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YourEvilTw1n posted:They are so scientific about spirits. They don't come at hauntings with holy water and incantations, the come with calculators and nuclear accelerators. Hey Ray, do you believe in God? Never met 'im.
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Aug 11, 2009 00:13
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BranceMulliganPI posted:I got some of that feeling back while playing "Ghostbusters the Video Game." Some of the horror elements, especially in the public library and in Ivo Shandor's estate, were genuinely creepy and otherworldly. The idea of going up against Shandor just made it so much worse. Obviously, the game ain't the movie in terms of writing, acting or design. But it's worth noting. "Ghostbusters" is so familiar now that it's hard to remember how scary it could be when I watched it as a kid in the theater. The game restored some of that feeling to the franchise, at least for me. It's funny how the game works just fine as a giant "let's revisit all the setpieces and memorable ghosts from the first two movies" nostalgia fest, which would be boring wankery if experienced passively in movie form. And the ghost wrangling/trapping is unique to me for being exactly as engaging a game mechanic as it is an action hook in the films, something that I think has been extremely rare in movie-to-game adaptations. Any Ghostbusters fan really owes it to themselves to check it out.
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Aug 11, 2009 00:28
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I hate the parts where you have to zap tons of tiny ghosts.
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Aug 11, 2009 00:55
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I haven't seen Ghostbusters since I was a kid (except for catching the last 10 minutes on cable a while back) and never really gave it a chance. The wide acclaim in this thread has inspired me to borrow it from a friend and watch it. I am not very fond of most 80's movies, especially the comedies, so I have been avoiding it. I don't really get the Bill Murray love either (haven't seen much of his peak years stuff) but he seems like a pretty interesting actor. What besides Ghostbusters would you people recommend? Groundhog Day?
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Aug 11, 2009 01:06
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Caddyshack, Groundhog Day, Stripes, Lost in Translation, What About Bob?, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou to name a few.
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Aug 11, 2009 01:17
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mostlikelyme posted:What besides Ghostbusters would you people recommend? Groundhog Day? Groundhog Day Stripes Scrooged Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
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Aug 11, 2009 01:17
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Any of his movies where he isn't clearly trying to go for an award.
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Aug 11, 2009 01:20
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mostlikelyme posted:I am not very fond of most 80's movies, especially the comedies Ugh! Ha-ha, don't worry, it's not THAT kind of 80s comedy. There's no wacky body-swapping before the high school prom, no girls with vomit-inducing pink outfits gabbing at the mall, no showdown ski race. What IS 80s about Ghostbusters... hmm. - Some element of the cinematography... although it's unusually shot, as discussed in the OP, you can still kinda tell in the texture of the film stock. - Some of the music. But nothing groan-inducing, except maaaybe Air Supply's more-mawkish-than-mawkish "I Can Wait Forever", which, thankfully, is not used to punctuate some big lovey-dovey moment. (Actually, it's pretty funny where they stick it, I wonder what the band thought.) - The celebrities and news figures of the time. I still don't quite fully appreciate the presence of Joe Franklin gag, I only know him from this and a mention in the "Aristocrats", and Larry King having a radio show means nothing to me. It's a pretty small element of the film though. - Perhaps most tellingly, there's a definite spirit of Republicanism / Reagan / what-have-you in the film; it's very much pro-business, get the government off our back, boo for elitist academia, why must society punish its heroes, regulation is bad. These days it crops up a lot on lists of Most Libertarian Movies. As for Murray, for me his holy trinity is Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and Lost in Translation. One for pure comedy, one for drama and the one in the middle for, well, the middle. I also like him a lot in "Meatballs"--although I don't think much of the film itself, it's fun to see him with a boatload of energy in his first starring role in a film, as if he's eager to really get some yuks in. And I like him in the modern-day "Hamlet" as Polonius (with Julia Stiles as his Ophelia). Strangely, I'm not much of a fan of "Stripes" or "Caddyshack", despite the Ghostbusters reteamings. You'd think they'd be right up my alley. For your A-plus extra credit in Bill Murray study, after you've seen more of him in both comedic and dramatic work, go back and re-watch "The Royal Tenenbaums". Oh, it's a small part, but he brings so much to it. It's worth noting that it was written for a British actor, probably some sort of stuffy gent. Take away a "bloody" in the dialogue and cast Bill, and see what you have there--a sadness, a heaviness of a man who has wit and intelligence, but who is finding no fulfillment in a marriage going wrong or in research that, while a small breakthrough in its way, isn't going to change the world. Icon-Cat fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Aug 11, 2009 |
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Aug 11, 2009 01:25
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Life Aquatic isn't funny.
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Aug 11, 2009 01:28
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ShawnWilkesBooth posted:Life Aquatic isn't funny. I wouldn't say its funny for everyone, but I was able to find some humor in it.
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Aug 11, 2009 01:51
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That's right, the Boys are in the music video.
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Aug 11, 2009 01:56
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The video game is mediocre as far as action shooters go, but as a tribute to the movie it's very successful and worth a rent at least for huge fans. Just remember to plug your ears during all the romance dialog.Paradox86 posted:Also, when he runs and leaps over the divider from "his office" when Dana arrives at the firehouse you hear the tip of his toe kick the wood. That always cracks me up and conjures images for me of Bill Murray completely nosediving into the floor if he hadn't cleared that divider. That's not the best part of that scene. Rather, it's three seconds earlier when he notices a hot female client in the office and pops up from behind his desk so fast you can almost hear a cartoon BOING.
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Aug 11, 2009 02:03
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Something I noticed in a recent re-watch was the opening ESP test with Murray and the hot co-ed, "The study of esp abilities in a stressful environment" or somesuch and the nerdy guy actually ends up calling most of the cards after being ridiculed, electrocuted and ignored. A nice touch.
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Aug 11, 2009 02:12
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Aatrek posted:That's right, the Boys are in the music video. Its hilarious that everyone else is doing the walk and Bill's like "ah, gently caress it" and is just half assing.
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Aug 11, 2009 02:17
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That's the entire point of the scene...
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Aug 11, 2009 02:17
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Three fun things to think about during that scene: (1) Those are real cards actually designed and used to administer ESP tests -- they're called Zener cards. You KNOW Aykroyd wouldn't have just made something up. (2) Can you imagine Venkman standing before the department, or the grant board, or whoever one sees about these things (I was a liberal arts major, what do I know) -- explaining what he wanted to do with his research? Study the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP ability. Sounds great on paper! You can use that lab across the hall! (3) "But the kids love us!" -- it's never really discussed explicitly, but yes, the guys aren't just research scientists... it's a university, and that means they're teaching undergrads too! What do you think Venkman, Stantz and Spengler were like as professors? I bet we can all remember one prof apiece whose relationship with students and teaching style would have fit... I had an astronomy prof freshman year, so lovably dorky, got a kick out of showing our giant lecture hall neat things about computers and space, he was a Ray... and then there was the film prof who'd just hang out in the lobby with us shootin' the poo poo...
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Aug 11, 2009 02:24
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ShawnWilkesBooth posted:That's the entire point of the scene... Which I missed as a kid but just figured out.
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Aug 11, 2009 02:35
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I picked up the GB 1+2 "green slime" box set and as I understand it's not the best but what rubs salt in the wound is GB2 doesn't even work and I bought it well over a year ago. Thing gives me some warning about anti-piracy or something. Won't work on my PC, X-Box or 360 but works fine on my sisters lovely 15 quid DVD player. I had planned on tonight being a Ghosbusters night, but I guess it was just never meant to be. Oh, and my Dad left me alone in the cinema during the train scene in Ghostbusters 2 when I was a kid. Thanks dad.
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Aug 11, 2009 02:45
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I've just re-watched this and whoever said the romance was well done, was spot on. They also mentioned "that" scene in the car with Ray and Winston. It's around this part of the film that it becomes brooding and mysterious - when Venkman gets to Dana's apartment and find she's all Zuul, it's actually a really sexy scene. The duskiness, the tones in the bedroom (the fabrics and soft lighting), the way the camera lingers on Sigourney Weaver, who is smouldering - it's incredibly sexy. When she's floating in mid-air, stroking his face, it's magic. Then it cuts to that shot of the Ecto prowling through the streets as it cuts into Ray and Winston having the end of the world speech. The gag rate of about 1 a minute has completely stopped by this point. It's a batch of really well done scenes, they really channel this ethereal weirdness using every tool they've got - light, colour, minimal sound. Great, great stuff. Then just before it gets too heavy we're right back with Peck, who is getting near to Hans Gruber levels of scenery-chewing villainy. Wonderful! The editing of the film is spot on, it moves very fast - a lot happens in what's quite a short film, whereas GBII drags quite a bit. That ultra tight shot of Weaver from behind her exploding building is oddly alluring. Dean Yeager is a fantastic villain, even if he's only there for 30 seconds.
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Aug 11, 2009 03:00
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Just to add to all the talk about how great Aykroyd is: Eric Idle once said he was the only comedic actor he could think of who would have fit in perfectly in Monty Python. For some reason, I remember the cast going on "Oprah" to promote GB2 and they start talking about the cartoon and the action figures - Aykroyd sarcastically thanked Kenner for making him "the fat one."
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Aug 11, 2009 03:12
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echoplex posted:Dean Yeager is a fantastic villain, even if he's only there for 30 seconds. Only Ghostbusters could turn "you are a poor excuse for a scientist" into such an awesome 
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Aug 11, 2009 03:46
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muscles like this? posted:A little thing that I noticed when watching the movie on Blu-Ray is the difference in sensibilities between the 80s and today. Like how everybody smokes. You just don't see casual smoking in movies anymore unless they're a period piece. Villains and anti-heroes still sometimes smoke in Hollywood movies, and people smoke all the time in indie films. If my childhood memory is vaguely accurate, I think there was an actual decision made by Hollywood to cut smoking out because of pressure that it was a bad influence on kids or whatever crack they were on that year. EDIT: Also people smoke in Tarantino and Rodriguez movies because they're rebels like that. precision fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Aug 11, 2009 |
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Aug 11, 2009 04:01
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Icon-Cat posted:
I agree, I love that about the movie and like you said I think it's critical to the movie that it presents religion in the way it does. Most movies involve religion as the centerpiece of the plot or not at all. Ghostbusters' "Everyone thinks different things but our movie isn't really about that" makes the whole movie feel more authentic, just like the great sets and gritty "working the streets" point of view the film takes, because in real life lots of people do have religious beliefs. It lets you identify with the characters and the world the movie takes place in by just saying "These are people, here's what they think, who knows what's right?"
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Aug 11, 2009 04:08
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precision posted:Villains and anti-heroes still sometimes smoke in Hollywood movies, and people smoke all the time in indie films. One eighties movie that has some very noticeable smoking is "Aliens." People are chain smoking at a board meeting for christ's sake. You got people in a pressurized space station just smoking away, which is consistent with "Alien" of course. The cigarettes in public spaces and printouts in that movie really date it in a good way.
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Aug 11, 2009 06:00
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Like so many others have said, I grew up with this movie. It, to this day, remains my favorite movie of all time. I think it works two fold. As a kid, you're just happy to see the awesome proton packs and a giant marshmallow man. Sure, the jokes are there and you laugh because you pick up context based on the actor's (often hilarious) facial expressions, if not the dialogue. (I was born in '85 so I was really young for this) Then, as an adult you re-watch it to recapture some of that nostalgia. You are then blown away by all the dialogue you missed as a child, the throw away jokes that are layered on top of one another. The joke delivery is so fantastically realized, as someone else mentioned it's not like they're making jokes for the audience. It's just portrayed in a way that it's what they do and say and it feels natural. The only film I can think of off the top of my head that does this anywhere near as well is, of all things, Superbad. (Granted, the mold breaks a few times in that movie, but the casual jokes are still well done.) That said, we had half a slinky. But I straightened it. fake edit: which reminds me, one of my favorite scenes was in GBII when Dana visits Egon while he was doing his behavioral studies. He talks to her as he's getting PKE readouts on the child and the couple, then when Dana looks away and asks if Venkman talks about her, he just looks over his glasses at her, says "no" and just does this little passing sweep of the PKE that is just so loving perfect.
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Aug 11, 2009 06:04
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Tender Bender posted:I agree, I love that about the movie and like you said I think it's critical to the movie that it presents religion in the way it does. Most movies involve religion as the centerpiece of the plot or not at all. Ghostbusters' "Everyone thinks different things but our movie isn't really about that" makes the whole movie feel more authentic, just like the great sets and gritty "working the streets" point of view the film takes, because in real life lots of people do have religious beliefs. It lets you identify with the characters and the world the movie takes place in by just saying "These are people, here's what they think, who knows what's right?" Well they really created a cosmology that rests comfortably outside religion. Somewhere between earth and the ethereal plane is a kind of purgatory where negatively-charged spirits end up. They never address the issue theologically, nor create such a complete picture of the cosmos that their ghosts impinge on religion. It's a beautiful pseudo science and another reason I like the game--the game has the freedom to fully indulge Aykroyd's obsessions in a way that a film comedy can't sustain. They never really define gods. Gozer is a Lovecaft-style transdimensional alien that people might have worshiped in the past, and not necessarily a creator or deity in the classical sense. In Christian theology she would function comfortably as a demon or evil spirit masquerading as a god. Love Rat fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Aug 11, 2009 |
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Aug 11, 2009 06:06
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One nice little thing I like about Ghostbusters is that it is not shy about sneaking in a bit of intellectual content. Here are some real-life scientific or historical concepts and such that I first learned from Ghostbusters. - The term 'private sector' - Metallurgy - Magnesium, tungsten, selenium - The term 'telemetry' - Pulsars - The Tunguska blast of 1908 (yes, '08... Ray never seems to get anything accurate with numbers in these movies) A few from GB2: - Roentgens - Apgar score - Bonnington - Gauguin - Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" Now, are all these terribly important to a young fellow? No. (Although I did once win a trivia question thanks to Roentgens.) But I love the fact that the film doesn't mind tossing in terms and concepts that a kid wouldn't understand, but keeping it more or less real, and hopefully going and learning more (yes, I did in fact go look up the word 'metallurgy' at a tender age). Betcha that the movies kids like today don't do that! I'm reminded of a TV show I love, "Frasier", which regularly name-checkes operas and symphonies and such and doesn't stop to explain to the audience; we are carried away in the wit and the story, and if we want to go look things up, we can. Or, to keep things more kid-friendly, I'm reminded of how George Lucas felt one of the important side benefits of having an opening crawl and subtitles in Star Wars would be that it would encourage very young kids to get a jump-start on learning to read.
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Aug 11, 2009 06:16
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This was definitely one of my first dvd purchases. Winston's line on top of the gateway always cracks me up, it's not even that clever, it's just the exasperated delivery that gets me. "Ray, when someone asks you if you are a god, you say YES!!" And the entire hotel sequence is just gold. "We should split up!" "Good idea, we can cause more damage that way!"
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Aug 11, 2009 06:17
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I just re-watched this movie today because of this topic. (Thank you Netflix streaming.) It's still absolutely fantastic. I can't believe how much it frightened me as a kid, principally the ending, compared to now, where I see it as more of a comedy. This topic really helped me to appreciate a lot of the more subtle intricacies of the film.
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Aug 11, 2009 06:27
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tadashi posted:Huey Lewis sued Roy Parker, jr, over the Ghostbusters theme song and ended up settling out of court. The parties involved signed a confidentiality agreement over the terms and agreed not to make further comments on the lawsuit except in joint press releases. It's a complete rip-off of Lewis's song "I Want a New Drug". The strange thing is that Parker, jr, ended up suing Lewis 17 years later when Lewis made comments about the lawsuit for "Behind the Music: Huey Lewis and the News". Lewis said something to the effect that his "wave" was not for sale, but in effect he was forced to sell it anyway. I always thought that was a pretty tenuous claim by Lewis. While the main riff in both are similar (but not identical), just about everything else about "Ghostbusters" is completely different: the call-and-response vocal melody, the chorus, the lyrics, the bridge, the structure, etc. It's not like the riff is unique to Lewis' song, anyway. M's "Pop Musik" opens with a lick that's just as similar, and that predates Lewis' by a good four years. Given that Columbia had approached Lewis to write a theme song, I don't doubt that Parker probably had "I Want a New Drug" in mind when writing the song, but so what? I'm no musicologist, but to me, there are enough differences to call "Ghostbusters" a new composition. It's a shame it never made it to court, as I would have been very interested to see if they agreed with me. CaptAwesome fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Aug 11, 2009 |
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Aug 11, 2009 06:44
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MokBa posted:I just re-watched this movie today because of this topic. (Thank you Netflix streaming.) It's still absolutely fantastic. I can't believe how much it frightened me as a kid, principally the ending, compared to now, where I see it as more of a comedy. That's the beauty of it. When you're a kid, it's a fantastical adventure about four guys, with the most awesome backpacks ever, who save the world. When you revisit it even as a teenager, you start to see that the fantasy elements are there as a backdrop for the comedy. I was born three weeks after this movie came out in theaters, I know it was the first VHS I ever owned and the day my dad bought a DVD player, we went out and bought the disc. My next step is to now get a Blu-ray player, only because I must own the Blu-ray of this film. I also need to get my hands on Don Shay's book, "Making Ghostbusters," although it's ridiculously hard to find nowadays.  (Pretty sure even used copies go for around a hundred bucks on Half.com and eBay.)
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Aug 11, 2009 06:48
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"It's here, Ray...it's looking at me." Oh, Dr. Venkman. I think I'm gonna watch me some GB.
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Aug 11, 2009 07:21
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Years before I would get an HD/widescreen TV, it was the GB2 DVD that taught me the value of watching a movie in its proper widescreen format. For years and years watching this movie on VHS, during the bath scene the first time you really see the slime monster is when Dana turns around to put Oscar in the tub. However, there's a shot right before that, that must've gotten cropped for full screen, and you see the thing rising up in the background (right as Dana takes her shirt off). It blew my mind, that after countless viewings of this movie on VHS all my life (it was my favorite up until I was old enough to fully get the humor of the original), I was seeing parts of the movie I had never seen before. Still waiting for a commentary track, even if it's the sounds of Reitman snoring and Ramis chewing his food for an hour and 40 minutes. And it's Ghostbusters II dammit, not Ghostbusters 2!
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Aug 11, 2009 07:34
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Cdishwalla posted:And it's Ghostbusters II dammit, not Ghostbusters 2!  Click here for the full 1024x768 image. International Sign Language dictates that the above gesture represents the number 2. So technically, it is "Ghostbusters 2". ...Dammit.
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Aug 11, 2009 07:45
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Jay Dub posted:
I can't believe I actually remember this, but I believe that the original VHS release actually had it listed both ways. One spine had it as a roman numeral while the other used a numerical 2. Both DVD releases (at least in Region 1) use a "2" while the original poster used a roman numeral. So it would appear that both are right.
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Aug 11, 2009 07:54
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My DVD has the number and not the numeral, but I clearly remember "II" being on the VHS and the NES cart. Wait... what GB DVDs do we all even have? There were more than one, which is confusing. I got mine at Wal-Mart a long time ago. I didn't even own a DVD player; I just didn't want to miss out on the low price. It's just 2 DVDs in normal boxes in a slipcover. It had the nice GB1 disc, and then the GB2 with virtually no extras.   1999? The DVD is ten!?  I'm... I feel so old! No kidding.I don't own a single bluray disc. But I know what one I'm getting first. Perhaps I'll get it soon. Also, Ghostbusters clearly caused me to fall in love with the comedians of the era: 
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Aug 11, 2009 08:08
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This thread totally got me to rewatch this for the first time in a few years ago too. I've had the luck to see a midnight showing of it at a theater in Davis a few years back, and that big screen experience really adds so much to the effects. Sure, some of them are dated, but they always feel much more real than most of the CGI of today does. In continuing the theme of "small things you notice and love", I love how at the end, after the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man gets exploded, Ray, Egon, and Winston all come out absolutely covered, head to toe, in exploded marshmellow, and then out comes Venkman- almost completely clear of any marshmellow, and you can see Ray give him that kind of "of course he avoids it all" look after Venkman says he's alright. It just goes to show, how even when possibly on death's doorstep with a potentially suicidal (and even potentially all-life-ending!) action, he still manages to think of himself and avoid the worst of the marshmellow explosion.
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Aug 11, 2009 08:22
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Regarding the DVDs, there were two releases of GB1 and 2 in Region 1. The first was in 1999 to celebrate the 15th and 10th of anniversary of Ghostbusters 1 and 2 respectively. The second was in 2005 to celebrate me buying the same movie twice. There really isn't a whole lot of difference between them. "Ghostbusters" was remastered on the second release, but I wasn't very impressed with the way it looked. The movie is noticeably brighter, which brings out some more details in some of the darker scenes, but it also brings out a lot of grain while making the whites look over-exposed. The color timing is also different should you care about that sort of thing. If you're interested, a comparison between the 1999 DVD and the 2005 DVD can be found here while screencaps from the Bluray can be found here. The two disk set that was released in 2005 also included a scrapbook as well as a couple episodes of the "Real Ghostbusters." It kept all of the special features from the first release with the exception of the silhouettes that ran during the commentary. Whee.
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Aug 11, 2009 08:39
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mpeg4v3 posted:This thread totally got me to rewatch this for the first time in a few years ago too. I've had the luck to see a midnight showing of it at a theater in Davis a few years back, and that big screen experience really adds so much to the effects. Sure, some of them are dated, but they always feel much more real than most of the CGI of today does. *Rick Moranis looks at them* *a beat* "...Who does your taxes?"
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Aug 11, 2009 08:41
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsgVspgy184 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ZvAVcBIrQ I don't know who said that Rick Moranis wasn't funny but that man was incorrect. 
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Aug 11, 2009 09:02
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