After pandemic delays and 32 years since the story left off, Ghostbusters: Afterlife finally arrived on home streaming platforms this past week. Not only is it a worthy follow-on to the first two 1980s films, it’s thoughtful and nostalgic in the same way as a vintage Steven Spielberg supernatural adventure (think E.T. or Close Encounters or Super 8). It provides something for all its potential audiences: fans of the original films, fans of the animated series, and anyone young or old looking for a mild, enjoyable family film. It balances many things well: first and foremost the real-life death of original Ghostbuster player writer/creator and comedy master Harold Ramis, the need to bring back past characters in a way that is believable and even heartwarming, something for 21st century kids to find some fun with, and a horror comedy someone with no background in the franchise could just step into. That last part is helped by the addition of the always amiable and relatable Paul Rudd as a scientist and teacher in the story’s improbable setting of rural Oklahoma, and the successful casting of kid actors who can hold their own against everything else going on.
The most exciting movie of the year now has tie-in toys, and an early look at the toys appears to telegraph the return of three original Ghostbusters donning their garb again. That’s Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson, clearly featured as part of several toys coming from Hasbro and other brands for Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
Hasbro is offering a line of line up higher end figures, the Plasma Series (available here for pre-order now) featuring characters from the 2021 film, including Trevor, Lucky, Podcast, Peter, Winston, and Ray.
Check out more new Ghostbusters: Afterlife toys, including a new Cluebelow…
The kids aren’t all right because they released something vile from this old well…
The most exciting trailer this year comes from a film Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray have been interviewed about since Ghostbusters II. Taking a cue from Halloween, Predator, and Terminator, the franchise did some skipping of reboots and made Ghostbusters: Afterlife a direct sequel to Ghostbusters II. The lead role is for Mckenna Grace, who has appeared in lots of genre films and shows (Ready Player One, Independence Day: Resurgence, Captain Marvel, and horror franchises: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Annabelle, Amityville, and Hill House). In a nice nod to the late, great comedy writer and Ghostbusters co-star and writer Harold Ramis, Grace and Stranger Things co-star Finn Wolfhard (who wore his own Ghostbusters suit in his series) will play the grandkids of Ramis’s Dr. Egon Spengler. Shifting to a prairie setting from the city, the tone feels more like the creepy and cool Stranger Things. Annie Potts’s return is refreshing in this trailer, along with (at least) the voice of Dan Aykroyd.
Paul Rudd(Ant-Man) plays the grade school teacher, and the kids’ mom is played by Carrie Coon, who played the creepy antagonist in the second season of Sinner as well as in Thanos’ army in Avengers: Infinity War. Plus Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Ernie Hudson, Gozer-everyone but Rick Moranis–have been confirmed for at least a cameo. And there’s an El Camino and the return of the Ecto-1 with some extra features, and no doubt some animated series tie-ins and Easter eggs. What more could you want?
Check out the new trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife:
Whether you first met him as the sympathetic, put-upon teacher opposite Nicole Kidman and Alec Baldwin in Malice, the brother of the comatose guy in While You Were Sleeping, the President of the U.S. in an alien invasion in Independence Day, or the scruffy-looking rogue in Spaceballs, you probably love Bill Pullman. He’s just as endearing and amiable in his gritty mystery series Sinner, with all three seasons now streaming on Netflix. But he’s also troubled (more than the residents of Haven), a bit crotchety, and stranger than even the most odd detective you can conjure (even Adrian Monk). Detective Harry Ambrose may be the Sinner in the title of the USA Network television series, or that might apply more to the killers he tracks down and unthinkably befriends, as he works three season-long cases in upstate New York. Is it worth your time? That question doesn’t have a short answer. But a fourth season is in the works, so now is the time to find out.
If you want to see how much the 1980s-inspired Stranger Things has worked itself into the 21st century zeitgeist, you need only turn to the last three big studio trailers revealed over the past three days. Make no mistake, if Stranger Things isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread it’s pretty close, full of fun characters and great riffs on some of our favorite bits of nostalgia. So why shouldn’t everything and everyone try to get on the bandwagon?
The most exciting trailer comes from a film Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray have been interviewed about since Ghostbusters II. Taking a cue from Halloween, Predator, and Terminator, the franchise is doing some skipping of reboots and making Ghostbusters: Afterlife a direct sequel to Ghostbusters II. The lead role will be played by young (perfectly cast) Mckenna Grace, who has appeared in lots of genre films and shows (Ready Player One, Independence Day: Resurgence, Captain Marvel, and horror franchises: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Annabelle, Amityville, and Hill House). In a nice nod to the late Ghostbusters co-star and writer Harold Ramis, she and Stranger Things co-star Finn Wolfhard (who wore his own Ghostbusters suit in his series) will play the grandkids of Ramis’s character, Dr. Egon Spengler. Shifting to a prairie setting from the city, the tone feels more like the creepy and cool Netflix series in the first trailer, but it hints that slime-bearing apparitions we last saw in Manhattan will be showing their faces soon. And a bonus: Paul Rudd(Ant-Man) plays the grade school teacher, and the kids’ mom is played by Carrie Coon (Avengers: Infinity War). Plus Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts–everyone but Rick Moranis–have been confirmed for at least a cameo. And there’s an El Camino and the return of the Ecto-1. What more could you want?
Along with Ghostbusters: Afterlifeare new trailers for Wonder Woman 1984 and Free Guy. As you’d guess from the title, Wonder Woman 1984 is also looking back to the 1980s, complete with a big shopping mall action scene like we saw this summer in Stranger Things. It looks like it’s trying to be a Marvel movie, complete with a World War-era soldier named Steve (Chris Pine) making his return from the past to co-star and Gal Gadot back in her title role, making an Iron Man entrance. The movie has a comedic actor starring as a kooky villain (Kristen Wiig), making it look like we’re going to get another Superman III–yet another 1980s thing. The third movie in our Stranger Things vibe is Free Guy, starring Ryan Reynolds in a spin on the lead character of the LEGO movies–here he is a video game character as in the 1980s nostalgia-filled Ready Player One, a non-player character who decides he wants to be the hero. The movie co-stars the guy who plays our favorite character in Stranger Things,Joe Keery. It doesn’t look like Tron, but we’ll take it.
Check out these trailers with a Stranger Things vibe for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Wonder Woman 1984, and Free Guy:
Ten years in the making. Eighteen movies leading up to this weekend in the gigantic new blockbuster, Avengers: Infinity War. Never before have superhero fans seen so many superheroes on-screen at once: Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Spider-man (Tom Holland), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Vision (Paul Bettany), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Falcon (Anthony Mackey), Heimdall (Idris Elba), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Okoye (Danai Gurira), Wong (Benedict Wong), Shuri (Letitia Wright), Drax (Dave Bautista), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt).
So many movies, especially superhero movies, depend greatly on the success of the villains. Spider-man: Homecoming is great in part because of Michael Keaton’s Vulture. Black Panther is great in part because of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger. And Thor: Ragnarok was great in part because of a load of solid villains: the CGI-created Surtur, Cate Blanchett’s Hela, and Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster (and even a great supporting tier of antagonists including Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, and Karl Urban’s Skurge). So now, at last, Josh Brolin moves past his cameos in Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron to give us a big dose of one of comic books’ best-known villains, Thanos.
Marvel Studios promised to tie everything together, including every magical talisman holding the six Infinity Stones, of which filmgoers have encountered five so far: The blue Space Stone (seen held in the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger), the yellow Mind Stone (seen in the Scepter in The Avengers), the red Reality Stone (seen held in the Aether in Thor: The Dark World), the purple Power Stone (seen in the Orb in Guardians of the Galaxy), and the green Time Stone (seen in the Eye of Agamotto in Doctor Strange).
So did directors Anthony and Joe Russo deliver as promised? Continue reading →
When the worst of us does its best to silence the rest of us, you get a story like 1971’s Pentagon Papers bombshell. When a voluminous, decades-in-the-making, confidential government report that demonstrated unconstitutional behavior by a succession of presidents from Truman through Johnson is leaked to the press, The New York Times first reported on it, and the Nixon administration sought and was granted an injunction preventing the Times from publishing further articles on the subject. Director Steven Spielberg focuses his new expertly crafted biopic The Post on The Washington Post as it decided whether to publish excerpts of the Pentagon Papers in the face of the Times injunction, primarily through the eyes of newspaper owner Katherine Graham, played by Meryl Streep, and managing editor Ben Bradlee, played by Tom Hanks. For the average moviegoer, Spielberg takes a rather mundane footnote in American history and makes it completely engaging and entertaining. Carefully re-creating the early 1970s more than 45 years later with everything from the annoying mishandling of coins as you tried to make a payphone call, to the rotary phones we all used, to the weekly ritual of the family newspaper strewn across the living room, to costume designer Ann Roth’s hand-sewn vintage wardrobe re-creations, eyeglasses, jewelry, and hairdos of the era, to old technology and random items on shelves (that might prompt you to think it’s time to get a new iced tea pitcher), to the thankfully bygone days of women sitting in one room at a party and the men in another, to board rooms completely devoid of women (although today there is still rarely more than one or two), Spielberg makes the best use of the film medium, sharing a timely and important story for a new generation of moviegoers.
Filmed in the same 1970s noir style as Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men (and using a newsroom set that is almost as accurate as that film’s 1975 California movie set version of the real thing), The Post might as well be a prequel. It’s almost as good, lacking some of the more heart-pounding, real-life thrills of Watergate, like the mysterious informant Deep Throat, the uncertainty of whether someone in the government was going to think The Washington Post’s press coverage was worth killing over, and the perceived nature of the stakes (the executive branch vs. the Fourth Estate). To his credit Spielberg had the more difficult task of re-creating an era and a newsroom in 2017, when Redford was filming his movie only three years after the events took place (and Spielberg is also certain to illustrate the stakes to both the players and the nation of this earlier event). From the opening scene Spielberg traverses familiar territory, opening with an embedded government wonk in a warzone in Vietnam, as believable as his earliest team-up with Hanks, in Saving Private Ryan. Seamlessly composer John Williams rejoins his long partnership with Spielberg in this scene, offering one of his best scores in years, alternating within the film an intensity that rivals his Raider of the Lost Ark compositions with the contemplative import of the moment realized in his Schindler’s List soundtrack.
Yesterday is today, as scene after scene attests to the same corporate deal making, the same roadshow investors, the same IPO efforts, the same boardroom antics, the same misogyny, the same shuffling of blame, and the same indifference to the public good permeates the nation and the news. Convincingly selling us on the gravity of the story is the best ensemble cast put together in the past year. Streep plays a surprisingly layered Katherine Graham, a socialite who would become the first woman Fortune 500 CEO and first woman to helm a major newspaper, best known for her role in the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Streep never ceases to amaze as she creates yet another character as believable and authentic as any of her past award-winning performances. The Tom Hanks that won best actor Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump is also back, playing the strident editor Bradlee for all it’s worth, complete with the editor’s accent, brusque language and bravado, equal to Jason Robards’ Oscar-winning take on the same man in All the President’s Men. The rest of the cast is a virtual Who’s Who of the current top genre actor scene.
Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.
— United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, NY Times v United States
The Post is the next in a prestigious line of the drama sub-genre of motion pictures focusing on journalism, a group featuring great films like Citizen Kane, Meet John Doe, The China Syndrome, Call Northside 777, and Zodiac. The Post could be seen as a sequel of sorts to another film classic from this group, the Academy Award-winning 1976 film All the President’s Men. That film, which told the story of The Washington Post coverage of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation, co-starred Jason Robards as executive editor Ben Bradlee. The Washington Post is again front and center in The Post, this time with Tom Hanks as Bradlee and Meryl Streep as publisher Katherine Graham (who was an active player in the events in All the President’s Men, but the character did not appear in the film).
With director Steven Spielberg, Streep, and Hanks attached to the film, it’s likely The Post will be a big Oscar contender next March. The Post tells the story of The Washington Post’s decision to disclose The Pentagon Papers over the course of a few weeks in June 1971, an extensive government study that would show that the government had hidden from the public and media the true extent of U.S. activity in the Vietnam War. The decision of the Supreme Court would stifle the media for 15 days before finally providing some guidance on when the government may restrict the press from certain disclosures.
The film features plenty of familiar faces, including Alison Brie as Graham’s daughter Lally Weymouth, Carrie Coon as Meg Greenfield (Post editorial writer and confidante of Graham), David Cross as Post editor Philip Geyelin, Bruce Greenwood as Robert McNamara (President Johnson’s secretary of defense), Tracy Letts as Paul Ignatius (President Johnson’s assistant secretary of defense), Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian (the reporter for The Post at the center of the Pentagon Papers coverage), Michael Stuhlbarg as Post managing editor Eugene Patterson, and Zach Woods as Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who disclosed the Pentagon Papers and was charged with espionage.
