuine energy present in the effects work and production design, but its impact lessens when not shot on film. Jenna Ortega is a standout, already overqualified for legacyquel roles, yet Winona Ryder often feels lost, never entirely attuned to the film’s wavelength. The film is mercifully short, yet overstuffed to the brim with subplots that leave other actors in the dust, and I found myself aching for a little more Monica Bellucci or Willem Dafoe screen time. The Beetlejuice guy is in it too. He acquits himself well.

I am writing this two weeks later, looking back at my notes and realizing how I overrated it fresh out the theater. I called it “really good?” Was I that shocked about how good it is? There was a musical number? I suppose this speaks to its charms, a studio product ready-made to be seen, thoroughly enjoyed, thoroughly disposed, until the only remnant of your experience is the faint memory of seeing it and having a relaxing Friday night. There are two things that will remain with me forever. First, as many people have noted, the hysterically cruel way in which real-life pedophile Jeffrey Jones is written out of the film. The animation in this scene is hideous but that only makes it meaner. Great job on that front. Second, the Mario Bava joke that only I laughed at in a practically sold-out theater. Not even just the invocation of it, though I did a double take when I noticed a poster for Kill Baby… Kill!, but the line reading of “my water broke during Kill, Baby… Kill!” makes it. Ryder’s best scene, hands down, and a highlight of my experience even as it made me deeply ashamed of the person I’ve chosen to be in life. It inspired me to make a Letterboxd list of times where I was the only person to laugh in a packed auditorium. It happens more than I’d like and I’m flustered every time.

partially related - the only still from The Whale (2022). the ending of this movie made me laugh really hard and inspired someone a couple seats down to ask “was that person laughing?”

I also saw Transformers One. I would be hard-pressed to call myself a fan of Transformers because there is a lot of baggage associated with it beyond the live-action film adaptations, and I do not give a fuck about the cartoons or, heaven forbid, the toys. I’m an adult. However, I find the Michael Bay Transformers films to be absolutely incredible. I cannot sanction heaping uncritical praise on toy commercials made for obnoxious children, but I can sanction heaping uncritical praise on toy commercials made for obnoxious teenagers. I find that mode of filmmaking eminently more fascinating. It meshes well with my predilections towards abject juvenilia and maximalist spectacle. As an 11-year-old, I had several experiences watching films that would greatly influence my perception of the medium, but few were more resolutely impactful than seeing Transformers: Age of Extinction in the theater. I hadn’t even seen any of the previous films, which I quickly learned hardly mattered. My eyes were glued to the screen, enamored with its approach to action sequences, car chases, pyrotechnics, tasteless jokes about age of consent laws, brash commercialism, disgustingly overstuffed runtime, Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager, and TJ Miller burnt to a crisp in perhaps the greatest explosion to ever grace the silver screen. The latter scene I have attached below; everyone should watch it, and you will have a better understanding of who I am as a person. I have seen the movie probably 10 times and I never tire of it. My love for the potentialities of the big-budget action film can be directly traced back towards this experience. Without this film, I would not have a column dedicated to extolling the virtues of 4DX. And that’s without even mentioning the other four Transformers films, which are largely masterworks. In some respects, Revenge of the Fallen surpasses Age of Extinction in its relentless assault on good taste. The experience of watching these films is the experience of staring into the sun and fucking loving it. Let your eyes burn.

At one point or another, they stopped allowing Michael Bay to burn $250M per film to fulfill my deepest cinematic desires, and Paramount attempted to make Transformers films that could politely be described as “normal.” I saw Bumblebee and thought it was fine but would be hard-pressed to tell you anything about it. It succeeded at normality, and is worse than every Michael Bay Transformers movie. I refused to see Transformers: Rise of the Beasts last year because it did not look anything like a Michael Bay film and I learned my lesson after Bumblebee. I get the impression I missed very little. I only saw Transformers One because it got a 4DX release. Had it forgone a 4DX release and I never saw it, I would have missed very little.

I find it difficult to write about films so clearly intended for children; I rarely get anything out of them, but am clearly not anywhere close to the target audience. Sometimes I enjoy them, but the enjoyment remains on a very superficial level. If you are a child reading my Substack, you should know that you will probably enjoy this Transformers movie because the children in the crowd loved it. I am not a child so I did not share in their rapturous excitement, aside from a showstopping train crash sequence that played like gangbusters in 4DX. I also am generally disgusted by the look and feel of a lot of modern CGI animation, sterile and digitized to such an extent that the life feels sucked out of it. I found this movie hideous to look at on first glance. I eventually acclimated to its garishness, potentially as a survival technique. The way the films’s narrative unfolds is also characteristic of a Western animated film made for children, dizzyingly overcrowded but rarely enthralling, and feels of a piece with the director’s one other film Toy Story 4 (a better film that I nevertheless disliked for similar reasons). It’s also worth noting that my love for the live-action Transformers films has so little to do with the characterizations of the actual Transformers. There are no humans in this film and no interesting or even bewildering character dynamics established, so the end product is suffering through obnoxious robots teaming up to solve some incomprehensible bullshit. I did not find it compelling. Where are the obnoxious human characters? Where is Cade Yeager? Hell, I’d even take Sam Witwicky.

As I half-slept through the film after a busy Saturday afternoon, only jolted awake through the admittedly stellar 4DX work, I contemplated how fruitful this project would be in the long-term. I was put off by having to sit through two children’s films in back-to-back weeks. I actually think The Wild Robot looks pretty good, I’m seeing it later today, but would I have anything interesting to say about it? Why not give Megalopolis a 4DX run instead? I have plenty to say about Megalopolis. Perhaps it’s selfish of me to ask that 4DX cater to my whims when it is probably most popular with hyperactive children who want an amusement park ride paired with their movie. This clashes with my interest in it as a tool with the ability to radically alter cinema as I perceive it. I have had discussions with people where the idea of a 4DX arthouse / repertory equivalent was broached, but what would that even look like? What are the films that would merit that treatment? Is it feasible? Are there copyright issues involved? Would it provide a more extreme version of 4DX, one undaunted by the prospect of alienating its audience with, say, foul odors? I am fascinated by it as an endeavor, and it would provide a great outlet for my most unrealistic 4DX wishes. I have wondered what the experience of watching a silent film in 4DX could entail, a bygone era of cinema meshed with the future of the medium. Imagine watching The General in 4DX! Pair that with a couple of Buster Keaton shorts and you have a rousing night at the movies. If any NYC theater managers happen to be reading this and their interest is piqued by the idea, please do everything in your power to make this a reality. I would be eternally grateful.