This post was originally published in July 2008, in accordance with the New York and Self-Involvement blogathons. Ghostbusters was recently released on Blu-ray in honor of the 25th anniversary of the film’s premiere.
When I heard that the New York in the Movies Blogathon and the Self-Involvement Blogathon were happening around the same time, I got it into my head that there was one film I could write about that could legitimately fit on the nexus of both. Sure, there are “better” New York films––Manhattan, obvs, or even Metropolitan; there are films that would allow me to more deeply discuss my personal life, as the Culture Snob puts it, as it’s “filtered through movies.” But there’s no movie in any category or canon that allows me to talk about how my relationship to the city I live in has been filtered through movies since long before I lived here, quite like Ghostbusters. A close reading of the film, the way it depicts New York, and what that has to do with me, follows after the jump. The entire film is now available for streaming, but not embedding, on Hulu.
On June 20, the Nantucket Film Festival will honor Harold Ramis with their Screenwriter’s Tribute, and will host a special 25th anniversary screening of Ghostbusters (there’s ticket info on the Festival’s website). With speculation over the long-awaited Ghostbusters 3 at a fever pitch, I called Ramis and we talked about the status of that project, how he’s been “burned by sequels” and why he made a villain out of the EPA.
Why do you think that people are still so hungry for a new Ghostbusters, twenty years after the last film? Why Ghostbusters, and not, like, Caddyshack?
There was another “Caddyshack,” and it was terrible. That could be one reason.
The highly anticipated new Ghostbustersgame has finally been given a release date: June 2009. That may not be specific enough for you, especially since it was originally supposed to come out this fall, but as Karina previously reported, Atari has decided to coincide its release with the original film’s 25th anniversary. To ease your impatience, though, there’s an awesome new trailer for the video game (view it on YouTube), in which you can hear some of the new vocal performances from Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.
I can’t stand video games, but even I’m looking forward to playing this thing. Then again, I’m such a fan of Ghostbusters that I’d be just as excited if the new game was as simple as the old Activision Ghostbusters game for the Commodore 64, a demonstration of which I’m sharing as today’s clip. Oh, I hope you didn’t think by the headline that I’d found a demo of the new game. Sorry about that, if you did. I didn’t mean to trick you. Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy the video anyway. Check it out after the jump.
In a new interview with MTV, City of Ember star Bill Murray has called for the makers of Ghostbusters 3to introduce a female Ghostbuster. My first thought was that hottie who models the sexy Ghostbusters Halloween costume, but seriously it is a great idea. As long as the concept is to pass on the proton packs to a new generation, there really should be an actress in the bunch. And I’m not talking just a hot young flavor of the month who Hollywood thinks will get the teen boys in the audience (it’s Ghostbusters 3; they’re already sold). I agree with Murray that the main requirement should be a funny female.
However, instead of merely picking out one comedienne to appear in the sequel, SpoutBlog has decided to imagine a remake of Ghostbustersin which the entire team is made of women. So, here are some casting choices for a gender-reversed version:
Video games today are great for recreating scenes from old films (such as The Godfather) and plopping you into the action. But how faithful do a game’s sequences need to be? From the way Sierra Entertainment is advertising its new Ghostbustersvideo game, I guess you want the gaming to be as close to the direction of the original film as possible. Not only does the new trailer for the game include many scenes from the first Ghostbusters movie, it displays side-by-side comparisons of footage from the film and the game. Because what would the game be without a near-identical shot of library catalog cards shot into the air?
Interestingly enough, the game is not actually a total video game remake of Ghostbusters. Instead, it’s “an all new story you won’t see in theaters,” featuring a script by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, who also wrote both the original and the sequel, and the voices of Aykroyd, Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, William Atherton and Brian Doyle-Murray, all reprising their roles from the films (I understand Sigourney Weaver opting out, but why no Rick Moranis?). Of course, it does require you to battle old favorites, such as Slimer, Gozer, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Vigo (”master of evil”), but there will also be new villains, including the biggest paranormal problem the Ghostbusters have ever seen.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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