Freeze Frame: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (PG-13), “Across the River and Into the Trees” (Not rated)

It’s taken 36 years, but Michael Keaton’s wisecracking demon returns to haunt supernatural TV hostess Winona Ryder in Tim Burton’s gory gothic comedy, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Surprisingly, the over-the-top farce has aged pretty well. Jenna Ortega, who stars in Burton’s Netflix series “Wednesday,” plays Winona’s estranged teenage daughter. She doesn’t believe in ghosts, but after her grandfather’s grisly death, it doesn’t take long for her to realize that mom knows what she’s talking about. Catherine O’Hara, Willem Defoe, Monica Bellucci, Justin Theroux and Danny DeVito all join in on the macabre fun. Clever visuals, including some of Burton’s patented stop-motion animation sequences, fast pacing and a dark and twisted sense of humor all work together to bring “Beetlejuice” back from the cinematic dead.

Liev Schreiber stars in “Across the River and Into the Trees,” a winsome big screen adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s final and critically assailed novel. Schreiber plays a terminally ill American Army Colonel in Venice during the waning days of WWII. He meets and has an unlikely entanglement with a Contessa 30 years his junior, played by Matilda De Angelis. This low-key film is modestly successful in exploring Hemingway’s dual themes of recapturing one’s youth and dying with dignity. “Across the River and Into the Trees” is a glossy Venetian travelogue boosted by Schreiber’s authoritative presence.

In conjunction with the ongoing Disney 100 exhibit at Union Station, classic Disney films are being showcased on the Extreme Screen. You still have time to catch “Frozen, “The Little Mermaid” and “Cinderella.” More information is available at extremescreen.unionstation.org.

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