Ghostbuster2: 80s Rewind Review

Well I guess we’re gonna have to take control!
Bobby Brown’s GhostBusters song stands out to me more than anything else when I recall GhostBusters 2. Not Viggo, or the river of Slime, or Sigourney Weaver and not even the Statue of Liberty Walking through New York City.. Bobby Brown’s song. And the video looks cool too, although it looks more like an ad for New York City tourism.

I have to say it: Ghostbusters 2 is just not as good as part 1. There.. I said it. I do recall that it had way more hype and anticipation than Ghostbusters 1. For one thing, there were no Terror Dogs. After seeing Dan Akroyd (the writer of Ghostbusters) speak on the DVD its easy to see he is the mad genius behind the whole thing. Harold Ramis (co-writer) mentions in the commentary on part 1 that Dan had originally wanted it to be about a future in which “ghost busting” is like a bug exterminator type job, blue collar and common place. Its easy to see that Dan was very much held back in his creativity.

Speaking of commentary, you won’t see that or any other extras on the GhostBusters 2 DVD, which, for me, makes it unbuyable. Correction, it has something on there about the GhostBuster’s cartoon but thats about it (unless you count scene selection).

I always thought the Statue of Liberty bit was corny (unlike the Stay PUft Marshmallow Man in part 1, which was somehow brilliant). The bad guy was kind of cool, but then he’s defeated by “NYC happiness” as soon as he’s about to put his foot in New York City’s collective ass (let me just say - New York City happiness is like saying “holy war” or “compassionate conservative” - a meaning contradiction. The cast was great (you can’t go wrong with Bill Murray & Rick Moranis) but the plot seemed too commercialized for me.

Another thing that really sucked to me was the GhostBusters II Run DMC rap. It is embarrassingly weak especially considering that I idolized these guys after Tougher than Leather.

Whatever is said about GB2, the GhostBusters franchise still captures the imaginations of people all over the world:
Return of the GhosterBusters
GhostBusters 3: Ghostbusters in Hell
GhostBusters Exteme

Popularity: 8% [?]

Sexy 80s Girl in the Shower

staring Rick Ashton

Popularity: 6% [?]

“Red Dawn” (August, 1984)

I was only slightly older than my 10 year-old 5th grade son when Red Dawn hit the theaters. It was a “big kids” movie, the first to be released in theaters with a PG-13 rating in fact. I remember the movie poster being so cool with the parachutes coming down over a sleepy Anytown, USA. A young kid with a wild imagination I had day dreamed it up happening at my school and me and my friends taking up arms and beating back the Russians and “the Spanish dudes” (I don’t think I knew what a Cuban was back then). Anyway, I thought the movie was badass and full of some very cool scenes. I couldn’t wait to see the scene with the kids rising from their hiding places in the grass and wasting a bunch of pursuing Russian soldiers. That’s still one of the best parts in the movie to me. That and the dad hollering, “Avenge me!” from behind the cyclone fence at the war camp.

So I watched the movie again the other day and got flooded with a ton of memories. It’s still a great movie in the “popcorn movie” sense, but the huge leaps of logic and screenplay guffaws will ask that you check your 80’s basic world military pecking order arrangement and good common sense at the door before taking a seat. The day firkin’ Cuba catches the USA with its collective pants down and proceeds to invade us and march clear up to Illinois ravaging and pillaging all the way , monkeys will promptly fly from my arse.

So go ahead and rent it, you’ll enjoy it at least as much as a re-showing of “American Ninja” or “The Toxic Avenger”.

Popularity: 8% [?]