BillMurray Tagged Articles at Cinematical

With Fantastic Mr. Fox making the press rounds at the London International Film Festival, it was only a matter of time before someone bugged Bill Murray (who voices Badger in the stop-motion film) about his participation in Ghostbusters 3. Last time we heard anything on the Ghostbusters front, it was being reported that Ghost Busters and Ghostbusters II helmer Ivan Reitman was indeed attached to direct (though he hadn't actually decided whether or not to go through with it), and most of the original cast (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson and Sigourney Weaver) was set to return alongside some "new recruits".

So, sure, it's all great to hear when you see this sort of stuff splashed across the internet, but it's always best to go right to the source to see just what's going on right this second. When asked about the third installment in London, Murray waved it off and basically said that his participation depends solely on a script he hasn't seen nor read yet. The actor also spoke a little about sequels in general, saying (in so many words) that Ghostbusters II was definitely not as good as the first one, which is one reason why he's so hesitant to give it another go.

Says Murray: "I'll believe it when I see it. I saw a guy talking about the end of the world a couple years ago, and I still haven't seen that either -- so I'm not going to believe the Ghostbusters story until I see it."

Watch the Bill Murray/Ghostbusters 3 interview over at SciFi Squad

I have an odd fascination with fan made videos. I don't care if it's a 12 year old who got his hands on a copy of Adobe Premiere or a grown man who edits together fan made trailers for films that never existed (I love me some Raiders of the Lost Ark 1951 or Ghostbusters 1954), if someone spends enough time to put together a video born out of their passion for film, chances are I'm probably going to watch it at least once. Now, if you happen to edit together a music video for a catchy song comprised of film quotes, well, I'm probably going to play it on a loop for at least half an hour.

That is exactly what I've been doing with the below music video for Ricardo Autobahn's "The Golden Age of Video". Ricardo's own site describes it as "an epic production constructed of disco beats and film samples", which I'd say is a pretty fair assessment. Granted, it's not exactly the best song ever, but how can you not get a kick out of something that strings together samples from Freaks, Ghostbusters, The Godfather, Star Wars, Robocop, On the Waterfront, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and even Short Circuit into an addicting little medley? There's a good bit of TV show clips thrown in for good measure, but the majority of the 'lyrics' are taken from a bevy of film classics.

Oh, and if your place of work has a problem with Bill Murray describing what he just did to a ghost's rear end, I suppose his refrain classifies this as lightly not-safe-for-work. Enjoy.

I know that directors sometimes must direct scenes from a room separate and sometimes distant from the actors, but directing from another country? By e-mail? That's the story filtering out of England, where Fantastic Mr. Fox, the new adult-skewing animated movie from Wes Anderson featuring voice work by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray, is set to have its world premiere at the London Film Festival on Wednesday.

According to Chris Lee, reporting in Los Angeles Times, Anderson had no desire to spend a year at Three Mills Studio in London during the physical production of the stop-motion animated project. Instead, the director 'holed up' in Paris for most of the time. His move and his exacting requirements did not endear him to all of his crew. "He has made our lives miserable," Mark Gustafson, the film's director of animation, said. Anderson asserts that he was trying to make something different. "The movie would not be the way I wanted it if I just did it the way people were accustomed to doing it. I realized this is an opportunity to do something nobody's ever seen before." And not everyone was upset about Anderson's absence. Producer Allison Abbate said absent directors aren't unusual in the field: "Making stop-motion is like watching paint dry."

After sending digital files of what they were working on, the animators received "detailed e-mail instructions about what to change" from Anderson, who also acted out certain scenes for them as reference material. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and we'll get to see for ourselves soon enough. After London, the film will have its North American premiere at AFI Fest in Los Angeles on October 30, before Fox Searchlight opens it on November 13.

Our Favorite Montages might be a relatively new feature around these parts, but since we started sharing some of our favorites in the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about movies that I know back to front with a brand spanking new point of view. Back in 1984, I couldn't have told you what a montage was (and considering I was only 9 at the time, you can hardly blame me) but I did love Ghostbusters ... and I loved that song.

So if you had to place this montage into any category, you would have to go with the 'media montage'. Back in the golden days of cinema, this kind of segment would usually be accompanied with spinning newspapers and the like, but in 1984 it was all about talk radio and tabloid television. In this montage we watch our trio finally making a success of their paranormal extermination business, and with fame knocking at the door, they even get a little saucy 'ghost action'. Plus, if you're of a certain age, you get the added bonus of cameos from media types like Casey Kasem, Roger Grimsby and an obscenely young Larry King.

Now, by '84 I was familiar with the world of music videos and that's what this segment seemed like to my pop-culture saturated little brain. But as I've grown up and educated myself in the language of film I know it's much more than that, and that's why it has earned a spot among my favorites -- and brother, I still love that song.

After the jump: a compilation of 'busting montages from Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II...

You never know when you're going to get blindsided by a very good film, especially if you're fortunate enough to attend film festivals like Toronto, Sundance, and/or South By Southwest. Sometimes that "ultra-hot ticket" delivers a big fat dud of a film, and other times you just find yourself sitting in front of a film you know nothing about -- and it's just freakin' great. Such is most certainly the case with Aaron Schneider's Get Low, an excellent little dramatic piece that's awash in humanity, warmth, insight, and wit.

But I lied a little in that last paragraph: Prior to seeing Get Low, I was aware of one thing -- and that was the cast. Like most movie fans of a certain age and attitude, I'll see anything that Bill Murray shows up in. Anything. I also knew that Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black, two very fine actors, were also involved, and that just raised my interest a little more. But the reason I skipped over the Ellen Page roller-derby film and the new Ricky Gervais satire can be summed up in one name: Mr. Robert Duvall.

Cinematical has just received these images and this exclusive clip from the film Get Low, which is set to have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival later this month. Starring Bill Murray, Robert Duvall, Lucas Black and Sissy Spacek, Get Low is described as a "big-hearted Southern yarn" about a quirky 1930s Tennessee hermit named Felix Bush (Duvall) who decides to throw his own funeral party while he's still alive. From the official synopsis: "A life-long "wild man" and misfit, Felix has been nearly swallowed up by the power of his town's sinister myths about him – until he finds the courage on his own "funeral day" to make a shocking confession about why he turned away from society. The result is a comic, poignant, at times haunting tale about the snowballing nature of secrets, stories and heartbreak – and the redemption of telling the truth."

Aaron Schneider directs off a script he co-wrote alongside folks like C. Gaby Mitchell (Blood Diamond) and Chris Provenzano. Get Low currently doesn't have distribution, but I can't see it stalling on the market for too long with this fantastic cast. Just the thought of watching Murray and Duvall bounce off each other makes me want to purchase a plane ticket to Toronto, like, yesterday.

Check out two photos from the film below, and the clip after the jump.

Well, usually this works the other way around, but for once, a modern film is getting a classic update...at least when it comes to the trailer, anyway. This time, a dedicated fan by the name of whoiseyevan has made a trailer for the Ghostbusters movie that could have been...if it had been made in 1954. Taking over the roles made famous by Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray are crooner Dean Martin as Dr. Ray Stantz (Aykroyd), Fred McMurray as Dr. Egon Spengler (Ramis), and who else but Bob Hope could fill Murray's coveralls as the smart-a**, Dr. Venkman?

All those classic 'busting' touches are there, which is probably what made this fan-trailer such a success. Then again, I might be biased because they managed to work in one of my favourite lines from the film in one of the title cards. So even if you aren't impressed with the result, you have to hand it to whoiseyevan and his knowledge of spook and spectre movies from the 40s and 50s. Heck, he's even got a line of dialogue with Martin calling himself a Ghostbuster! Now that's what I call a happy coincidence.

After the jump: Ghostbusters 1954 Vs Ghostbusters 1984...

A few months ago, a good friend of mine saw a test screening of Fantastic Mr. Fox (no 'The') and described it as very much the union between Roald Dahl's story and Wes Anderson's style. Now, it looks like the trailer up on Yahoo! and after our jump confirms as much, and I actually find myself genuinely charmed by it -- like, 'now on my radar' charmed.

This tale of a sly fox (voiced by George Clooney, natch) taking on some grumpy farmers reminded me a great deal of Chicken Run, if it were inspired less by The Great Escape and more by Ocean's Eleven, and while it does look perfectly family-friendly, it really does seem to be a Wes Anderson film through and through -- only Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman are all talking animals in stop-motion. (Hell, it's probably the most animated Murray's been in years!)

(Pun half-intended.)

Also starring Meryl Streep and apparently released by Fox proper (as opposed to Fox Searchlight), Fantastic Mr. Fox is due to open on November 13th.

Twenty-nine years later, Carl Spackler dresses much nicer, but talks the same. Bill Murray, of course, made an indelible impression as the disheveled, constantly muttering, yet wily groundskeeper Carl in Harold Ramis' comedy classic Caddyshack way back in 1980, roaming the Bushwood Country Club and waging a fierce battle with an even more wily gopher. In his youth, Murray worked as a caddy, and in recent years he's become a familiar, popular player at pro-am events.

It's no surprise, then, that a local TV reporter caught up with Murray at the U.S. Open Championship in Bethpage, New York, which started yesterday. The tournament was plagued by torrential rains, which delayed play, so the reporter asks him questions about the weather until finally Murray smiles and slips into his Carl Spackler voice as he minimizes the rainfall: "This is by no means a downpour."

Naturally, it's reference to the sequence in Caddyshack, where Carl accompanies a bishop as he plays the round of his life in a steadily increasing storm. When the minister asks if he should keep playing, Carl says, "I don't think the hard stuff's coming down for quite a while." The scene is so well-known in golf circles that ESPN.com used it to introduce an article about the first, rainy day of the Open. And even though it's only a fleeting glimpse, it's a welcome reminder of a very funny movie and a very funny character.

After the jump: Watch the clip!

Harold Ramis is the comedy writer and director everyone's cribbed from, from Sandler to Apatow. After leaving "Second City TV," Ramis went on to write, direct, and occasionally star in comedic touchstones like Animal House, Caddyshack, Stripes, Groundhog Day, and of course, Ghostbusters, which have starred a slew of loveable losers fighting to get their sh*t together in the army, on the golf course, or in the middle of a war with supernatural beings. After taking a few years off, Ramis is taking it back to the beginning with this summer's Year One, which stars Jack Black and Michael Cera as loveable loser cavemen who, when Black's Zed accidentally burns down the village, find themselves in the middle of a very familiar holy war. Read on and find out what the big daddy of buddy movies had to say about evolution and self-improvement, male full frontal nudity and the lack thereof, and what the heck is up with Ghostbusters 3.

Year One opens nationwide this Friday, June 19th.

Cinematical: How much more stressful is it to deal with marketing a summer blockbuster and competing with the other movies that are out?

Harold Ramis: You know, it's the same level of stress every time you make a movie, because you've pinned all your hopes and dreams on it and you've fantasized what success will be like, but at the time you can't escape fantasizing what failure will be like. [laughs]

I conceived this movie on a big scale, to do a Biblical epic comedy. I knew it was ambitious and when the studio said "Yes, we'll do it," and it became real, I thought, "Oh my God!" [laughs] It's one thing to fail small, but to make a big movie that doesn't work is so risky.