Who Ya Gonna Call?

Ghostbusters

Director: Ivan Reitman

Cast: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts

Released: June 8, 1984

Oscar nominations:
Best Visual Effects (lost to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
Best Original Song - Ray Parker Jr. for "Ghostbusters" (lost to Stevie Wonder for "I Just Called To Say I Love You" for The Woman in Red)

I remember watching this movie a lot as a kid, although it must not have been that many times because there were things I didn't remember during my recent re-watch or just thought had happened differently. I do remember the Ecto Hi C Cooler, although I don't think I ever drank it because it looked pretty gross. I remember the cartoon. I do know there was a sequel and that I saw it, but I could not tell you anything about it. And I definitely remember the catchy theme song by Ray Parker Jr. They even still play it on the radio around Halloween. (The remake of the song they play in the 2016 version of the movie is TERRIBLE!) 

Everyone's seen this movie, right? I don't really need to do a plot synopsis, do I? Well, in case you haven't seen it or don't know what it's about for some ungodly reason, our four main characters: Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson), all go around NYC to bust ghosts, hence their name. They all have cameos in the 2016 rebooted Ghostbusters (except for Ramis who passed away).

Slight spoiler for Stranger Things 2 coming up, but nothing that will ruin the plot of the season: So I love the second episode where the four boys dress up as the Ghostbusters for Halloween and wear their costumes to school. The montage scene where the theme song is playing and their mothers are taking their photos is very adorable. I loved when Mike and Lucas were bickering because they both came as Venkman and Mike says there can't be two Venkmans (Venkmen?) and thought they had decided on Lucas being Winston (pretty much because they're both black), but Lucas doesn't care for Winston as a character because he joins the group later (he joins about halfway through) and isn't a real scientist. Personally, I would have thought Egon would have been the character to fight over being as he is the best one, right? Well, he is my favorite Ghostbuster. I suppose Venkman IS the main character and he has more of the funnier lines and he gets the girl in the end. But when I think Ghostbusters, I think Egon.

Oh, and I also think of Slimer...who is barely in this movie. I remember him being the mascot of the Ghostbusters. Am I thinking of the second movie? Or am I thinking of the cartoon? He's not even given a name in the movie. The Ghostbusters (minus Winston since this is before he joins the team) gets a call from a fancy hotel about a ghost terrorizing the place. Their receptionist, Janine (Annie Potts) takes the calls and tells the hotel that "They'll be totally discreet" and we see their car zooming down the street with all its bells and whistles making a huge ruckus. They do get Slimer when they lock him into the ballroom of the hotel where it looks like a function is about to start soon and end up just destroying the room while they try to capture the poltergeist. We briefly see him again when all the ghosts are released due to Walter Peck ordering their operation to be shut down, thus realizing all the ghosts that have been captured, but that's about all you see of Slimer in the first movie.

Another thing that I remember differently is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The reason he comes to exist is because Gozer, the Big Bad of the movie tells the Ghostbusters that whatever they think of, that will come to life and destroy the city. Three out of the four Ghostbusters manage to keep their minds clear, but Ray ends up thinking of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man because it was the least harmful thing he could think of. (I guess he didn't realize it would be the size of a Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon!). I do not remember the Marshmallow Man being created this way at all. I could have sworn it came to be in Dana's kitchen cuz all that weird stuff happened with the eggs cracking and cooking by themselves on her counter and when she opened her refrigerator, she saw a Hellscape. I do remember those moments and I also remember she bought a bag of the Stay Puft Marshmallows, hence is why I thought the Marshmallow Man was created in her kitchen.

Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) calls the Ghostbusters about her freaky fridge situation and is one of their first clients. Peter takes a liking to her (and some of the comments he makes to her are very unprofessional). Luckily he is there when she becomes possessed by Zuul and when she starts talking to him in a deep guttural sound, he tells her, "What a lovely singing voice you have." Peter isn't the only one who has a thing for Dana; so does her nerdy neighbor Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) who lives in the same apartment building. He's always inviting her to his parties which she politely refuses. Forget Venkman; I would say Louis is the funniest character in the movie. We see him throwing one of his parties and telling one of his guests, "I'm giving this whole thing as a promotional expense which is why I invited clients instead of friends." At that same party, he takes the coats of two guests who have just arrived and throws them into the closet not seeing the demon-dog sitting in there. When he hears the growl, he asks his guests, er clients, "Okay, who brought the dog?" You kind of have to see his scenes to appreciate how funny he is...it's his line delivery that's great.

This movie scared me as a kid, but yeah, it's not scary at all. There might be a few jump scenes, but nothing too bad. Also, the "special effects" are just terrible, especially the demon-dogs. They looked good when they were just standing still, but whenever they jumped or ran, it just looked terrible. Anytime they used puppets for the ghosts, it looked fine, but there's a lot of things that just look bad. I suppose for 1984 it looked good... 

Jungle Love

Gorillas in the Mist

Director: Michael Apted

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Bryan Brown, Julie Harris, John Omirah Miluwi

Released: September 23, 1988

Oscar nominations:

Best Actress - Sigourney Weaver (lost to Jodie Foster for The Accused)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Anna Hamilton Phelan and Tab Murphy (lost to Christopher Hampton for Dangerous Liaisons) 

Best Sound (lost to Bird)

Best  Editing (lost to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)

Best Score - Maurice Jarre (lost to Dave Grusin for The Milagro Beanfield War)

(I have never even heard of Bird or The Milagro Beanfield War!) 

Despite scenes with cute baby gorillas, this is a pretty horrific film. It's about the true story of Dian Fossey (pronounced Diane even though she's missing the e!) who was a big advocate for gorillas and studied them in Rwanda in the '60 - '80s. I had heard of this movie, but I wasn't familiar with Fossey...it was Jane Goodall who I was always aware of. I wasn't sure what to think of Dian. She was very passionate about her cause, but they sure did make her unlikeable or just kinda stupid at times. When she arrives in Africa for the first time, she has a whole suitcase just packed with make up. Seriously, you are in the jungle studying wildlife...why do you need make up? She starts in the Congo and is given an assistant in the form of an animal tracker (John Omirah Miluwi) who will help her track the apes. Her time in the Congo is very short lived as she is forced to leave by Congolese soldiers who destroy her research site and accuse her of being a foreign spy.

She and her team relocates to Rwanda. She gets very up close and personal with the apes, often just sitting with them. She gives them names and becomes quite attached to them. She does get some human affection when she begins an affair with an attractive (but married!) Australian photographer (Bryan Brown) from National Geographic comes to take photos of Dian with the apes for the magazine. He is there for a few months and offers to leave his wife for her, but his job does not allow him to only stay in one place and Dian refuses to leave so they end their relationship when he has to head off to a new location.

Sadly, many of the apes become victims of poaching and Dian makes it her life's mission to stop it. There was one instance where she steals back a baby ape whose entire family had been killed for the poachers to be able better to get to it. With the baby gorilla in her arms, she marches into the dining room of a hotel where the man who wants the baby ape for his zoo is eating and pretty much berates him in front of everybody for what he did. She tries to take care of the baby herself, but in the end, she has to let him go to the zoo to get her deal for what she wants for protecting the apes. A government minister allows her an anti-poaching group consisting of three men. Gorillas were being poached just for their heads or hands just to make tacky gorilla hand ash trays (I don't even want to know what they did with the heads!) which is just horrible and gross.

There was one ape in particular, Digit, who she had a very close bond with. Needless to say, Dian becomes nearly inconsolable when she discovers that Digit has been beheaded and arms cut off by poachers. She becomes very short with the students who have come to study with her, almost blaming them for Digit's death (because if she hadn't been with them, she could have stopped Digit's murder) and burns down the poacher's camp and probably would have even gone on to kill them if she hadn't been stopped. As a viewer, you become attached to the apes too and while you don't see Digit actually being killed, you do see his limbless body and it is very horrific.

The ending was very odd as we see Dian going to bed after looking at many photos of Digit and we see a shadow creep into her room and attack her with a big knife. Supposedly her death is a mystery and nobody knows who killed her. The happened on December 27, 1985 when she was 53 and the movie came out in 1988, so they didn't waste any time making her story into a movie!

The film ends with upbeat African drums as we see Dian is buried next to Digit, which is actually quite sweet. But I was a little confused by the upbeat music! I guess we were suppose to be happy that Dian and Digit were reunited?

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Dave
Director: Ivan Reitman
Cast: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella, Ben Kingsley, Ving Rhames, Charles Grodin
Released: May 7, 1993

Oscar nominations:
Best Original Screenplay - Gary Ross (lost to Jane Campion for The Piano)

When Bill Mitchell, the President of the United States (played by Kevin Kline), suffers a stroke while having an affair with one of his interns, a normal guy named Dave Kovic (also played by Kline) is called in to "pose" as Mitchell as he could be his twin. It's the idea of the Chief of Staff, Bob Alexander, (Langella) because his plan is to feed Dave everything he wants Dave to do as POTUS, but Bob is the one making all the calls.

It turns out that Dave looks so much like the President, he has everyone fooled, including the First Lady (Weaver). The President and First Lady have been having marital problems lately and haven't been spending much time together except for press conferences, but she knows something is amiss when her husband all of a sudden starts caring about things and wanting to help people because the real President was known for being kind of a prick.

There are lots of cameos in this film, most of them being politicians who I didn't know at the time and didn't know now. One of the cameos I did know but shouldn't have was John McLaughlin of The McLaughlin Group. If you're under fifty, you probably have no idea what The McLaughlin Group is. It's a boring show that was on Friday nights on PBS and it had the host, who was, like, 100 years old and other old geezers on it talking about really boring political issues. I only know this show because my brother (who was high school aged around the time) wanted to watch it because he was into politics. I always wanted to watch my TGIF shows like Boy Meets World or Step by Step, but noooooo! We had to watch the stupid McLaughlin Group! Ugh!

There's a funny cameo with Oliver Stone being interviewed by Larry King because he thinks there's a conspiracy behind President acting differently all of a sudden. If I hadn't seen JFK recently, I probably wouldn't have gotten the joke. Arnold Schwarzenegger even has a cameo and this was way before he became the Govenator.

Fun movie, but not believable in the least.

Brave Blue World

Avatar

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Signourey Weaver, Stephen Lang

Released: 12/18/09

Viewed in theaters: 1/13/10

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to The Hurt Locker)

Best Director - James Cameron (lost to Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker) 

Best Score - James Horner (lost to Michael Giacchino for Up)

Best Art Direction (won)

Best Cinematography (won)

Best Visual Effects (won)

Best Editing (lost to The Hurt Locker)

Best Sound Mixing (lost to The Hurt Locker)

Best Sound Editing (lost to The Hurt Locker)

I have to admit; when I first heard about Avatar, I really had no desire to see it because sci-fi really isn't my thing. But when all my Facebook friends and the celebs I follow on Twitter were raving about how great it was, I decided it was worth a watch. After all, it's from the same guy who directed Titanic, The Abyss, and Aliens, all movies that I love, so at least I know Cameron has a good track record. I have to say, I'm quite glad I did see it. For one thing, I really liked it and for another, this is definitely a movie you have to see on the big screen. Your TV screen won't do this film justice. In fact, Cameron told EW that he wasn't making a movie to watch on your phone. (I've watched the trailer on my phone and he's right...watching the full feature on a phone wouldn't have the same effect). I also caught this movie in 3-D, the first feature film I've ever seen in 3-D. (I've seen those educational Imax movies in 3-D, but never an actual movie). While the 3-D is cool, it's not necessary for you to see it. About halfway into the movie, my ears were starting to hurt because my glasses were starting to get too tight, so I probably won't be seeing anymore 3-D movies in the future unless they're essential.

In a way, Avatar kinda reminded me of Titanic. Yes, sure, there are major differences: Titanic is based on historical events while Avatar is an original story and Titanic takes place in the past while Avatar takes places many years into the future, but it has that epic feel that Titanic did and of course there's the love story. I also had that same feeling of awe when I saw Titanic while watching Avatar.

Taking place in the year 2154 on a planet called Pandora, Worthington plays Jake, a paralyzed marine who travels to this other world to take over a mission for his twin brother who was killed in battle. Pandora is beautiful, but deadly. It's also home of a very valuable mineral worth $200 million an ounce. The only thing standing in their way is the native Na'vi, these ten-feet tall, blue aliens with cat-like features. The only way they can talk to them and negoatiate with them is to look like large blue human-cats themselves, so they create avatars where they can virtually control their own Na'vi alien. I'm probably not explaining it clearly, but don't worry, it makes perfect sense when you watch the movie and the story is easy to follow. In fact, I have heard complaints that the story is too simplistic. Hey, at least Avatar has a plot unlike some movies. :::coughcoughTransformers2coughcough:::

It took me awhile to get used to the big blue aliens at first, but once you get past the first initial shock, it's easy to accept them and their world. The special effects of Pandora are absolutely amazing with some crazy scary creatures. I have to wonder, though, how this movie will hold up 10-20 years from now. The problem when you have a movie chock full of GGI is that it doesn't age very well. But for now, in 2010, the film is quite revolutionary and Cameron proves he is a master at the technical aspect of film and there is no doubt in my mind Avatar will sweep all the technical awards at the Oscars.

The film is nearly three hours long and while my ears became sore from the 3-D glasses, I found myself completely immersed in this world. I found myself becoming emotionally involved with the characters and there were a few times where my eyes started brimming with tears. Now I never flat-out bawled like I did when I saw Titanic, but I came very close several times.

It will probably be awhile before we see another film like this again, so I highly recommend you see it (on the big screen!) before it leaves your theaters. This film 'blue' me away!