Ghostbusters

Bill Murray, along with his fellow ghostbusters (Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, who also wrote the script) has been prowling the corridors of a swank hotel in search of a green spirit. Unfortunately, Murray finds it. We cut away before the ghost engulfs him, then follow Ayrkroyd as he runs to Murray’s aid. Murray, prone, is covered with goo. “He slimed me,” says Murray, as Aykroyd gives comfort. A moment later, Murray, still supine, rolls his head back, looks heavenward, and lets loose with an oddly satisfied sigh, “I feel sooo funky.”

I don’t know what this line means. I’m not sure I want to know. But I know that it made me laugh all through the next few scenes in Ghostbusters. There is something divine about Bill Murray, and I mean that adjective in the truest sense. Murray’s screen persona walks among men, but he is apart from them. He can’t really be called courageous, yet he faces danger, authority, and sexual aggression without the slightest trace of fear. As Newsweek‘s David Ansen put it, “His response stays the same, whether he is confronted by a green demon or an ordinary man in the street: nothing fazes his lunatic disengagement from reality.” We cannot imagine a life for Murray outside the running time of his films; he’s unreal, he couldn’t survive in the world of the flesh.

Murray is not yet on the same plane as the great Groucho Marx, but I thought about Groucho while watching Ghostbusters. Like Groucho, Murray’s anarchic insouciance is a liberating force; he gives gleeful life to all the comebacks that we would like to be able to make to authority figures and incompetents. Part of Murray’s popularity must stem from the fact that his humor is rarely laced with malice; rather, he floats his words on a breeze of laid-back cheer. This is, of course, the opposite of Groucho’s rapid patter. But Murray has a scene with Sigourney Weaver – who is both beautiful and funny in Ghostbusters – after she’s been possessed by the spirit of a ghost who’s been haunting her apartment refrigerator, during which the two of them achieve a comic dialogue the likes of which has not been seen (or heard) since Groucho parted ways with Margaret Dumont.

Weaver is writhing in heat on her bed (she is about to levitate above the bed, which prompts Murray to later remark, “I like her because she sleeps above her covers – four feet above her covers” – but still, no big deal), and she entices Murray hither. He’ll have none of it. The scene he sees before him is too fraught with possibilities for one-liners, and he is drunk on comic opportunity. It’s impossible to imagine Murray and Weaver actually bedding down after the movie ends just as it was impossible to imagine what Groucho might do if he actually convinced one of the objects of his desire to join him between the sheets full of cracker crumbs.

So what about the movie itself? Well, Ivan Reitman continues to be the worst comedy director at work today, but he seems to be Bill Murray’s guide, what with Meatballs and Stripes and all. And presumably he provides the improvisational atmosphere in which Murray thrives. Aykroyd and Ramis maintain second-banana status; there is also an inexplicable fourth ghostbuster, Ernie Hudson, who seems to be there to get the black vote.

And Rick Moranis is so good as Weaver’s geeky neighbor that it makes up for Streets of Fire. Well, almost. With these people hanging about, plus the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man, Ghostbusters can’t miss being agreeable. As for Murray, he won’t have Reitman to fall back on for his next movie. He plays the seeker-of-the-infinite in The Razor’s Edge. It’s unfair, but you can’t help imagining him experiencing his moment of oneness with the Absolute, putting his head back against a tree trunk, watching the sun rise, and whispering softly, “I feel sooo funky….”

First published in The Informer, May/June 1984

At this point in my budding career I was writing reviews in a daily newspaper, The Herald, and also editing the Seattle Film Society’s newsletter, The Informer; I rarely wrote two reviews of the same movie (something I did a lot of when I later wrote for The Herald and Film.com at the same time), but I guess Ghostbusters was one of them. I posted the other review almost ten years ago – man, time flies. I suppose I would watch it again someday, but only for Murray.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Spock and McCoy are worried about Kirk. He’s moping around, he’s depressed on his birthday, he’s constantly talking about getting old. Spock advises Kirk to regain his active command, rather than continue his work as a desk jockey. Bones tells Jim, over a bottle of Romulan Ale, to get his act together. But nothing stirs now-Admiral Kirk out of the dumps – until, during a routine in-space inspection of the Enterprise, a curious call comes in from Kirk’s old flame. The resulting diversion leads to a confrontation with his old nemesis, Khan, in what, as many reviewers have pointed out derogatorily, is little more than a basic TV plot from the old TV show. That may be so, but Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan sure is an enjoyable episode in the ongoing mission of the starship.

It’s about ten times better than the stuffy first movie, with the cast looking very relaxed; William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForrest Kelley are back in their old rhythms; there’s a cute new Vulcan crew member called Mr. Saavik (Kirstie Alley); and Ricardo Montalban is mercilessly hammy as the evil Khan. Actually, he’s not really the superior intellect he pretends to be, and it’s too bad there are no face-to-face showdowns between him and Kirk, but with a wig (and a fake chest?*) like the one he’s wearing, it’s tough to complain.

Director Nicholas Meyer (Time After Time) allows the humor to develop in the same vein as the series (funniest line: the second time somebody asks about the length of a crewman’s hair), and he fearlessly pursues and exploits every kernel of corn available. There are many, because the spirit of Star Trek is still that old humanistic message; the resourceful Kirk still believes there are no no-win situations. I’m afraid I was believing it too; and when a black box is jettisoned out of the Enterprise to seed a new planet to the strains of “Amazing Grace” – well, I got a little misty-eyed. Temporary suspension of critical faculties brought on by weightlessness? Too much Romulan Ale? Dunno. Maybe I’m just getting old, too.

*I have been assured that the well-preserved chest on display here does indeed belong to Mr. Montalban. I had suspected that he might have constructed a falsie out of that rich Corinthian leather you hear so much about, but I am glad to be corrected.

First published in The Informer, June 1982

I was 23 when I wrote this, so I guess I was getting old. Fun movie, and even at the time everybody knew that the Star Trek ship had righted itself, having come close to extinction with the ponderousness of the first movie – excuse me, motion picture. In retrospect, many universes were hanging in the balance with this one.

Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing is long gone, of course; I assume the audience that didn’t come to it was made up mostly of kids too young to be familiar with the comic, and of older folks who wouldn’t be caught dead at something called Swamp Thing. Personally, I look back on Swamp Thing with fondness. It didn’t turn out to be as much sheer fun as I had expected, but it did have an ingratiating love for its disreputable subject.

Adrienne Barbeau plays a scientist who joins a research group deep in the bayou; she meets a handsome project leader and a case of the mutual hots springs up. They’re working on a potion that will regenerate life in plants, or animals, or something like that, and it seems they have a pretty explosive juice that’ll do just that when – the bad guys show up. Led by Louis Jourdan (who gets to do some delectable eye-rolling), they have it in mind to use the stuff for their own evil ends. Adrienne’s beau grabs the only existing sample, is shot running out of the lab, and explodes into a ball of flame before he plunges into the swamp. As Adrienne is chased through the swamp during the next few days, she is repeatedly saved from the clutches of the villains by this … what else can we call it but – this “Swamp Thing.”

Director-writer Wes Craven’s work is highly regarded in some critical circles, but this is my first Craven film, so I can’t shed much auteurist light on Swamp Thing. The story is well told, but some of the dialogue – particularly in the expository first twenty minutes or so – is incredibly banal, especially the light-hearted humor. Lines like “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps,” are delivered straightforwardly, without irony, suggesting that a? Craven has a pretty square sensibility, and actually thinks these lines are funny, or b) Craven is dutifully re-creating the kind of dialogue found in comic-book adventures. I hope it’s b) but I’m not sure. There are some funny things, like Jourdan’s hubristic speeches and the tacky makeup/costume he puts on near the end, when he drinks the elixir that transforms him into a hairy-backed, bearlike thing that is vanquished by our muddy hero in a bayou knockdown drag-out.

As for Swamp Thing himself, I expected him to look a little messier, with maybe more swamp paraphernalia hanging from him. But his heart is in the right place, even if the rest of him isn’t always. And I guess you could say the same thing about the movie.

First published in The Informer, May 1982

I had forgotten this was my first Wes Craven film – huh. Not sure when I caught up with the previous pictures, but I just read that this movie’s flop had Craven wondering whether his career was over. Louis Jourdan’s next movie was as a James Bond villain (Octopussy), so somebody noticed what he was up to here. Ray Wise played the scientist, and Dick Durock was S. Thing, a role he reprised in the sequel. Also: Adrienne’s beau? I never know if anybody notices this stuff. My “What else can we call it but –” riff was inspired by Mad magazine’s brilliant “Heap” satire, by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder, which was reprinted in one of the Mad books I gobbled up as a kid.

The Road Warrior

The opening montage is pretty good: It lets us know we’re in a future where the possession of fuel is of supreme importance (not too distant a future, apparently), and we see some newsreel-like footage of how the world got to this point, as well as some clips from a movie called Mad Max (The Road Warrior is a sequel, although that term hardly seems appropriate). This intro, with narration, is in standard movie ratio: The screen is squarish. Things are fairly ordinary until the moment after the screen goes black, and suddenly we get blown backward out of a car’s supercharger and the screen whomps into widescreen Panavision and we’re doing about eighty or ninety miles an hour down the highway of the Wasteland. I think it’s safe to say that not a single “fairly ordinary” thing happens after this.

Mad Max was Australia’s biggest hit ever, although it didn’t do much over here in the States (in Seattle, it had a brief run at the Grand Illusion; also a showing in a UW Australian film series, where some members of the audience absolutely refused to believe that such a not-nice movie was the most popular film Down Under). It’s a good movie, but it didn’t come near suggesting the kind of cosmic blowout that the same director/co-writer had in store for the sequel. The Road Warrior (it’s just Mad Max II in Australia; too bad) is a stunning, witty, riveting story about finding meaning in a world that seems meaningless, and how the action of finding that meaning becomes the stuff of legend. Key word here is “Action,” because that’s what The Road Warrior is, as well as what it’s about (Raiders of the Lost Ark looks like a game of bridge by comparison). George Miller has invoked a rollercoaster ride in describing the film’s headlong rush, and that will serve as an approximation of the movement of The Road Warrior.

But it doesn’t begin to do justice to the kind of vaulting imagination seen at work here. A simple tale: A man must lead people and their cargo to safety against incredible odds. But as the narrative hits you (and hits you, and hits you), the richness of invention along the way is breathtaking. Just naming cinematic comparisons, one could bring up Kurosawa, Peckinpah, Huston, and Spielberg; that might give some idea of the flavor of the movie, but it should be stressed that this is a George Miller film all the way, and is quite free of any hommages to the masters. Miller simply has an understanding of the way movies move, and with his big budget here, he is able to take the care that was sometimes absent in Mad Max. (A number of shots – most of which last only a few seconds – look like the kind of things that filmmakers spend their whole day waiting to get. I don’t know how Miller did it so often.)

No idea what The Road Warrior‘s post-Festival fate will be (it’s entirely possible that when Warner Brothers releases it in August, it’ll get dumped in the toolies as a typical summer action movie), but if it comes to your town, don’t miss it. There are few things as exhilarating as running through and surviving the Wasteland.

First published in The Informer, May 1982

Odd review; I don’t say much about what actually happens onscreen, and neglect to mention the name of the movie’s little-known leading man. This was part of a package of reviews of movies shown in the Seattle International Film Festival that year, published in The Informer, the Seattle Film Society’s newsletter, of which I was editor. I had forgotten that the film showed at SIFF well before it opened for its regular run. The SIFF founders had the volume cranked up way too high (as was their preference) at the Egyptian theater, and the movie pretty much took the roof off. I realize this must have been before the Film Society (separate from SIFF) had the bright idea to bring Mad Max back for a couple of showings, which sold out in spectacular form.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

No one will accuse the makers of the Star Trek movies of originality. After 20 years of success with the starship Enterprise (in what was supposed to be a five-year mission), the Trek people know what pleases. Their latest film, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, sticks closely to the elements that have worked before.

That duly noted, it is a pleasure to announce that IV is a thoroughly enjoyable outing: cleverly entertaining, reassuringly familiar, and still packing a resolutely humanist message.

When we last saw our trekkers, they were left on the planet Vulcan, having been reunited with the once-dead Spock (Leonard Nimoy). As IV opens, the crew is stuck with a broken-down Klingon vessel – the Enterprise having gotten charred beyond recognition in III – and Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is wanted for intergalactic violations.

A skeleton crew dresses up the Klingon ship and heads back to face the music on Earth. They are, of course: Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Mr. Scott (James Doohan), Sulu (George Takei), Chekov (Walter Keonig), and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols).

As they approach Earth, they see that the planet is getting its ions zapped by a weird space probe. It seems the probe is attempting to communicate with a long-extinct Earth species: the humpback whale.

Huh? There’s more: The only way to communicate with the probe, and call it off, is to grab a real whale and bring it to Earth – and the only whales are way back in the primitive 20^th century. Faster than Kirk can say, “Spock, start your computations for time warp,” the gang is embarking on that most beloved of science fiction concepts: time travel.

Thus we find ourselves in the San Francisco of now, where the crew desperately tries to beam up a couple of likely whales, with the help of a biologist (Catherine Hicks) who must suspend even more disbelief than the rest of us.

This is a kooky premise, to be sure, yet the environmental stuff is perfectly in line with the series’ old message-heavy thrust. Luckily, the movie is so niftily made, you don’t feel you’re sitting at a Greenpeace lecture (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

I would guess the environmental orientation of the film came from Leonard Nimoy, who directed this installment (as he did III) and also worked on the script. Nimoy’s direction is brighter here than in the previous film, and in fact much of the movie plays as comedy.

Most of the funny lines sound suspiciously like the work of Nicholas Meyer, a good filmmaker in his own right. Meyer, who directed Star Trek II, also did some doctoring on this screenplay, and his sprightly touch is evident.

There are some wonderful moments, especially for the Trekkies out there. Each cast member, even the aging, paunching underlings of the crew, has his turn in the spotlight, and all fulfill their usual expectations. Much fun is had with culture shock, as with McCoy’s disgust at Dark Ages medical procedures in a hospital sequence, and Spock’s offhand reference to the literary greats Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins as “the giants” of our time.

It is, quite simply, a well-crafted, neatly trimmed entertainment. Not much more need be said of it, except that Star Trek V may confidently be predicted beaming into your galaxy sometime in the next two years.

First published in The Herald, November 28, 1986

I know this will sound terrible to some people, but I have rarely re-visited Star Trek properties over the years, although I will watch an episode of the original show any time one pops on. This one, though, I think I actually went back to see in the theater, such was the pleasure of the voyage. (This, despite my famed allergy to Catherine Hicks.) I had forgotten that Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s plays a small role. John Schuck is in the cast, and his wife married Leonard Nimoy not long after this film. I don’t know the details.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Once upon a time, there was Star Trek, a TV series that captivated millions of people and lived a short, enjoyable video life. Then there was Star Trek – The Motion Picture, a big-budget return to the ongoing mission of the starship Enterprise. It was reverential, humorless, and pretty boring.

Then came Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Made with love and playfulness instead of reverence, this sequel recaptured the spirit and fun of the TV series. It also killed off the mystical center of Star Trek: Leonard Nimoy’s Spock sacrificed himself or the good of his fellow men.

But wait just a minute. When last seen, Spock’s body was setting down gently on the surface of a newly-vitalized planet called Genesis. The new sequel takes up right where the previous one left off, and you can guess by the title – Star Trek III: The Search for Spock – that the resilient Vulcan may not be down for the count.

Turns out that Spock left a little of himself back on the ship. As the Enterprise heads back home, Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) notices that “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley) isn’t quite himself. Bones walks around muttering things like, “most illogical,” and Kirk soon discovers that Spock put the Vulcan mind-meld on McCoy before he died. That means Spock’s brain (or at least his memory) is within McCoy’s head.

Spock’s father (Mark Lenard, who played the same role in the series) shows up to tell Kirk that Spock’s body must be recovered and returned to Vulcan. There, with McCoy’s help, Spock can be restored.

Fine. Except that Kirk’s bosses at the Federation have declared that Genesis is off limits. We all know that isn’t going to stop Kirk, though, just as we know those crazy Klingons (led by Christopher Lloyd, who is both menacing and funny) will get their just deserts after causing trouble around the forbidden planet.

It’s a thoroughly enjoyable movie. All the stars are quite comfortable in the roles; the gang’s all there (as usual, the supporting crew members don’t have a heckuva lot to do).

This entry has been directed by Leonard Nimoy, who does rather well by it. Search for Spock doesn’t have the hipness or spunk that director Nicholas Meyer gave Wrath of Khan, but it’s told clearly. And Nimoy has a good feeling for the Trek brand of pop mysticism.

Once again, this sequel harks back to the traditional themes of the TV show: technology is fine, but human instincts will carry the day; friendship and loyalty may be worth more than sensible behavior; etc. Listen, the TV series’ main attraction was never the scientific gadgetry; it was the cornball excitement of watching Kirk get by on his inexhaustible supply of gut instincts and crazy hunches.

The series always insisted that, for all of his voyages through the stars, man’s greatest achievement was simply the ability to remain human. When someone marvels at the fact that Kirk has lost everything – his command, his ship, and more – in the search for Spock, Kirk replies simply, “I would have lost my soul if I hadn’t tried.” Star Trek may not matter much in the vast scheme of things, but that’s a decent conclusion for a modest, escapist entertainment.

First published in The Herald, June 2, 1984

I mean, I didn’t get it wrong. For movies that have become cultural monuments, it’s funny to think back at the times when you’d just seen it for the first time and had a couple of hours to come up with a review. This piece doesn’t say a whole lot about the movie itself, but I’m all right with the way it ends up.

Ghostbusters II

The first Ghostbusters wasn’t much of a movie, but it had a clever premise, a No. 1 song, and it allowed Bill Murray to float along in his own dreamy, wise-cracking universe. These elements brought the film a $220 million return and status as the highest-grossing comedy in history.

That noted, the only question about the sequel is, Why did it take five years to make? The answers are varied; for one thing, star Bill Murray wigged out for a few years and was skittish about a sequel. For another, Columbia Pictures was briefly under the stewardship of renegade producer David Puttnam, who was interested in grander things than slime.

Hollywood being what it is, Puttnam is back in England and Columbia is betting its future on Ghostbusters II. Nothing has been left to chance. The King Midas director, Ivan Reitman (Twins), is back, and Murray’s ghostbusting partners Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis have written the script again, and are co-stars. And Sigourney Weaver returns, as Murray’s one-time paramour, now a single mom and once again at the center of a Manhattan ectoplasmic disturbance.

That means the ghosts are back. In fact, the sewers under New York are choked with pink slime, the result, it turns out, of all the bad feeling – the “negative energy” – of New York City. That’s a lot of slime.

The ghosts pop up at the bidding of a centuries-dead madman who wants to be reincarnated as Weaver’s baby. Actually, the ghost outbreak comes not a minute too soon, because the Ghostbusters have been discredited and even sued for the destruction they caused at the conclusion of the original film. Murray’s character has hit rock bottom; he’s hosting a sappy show about psychic phenomena (it’s one of the movie’s funniest scenes).

The film has the expected sliming sequences and some ghost-zapping, a bit of romance between Ghostbusters secretary Annie Potts and super-nerd Rick Moranis, plus some spare time for Murray’s wooing of Weaver. The scenes between these two are the movie’s best, as was true of the first film. With a worthy sparring partner – and Sigourney Weaver is nothing if not a strong presence – Murray is moved to deliver his loopy asides with extra relish.

Director Reitman’s main talent (his only talent, as far as I could ever see) is creating space for Murray to work up his improvisational banter, which he has done since the ragged days of Meatballs and Stripes. Succeeding at that, Reitman fails to make much else of interest here; you get the sense that a lot of stuff that didn’t work was left on the cutting-room floor. The film feels choppy and the finale is noisy and perfunctory. Somehow it seems like a longshot to repeat the staggering success of the first go-’round, but the box-office summer is already off to a fast start, and Bill Murray’s shrugging shoulders are broad.

First published in The Herald, June 1989

The female-led remake was much funnier. The only reason I can think of to watch it again – well, aside from the Murray-Weaver mojo – would be Peter MacNicol, who plays a villain.