Tag Archives: ghostbusters

Review of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021)

afterlife

© James Pyles

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I finally managed to see Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) when I found the Blu-ray at my local public library. Actually, like the blurb says on the Blu-ray cover, it is “perfect.”

Not absolutely, but it was an amazing experience, especially for a film that is so different from the original (I still haven’t seen the 2016 gender-flipped reboot and we will speak no more about it here).

First of all, McKenna Grace totally nailed it as Igon’s nerdy granddaughter Phoebe. I was a little dubious about a bunch of kids trying to be Ghostbusters, but I really loved how the film pulled it off.

It’s such an unlikely setting, a rural town and former mining community in the-middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma, but it worked.

Callie (Carrie Coon), Igon Spengler’s (the late Harold Ramis) daughter and her two kids Phoebe and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) are evicted from the apartment somewhere (the location is never disclosed), and go to the only place left to them. A year ago, Igon died and Callie hopes to sell his farm to recoup her losses. No such luck.

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Jason Reitman and the new Ghostbusters: Respecting the Fans isn’t Misogynistic

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From the teaser/trailer to “Ghostbusters 3”

Apparently, the whole “Ghostbusters” thing, the next movie in the franchise scheduled to hit the theaters in 2020 isn’t over yet. In fact, the controversy seems to be just warming up.

As you may recall, a little over a month ago, I wrote about the upcoming sequel to be directed by Jason Reitman, son of Ivan Reitman, director of the original 1984 film starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Sigourney Weaver.

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Screen capture from twitter

But the announcement that the 2020 film would be a direct sequel to the original, essentially bypassing the very badly received 2016 remake, made a few people angry, as if the younger Reitman’s vision was somehow a slight to that movie’s all-female cast in particular and feminism in general. In fact, actress Leslie Jones, who played Patty Tolan in the 2016 film, got on twitter to express her extreme displeasure (to put it mildly).

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A Sequel…Why Did It Have to Be a Sequel?

g3

From the teaser/trailer to “Ghostbusters 3”

Oh, good grief. I mean “Ghostbusters 3?”

Okay, I’m a huge fan of the original 1984 Ghostbusters starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and directed by Ivan Reitman. Every Halloween, I close up all of the blinds on the front of my house, hide from trick or treaters, and watch this comedy classic. It’s a beautiful movie that never gets old.

I’ve watched the 1989 sequel exactly once, hated it, and have never viewed it since.

I read extensively about the gender-flipped 2016 Ghostbuster’s remake and decided to avoid it altogether. Yes, that probably leaves me vulnerable to being called “sexist” and “misogynistic” since a “woke” man would have not only watched the film but loved it for being pro-woman and progressive (however, as Paul Bois at The Daily Wire quipped, “Get woke, go broke”)…

…or maybe it was just a bad movie banking on using an established and beloved franchise to push an ideology in the most shallow and blatantly obvious way possible.

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Ghostbusters, Ocean’s 8, and “Gender Flipping”

Ocean's 8

Promotional poster for the 2018 film, “Ocean’s 8”.

I think I may have seen the 1960 film Ocean’s 11 at some point decades past, or at least parts of it. It had an all-star cast which included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. The sole primary actress featured was Angie Dickinson, and the movie (as I understand it) set the bar for all big-time heist movies.

It’s been remade and “sequelized” (if that’s a word) numerous times in the early 21st century as you can read here. Those movies also had an all-star cast which included George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Don Cheadle. Catherine Zeta-Jones seems to be the primary female lead in these films.

I think I’ve seen parts of some of them years ago when one or the other of my kids were still at home and watching them, but I didn’t have an interest in viewing any of them.

But why am I telling you all this and why should you care?

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