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    How ‘MacArthur Park’ Became the New ‘Day-O’ in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

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    Meet the new “Day-O”: Richard Harris’s 1968 psychedelic pop hit “MacArthur Park,” which Donna Summer remade as a disco anthem.Some spoilers follow.It’s the climactic moment in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”Our title trickster has Lydia right where he wants her, in a red gown standing beside him before a priest at the altar. She has agreed to marry him in order to save the life of her daughter. A towering cake is rolled out, topped with slimy green icing and Lydia and Beetlejuice figures.And then … the cake starts to run.“MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark / All the sweet, green icing flowing down,” a male voice intones (“sings” would be too generous) as the possessed wedding party — including Lydia’s stepmother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara) — flap around the cake, taking turns lip-syncing verses.The nonsensical sequence, which the film’s director, Tim Burton, has said was largely improvised, sets the tone for a wedding from hell. The song seems as odd a choice as the use of Harry Belafonte’s version of the Jamaican folk tune “Day-O” to score the dinner-table possession scene in Burton’s original 1988 film.What is that song? Why did Burton tap it as the new “Day-O”? What do the lyrics mean? Here’s a guide.What is that song?It’s “MacArthur Park,” a folk-pop ballad the singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb wrote in 1967. It was inspired by scenes he had observed while occasionally meeting his high school sweetheart, Susie Horton, for lunch in the real-life MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.Who ‘sings’ it?If you are a Harry Potter fan who said it almost sounds like … no, it can’t be … well, it is.New flash: Richard Harris, who played the Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films, was also a musical artist.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Interview’: Jenna Ortega Is Still Recovering From Child Stardom

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      If you have a tween daughter, as I do, you know that Jenna Ortega is a big deal. In 2022, Ortega starred as the title character in Netflix’s “Addams Family” reboot, “Wednesday,” and quickly became beloved by viewers for her character’s snarky, dark and brutally honest personality. The show was a hit, and suddenly Wednesday — and by extension Ortega — were everywhere: on merch, on the streets for Halloween and all over the internet doing her meme-able dance moves. It was the kind of star-making, culture-saturating role that is life-changing for a young actor. It was also, as Ortega told me over the course of our two conversations, completely disorienting to become so famous so fast.Listen to the Conversation With Jenna OrtegaThe actress talks about learning to protect herself and the hard lessons of early fame.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppOrtega didn’t appear out of nowhere. She started as a child actor on the Disney Channel, played the young version of Jane in the CW series “Jane the Virgin” and later starred in the “Scream” and “X” horror franchises. Now she is 21. Her next big role is in the new movie “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 classic, which opens nationwide on Sept. 6. (Burton also directed several episodes of “Wednesday.”) Ortega plays the daughter of Winona Ryder’s character, and she told me that they bonded over each having found enormous success in Hollywood at a young age.When we spoke — I caught her in Ireland, where she was filming the second season of “Wednesday” — I found Ortega to be a thoughtful and curious person who, like many young people, is still finding out who she is. “I’m just navigating,” she says of this stage of her life. “I’m on my own little personal expedition.” Only she is doing it under the glare of a massive spotlight.When did you first see the original “Beetlejuice”? Honestly, I can’t really put a date on it. I feel like I had to have seen it maybe when I was 8 or 9. I was terrified of everything when I was younger. I actually had a recurring nightmare about Beetlejuice. I saw a really terrible Halloween costume before I really knew what the movie was, and I think that the mold and smearing, bleeding green and black Party City makeup gave me a scare. I just remember that image, and then I watched the movie later, and I thought, Oh, man, this is what the guy was dressed as. This is just as scary.What were your nightmares about Beetlejuice? I shared a room my entire life growing up. I was the bottom bunk on a bunk bed, and I had a dream that Beetlejuice would come down and swing around the banister to my bunk wearing a Superman cape, and he would offer me grape juice and say, “Got any grape?” More

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      ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ to Compete at Venice Film Festival

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      Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature and new movies from Luca Guadagnino and Pablo Larraín will also debut at this year’s event.“Joker: Folie à Deux,” Todd Phillips’s comic-book sequel starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, will compete for the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.The movie’s participation, which festival organizers announced during a news conference on Tuesday to reveal the lineup, comes five years after Phillips’s “Joker” — which told the Batman villain’s origin story — won the same prize at Venice’s 76th edition, paving the way for its two Oscar wins.Phillips’s movie will face starry competition for the Golden Lion, including from Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door,” starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, and Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” a biopic of the opera singer Maria Callas with Angelina Jolie in the lead.Also in competition will be Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” an adaptation of a short novel by William S. Burroughs that follows a drug addict (Daniel Craig) as he undergoes withdrawal in Mexico City and becomes infatuated with an American drifter (Drew Starkey); Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” starring Nicole Kidman as a manager who starts an affair; and Justin Kurzel’s “The Order,” with Jude Law as an F.B.I. agent investigating a white supremacist terrorist organization.Altogether, 21 movies will compete for the top prize at Venice’s 81st edition, which is scheduled to run Aug. 28 through Sep. 7. A nine-person jury led by Isabelle Huppert, the French actor, will choose the Golden Lion winner, which is announced on the festival’s final day.This year’s competition will include, from top left, “The Room Next Door,” “Maria,” “The Order,” and “Queer.”Iglesias Más; Michelle Faye; Yannis DrakoulidisThis year’s star-studded lineup suggests the impact of last year’s Hollywood strikes on the movie industry’s schedules is waning. Those strikes wrought havoc at last year’s festival, with the MGM studio pulling Guadagnino’s tennis drama “Challengers” from the lineup, and many actors and directors staying away to avoid breaking strike terms.At Tuesday’s news conference, Alberto Barbera, the festival’s artistic director, said that “Joker: Folie à Deux” showed Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s characters stuck in an asylum awaiting trial.“Nobody can imagine what Todd and his screenwriters have imagined,” Barbera said, adding that Phoenix’s performance was “incredible.”Venice’s organizers had announced some of this year’s lineup before Tuesday’s news conference, including this year’s opening movie, which won’t compete for the Golden Lion: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 comedy horror. The new movie has Michael Keaton return to play the title role, and also stars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara.Another high-profile movie appearing out of competition is Jon Watts’s comedic thriller “Wolfs,” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as professional fixers who are hired to cover up the same crime. There are also movies by directors less familiar to Western audiences, including the Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, with “Cloud,” and the Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, who is showing “April.”In recent years, the Venice Film Festival has gained a reputation for debuting Oscar contenders. Last year, Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone, won the Golden Lion for best film and Stone went on to win best actress at this year’s Academy Awards. More