Working Girl (1988)

Although I am taking my sweet time in doing so, my attempt to finally get around to watching more Melanie Griffith films is continuing. She was someone I never really rated while actually delivering some of her best work (I was too young to fully appreciate most of her movies, and I mistakenly equated her choice of projects not tailor-made for me with a lack of talent), but looking back on the heyday of her career is an interesting experience. Not only did Griffith pick some great projects, it's fascinating to watch her own the screen and be treated like the beauty she so clearly is, yet also look at how she represents the kind of female sexuality and presence that is so rare to see onscreen in more modern movies, after years of developments in the world of fillers, implants, sculpting, and physical training regimes.

Working Girl is probably the biggest star vehicle for Griffith, certainly in the way it keeps her front and centre for most of the runtime, and allows her to work alongside a couple of star names comfortably leaning into their star status. The fact that it's a more adult reworking of The Secret Of My Success (which I'm sure was probably based on at least one or two previous tales) is neither here nor there. The main thing is that it's very enjoyable stuff. 

Griffith plays Tess McGill, a secretary who works for her boss, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver), under the mistaken impression that she will be recognised and rewarded for all of her hard work. Seeing how she has been betrayed when her best idea is passed along by Katharine without giving her any credit, Tess decides to make some major moves when Katharine has to be absent for a while. She moves into the main office, upgrades her wardrobe, and starts seriously impressing Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford).

Working Girl has a decent script by Kevin Wade, which remains arguably the best he ever wrote, and solid direction by Mike Nichols. It's a great snapshot of the time, and makes a nice companion piece to the much more testosterone-heavy Wall Street, which was released the year before. The two films show people striving for great success, but with very different ideas of just what exactly that success looks like, and they both feature main characters who seem equal parts inspirational and monstrous, depending on how well they maintain their charming facade while holding on to their power and position.  

It's the cast who really make this shine though. Griffith is perfect in her lead role, and her transformation works as well as it does because they're only aesthetic choices that help her in her "fake it until you make it" mission. Weaver has a lot of fun as the big boss, enjoyably selfish and narcissistic, but deflecting any criticism by using a fake bond of feminist sisterhood and talk of long-term plans. Ford is playing the straight man to the two leading ladies, and he's well-suited to being someone as charming and charismatic and laconic as Ford can be. There's also room to have fun with Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Nora Dunn, and Oliver Platt, and the likes of Kevin Spacey, Olympia Dukakis, and Timothy Carhart are scattered throughout the supporting cast.

I'm happy to have revisited this film for the first time in a looooooooong time, but I'm even more excited to eventually make time for a number of lesser-known titles that starred Griffith in a main role. Few may hit the same heights as this, but I hope they all at least showcase someone I am finally appreciating onscreen almost four decades after they were at the peak of their career.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

The Gorge (2025)

I am not sure how often I use the word derivative to describe movies, but it may be quite often. It certainly seems that way lately. I should emphasise that I'm not always using the word as a criticism though. It's just a description. So when I start this review of The Gorge by mentioning how derivative it is I don't want you to think that I'm about to give it a kicking. I had more fun with The Gorge than many other star vehicles I have seen in the last few months. And, whatever you think of Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, this IS a star vehicle for them, even if you only realise that as the end credits roll and you find yourself wanting to spend more time with the main characters.

Teller and Joy are Levi and Drasa, two very talented sharp-shooters. They don't know each other, but they end up inhabiting a tower on either side of the titular gorge. In the kind of summary that makes for a great trailer line, they soon find out that their job is not to stop anything from entering the gorge . . . but to stop anything from coming out. While they're not supposed to have contact with one another, Levi and Drasa soon start communicating via dialogue written on whiteboards. And they soon start to like one another. There's a huge gorge between them though, and something in it that seems to be eager for them to make just one small mistake.

I'm not going to pretend that writer Zach Dean is someone I am a fan of, you can check his fairly limited filmography to see a few films that nobody would ever rush to view, and the filmography of director Scott Derrickson is certainly a mixed bag, but this has the two men working together on something that ends up being a pleasant surprise, despite the obvious influences throughout. Anyone who has played The Last Of Us, Resident Evil, or Silent Hill will find some of the visuals and production design here very familiar, and there are sections that certainly feel like videogame levels, but the fact that it feels constructed with care, and takes a decent amount of time to flesh out the main characters before putting them into serious danger.

Teller and Joy, despite the distance between them for a lot of the movie, have great chemistry together, and it's more than enough to make up for their characters being a clumsy mix of clichés. The script develops their relationship nicely, using a nice sprinkling of humour to show them growing closer as they deal with the isolation and strange nature of their assignment. There are very small roles for Sope Dirisu and Sigourney Weaver, but the film basically rests on the shoulders of the two leads, which is perfectly fine when they're able to carry it so easily.

It's all silly nonsense, and there's even room for fun nods to both The Queen's Gambit and Whiplash, but it's pretty great silly nonsense. There's decent cinematography from Dan Laustsen, another worthwhile score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and some decent set-pieces that help to make the 127-minute runtime fairly fly by. I really enjoyed this, and I would quite happily watch it again any time. Which is more than I can say for the other films that Zach Dean has helped to write.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Avatar: The Way Of Water (2022)

Over a decade has passed since James Cameron asked us to put on 3D glasses and join him on a romp around the planet of Pandora. As much as I loved the cinematic experience of Avatar, and I still think it holds up as a visual wonderland that is well worth watching on a big screen, it's hard to argue against people who point out that the film made no major cultural footprint, despite it spending a bit of time as the highest-grossing blockbuster movie in modern cinema. Yeah, we got some jokes and references, but then it all just . . . faded away. 

Now it's all back, and it's back in a big way. While it's unwise to ever bet against Cameron, many balked at how much this had to make to just break even. The fact that it's now on target to do more than that, and probably give Cameron yet another chance say he is the helmer of the highest-grossing movie of all time, is unbelievable. And yet . . . it's in line with how Cameron works. 

Jake (Sam Worthington) is now living happily with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) on Pandora. They have three children of their own, two boys named Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), and one daughter named Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as an adopted daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and the constant company of a human boy, Spider (Jack Champion), who was left on Pandora because he was too young to be transported back to Earth when he was a child. Everything is wonderful, which means it's all about to be spoiled. Enter Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the big bad from the first movie who is, with a small team of his fellow soldiers, sent back to Pandora in Na'vi form. Jake opts to take his family away from their forest home, asking permission from another tribe (led by Tonowari, played by Cliff Curtis, and Ronal, played by Kate Winslet) to hide away and make their new home in an idyllic reef environment. But trying to stay out of a fight doesn't stop the fight landing on your doorstep.

It’s hard to think of the best way to review Avatar: The Way Of Water. It isn’t a great movie, especially with a lot of it rehashing what we got in the first film, but it is a great cinematic experience, and that is what Cameron specializes in. In an ideal world, I would list all of the VFX and art department people here, as well as the production designers, stunt crew, and all of those who won’t receive their due credit while Cameron, who is certainly no slouch when it comes to pushing film-making tech above and beyond the limits of our imagination, gets to return to his throne and proclaim himself “king of the world” again.

The cast all do what is asked of them, but part of the fun comes from not recognizing them. Worthington and Saldaña are fine, but it’s more impressive to not realise when Curtis and Winslet appear. And it’s a delight to see Sigourney Weaver magically made youthful in a way that is equally realistic and magical. Lang is a great villain, once again, and the younger cast members, those already mentioned above, plus Bailey Bass and Filip Geljo, all seem good enough under their layers of motion capture. Champion is good as definitely not a feral kid lifted from the Mad Max movies, and there are one or two enjoyable scenes featuring Brendan Cowell and Jemaine Clement, actually allowed to play their characters in standard human guise.

The 3+ hour runtime may be offputting, but this isn’t a film that drags. The majority of the runtime provides plenty of spectacle and beautiful details to pick up on, and the action beats are brilliantly done, with the last 40 minutes or so being one extended battle scene that guarantees most viewers will feel surprisingly energised as the end credits roll.

Not only does Cameron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, rehash the main conflict for our hero this time around, he also revisits the themes of environmental awareness, living in harmony with a precious planetary ecosystem, and showing the value in traditional ways and community spirit. Is it all also problematic blue-faced cultural appropriation? That charge has been levelled against it, but I think that Cameron and co. put such hard work into creating an entirely fictional world, influenced by the history and many cultures of our own planet, that you have to accept it as it is presented; pure sci-fi.

Maybe it’s a sign of me being won over by the advertising, or maybe I just really enjoyed the whole cinematic experience THAT much (once I told someone to turn their phone off after tolerating the bright light of their screen for half an hour - aaaaaaarrrrgggggh), but this is the kind of escape that shows how far movies can transport us. It isn’t perfect, even the technical side of things can seem a bit rough occasionally (the HFR can take some getting used to, some of the colours clash horribly, and a number of shots are framed horrible due to the difference in size between any human characters and the much taller Na’vi), but I would easily rewatch it today if I had the time. And I will be keen for whenever we next get an opportunity to revisit Pandora. 

James Cameron may not know much about subtlety or self-restraint. Fortunately, he knows how to deliver eye-popping, jaw-dropping, cinema on a huge scale.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Mubi Monday: Be Kind Rewind (2008)

If you remember Be Kind Rewind as the film in which Jack Black and Yaslin Bey (still being billed here as Mos Def) make cheap recreations of some blockbuster movies then you're quite correct. You're also missing out on the real heart of it though, and the obvious commentary about the divide between art and commerce. Or maybe you also remembered that. If so, you have a better memory than I do. I hadn't watched Be Kind Rewind in over a decade, but I am very happy to have rewatched it now. Because it's a lovely film, full of wit and charm, as well as a great cast all doing great work.

Bey plays Mike, a young man who works in a video store owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover). He is put in charge of the store while Mr. Fletcher leaves town for a few days and it's not long until disaster strikes. That disaster is in the shape of Jerry (Black), a friend who doesn't realise that he has been temporarily magnetised, and therefore doesn't realise that his presence in the video store leads to all of the movies being erased. This isn't good, not at all, especially when the business needs to make a lot more money than usual in order to stay solvent. Rushing to replace titles with their own versions of them, Mike and Jerry have to start with Ghostbusters, a title requested by Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow). As they look to get more titles done, they enlist the help of Alma (Melonie Diaz). The three soon become quite the production house, finding their personal visions being appreciated by the local community, and also by film fans who start travelling to the store from further afield.

Written and directed by Michel Gondry, a man who knows how to create some great practical effects on a low budget (as shown in his many creative music videos, as well as films like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and The Science Of Sleep), Be Kind Rewind is easily sold as "that film in which the leads make cheap recreations of some blockbuster titles", but it's much more than that. It serves as a reminder about necessity being the mother of invention, it shows the limitless possibilities that are available to people who have imagination and vision, and there's a subtle-as-a-sledgehammer-to-the-face commentary on the homogenisation of cinema, from the content to the delivery system that gets it out there to viewers. Granted, you have to cringe slightly in a scene that has Jack Black playing Jackie Chan's character in Rush Hour 2, and there are a couple of other moments arguably worse than that, but it's all done with an air of innocence and childish exuberance that shows where the characters are coming from. They're playing dress-up, they're putting on a show for others to enjoy, and they'll take on every role they have to. Despite being adult actors playing adult characters, Black and Bey are very much portrayed as well-intentioned children, with childish dreams and a childish ignorance of how everything should be (of how things are done just because that's always the way that they have been done).

Bey is very sweet in his role, and is also receptive enough to stories told to him that he serves as a way in which the viewer learns another valuable lesson about just how important it can be to believe in stories, especially when reality tries to get in the way and/or grind us down. Black is a lot of fun, bringing his usual energy and physicality to the role. Glover and Farrow, the two "sensible" adults who find out about the movie-making plan at different times in the movie, are both wonderful, and really fit their roles. Glover, especially, gives what may well be his best performance of the past couple of decades. Diaz may be the least familiar of the leads, but she does great work, matching the enthusiasm of her male colleagues while bringing a bit more savvy to any opportunities that arise to make some money.

Not only does this work as a comedy, not only does it work as a love letter to artists making art that isn't necessarily going to reach blockbuster status, it also serves as a lovely analogy for the lifeline of a movie fan. You start off by being told stories by adults, stories that you envision in your mind and you accept as reality (whether or not they are). You then get to enjoy those stories for yourself. You may get a bit lazy here, assuming that everything is always available around you, accepting the mainstream "fast food" without remembering the full range that is out there. You then start to make strong connections with others, bonding over a variety of shared tastes, and maybe even striving to make your own work (in whatever medium you might choose), and that might even lead to you becoming part of a clique. And then, one bright and beautiful day, you realise that you don't have to protect yourself by sheltering in that clique. Many other people enjoy the same art as you, and just as many people will react positively to your passion, even if they're not on the exact same page.

Be Kind Rewind sounds like it would just be about videotapes, but it's not. It's about all film. It's about all art. And it's ultimately about the value it has, not in budgets or box office, but in bringing people together for a communal experience. You should watch/rewatch this, and enjoy it. And you should definitely check out pretty much everything else that Gondry has given us over the years.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Prime Time: Heartbreakers (2001)

A con movie with plenty of comedy in the mix, Heartbreakers makes use of a great cast to provide some enjoyable entertainment. It's never going to be rated as an unmissable slice of cinema, but I'd recommend it to anyone who likes the people involved.

Written by Robert Dunn, Paul Guay, and Stephen Mazur (the latter two a screenwriting duo who had previously delivered both The Little Rascals and Liar Liar), this is the tale of a mother (Angela, played by Sigourney Weaver) and daughter (Wendy, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) who work together to trap foolish, horny, men. We see how their plan plays out at the end of their latest venture, with Angela having married Dean (Ray Liotta), falling asleep on him on their wedding night, and then ensuring that she catches him almost-coitus-startyuppus with Wendy (who is using an assumed name, and not letting on to the fact that she is related to Angela). Moving on to their next victim, a rich old man named William B. Tensy (Gene Hackman), things are soon complicated by Angela having to pretend to be Russian and Wendy being charmed by a local bar owner, Jack (Jason Lee).

Director David Mirkin may not have the most interesting and worthwhile directorial filmography to explore, his best work tends to be with his role as writer and/or producer, but he has delivered at least two very different comedy features that some put forward as deserving of more love. One is Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion, which so many people will now rush to remind you is a real treat. The other is Heartbreakers, often championed by . . . me.

With the focus on the main characters and dialogue throughout, without propping things up with soundtrack choices or big set-pieces, this is a film that will appeal more to people who like the leads. Which shouldn’t be a problem when the leads include Weaver and Hackman.

Weaver gives a performance so good that it saddens me she hasn’t been given more comedy roles. She is also showcased for her looks and sexiness here, which works brilliantly (thanks to her natural appearance and the wardrobe department maximising her ability to attract the gaze of any man she wants). Love Hewitt ends up overshadowed, which would seem inevitable, but also manages to show a decent knack for comedy at times. She commits to some of the zanier moments, and the relationship between herself and Weaver is nicely crafted. Hackman is having fun, playing a blinkered old man letting his heart overrule his head, and Liotta also seems to be enjoying himself, and ALSO does so well with the comedy that it makes you wonder why he didn’t get to do more (the opening act is hilarious, and he has one or two great lines in the finale). Lee is a sweet guy who might just be The One, a standard love interest role he played very well for a number of years, and there are great supporting roles, and cameos, for Anne Bancroft, Ricky Jay, Nora Dunn, Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman, and Carrie Fisher, among others.

I am not here to convince anyone that Heartbreakers is an all-time classic, as a con movie or a comedy, but it is certainly up there with a number of greats that I would consider hard to beat. Films like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Matchstick Men, Paper Moon, The Brothers Bloom and a few others. I might rewatch all of those films ahead of this one, but this is one I would definitely like to see remembered by more people who appreciate its many charms.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Red Lights (2012)

Written and directed by Rodrigo Cortes (who previously stepped behind the camera to helm the excellent Buried), Red Lights may not be quite as clever as it thinks it is, but that doesn't stop it from being a fine slice of entertainment while it's on.

Cillian Murphy plays Tom Buckley, a loyal assistant to Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver). The two of them work, predominantly, on debunking paranormal activity. They also teach students about the many tricks of the trade, from table lifting to psychic readings and more. The only big name in psychic phenomena who seems to be "the real thing" is Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), a major celebrity who announces his comeback after many years out of the limelight. Buckley starts to get frustrated when Matheson refuses to pursue Silver more aggressively, but the latter warns her assistant that chasing a man who has kept his hands clean for so long could prove to be more dangerous than it's worth. But Buckley can't let it go, he knows that Silver is faking it and just needs to figure out how the scheme works.

Anyone who has read Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, and/or anything by Derren Brown (such as this fine work), should know where Red Lights is going. Thankfully, that doesn't make the journey any less enjoyable.

Cortes does a more than competent job in the scripting and directing department, but he's also helped enormously by the great cast. This isn't a sprawling ensemble picture, but to have Murphy, Weaver and De Niro in lead roles is a major plus, especially when the latter star is coaxed into giving one of his better performances in recent years. Toby Jones and Joely Richardson both do fantastic work in their smaller roles, and Elizabeth Olsen is just fine, although a little bit redundant (she is, essentially, just there to allow the audience to receive information).

Always interesting and entertaining, Red Lights may stumble in the last 10-15 minutes, but it does so with such gusto that it kind of gets away with its trickery. The fact that it maintains its own movie-world logic is also a major factor in sugar-coating the pill that the third act delivers.

I enjoyed this movie, as you can tell, but as I wrote this review I realised that I was growing to like it more and more. It's one that I look forward to purchasing and revisiting in the near future. I recommend giving it a go.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Ghostbusters II (1989)

When Ghostbusters II was released in 1989 it did solid business at the box office. You wouldn't think that nowadays, with the way many people deride it and claim that it's a completely unworthy sequel to the classic first movie. Well, the first movie is a classic. I completely agree with that and already praised it here. What I don't agree with is the opinion that this sequel is completely unworthy. It's not as good as the first movie but few films are. It is, however, a very enjoyable film that picks up some years after the events of the first movie and allows viewers to find out just what the main characters have been up to since their big battle with Gozer.

And just what have the Ghostbusters been up to since saving New York City and, indeed, the world? Well, they were sued by a number of city and state agencies and the brand became worthless. Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) are trying to keep the Ghostbusters name out there by entertaining ungrateful children at birthday parties, Egon (Harold Ramis) is conducting scientific studies with his usual, detached demeanour and Venkman (Bill Murray) is hosting a paranormal chat show. Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) has a son and is enjoying the time that she spends helping to restore paintings under the watchful eye of Dr. Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol). There's one painting in particular, of a nasty man called Vigo (Wilhelm Von Homburg) that starts to cause no small amount of trouble and so the gang need to get back together and get back to doing what they do best.

The baddie may not be as memorable this time around and there's no denying that the movie doesn't feel as fresh as the first film (but sequels rarely do, by definition) but there's a hell of a lot here to enjoy and anyone dismissing this movie completely is, I'd say, being very harsh.

Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis and Hudson are all still great in their ghostbusting roles, Weaver plays off them all very well once again and Annie Potts and Rick Moranis return to reprise their memorable characters. Peter MacNicol is also good fun and Wilhelm Von Homburg keeps his mean face on throughout. Kurt Fuller may not be able to replace the great William Atherton as the main jerk of the movie but he tries his best. David Margulies returns to play the Mayor of New York and Harris Yulin has a small, fun role as a very strict judge who ends up seeing the Ghostbusters on trial in his court.

With Aykroyd and Ramis also returning to their writing duties and Ivan Reitman once again directing the action, this is very much the kind of sequel that feels like audiences are getting to catch up with some old friends. Because that's exactly what it is. I will watch Ghostbusters any number of times and never tire of it but this second outing is almost as rewatchable and has a smattering of great lines in almost every scene. The ending is a bit of a letdown but I think that any ending would have been slightly underwhelming compared to the brilliance of that big finale of the first movie featuring Gozer and The Traveller.

Oh, okay, there's also a pretty lame soundtrack compared to the complete '80s greatness of the first movie but that's the only other major complaint I have.

If you haven't seen it in a while then do give it a go and you might just find that the Ghostbusters are still the guys to call when you want some ectoplasmic entertainment.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ghostbusters-2-DVD-Bill-Murray/dp/B001G61178/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351446146&sr=8-1

Ghostbusters (1984)

The 1980s is a strange time. It's easy to look back and point and laugh at a decade that had so much excess. The big shoulder pads, the clouds of hairspray, lots of clothing in nigh-on luminous colours. But when it comes to movies it was almost a golden age. Before you stop me and tell me off for letting nostalgia overrule my critical faculties let me just make one thing clear. EVERY year has a fair share of great movies and stinkers. Every year. I am well aware that we can look back with fondness at certain times simply because the rubbish has been forgotten and, boy, did the eighties have a lot of rubbish. But it was also, in a way, the perfect mix of cinema made with the latest technology that still relied mainly on practical effects. Of course, there WAS CGI but it was still a bit of a novelty. The best films, the ones that we remember with such fondness, from that decade are, in my view, so fondly remembered because they took us all on an incredible journey and they did it in a way that felt more realistic, despite the outlandishness of the plots. I'm thinking of the likes of The Goonies, Gremlins, Back To The Future, Labyrinth, The Thing, An American Werewolf In London, Die Hard, The Terminator, The Lost Boys and quite a few others. Of course, nostalgia does contribute something (especially in the case of The Lost Boys) but I don't think that any of these movies would be remembered as fondly today if they were full of dated CGI. Just look at An American Werewolf In Paris compared to its predecessor. Actually, don't do that. You don't want to lose your eyesight.

Ghostbusters is one of those movies and that's why I stopped listening a long time ago when the talk of a third movie kept going round and round and round for years (who knows, if you're reading this some time in the future then maybe the damn thing finally got made). A third movie just won't have the heart that this movie has. It won't have the same texture. The second movie isn't all that beloved (though I like it) so why not let sleeping dogs lie. Or sleeping ghosts rest in ecto-containment units, or something.

Directed by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis (with some uncredited work from Rick Moranis too), Ghostbusters is all about three men (Aykroyd, Ramis and Bill Murray) who become . . . . . . . . ghostbusters. They end up doing great business, so great that they have to hire an extra member of staff (Ernie Hudson) but the increase in paranormal activity also leads them to believe that something big is happening. Maybe that something is linked to whatever is happening in the apartment of Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver). Whatever it is, the guys try to stay ready for action even while weaselly Walter Peck (William Atherton) tries to make big trouble for them.

I don't even know why I wrote that last paragraph. You already KNOW Ghostbusters. Or know OF it. If you don't, stop reading now and go and watch it. Now. Seriously.

It's a great supernatural comedy, it's one of the best outright comedies of the decade, if not THE best, it features brilliant performances from everyone involved (and I'd better mention the superb turns from Annie Potts as Janine Melnitz and Rick Moranis as Louis Tully, two absolutely classic supporting roles) and if you don't think that every line is worth quoting then you'd be hard pushed to deny that every other line is worth quoting.

It's one of my favourite movies of all time and I can't really think of anything worthwhile to convince you to see it if you haven't already done so. There's that great theme song, the pace and editing are both pretty perfect, every single main character is memorable for a different reason and it features the best use of marshmallow I've ever seen outside the world of adult entertainment (don't ask!).

On a more personal note, I have since been relieved to discover that I wasn't the only one to think that the big villain named Gozer (Slavitza Jovan) was a bit sexy while also being really, really evil. On a less embarrassing personal note, I will always have an added fondness for this film because of the cinema that I saw it in - I can't recall if it was The Dominion here in Edinburgh or The Odeon that has long since closed down but whoever put little "ghosts" over all of the side lights deserves good karma forever. You, sir or madam, helped this movie to leave a smile on my soul that has not waned in over a quarter of a century.

10/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share