Who ya gonna call?
I had trouble trying to decide whether I should put this under comedy or classics, so I chose both. Clearly anyone who loves cinema and claims to love cinema has adored one of the greatest movies to come out of the 80s; that movie would be Ghostbusters. Getting together Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd (Ernie Hudson, I love you — sorry for the nix) is simply put ‘comedic genius’. Getting them all to work together to create such deep, individual characters that are memorable, even after 25 years, is nothing short of miraculous. If you’re not familiar with the story, and you should be ashamed, here’s the rub:
Three failed professors at NYU have decided to form a company to catch and dispose of ghosts. They came to this decision after encountering a spirit at the New York Public Library (not sure if that should be capitalized, but oh-well) and not-so-successfully trying to capture it. After putting all their chips in one basket, they open up ‘Ghostbusters’. The business starts slow, but gradually picks up until they meet a strange case of a young lady, named Dana Barett, who finds her fridge houses a demi-God named Gozer. The busting boys must figure out a way to stop Gozer from materializing, save Dana and the entire city of New York.
What’s brilliant about this film is that the concept is so damn simple. You have guys who have clearly not cut it in the educational field, being thrown into the real world with skills they can’t possibly translate to a pre-existing career. They do what they know best and that’s take care of ghosts. You can’t really get more simple than that. What makes this ridiculous concept work even better is that you have three distinct personalities making the comedy work. Bill Murray is the slack-ass guy who doesn’t really give a damn about the job, just what benefits come out of the job (see Dana Barett’s character for details). You also have Dan Aykroyd’s character, Ray, who is both enthusiastic and knowledgeable on the subject of ghosts. He helps bridge Harold Ramis’ Egon together with Murray’s Peter Venkman. Egon being the biggest nerd who has almost no personality.
Now, what sells you about these characters and their habits is that each character is almost a true reflection of their actual actor selves. I would like to put in a slight disclaimer that I’m sure Ramis isn’t as cold as Egon, but I’m positive he’s just as intelligent. Anyway, without these three guys and their characters, this movie doesn’t work. They bring a balanced comedic attack during the film. They don’t force the funny, they really slip it in their quite eloquently. You can credit that to the screenplay in which Ramis and Aykroyd put together. I have no official confirmation about this, but if I were to put money down on it, because Ramis and Aykroyd know their fellow actors so well (a tightly knit comedic family), they knew how to write the characters to their personalities. That’s almost a luxury that you don’t see much of today in the cinematic world.
To wrap this up, you’ll find the boys just as funny and hilarious as you found them 25 years ago. Their rugged jump suits, armed with their proton packs will make you happy to be apart of one of the greatest movies of our generation. What’s even better than this? Knowing that that generation who frequents websites and didn’t see this coming the first time around will more than likely enjoy it the second time around. Enjoy the trip, I’m almost positive that the teams’ ghost catching days are far from over.
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man never looked so good
I’m always skeptical of big releases prior to 1990 looking good on Blu-ray. I’m sure there are some elements that go into deciding how to convert a film to Blu-ray (which will be explained in the coming weeks), but just know this…. Ghostbusters looks gorgeous on 1080/720p sets. You will see how the picture has been upscaled to meet your HD needs and you’ll be more than pleased with the remixed audio that Sony has put together for you. Without a doubt I am very impressed with what I saw from their transfer. While still not completely up to the perfect standards of A Clockwork Orange, it still is almost completely clean of any graininess that you might find on a film not as loved/preserved as this one. In short, you’ll be happy.
As for features, here’s what you get:
– Slimer Mode PiP and Pop-up Trivia Track (brilliant! worth the price of admission)
– Ecto-1: Resurrecting the Classic Car
– Ghostbusters Garage: Ecto-1 Photo Gallery
– Making-of Ghostbusters The Video Game
– Commentary with Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis and Joe Medjuck
– Interviews with Cast and Crew
– 1984 Featurette
– SFX Team – Before/After Multi-Angle Explorations
– 10 Deleted Scenes
In hindsight, these aren’t bad features. The first four are made for the blu-ray. The last are from the previous DVD. I like what they have here, but I wish there were more features and newer interviews with cast/crew. That would have been even better. Still, you get some good features here.