Ghostbusters

Sloppy Saturdays: Volume 2 – ‘Junior’

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What is ‘Sloppy Saturdays’?

I realized that I own over 300 movies, many of which I have not watched a second time. Whether on Blu-Ray, DVD, or the legendary LaserDisc, I have a lot of films I need to watch again. So, I’ve decided I should probably go through these and justify why I own them, and perhaps, why you should too. I put them all into a database and will randomly mix them up once a week. Come back every Saturday for a new review. 

-Nick, Editor of CinemAbysmal

 

Sloppy Saturdays – Volume Two

Junior (1994) – Comedy | Absolutely Insane

Directed by: Ivan Reitman

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Format I Own: LaserDisc

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Synopsis

OK. Bare with me. Junior is about Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays some kind of scientist that deals in pregnancies, with his OBGYN partner Frank Reynol…Danny DeVito (if you’re not already gagging at the thought of this, you might need to reevaluate your life) in San Francisco. They create a drug that supposedly induces healthy pregnancies in women after they tested it on chimps or some shit, but the FDA turns them down and they lose their funding. It’s basically the setup for Ghostbusters, but about two dudes that want to get women pregnant instead of chasing spectral entities through New York. Anyway, DeVito convinces Schwarzenegger that he should carry the baby in some kind of abdominal cavity, sans anything that would biologically allow a baby to grow or thrive, but yeah. Guess what happens by the end of the movie?

What I Love

I have absolutely no reservations in calling this movie a huge fucking turd. Honestly, it’s an insult to film and really should never have been made. That being said, I love and respect a lot of what Ivan Reitman has done as a director, and most are allowed their misfires (I’m looking at you, Tom McCarthy’s The Cobbler). Reitman is responsible for Ghostbusters, Meatballs, Stripes, and more. However, he’s also at fault for a lot of shit, so whatever.

If you saw 1988’s Twins (also with Schwarzenegger and DeVito), well, you know what you’re getting. So in a way, this falls along the same lines as that film and his other Schwarzenegger-helmed flick, Kindergarten Cop. This movie has an absolutely fucking batshit plot in which a god damn baby grows inside of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s muscly abs. If you don’t love that a movie was made strictly around that nuthouse premise, you need to learn how to enjoy this weird thing called reality. Because, guess what? This movie actually, really exists.

My Favorite Scene

About 80 minutes into the film (yes, this shit factory is nearly two hours long), Arnold goes full drag at about eight months pregnant. He and DeVito show up at some kind of compound for expecting mothers to find shelter from the evil dicks at the college that want to steal her…er, his baby away from him as it was experimental, so belongs to them. At this point, the estrogen has completely taken hold of Arnold and he and DeVito hug as the James Newton Howard score intensifies. He even starts speaking like a woman, and it’s so insultingly bad, I couldn’t help but giggle like a little kid.

THEN, holy shit. A god damned montage in which Arnold does Lamas and races other pregnant women down stairs and cries to doctors and shovels food into his mouth. It is so spectacularly out of control and really saved this movie for me.

 

What You Might Not Like

What really bothered me about the film was my now current familiarity with perhaps Danny DeVito’s most iconic character in his career: Frank Reynolds from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Now, I realize this film was made in 1994, but holy shit, all I can think about is Frank alone in a room with a woman doing gawd knows what down there, and it just does not work. Other than that, the film really is just shit. Arnold is practically yawning the whole film and the story is laughable, at best. I couldn’t imagine watching this with anyone that had a trace of a Medical education or even faintly studied Biology. It’s so ridiculous.

Honestly, the last time I watched this movie was over 20 years ago. I remembered liking it, so swooped up the LaserDisc copy and have just had it sitting there for years. Will I watch it again? Eh, maybe? If I want to show someone how not to make a movie, I’ll definitely show them this. But did I enjoy it again? Oh, hell no.

How You Can Watch

  • Streaming on HBO Now as of 04/07/2017
  • Rent for $2.99 on Apple TV, Google Play, and Vudu

 

Final Score: 1.5/4

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Similar Films: Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Any Movie that a Dude is Pregnant in…

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Ghostbusters 3D (2016)

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Ghostbusters 3D (2016) – Comedy

Directed by: Paul Feig

Starring: Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy

How I Watched: Theatres

Best Line: “Do NOT compare me to the Jaws Mayor!”

I love everything about the Ghostbusters universe. I grew up absolutely enthralled, playing with the firehouse, the corresponding figurines, multiple Slimer toys, the list goes on. I’ve got the first two installments on Laserdisc and have grabbed each new format that comes out what seems like every year. So when I got the news that Paul Feig was bringing us a new Ghostbusters, I was both excited and admittedly skeptical. How could I not be?

Feig is a funny man. He created Freaks and Geeks for us all, was one of the funniest parts of a horribly underappreciated film called Heavyweights, and has continued the traditions of the Judd Apatow school of drama-injected comedy. He also is a self-confessed Ghostbusters geek, so it makes sense why he was so dead set on bringing a new one to all of us. He knows this universe well and he did everything he could to bring us a faithful adaptation that does nothing to receive the vicious scrutiny thrown its way before the movie even had a chance to hit theatres.

This new installment is not without faults, though. It’s hard to live up to one of the most perfect comedies ever given to the world, but this film is loaded with all the capabilities and opportunity that I’ve ever seen. We all know from Bridesmaids, just how funny Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy are together. Trust me, I was not all that impressed with that film the first time I saw it, but after I gave it a second chance, I have come to appreciate just how funny it is. Sure it has what I like to call the ‘Apatow Freeze’ (hilarious up until the middle of the movie, where the characters are suddenly facing some kind of depressing crisis), but its improv powers become more prevalent and hilarious with each viewing.

Though they feel a bit suppressed in Ghostbusters, Wiig and McCarthy do a pretty excellent job filling the shoes of both Aykroyd and Murray, while still carving their own place in this universe. I was under the impression that this new film was going to acknowledge the events of the first two. While it doesn’t really, the whole film feels like a loving tribute to those original two. Leslie Jones is much funnier and more prominent than Ernie Hudson (whose character was actually written for Eddie Murphy, then practically written out of the script once Murphy turned the part down) and Kate McKinnon pretty much steals the whole movie as the Spengler-inspired Holtzmann. Honestly, she’s going to be a force in Hollywood for a long time. If you’ve enjoyed her like I have on SNL for the past few years, you’ll love her character in Ghostbusters.

If there’s one thing I can knock from the first two installments, it’s the lack of making the ghosts a real force in the storyline. Sure, Vigo the Carpathian brings a Lovecraftian presence to II, and Gozer and the Marshmallow Man hold their place in the first, but they are not really frightening in the least. While the ghosts in the 2016 version are not really scary either, they look great and feel like they’re really part of the whole storyline. Slimer is back of course, and there are some new towering spectral entities destroying New York for our enjoyment.

The 2016 Ghostbusters is not perfect. Ramis, Aykroyd and Reitman brought us the perfect version back in 1984, so this one simply could not live up to that. What this new one brings though, is a very loving, affectionate trip into the universe, and rather than a replacement that it seemed like the entire internet feared (misogynist and otherwise), I’d consider this an additional installment in the Ghostbusters universe that already exists. So of course, you can say this new version is unnecessary and a smear on the first two movies. Real fans of the Ghostbusters films though, will consider this the Ghostbusters III that we’ve all been waiting for.

Final Score: 3/4

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Similar Films: Ghostbusters (1984), Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters II