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![single table setting reminiscent of beetlejuice dinner scene with cocktail-style shrimp and orzo dish, glass of bloody 'tini, plate of lemon slices, glass of white wine and bottle of wine in ice bucket single table setting reminiscent of beetlejuice dinner scene with cocktail-style shrimp and orzo dish, glass of bloody 'tini, plate of lemon slices, glass of white wine and bottle of wine in ice bucket](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarpe/en/home/benefits-discounts/members-only-access/info-2022/beetlejuice-dinner-and-a-movie/_jcr_content/root/container_main/container_body_main/container_body1/container_body_cf/container_image/articlecontentfragment/cfimage.coreimg.50.932.jpeg/content/dam/aarp/members-only/member-benefits/2022/10/1140-beetlejuice-main.jpg)
Welcome to our Dinner and a Movie series, where we feature nostalgic essays on some of our favorite films from the '80s and '90s, and share recipes inspired from movie moments.
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Beetlejuice is a symphony, executed brilliantly by brilliant actors. It’s garish and hilarious, despite its dalliance with the macabre, a film that is by turns funny and suspenseful, and even a little morose. Tim Burton’s 1988 sleeper hit introduces us to the exceptionally rural Adam and Barbara Maitland (played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), loving their country lives in their country home in fictional Winter River, Connecticut. But a quick car ride into the city for an errand ends in them plummeting off a bridge. At first we’re tricked — they’re back in the house! Everything is fine! But not seeing their reflection and finding a mysterious (and very sus) book, Handbook of the Recently Deceased, leads our sappy duo to finally accept their newfound un-livingness. They’re ghosts and there’s nothing they can do about it.
'Beetlejuice' Recipes
Enjoy these delightful delicacies inspired by the iconic movie:
![cocktail-style shrimp and mediterranean orzo on a black plate beside a glass of bloody martini cocktail-style shrimp and mediterranean orzo on a black plate beside a glass of bloody martini](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarpe/en/home/benefits-discounts/members-only-access/info-2022/beetlejuice-dinner-and-a-movie/_jcr_content/root/container_main/container_body_main/container_body1/container_body_cf/body_one_cf_one/par3/body_three_callout_o/cfimage.coreimg.50.932.jpeg/content/dam/aarp/members-only/member-benefits/2022/10/1140-shrimp-martini-beetlejuice.jpg)
OK, fine. This is fine! They’ll just live out their days in their bucolic home. But a car arrives carrying cloying city folk Charles, Delia and Lydia Deetz (impeccably played by Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder), along with a very hands-on interior designer, and with them big plans to turn the charming and rustic home the Maitlands had recently bought into a postmodern rigid spector. It’s too much for Adam and Babs, and to pile it on, they find they have no ghost scaring abilities. Even worse? Bureaucracy also exists in the afterlife, and their caseworker tells them they are stuck in their house for 125 years.
Drastic times call for drastic measures, and they ask the outgoing and disgusting Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton in one of his favorite roles), who has a reputation for exterminating the living by scaring them to death, to help them out. Good plan.
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