Ghostbusters: Busting Sort of Makes Me Feel Good?

With the upcoming Ghostbusters: Getting Cold I Guess coming this summer, I've been thinking about my own history with the franchise. I didn't watch most of it, mainly skipping the cartoons, and did not like about half of what I saw. So with that being said and setting up a nice little list, here are the things I remember about the franchise that meant something to me at some time or another.

Ghostbusters (1984)

The one that started it all and the images that appear in my mind when you say the word "Ghostbusters." A stone cold classic in comedy and horror, the film masterfully mixes the two to create an entertaining and inventive film about a bunch of libertarian assholes who run a supernatural exterminator business. The fundamental flawed premise that "regulation is bad" also gives a pretty good look into the 1980s and how we got to a place where corporations are busting ghosts without any thought to environmental or global impacts. Hell, we even got the walking dead running on both sides for the presidency forty years after this movie's release. I love this flawed film from the chain smoking schlubby heroes to the BDSM sexual tones of the final act.

Real Ghostbusters (1986-1991)

I remember disliking this cartoon when it first came out. None of the characters sounded or looked like the movie, and Slimer was elevated to the position of Scooby-Doo (eating and talking bullshit while being afraid of horrors). But it had one thing that most cartoons did not at the time: existential dread and monsters that posed a genuine threat not only to those that bust them but to the world at large. Even the toys were terrifying transmogrifications of everyday items. The Lovecraftian cosmic horror on display extended not only into the afterlife but to the containment unit the busters used as a ghost jail, making them gods of science and hellish jailers.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

The first of the franchise I got to see in the theater. I was eight years old and have no memory of the actual experience. I remember talking to friends about it, though, and we all reached the consensus that maybe some movies are not as good as others? This was not the first time critical analysis had reached us (Jewel of the Nile was skipped if it played after Romance and the Stone), but all the slime and the baby stuff skipped right over our heads like a pond over rocks. The feel-good ending, while providing a great sing-a-long, fell away from the grimy original's pessimistic working class attitude. Looking back now, as a sequel it tried new things, but in general failed at furthering the story of the characters.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009)

After skipping all the cartoon series and whatever other media I have little awareness of, I was brought back by the notion that this game would do several things: bring back the original cast, forward the story from the original, mix the comedic and horror elements, allow me to wield a proton pack, and wreck shit. The cast was there, the plot updated the story, and proton streams flowed like water. Was the game good? Eh, I have little memories of drunkenly stumbling my way after one buster or another to hear dialog and explore the weird hallways that filled most first person shooters in the late 2000s. I remember this being good and will not play it again to hold that memory.

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

Look. Online discourse for this movie sucked, and it got way more hate than it deserved. That being said, I hate this movie. It had a great cast and crew, the bones of a solid story, and decades of special effects progression working for it. All of that turned into an indulgent mess as unfunny (or sometimes very funny but misplaced) scenes went on and on with the cast making themselves laugh without thinking about the story they were telling or the characters they were portraying. It's fine to reboot a series and make it your own, but a fairly grounded but silly premise was turned into a Thursday night improv training exercise. Not one of the characters felt like real people or had anything interesting to do, leaving behind the world weary cynical view of the original to create a Disney attraction level of neon ghosts and wacky hijinks. Everyone here can and should have created a better product (which they did a few years earlier with Bridesmaids). That being said, the final battle where they punch ghosts and lick their weapons and everything is very stupid yet fun to watch.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

I want every movie I see to succeed, especially in franchises I love. The trailers for this movie showed no New York City, no original busters, and everything covered in dust. Then it had little marshmallow men, and I hated that. After seeing the movie, I still hate the little marshmallow men, but this stupid movie made me cry. While not great, it does not try to be more than it is. It builds on the original mythology, brings back some horror by adding children, and brings back the weird sexiness by proving that Egon actually had sex (weird) and that the evil green dog things can still possess people and cause weird apocalypse bondage sex. That's not what made me cry, by the way. What did that was the heavy dose of nostalgia near the end, a reminder of things I loved and the near-familial connections that can form between artists and audiences. We mourn when creators are taken from us and rejoice at the memory of them being honored, even if they have to cart out his corpse in CGI on IMAX to do so. Also, please rename "Podcast."

And that is where we are, waiting until summer to see if things can continue without bringing the fee-fees or if Bill Murray will get the death he has wanted since Ghostbusters II (yeah, he died in 2016, but it wasn't Venkman so it doesn't count). The way he seems so chipper and engaged we might actually get to see that happen.

Anyone But You (2023) is the half nekkid romcom you should see in the theater

Stop me if you've heard this one: clumsy smart girl and kind but aloof guy hook up but due to a misunderstanding hate one another until they don't. Both are ridiculously hot and don't kiss until the script says they are supposed to. Mix in some quirky friends, a romantic locale, and a dog. What you get is one of the most charming romantic comedies I've seen in a while.

      At this point I normally summarize the movie, then give my general thoughts on the acting, directing, and story. Fuck that. I liked this movie. It's by the numbers romcom, but oozes sincerity and a happy vibes all around. There's moments where things might go a little dull, some acting that is covered by most of the cast in swimsuits, but overall we need more of these kinds of cheerful flicks.

      Because I don't wanna go into overanalyzing, here's some notes I took while watching. 

Spoilers beware

Fucks and tits (suprise dick)

An actual R-rated adult comedy. I figured there would be the usual juvenile dick and fart humor (it's there) but for the most part this movie is about adults who are wildly attractive who often take their clothes off. Not fully most of the time, but I'm surprised at how much I'm surprised by this. It fulfils the old saying "naked is not having clothes on, nekkid means you're up to something" by having just enough skin to have fun.

(That’s a Lewis Grizzard quote. He was a humorist in the 80s and 90s, but also an older Southern guy with many conservative values that did not age well. Reader beware.)

"It's a radio play, motherfucker"

The supporting cast, let's be honest, are exposition machines. Based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, there's plenty of machinations by at least one side of the family to get these kids together if only so they don't spoil the wedding everyone is attending. A lot of it is silly, but the people involved sell it. Especially GaTa who gets most of the biggest laughs with his asides.

Sincere and honest

I actually wanted these two to get together. Like I looked up after if Sydney Sweeney and Glenn Powell were gonna make super adorable babies. They each have relatable issues that keep them apart, but when they actually talk (a romcom wherein people communicate but still have issues, huh) the characters do connect and care for one another beyond wanting to take off what little clothes they wear. 

Full on Titanic

The boat scene, from the dance to the buoy to singing on a helicopter, made my day. I liked seeing them dance, seeing the family react to the corny shit, and seeing them come together while in peril. It's a bunch of mini-scenes that tie together these two without feeling inorganic to the story. And they went "full on Titanic" getting in the water, a line that made me laugh.

Runs to find her

I know it's overused in romantic comedies. You know it's overused in romantic comedies. But fuck it, one partner chasing down the other to profess their love… Man that shit hits. Part of me wonders why. Do we all want to be chased or to chase, to give that grand dramatic gesture that says "I actually ran to find you." Or is running, out of breath running to find someone symbolic of love in general? I dunno, but it works.

Take someone somewhere

A little running line is that her dad hurt himself getting on a bus to see the Eiffel Tower with her mom, still going because she wanted to see it. My dad passed away a few months ago, and that was my parents love language. One of them would ask to go, to do, to have an experience, and the other would make it happen. It made me cry a little.

Night Swim (2024) should not be paid for

If you would have told me that the movie about a swimming pool that eats people would be boring, I probably would have believed you. I still would have watched it because I love a high concept silly premise and enjoy horror enough to devour any weird flick that makes it to theaters. Night Swim does no favors to the cast, crew, or even the B movie premise and might as well have been about a toilet.

     Looking for a home after a diagnosis that ends his baseball career, Ray Waller moves his family into a house with a cool pool out back. The Wallers love their new home and start to put down roots, but it turns out the spring that fills with pool is full of evil that promises greatness if only it has a sacrifice. Cue possessions and pain that can only come from the idea "what if the Amityville Horror house had a pool?"

     The cast here is fine. Somebody needs to get Wyatt Russell a better agent because he is better than most things he has been a part of. Kerry Condon plays his wife Eve damn well, and I loved her in The Banshees of Inisherin last year. Round out the cast with an angsty teen girl (Hoeferle) who wants a boyfriend and a wide-eyed kid (Warren) who wants to live until his 12th birthday, and this family is believable as a unit. Any other drama and these four would have killed it. Every other supporting role is enjoyable and fun yet the product they find themselves in is not at all.

     The problem seems to come with tone. This should have been a horror comedy the way the cast plays it at times. There's menace here, especially when the evil begins to take hold, yet instead of The Shining we get Days of Our Lives. When Jack Torrence says "gimme the bat" to Wendy on the stairs, we feel like he's toying with her. When Ray tells his daughter "Baby, we already got help" as the pool is eating her brother, it's just silly. And that's okay, but it feels like what we are supposed to feel (dread) is being superseded by what we are seeing (wackiness).

      The background of family trouble and the pool lies at the center of the tonal problem. I cared for the family (due to the acting, see above) and wanted them to be challenged. Yet rather than follow the drama, the plot about the evil pool needed to be adhered to so we get a wacky pool guy and a ditzy real estate agent leading to a confrontation that falls flat because that idea is the afterthought. Sure, the family drama ties into evil with dad's illness being slowly cured by the water. He wants something and will sacrifice to get it, but only because the water makes him. But evil water does not a good villain make. By the time we get the full reveal, it's too late. The monster is just the water. The family do not bind themselves together after being divided to triumph. They just make it out because the movie was about to be over, and it ran out of story.

     I did not hate this movie. It was disappointing. Wait for this one to hit streaming if you want to see it, but save your theater cash for something more fun or dramatic or just interesting.

The Beekeeper (2024) should be watched at home

Beekeeping is a sacred art that I have only attempted during one playthrough of Stardew Valley. From what I understand, you cultivate a hive of insects that wish to kill you one and all and in return you get honey. In the world of Jason Statham, you protect society and those that are most vulnerable by destroying systems of oppression one can of gasoline at a time.

Statham plays The Beekeeper (with some general name like Max American Man, I forget, but BK from now on because I'm lazy), a retired covert murder machine who likes to relax in the country living a quiet life with his bees and friend Claire Huxtable. When Claire is scammed out of millions of dollars through a phishing scam and kills herself, BK takes it upon himself to murder everyone connected with the scam, burn down their buildings, and salt the earth with the tears of their loved ones. It's a hoot.

Part of the fun of the movie is the frantic and violent nature of this otherwise stupid John Wick knockoff. Our near silent protagonist stomps his way through mob-like assholes with ease. In one particularly good scene, a barn becomes a house of horrors right out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Another assault on an office building shows a pretty creative use of an elevator to dispatch a man in a way that would make Jason Voorhees slow clap. Good thing we are still rooting for the killer.

There's very little "acting" from Statham. Not to say the man is not fun to watch, and these stunts are impressive as hell from a man proven to be fun to watch beating nine hells out of Fast and/or Furious on any given day, but growling your way through each encounter leaves a lot of nuance on the floor. To compare (which we should not, but we are), Keanu Reeves's John Wick had moments of grief and silent fury reflecting the death of his wife and dog in a rampage that left him battered and bloody until the next movie. The script gives BK little to work with but righteous anger. It's pretty spot on, though, and I applaud him for it.

The surrounding cast can be hit and miss as well. They all do a fine job if only for the script. Emmy Raver-Lampman and Bobby Naderi do a fine job as the FBI agents attempting to make sense of the carnage, kinda odd when it was Raver-Lampman's mom who got scammed that started all this. That they have to be reminded often "this man is an elite killer from a murder program so hardcore it murdered its way out of history" makes them bumbling, though. They get a few hero moments, but mostly follow the carnage and explain to us what we already know.

The villains are at the same time memorable but forgettable. At the top of the food chain are Jeremy Irons getting that house payment check and Josh Hutcherson having fun acting as the biggest asshole in the world. The rest are either a sea of mooks with destiny dates with elevators or mid-level scam operators that work more like scenes from Wolf of Wall Street. It's fun but forgettable to watch them all die. Well, there's one more, Jemma Redgrave crushing it at the end with an actual sincere bit of acting that felt out of place in this "root for the monster" movie.

In the end, The Beekeeper is a solid "I'm too hungover to change the channel" action flick. I miss these types of movies, the kind that played on HBO or edited on TBS in the middle of the day to fill time until something more prestigious could be played. Just a chunky little action movie that will stop you from yawning so you can go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Library Year in Review: 2023

Overall, this year kinda sucked. That's this librarian talking, of course, not an overview of the entire thread. It started with me being so stressed out by a relationship and my job that I got checked out by a hospital when my heart started racing out of control. It ended with my dad dying and all the things that came with that. The cream center of that dark cookie bullshit was a long stretch of depression cycles wherein I would feel great for two weeks and then crash.

At least there's bourbon and edibles and Playstation 5, amIright?

Anyway, here's the things I liked in 2023:

Movies

Hey, I like movies. Pretty good year all around. My highest rated was Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, just a pleasure and delight that pushed animation forward like no other movie has, although Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was a close second. For the popular crowd, of course Barbie, Oppenheimer, Wonka, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 were damn good. John Wick: Chapter Four might have been the best time I had in the cinema this year. For the movie that came out of nowhere, I have Bottoms because I have thought about this absurd sex comedy more than I thought I would.

Books

I only read three books that were released (at least in the format I read them, get off my ass) in 2023. The first was How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix, a fun and wild little horror about things close to home and all the puppet murder you can get. Then there was The Spite House by Johnny Compton, another horror about a family barely hanging on in a house that is not theirs. The last was Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones that twisted itself a little too much at times but I still enjoyed it.

Games

I broke down and bought a PS5 this year primarily to play Baldur's Gate 3 and Spider-Man 2 and I did and they are great fun if wildly different. Mostly the rest of my year was Stardew Valley on the Switch.

Biggest Accomplishment

Besides living in Mississippi for the last two months and not going crazy and platinuming Spider-Man 2? I started writing again. Sure, it's mostly dumb entries on this weird little website, but I take the time to get out of my head once in a while. That's a good thing.

On the Wishlist

Fuck, I don't know. It's like I'm making myself say where I think I'll be in five years. Five years ago I was moving to Seattle after a horrible break-up and putting my life together. Next year feels more like a hope than a dream, but I'll take what I can get.

And that's it. What's the best thing you did? What do you want to do?

I'm gonna go have some bourbon and an edible or five and sleep until the New Year. See you then.