Oscar Horrors: Makeup for the Recently Deceased

Daily Oscar Horrors until Halloween!

HERE LIES...Beetlejuice which heard its name repeated just once at the 1988 Oscars when it won Robert Short, Steve LaPorte and Ve Neill the award for Best Achievement in Makeup, banishing Scrooged and Coming to America to play with the sandworms.

Michael C. here. As a child of the Eighties I spent my formative years inundated with every variety of gore, slasher, and massacre Hollywood could throw at me, and yet it was this zany ghost story, more comedy than horror, that succeeded in getting under my skin where so many so many escaped mental patients failed. Such is the ability of a little twisted imagination to triumph over buckets of blood. There was just something about the sight of Alec Baldwin popping eyeballs on his fingers like so many olives that never failed to creep my seven-year old self out. Tim Burton knows - or at least used to know - that there is excitement in skirting the line between enjoyably goofy and genuinely unsettling. (See also: Large Marge)

There are many moments in Beetlejuice for the makeup team to show off. There is the rotting of Baldwin and Davis during the exorcism, the general moldiness of the title character and the hilariously slow-on-the-uptake football team ("Coach, I don't think we survived the crash.")

Best Most Fun Achievements in MakeUp

A big reason I harbor such affection for this work is that it never for a second attempts anything approaching realism. The makeup team aims instead for the more admirable goal of being fun. Keaton's look as Beetlejuice, for example, is so unapologetically theatrical with his fright wig hair and the dark circles around his eyes that he wouldn't be out of place in a silent movie. 

But this is to the film's credit, and why the Oscar was justly awarded. The creative character design of Beetlejuice is still fondly remembered while thousands of more technically impressive ghoulies have blended together into a late-night cable blur.

Oh, and I can't be the only one who has always wanted to see this from Adam and Barbara's point of view, right?

Beetlejuice costume ideas for Halloween
Makeup and Hair posts 
"80s Oscars" articles
Previously on Oscar Horrors

Michelle & Tim's 20th Anniversary Reunion

Michelle Pfeiffer and Tim Burton reunited on the set of Dark Shadows... nice visual. It only took two decades!  For reasons we've never understood since we don't hear that she's particular "difficult" or anything, Pfeiffer rarely works with directors twice. She barely even repeats co-stars (apart from, famously, Pacino & Nicholson). It's a strange thing about her career when you hold it up against other stars of her stature.

In fact, before this film with Tim Burton which opens 20 years after Batman Returns, the number of directors she's had a second round with number just two. And that number was only one up until the film before her 1000th hiatus (yeah, I'm bitter).

• Michael Hoffman (One Fine Day and Midsummer Night's Dream)
• Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons and Chéri)

Weird, right? 

I REALLY must stop posting photos about Dark Shadows (I'm sure there will be many more temptations) or I won't be able to mock other movie blogs anymore for their anti-movie / pro-marketing approach (i.e. 200,000 articles about New Movie before it arrives, 1 when it does and then it magically transforms to Old Movie And We Don't Talk About Those! But it was either Dark Shadows anticipation or New Year's Eve (groan) so, you know... what could I do? Dark Twisted Pfeiffer is way more exciting than Mall Mom Pfeiffer. (I don't know any pfans who prefers Mall Mom Pfeiffer.)

There's another photo from Dark Shadows featuring Johnny Depp doing a Nosferatu-style air grab if you must over at Empire who reported from the set. 

The "Dark Shadows" Family

Entertainment Weekly has the first promotional photo for Tim Burton's Dark Shadows which I am duty bound to post because La Pfeiffer is given such prime placement, closest to the camera, even though the photo isn't as hi-res as one might wish to justify being excited about its "first" and "official-like" status.

From left to right: Helena Bonham Carter (Dr Julia Hoffman, the psychiatrist...who also needs one), Chloe Moretz (Carolyn, a moody teen), Eva Green (Angelique, a witch who hates this family with a long history with Barnabas the vampire), Gulliver McGrath (David, a troubled boy who believes he sees the dead), Bella Heathcote (Victoria, the new governess), Depp (Barnabas the vampire... ancestor of this family), Ray Shirley (Mrs Johnson, the ancient maid), Jackie Earle Haley (Willie the shady groundskeeper), Jonny Lee Miller (Roger, David's father), and Michelle Pfeiffer (Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the steely matriarch under seige by witches, family troubles, and the arrival of Barnabas).

I noticed some time ago while tinkering around backstage on the site, that I tend to post a lot about Tim Burton movies before they arrive only to be mildly (Sweeney Todd) or wildly disappointed (Eyesore in Wonderland) once they arrive. The wild haired auteur always finds at least one element to keep me interested... in this case his reunion with you-know-who who gave his filmography its very best performance (Catwoman!) give or taken Martin Landau in Ed Wood.

poll by twiigs.com

What'cha think of their looks?

I must say that Colleen Atwood's costuming -- always an Oscar threat -- is a little more sedate than usual which I count as a good thing. I especially like Pfeiffer's belt although I think giving Helena her Red Queen coloring all over again is probably not the best move.

Chloe Moretz's "Dark Shadows" Cheekbones & Tom Hardy Aversion

I'm not at all sure why I'm sharing this as I have definitely not boarded the Chloe Moretz train with the rest of the world. But I listened to this entire interview with the 14 year old starlet this morning. If you can get past the chaotic bratty noisiness of the interview (yes, I felt old... "Get off my lawn!") in which Chloe grosses out about 14 year old's dating 13 year olds -- but 16 year olds dating 17 year olds is totes different! -- you get to the Dark Shadows bits and a unusually revealing (though probably not intentionally-so) moment when she seems completely repulsed at the mention of Tom Hardy ---maybe it's the trapezius?

I've excerpted the two fun bits which you can play at the end of this post about working with the superstars in the Dark Shadows cast (and their cheekbones) and the moment when the interviewer compares Chloe's boyfriend (?) to Tom Hardy. There's a lot more if you go to the actual interview.

When asked to describe Dark Shadows Chloe Moretz says...

It's a mixture of Beetlejuice and Sweeney mixed with Sleepy Hollow."

Good to see Tim Burton branching out!!!

Chloe Moretz Interview Excert

Pfeiffer on the Move...

Michelle Pfeiffer sightings are so rare that we must share each and every one of them. The Power of Pfandom Compels Us. She arrived in LAX two days ago so these pap' shots cropped up. Where was she coming from?

She's got her passport so my guess is a break from Dark Shadows (2012) filming in London? Or maybe she's done already. You never know.

The latest from Tim Burton is an adaptation of the cult favorite soap opera about the matriarch of a troubled family (Michelle Pfeiffer) on a crumbling creepy estate. Her centuries-old vampire relative returns (Johnny Depp). Jude Law bestie/Angelina Jolie ex Johnny Lee Miller plays Pfeiffer's brother and the ubiquitous Chloe Moretz her rebellious daughter. Most promisingly, Helena Bonham Carter plays her live in psychiatrist. A live in psychiatrist! Oh the thrilling actressy neuroses that portends.

(Don't you love how I just described the entire movie like it's about Pfeiffer when it's really all about Depp!?! I'm gifted at self-deception!)  

The movie will arrive on May 11th, 2012 and no matter the quality it will make a bajillion dollars and win the Art Direction Oscar which Burton movies always do no matter how gaudy and McGothic they end up looking! 

Pfeiffer's 'Dark Shadows' home... under construction

I miss the days when the thought of a new Tim Burton was exciting. Though perhaps we should be hopeful. He did direct that iconic Catwoman performance afterall and Pfeiffer has always had a knack for elevating genre pieces (see: Catwoman, What Lies Beneath, Ladyhawke, Witches of Eastwick, Wolf, etcetera)

Are you excited about Dark Shadows or have you just given up with Burton?