GHOSTBUSTERS review

Watching GHOSTBUSTERS at The Alamo Drafthouse with a collective of cool aficionados of GHOSTBUSTERS was a fantastic treat.

I went with Cora Smith and Annette Kellerman. It was the night of Cora Smith’s birthday and a follow-up to RUN LOLA RUN. We were coming off a buzz of Strawberry Margarita’s at Trudy’s, and heading for many glasses of Guinness whilst watching this classic film.

I love GHOSTBUSTERS. Like these other films I’m reviewing tonight (SUPERMAN, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK), this film was formulative in my state of consciousness.

It was 1984, when I first saw this film and my world had just gone to hell. My parents had just divorced, I was bodysnatched from Austin and taken to what I felt was a desolate outback environment conducive to my displeasure.

Movies were a reminder of Austin, so I grasped at them like a life preserver from a sinking ship. GHOSTBUSTERS filled me with joy, lifting me from a melancholy self-loathing state and forced me to procure a Walkman emblazoned with the Ghostbuster symbol and inside... A cassette blasting Ray Parker Jr, The Thompson Twins, Air Supply, Mick Smiley and just enough of Elmer Bernstein’s classic score to keep that smile on my face.... constantly.

Aykroyd, Murray, Ramis, Moranis, Hudson, Potts and Weaver were all in a state of perfection. Everything about this film is just.... right.

The practical effects, the complete lack of CGI, the sweetness and charisma of Bill Murray, the droll of Harold Ramis, the simplicity of Aykroyd, the run-on sentences and inanity of Moranis, the trapped in the headlights ‘doe’ look of Sigourney Weaver and transformation into seductress, and the regular joe-ness of Ernie Hudson.

Unlike the upcoming MYSTERY MEN, this film IS perfect. The characters are more than simply for laughs. At moments in MYSTERY MEN some of the characters flash to the brilliance that lays SUSTAINED within GHOSTBUSTERS.

Here... The entire narrative arc is just soooo deliciously perfect. Having the guys have their first, panicky meeting with a full-torso phantasm in the library, so that we can see that they really are a rabble of amateurs in a world where there is no real expertise.

They have genius bottled and pickled with a total lack of common sense. Spengler, Stantz and Venkman embody Harrison Ford’s line from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, they are “Just making it up as they go along” to paraphrase badly.

When you think about it, the EPA is completely in the right to shut these guys down. They all have unlicensed nuclear accelerators on their backs. That let loose with beams that at least have sterilized themselves (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). God only knows the environmental hell they are plunging New York int... Well, hell, there really isn’t any harm done. Maybe they do all their dumping on the New Jersey side.

In addition to watching this at the Drafthouse, I also have just watched it on that super-duper most cool DVD and man.

I so completely agree with the statement on the commentary about how iconic those guys looked in their Ghostbuster garb.

That just looked like the proper uniform that a Ghostbuster would wear. Then there’s that concept that apparently Slimer is the ghost of John Belushi...

But at the Alamo Drafthouse, the audience was riddled with laughter from beginning to end. They weren’t laughing at the film, but with the film. This is the definitive classic funny movie from the Eighties for me.

There are lines that just instantly cause laughter from me and my friends. The smallest things like how Moranis keeps locking himself out, to Egon’s affinity for mucus, to Walter Peck having no penis. The film is perfect.

Once again, the beauty of matte paintings, the work from Richard Edlund, the snappy editing, the wonderful widescreen look of it all.

I so love Venkman perverse glee with which he toys with and alternately seduces the dweeb and babe that he is allegedly testing for the results of negative reinforcement of ESP. How the gum comes out of that guy’s mouth. The reverence with which the Twinkie speech is made, or the rewarding of the Nestle Crunch bar.

The immortal line, “When somebody asks you if you are a God, you say YES!” A simple life rule. That line has so affected me. You wouldn’t believe how powerful the word YES has been.

While I have a fondness for the second film, there is a mystical all pistons are firing perfection with the first film. Every character seems like destiny created it. As if these actors were placed on this planet to make this particular movie.

It’s a film that I always wish to see another chapter of, but.... if it never happens, I’m pleased cause at least I got this much. GHOSTBUSTERS is one of those films that I’ve seen more times than I can recall, but it seems I have yet to see it too much.

Over the 15 years since it’s creation I have yet to find it’s jokes stale, the relationships rancid and the effects lacking.

If you have been pussy-footing around with the idea of buying the new DVD of this film, don’t kid yourself.... It’s worth every single penny. Hell, it’s likely to be the DVD that I test the limits of. Can a DVD be used too much? I’ll find out. In my life, I’ve had to buy the tape 3 times.... I keep wearing them out.

A perfect film. You believe these guys can lose. You want them to win. All is right in the world when the credits roll.... and of course... there are magical things that go bump in the night. Ya just gotta love that.