ghostbusters Tagged Articles at Cinematical

So there I was on the Twitter, conversing with a few friends and rambling aimlessly about some movie minutiae that was hopping through my head. One of those Tweets was this one, and it prompted an immediate response from several Twitter pals ... and Erik Davis. He insisted that my admiration for character actor William Atherton would make for an appropriate edition of "Villains We Love," and here's why: Mr. Atherton is at his best when he's playing a smug, smarmy, officious authority figure who exists mainly to give a movie's hero something fun to play off of.

Case in point: Val Kimer vs. William Atherton in Real Genius. Bill Murray vs. William Atherton in Ghostbusters. Bruce Willis (and Bonnie Bedelia) vs. William Atherton in Die Hard and Die Hard 2. Pauly Shore vs. William Atherton in Bio-Dome. Certainly no one-trick pony (you also know this actor from The Sugarland Express, The Day of the Locust, and The Last Samurai), but the man's just great at playing a snooty villainous bastard. For those who require some evidence, I refer you to the post-jump territory.

More on Atherton: To find out which giant TV show he'll be guest starring on during its final season, head over to SciFi Squad.

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.

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...

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...

Forget saving money in this bad economy. Why not go for broke and drive around in the style of those infamous Ghostbusters 25 years after the first hit theaters?

Production Weekly's Twitter pointed to a car auction at eBay for an Ecto-1 ride. Not just any vehicle -- one from Universal Studios. Bidding has ended for the item, but even though the highest bid is ranked at the pricey $45,100.00, the reserve has not been met, so this puppy could go back onto the market. The 1959 Caddy is in a museum right now, and I'd surmise that that's the only place for it -- save for a few very special and slow rides around the block. Expensive, one-of-a-kind cars do not make for relaxing rides. The horror of getting keyed, dinged, or crashed is surely scarier than any old ghost.

But if that's too rich for your blood, do you know that you can grab decent replicas? There's a 1968 Cadillac in Virginia that has a Buy It Now price of $9,500.00, and a 1973 model in North Carolina whose starting bid is listed at $7,500.00. The former is a carefully restored Caddy sticking to the outer ghost-busting particulars, and the latter comes with high-tech rider perks inside like a TV/DVD/VHS system.

Do you love Ghostbusters enough to grab an Ecto-1?

Has there ever been a summer that proved to be as important – not just personally, but historically - to comic book fans as 1989? Surely the last decade or so has produced its share of must-see superhero adventures, but before Tim Burton's Batman was release on June 23, 1989, the idea of wall-to-wall wallcrawlers was little more than a cobweb stuck to the bottom of discarded studio call sheets. Burton's aggressive, dark reimagining of Bob Kane's iconic character quite literally changed the face of comic book adaptations, and ushered in the era of superhero movies, even if it would take another ten or fifteen years to find the right balance between real-world grit, splash-page heroism, and tongue-in-cheek self-awareness.

Meanwhile, the rest of the summer of '89 was no less exciting, featuring sequels, comedies, dramas and plenty of fare that defied categorization – which, in all likelihood is why it defied the box office gods en route to home-video glory. And while we could no doubt devote countless column inches to recounting every film from that fateful summer, here's a decidedly more svelte list of the entries that most aroused our imaginations and inspired us to suckle at 1989's summer-movie teat.

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.

Friday the 13th
Marcus Nispel directs a rebooted version of the venerable series, which borrows elements from the first four films and adds precious few of its own. I'm tempted to say "skip it," based on my own review, but those first 20-25 minutes are pretty ferocious, and the "Extended Killer Cut" promises more of everything. Also on Blu-ray. Rent it.

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Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail
Tyler Perry has grown his beloved character Madea "into a larger-than-life force of nature that is genuinely funny," wrote Eric D. Snider. He noted the writer/director's "tendency toward oversimplification," however, and commented: "Maybe if someone would do a better job of making films targeted at a black, female Christian audience, Perry's half-baked didacticism would suffer in comparison. In the meantime, this is the best there is, so it's nice that Perry is improving, albeit in small increments." Rent it.

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Ghostbusters
The comedy classic with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and Sigourney Weaver stands ready to imprint itself upon your memory once again, in a new Blu-ray edition. One word to keep in mind before buying, however: grain. "Surprisingly heavy," says DVD Beaver; "heavy wash of grain that never quite dissipates," per IGN; "features plenty of the swirly stuff in most every scene," according to Blu-ray.com. Other than that important factor, which is claimed to reflect the original source print, reviews have been positive. Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Also out: What Goes Up, Morning Light, Sword of the Stranger, and a boatload of TV series (a list of the latter at TV Squad).

After the jump: Indies on DVD, more Blu-ray, and Collector's Corner.