Ghostbusters II (1989)

Directed by: Ivan Reitman (as mentioned yesterday, his best movie is probably still Ghostbusters)

Written by: Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd

Starring: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, Rick Moranis, Peter MacNicol, Kurt Fuller and many other cameo performances.  Check the tags.

What it’s about: five years after the first movie, the Ghostbusters reform to save New York City once again

B-Movie Alternate Title: Ghostbusters Two!

Movie Mash Up: Ghostbusters – originality and charm

What I liked: Bill Murray’s performance was good, but not great, pretty sure he was just phoning this in.  Brings back most of the cast of the first movie to wrap up storylines and such, and yeah, it’s just an average movie.  Peter MacNicol was enjoyable to watch, though.

What I disliked: Wilhelm von Homburg’s performance as Vigo the Carpathian was pretty terrible.  The Statue of Liberty ridiculousness SO MUCH dislike.  The shoehorning of a Bobby Brown cameo into the film, feeling wholly unnatural as a cameo.  Basically the entire movie felt like an easy cash-in.

Would I recommend this to anyone?: Ehn, if you liked the first movie, you could watch this and not be too disappointed, but it’s not a good movie, just average.

Rating: 2.5 / 5

The Three Stooges (2012)

The year is 2012.  The Farrelly Brothers – who arguably peaked with There’s Something About Mary back in 1998 – are still making movies, and you know, that’s fine.  However, someone keeps paying them to make their movies, and they somehow attract decent and famous actors for their movies.  This is of growing concern to me, because their films are becoming increasingly difficult to sit through.  So for this movie, they decided to give us The Three Stooges except in modern days.  A trio of men whose heyday was probably about 60 years ago (and just reading through their Wiki entry has depressed the hell out of me), whose chief claim to fame was physically assaulting each other to an alarming extent, reinvented for a modern audience.  How could that be a bad idea at all?

I don’t want to unnecessarily crap all over this movie, but I hated it.  The bright spots are the fairly accurate impersonations of the Stooges by Chris Diamantopoulos (Moe), Sean Hayes (Larry), and Will Sasso (Curly), as well as Sofia Vergara’s completely over the top performance, and her wonderful wardrobe.  I will also give points for Moe physically assaulting the cast of “Jersey Shore”.  Well, not many points, because I didn’t give this movie even a full point.

It didn’t work.  The entire movie, as a whole, while yes, it might be a loving accurate tribute to The Three Stooges, does not work.  I can sit down and easily watch old Three Stooges shorts because they were funny and very of their time.  When you have those characters in a modern day setting with a story borrowed from the 1987 Three Stooges video game, NO, so very much NO.  Did not like, would not sit through again, for all the scenes of Kate Upton in a bikini in the world.  Truthfully, there is not a good Stooges movie to be made in the year 2012 or beyond.  No gritty reboot, and even a biopic would be a hard sell.

0.5 / 5

Groundhog Day (1993)

This isn’t so much of a review as it is just a collection of thoughts that I’ve had about it.  Near Tweets if you will, although I thought this actual Tweet of mine was criminally under RTd.

If I have to go into great detail about why Groundhog Day is such a great movie, then you probably haven’t seen it.

I like to think that I have deep thoughts, and that I’m somewhat philosophical about things, but watching this movie makes me consider things on different levels that I’m so not used to.

Search elsewhere on the Internet for even deeper investigations into the film, I’m sure you will be slack-jawed with amazement about interpretations.  For example, the director Harold Ramis estimated the repeated day takes place over 10 years, in order to account for all the things that Phil Connors (Bill Murray) became a master at.  Other people estimate over 10,000 years.

My one minor complaint about the movie is that the score doesn’t age as well as the movie.  It’s not timeless, it’s somewhat jangly at points, and features a bizzarely “on-the-nose” theme song about a weatherman.

This is one of those perfect movies that I live in everyday fear of some creatively bankrupt Hollywood executive saying “You know, we could totally remake Groundhog Day/The Goonies/Better Off Dead/(etc. forever)!”  Leave things alone.  I know as a human race we’re really big on the environment nowadays, but that doesn’t mean we have to recycle ideas as well.

In summation: if you want to become a stalker, watch Phil Connors learn everything about Rita (Andie MacDowell) over the course of however many days and take that approach to heart.  Godspeed.

5 / 5