Tag: Rick Moranis

Ghostbusters II (1989, Ivan Reitman)

About the only compliment I can pay Ghostbusters II is the first half or so doesn’t reveal how terrible the movie’s going to get. The film had a troubled production, which might explain the special effects looking rough for the third act. II’s third act apes the third act from the first movie, only without any of the stakes. Ghostbusters II is profoundly without stakes.

Ostensibly, the boys in beige (and navy blue to fit into the popular contemporary cartoon series “The Real Ghostbusters”’s continuity) are trying to save Sigourney Weaver’s baby from Peter MacNicol, her pervy boss who’s become an agent of evil. Except the movie’s not going to kill a baby. So it’s all about how they save the baby. Except Ghostbusters II’s third act is horrible. It gets worse every stake-less scene. The movie’s also got this “New York City sucks” undertone, which is kind of strange. It could work—the movie picks up after the Ghostbusters have been sued out of business, so maybe they could hate the Big Apple, but… no, it’s just for the jokes. The really tepid jokes.

The first act establishes the new ground situation—Weaver’s got a baby (Murray’s not the daddy), Murray’s a psychic TV talk show host (which fits because the character’s written like a talk show host the entire movie), Harold Ramis is doing hard science, Dan Aykroyd is running a used book shop while not doing appearances with Ernie Hudson. Does Hudson have anything else going on the side? Don’t ask; the movie doesn’t care.

Along the way, we’ll learn Rick Moranis has gone back to school and become a lawyer. Annie Potts will be back, then David Margulies comes back as the Mayor, too. Margulies seems exhausted at the whole production, which tracks. Kurt Fuller plays his dipshit aide, who doesn’t trust the gang.

The movie feels long because nothing connects. Ackroyd and Ramos’s script gives them more to do for a while (Ramis especially), but it doesn’t go anywhere. Moranis and Potts get about the best subplot, which is only fair since they’re giving the best performances, but they also don’t have the worst writing. Ramis and Ackroyd saved it for themselves—plus Hudson. II forgets about Hudson for most of the first act, then turns him into an exposition delivery device in the second—alongside Ramis and Ackroyd—and it’s way too much.

Then Weaver starts phoning it in for the finale, which is not good, given it’s all about her baby becoming an evil god. I can’t remember when she goes flat, but it’s way too early, and it’s way too flat. II can’t figure out how to make her and Murray cute together, so they have him play with the baby a lot. Ghostbusters II targets the weirdest demographics—boys who love “Real Ghostbusters” and their moms who didn’t like the first movie but can handle it because the baby’s adorable.

Reitman can’t direct that movie. He does an awful job. As far as the technicals, no one does a good job, really—Michael Chapman somehow shoots it poorly, and then Randy Edelman’s score is arguably offensive—but there’s some basic competence to the production. Dennis Muren’s special effects leave a lot to be desired, though.

So it’s all doomed.

There are also a bunch of stunt cameos for some reason. They don’t amount to anything.

As for top-billed Murray… maybe HBO should’ve given him a talk show or whatever. But it’s not a performance. Many people embarrass themselves in II—Aykroyd, Weaver, Hudson, MacNichol, Harris Yulin—but nothing compares to Murray. He’s been fixed. I’m not sure II’d have been any better without the snip-snip, but it might not have been so dull.

Ghostbusters (1984, Ivan Reitman)

In the almost forty years since Ghostbusters’s release, the film remains unparalleled in terms of present-day, urban sci-fi action. The film’s a mix of crisp action comedy and a special effects spectacular, with Reitman’s direction toggling as needed and Elmer Bernstein’s score tying a beautiful knot. With the special effects, the film never isn’t grasping too far and never isn’t succeeding. It’s visually exquisite, even when there’s some noticeable foam versus marshmallow. Richard Edlund produced the effects and, well, accept no substitutes.

The film’s also got an incredibly brisk pace—partially due to an elongated victory lap of a third act. In the first few minutes, the film introduces real ghosts—in the New York Public Library, establishing an expectation of location shooting. The film kind of takes a dodge on for set pieces but still impresses with what they do pull off on-site. Fake ghost-investigating scientists (played by Ghostbusters co-writers) Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis play second and third fiddle to lead Bill Murray; they’re the true believers, Murray’s just in it to manipulate coeds. Just when they see their first real ghost, the university has had enough and boots them.

This turn of events could lead to the worst in Murray’s character, but instead, the movie skips along, hurrying to put the trio in business as New York City’s first (albeit entirely unlicensed) professional ghost hunters. The second act starts with their first potential customer, professional classical musician Sigourney Weaver. She’s got a valid cause for concern (the movie shows her haunted apartment, which also gives Weaver a great scene opposite in-camera effects, which the film provides a number of its cast). Except Murray tries to get some action instead of taking her seriously, and she’s out of the plot for a bit.

Weaver will be—from a particular point of view—literally a girlfriend in a refrigerator, but the film smartly keeps her in play during the second act as the Ghostbusters start getting actual business. The media coverage will transition to Weaver, along with her neighbor, Rick Moranis. Eventually, it’ll all come together in hilarious and scintillating ways. And scintillatingly hilarious ways. Those ways might be the funniest. Oh, and with occasional major effects sequences. Moranis and Weaver end up doing the most work in the film.

The ghost-busting business booms so much the trio brings on Ernie Hudson as their first busting employee (they’ve got a secretary, played by Annie Potts, who seems to know she will be unappreciated for her turn but still kills it). Hudson brings the soul to the team, being the only one who professes a belief in God. Ramis and Murray never really talk about it, but it’s obvious Ramis is a science atheist, and Murray’s a libertarian atheist. Meanwhile, Aykroyd’s a go-along-to-get-along all religions have a kernel of truth guy. The third act brings in all the religious stereotypes, which includes blowing their outfits around in ghosts of wind (and implying the Catholics are corrupt in some way, but also seemingly happy about it). But the God question? No comment.

Gods, to be sure, are real, however. Gods and ghosts.

However, the film also skirts the undead aspect of ghosts. There are some definitely human-looking ones, but they’re mostly just ghostly (and slimy) creatures, which is all fine. Edlund does a phenomenal job with the ghosts; the film’s always got the right tone in the paranormal encounters.

Performances-wise, Moranis is probably the best for his range, followed by Weaver for her seriousness, playfulness, and willingness to play a hair band video vixen. Murray’s an engaging asshole, especially once the celebrity aspect comes in. Since Ghostbusters takes place in the real world, there’s a lengthy, sometimes salient subplot about their notoriety. It’ll put them on the radar of EPA pencil pusher William Atherton, who thinks the Ghostbusters are poisoning the air with hallucinogens and saving people from the ghosts they’ve convinced them are real. Given the initial suggestion, Murray’s a sexual predator….

Anyway.

Murray gets reformed really quickly in his courtship of Weaver. He’s never too creepy around her (because she’s a grown woman and not a coed, apparently), but he ends up downright cute.

Akyroyd’s incredibly likable but kind of barely in the movie. He gets a couple big moments, but none really in the second act. The second act has a lot for Ramis, not Akyroyd. Hudson… well, theses will be written about the film’s hostile indifference to Hudson. He gets some material, even some jokes, but he always gets the fastest cuts away.

Speaking of the cuts… editors Sheldon Kahn and David E. Blewitt do just as singular work as the more obviously superlative work from cinematographer László Kovács, Edlund, and Bernstein. Reitman’s not slouching in his direction either. But back to that cutting, Kahn and Blewitt do this thing where they’ll cut just as the next setup begins, usually a comedy scene, and instead of seeing it play out, it becomes this implication for the viewer to mull as the next scene begins. It’s excellent work.

In terms of narrative, the smartest thing about Ghostbusters is that celebrity angle. Akyroyd and Ramis know how to give the audience directions to Willful Way, and seeing their two bashful characters embrace the spotlight is a really cute, absolutely passive subplot. The third act’s got some really functional plotting, but it can’t overshadow the sometimes outstanding story moves.

Ghostbusters is pretty darn awesome. It’s great-looking, well-acted, and a lot of fun.

I really hope they don’t try to turn it into a franchise and screw it up somehow.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986, Frank Oz)

I begin talking about Little Shop of Horrors with a confession—I didn’t like it as a kid. I think I saw it a couple times on video, but a full decade before I was willing to give musicals a chance. Now, of course, I can appreciate the absolute glory of the film’s musical numbers, particularly in the first half. Director Oz, choreographer Pat Garrett, production designer Roy Walker, cinematographer Robert Paynter, editor John Jympson, the entire cast, they do a phenomenal job. The film opens—after a text crawl—with its Greek chorus, Tichina Arnold, Tisha Campbell, and Michelle Weeks and it’s excellent, but then the film brings it up another dozen notches with an elaborate, full-set (Pinewood Studios set so a gargantuan one) number, which also brings in protagonists Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene—it’s truly wonderful stuff.

Also when I was a kid I didn’t like movies shot on sets. They had to be shot on location, something I’d forgotten about but was—as I recall—solely so my best friend and I could dismiss things out of hand.

I was obnoxious.

Anyway. The movie’s mostly great. Around the halfway mark, it becomes a special effects spectacular, with a giant otherworldly Venus flytrap (voiced by Levi Stubbs) singing duets in real-time with Moranis. There are bigger effects sequences as the plant grows and grows, thanks to Moranis’s willingness to provide it with human blood then flesh, but nothing’s more impressive than the puppeteers keeping it all in time. It’s phenomenal work. And exactly the kind of thing I should’ve appreciated as a kid (being a Muppet fan). Maybe it was the pan and scan.

While the story is about this carnivorous plant promises Moranis fame and fortune—instead of early sixties skid row squalor, the film’s got a separate arc running simultaneously: revealing Greene can belt out a song like nobody’s business. Throughout the film, outside the musical numbers (but also in most of them), Greene does a blonde bimbo voice—she’s never a blonde bimbo caricature, mind you, she’s just got the voice and the character’s behind it. She sings a full solo in the bimbo voice, but when it comes time for her big romance number with Moranis, Little Shop reveals her full range and it propels the film. Just when the film’s going to need it the most, because the third act is mess.

It’s not a mess, just messy. There aren’t great cameos—the first two acts have John Candy, Christopher Guest, and Bill Murray (with Steve Martin basically doing a giant extended cameo as Greene’s sadist boyfriend, the local dentist)—instead we get Jim Belushi. I mean… Jim Belushi? He’s fine, but… Jim Belushi? Candy’s got a funny scene as a radio show host, Murray’s a pain seeker who enrages Martin with his desire for torment, and then Jim Belushi. Little Shop manages to avoid caricature in every one of its principals—including the Greek chorus—for the last stunt cameo to be a disposable one from Belushi. It’s a very weird miss, especially since it comes after an extended break from stunt cameos so it’s not like they needed another one. They could’ve gone out with Murray and Martin’s simultaneously revolting and exhilarating scene, but instead Belushi in a throwaway.

So, messy.

Obviously, in the intervening years since release, we—the royal we, lots of people knew at the time because it’s a stage adaptation—know the film’s got an entirely different ending than originally intended and shot and there are some rough tone shifts in the third act. It doesn’t help the “Moranis gets famous” arc is too rushed (and a much better place for a stunt cameo), especially since Greene doesn’t participate in it even after they become de facto business partners.

The resolve is abrupt but decent, with Oz finding a good enough tone, seemingly aware he’s just got to get to the end credits and they can run a song medly and it’ll all be fine.

Great performances from Greene, Moranis, and Martin. Martin’s an Elvis bad boy who’s the perfect combination of vile and jackass. Moranis is the shy orphan who doesn’t realize he’s come into his own; he does well on the singing, but he’s never the actual star of the sequence, it’s Stubbs or Greene. Greene’s breathtaking. Her character arc’s not great but it’s good enough under the circumstances and, wow, can she belt. There’s one number where she’s holding this note and ostensibly Moranis is keeping up with her but it’s like… what noise was he actually making because how could he keep up.

Stubbs is awesome as the plant.

And it’s impossible imagine anyone but Arnold, Weeks, and Campbell as the Chorus, who also suffer in the third act (but at least they get to go out on a great number).

Little Shop’s a delight and a big success. Even with the messy third act, changed ending, whatever, it’s an achievement for Oz and his crew, Greene, Moranis, Martin, and company.

Hard eye roll at my nine year-old take on this one.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989, Joe Johnston)

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a constant battle between trite and sincere. Except the special effects stuff; the special effects are astounding, especially the sequences where there's a mix of styles, between practical and optical, and a mix of sizes. Director Johnston does such an exceptional job making the fantastic palatable, it's too bad the script isn't less banal when it comes to the character work.

Oddly, some of the character stuff is great. The relationship between the kids–Thomas Wilson Brown and Amy O'Neill are the teens, Jared Rushton and Robert Oliveri are their annoying little brothers–develops wonderfully once they're in crisis and have shared traumatic experiences. Brown, O'Neill and Rushton all give outstanding performances. Oliveri oscillates between grating and sympathetic. Unfortunately, the script decides to encourage the grating, which is one of Shrunk's many third act problems.

Then there are the adults. Rick Moranis phones it in as the scientist dad of O'Neill and Oliveri, Marcia Strassman is effective as his suffering wife. Matt Frewer and Kristine Sutherland play Brown and Rushton's parents. Sutherland's great. Frewer's likable; he gets an actual character arc.

Screenwriters Ed Naha and Tom Schulman bring a tone-deafness not just to how kids interact with their parents, but also how Strassman deals with Moranis. Makes one wonder if a script doctor handled the miniaturized kids versus the great outdoors while bonding. Not to mention the nice romance.

Regardless of the bad finish, Shrunk's beautifully made and does have some very good stuff in it.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Joe Johnston; screenplay by Ed Naha and Tom Schulman, based on a story by Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna and Naha; director of photography, Hiro Narita; edited by Michael A. Stevenson; music by James Horner; production designer, Gregg Fonseca; produced by Penney Finkelman Cox; released by Walt Disney Pictures.

Starring Thomas Wilson Brown (Little Russ Thompson), Amy O’Neill (Amy Szalinski), Robert Oliveri (Nick Szalinski), Jared Rushton (Ron Thompson)Rick Moranis (Wayne Szalinski), Marcia Strassman (Diane Szalinski), Kristine Sutherland (Mae Thompson) and Matt Frewer (Big Russ Thompson).

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Parenthood (1989, Ron Howard)

I’m trying to find a synonym for genial… excuse me a moment. I like the look of gregarious, but the definition doesn’t fit. Convivial is going to be the compromise word. Parenthood is convivial. Somehow, Howard and company manage to convince the viewer to be touched by the movie’s events, but not to give them enough thought to realize how contrived and unrealistic the situations get. It’s kind of brilliant in a way–Ganz and Mandel don’t exactly mature their humor of the early 1980s, but they add parental responsibility to it. To some degree it works. Parenthood is a pleasant, if too long and too saccharine, experience.

But it fails in some special ways. For instance, I think I remembered, while watching, Keanu Reeves’s character’s name and only because Dianne Wiest says it so many times. The rest of the characters, the names sound kind of familiar, but I could never do a lineup. It’s the Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen family or the Dianne Wiest family or the Rick Moranis. Howard cast very recognizable people. The two least recognizable main cast members–Tom Hulce and Harley Jane Kozak, are the only ones recognizable because of their characters. Even so, a lot of the acting is excellent. Wiest, Martin, Steenburgen… actually almost everyone is good. Except Hulce. Hulce is terrible. So’s Joaquin Phoenix, showing youth and a different name do not a better actor make. Hulce and Phoenix’s scenes get painful at times, taking the onus off Reeves, who isn’t good, but at least has a few solid moments. Jason Robards has some great scenes, but the movie–the problem with it–is there aren’t enough. There aren’t enough scenes with Robards and Martin together, since the movie blames Robards for all of Martin’s problems. There aren’t enough–really any, the funny grandmother (Helen Shaw is a lot of fun), gets more scenes–with Eileen Ryan. She’s mother to main cast, wife to Robards, but takes a backseat to everything. At best, she gets a few extra seconds of screen time being mortified at having an interracial grandkid. At best. There’s literally nothing for her to do in the movie, which probably speaks volumes if anyone wants to stop and listen.

Howard’s direction is only distinctive in tone–look, he’s found a way to make a very special episode of a sitcom into a two hour movie–not in composition, certainly not in direction of actors. Hulce and Phoenix strain the suspension of disbelief, particularly Hulce. Phoenix, though atrocious, at least has the excuse of playing the weakest character in the script. It’s cheap and obvious, but passable.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Ron Howard; screenplay by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, based on a story by Ganz, Mandel and Howard; director of photography, Donald McAlpine; edited by Mike Hill and Daniel P. Hanley; music by Randy Newman; production designer, Todd Hallowell; produced by Brian Grazer; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Steve Martin (Gil Buckman), Dianne Wiest (Helen Buckman), Mary Steenburgen (Karen Buckman), Jason Robards (Frank Buckman), Rick Moranis (Nathan Huffner), Tom Hulce (Larry Buckman), Martha Plimpton (Julie Buckman), Keanu Reeves (Tod Higgins), Harley Jane Kozak (Susan Buckman), Joaquin Phoenix (Garry Buckman-Lampkin), Eileen Ryan (Marilyn Buckman) and Helen Shaw (Grandma).

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Spaceballs (1987, Mel Brooks)

It’s kind of amazing how much of Spaceballs is actually funny–pretty much everything with Rick Moranis and Mel Brooks as the Spaceballs president–given how everything with Bill Pullman and Daphne Zuniga falls flat. It doesn’t even fall… it’s a zero degree plane. Some of it has to do with the writing of that portion–Brooks and his co-writers aren’t particularly interested in the good guys because they aren’t funny (the jokes are cheap and substandard and Brooks tries to give it a narrative–and romantic tension–instead of playing against narrative for laughs, like the Moranis parts). But it’s not all poor writing–Pullman’s terrible and Zuniga’s worse, giving one of the abysmal performances in a Hollywood studio film from the 1980s.

There aren’t any good performances on the good guy side–John Candy’s probably the best, if only by comparison (he’s not good by any means and his character is unfunny) and Joan Rivers’s vocal work as the robot is obnoxious. It doesn’t help it’s obvious the robot is frequently a dummy. Brooks as the Yoda stand-in isn’t funny and the only amusing parts of his sequence (besides the Wizard of Oz reference, which is good) is trying to place the actors playing the Dinks (the Jawas). The less said about Dick Van Patten, the better.

The bad guys are all great, from Brooks as the dumb president (though it’s hard not to think he’s doing a Harvey Korman impression), George Wyner and then there’s Moranis. Moranis does something real strange in the movie, especially given the Pullman, Zuniga and Candy sequences. He acts and he acts very well.

The rest–the jokes about marketing–is hit and miss, but the real problem is Brooks tries to tie a narrative to the movie instead of just playing for laughs. It makes Spaceballs rely on Pullman and Zuniga, so it really can’t do anything but fail.

And… I really do think George Lucas ripped off the good planet’s costume designs for Episode I.