Episode 47; 2021: GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE

Wait, haven't I already done a Ghostbusters episode? Well, yes, but when the son of the original director comes along and manages the impossible by both honouring the legacy AND setting up it's future in a brand new Supernatural Spectacular, how could i resist? An absolute treat for fans of the original, and indeed anyone with half a soul! (and I almost make it to the end without getting choked up!)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello everyone, welcome back to Milestone Movies. This is episode number 47, which means we're looking at 2021. So this is obviously the year that following last year's last week's, whichever way you look at it, um, sort of COVID lockdowns and cinemas being closed for the majority of the year and box office being all over the place and unreportable and everything, it's getting back to a little bit of more normality in 2021. It's not quite up there yet, but there's a bit of a glut of um things that were held back from the previous year. So uh the main film that I'm going to talk about later in the episode is Ghostbusters Afterlife. That was originally um due for release in 2020 and was delayed I think four times. Uh finally came out at the end of 2021 and was definitely worth the wait, but we'll move on to that in a moment. Um it did also mean that there was things like there was still very successful um Chinese and Far East films um as in 2020 because they were open pretty much as normal for the whole year. Um and also there was a you know there would been a backlog of um Marvel films that had only been the um one release in 2020. Uh so when it came to 2021, you had uh quite a few waiting to uh beat down the doors, really. So in 2021, uh the biggest film of the year was Spider-Man No Way Home. That's obviously the third Spider-Man, it's also the first one to sort of really introduce the the multiverse. And if you've not seen it, it's not a spoiler, I'm pretty sure it's out there now. Spider-Man from the previous versions of the movies came back. So you've got uh Toby Maguire from the Sam Raimi ones, you've also got um uh Andrew Garfield from the Mark Webb one. So yeah, everybody sort of comes back and those villains from each of the other films as well, uh, all coming into it, and it's just it works really, really well, really coherently. They played down the um the other Spider-Man coming into it. They in the advertising and stuff like that. I think people have mostly worked it out, but you know, we were all thinking it was kind of going to be a bit of a cameo thing, but you know, as the film sort of progresses and carries on, you know, there is properly three Spider-Man fighting side by side, and it's really cool um at the end, which is very good, particularly for the sort of redemption that um Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker gets when he saves um Toe uh hang on again get me Spidey's muddled up, uh Tom Holland's um MJ. He saves her, and then obviously that you know i it it sort of helps to make up for the fact that he didn't manage to save uh Emma Stone's uh Gwen Stacy in the f in the second uh Amazing Spider-Man. You know, you know what I mean. I'm not making much sense, but it's a very good film. Um leads directly into the following year's um Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness. Uh so Doctor Strange helps Spider-Man in this one, but obviously it it opens the sort of floodgates to the multiverse and stuff, so it leads into the whole what has now become the multiverse saga in the MCU. Um so yeah, your second and third films were, as I mentioned, there were still really, really successful Chinese films this year. Uh the second was The Battle at Lake Chang Jin, which was uh allegedly a Chinese war film, and the third one was High Mum, which is a Chinese comedy. So um sorry to say I don't know anything about those films other than reading the titles here. Um but the fourth biggest film was No Time to Die. So this is the 25th James Bond film. Uh obviously, also it's uh Daniel Craig's last one uh to date. I can't imagine he's coming back, um, and sort of controversial in that um it's a very definite ending for James Bond in this film, which we've never seen before. You know, usually James Bond sort of gets up and you know dusts off his uh shoulders and carries on with the next adventure and the next girl and whatnot, but this one very much puts those Daniel Craig films in you know, one sort of bubble in that they kind of exist in their own universe as well as being sort of related to James Bond, really. Um so yeah, controversial. I'm not sure I agree agree with that ending really, but um, you know, I can understand that they wanted to do something different. Daniel Craig definitely wanted to put a line under his time of Bond as well. Uh but the yeah, that was held back from the previous year, I think, as well. Quite a long way. Um but it's good, it's got some really good um other characters in it. You've got Anna de Armas in there, you've got um uh the villain in the film is oh I'm stretching for names again. Um but anyway, it's it's a Bon film. If you like Bon films, give it a go. Wow, mental block, sorry about that. Um and the fifth one was F9 or Fast and Furious Nine or Fast Nine or however many titles it goes by, but obviously the ninth proper instalment of Fast and Furious um led fairly quickly into Fast X, which was the tenth one, uh, and we're still waiting on uh what's happening with the 11th. But yeah, and otherwise apart from that, so there was obviously still some fairly big films that bypassed the cinema and went sort of straight to stream. One of the biggest sort of profile ones um was Coming to America, so coming to as in the number two, so the sequel to obviously uh one of the Eddie Murphy's earliest and best comedies, Coming to America. So this reunites pretty much all of the cast, um, gets everybody back. Um there's obviously the multiple roles for him and Senio Hall as well. Um yeah, it s feels a little bit sort of flat compared to the original, I suppose. It's okay, it's a decent sort of um decent sort of laugh, but that went straight to I want to say it was Amazon, I think it was made for Amazon. Um but yeah, it was that was certainly a long time coming uh on that one. Um something else that went straight to DVD, I had it on my list a minute ago, sorry, DVD, straight to streaming, I should say, uh was Red Notice, which was that was made for Netflix. Um but yeah, huge cast in that one. It was um Dwayne Johnson, it was Ryan Reynolds, it was Galgado, uh kind of like a heist crime thriller, uh, you know, massive, but probably Netflix's biggest budget film at the time. Um and yeah, it just goes to show that stars will, you know, they will quite happily make a film for streaming as they will for for cinema, definitely. Um what else we got? So Matrix Resurrections uh finally came out this year, so that's the fourth Matrix film. Um obviously Keani Ree's riding high on John Wick at this point. Um and as I've said before, I still haven't got around to watching it. That one. Um June, so this is um the obviously Frank Herbert books have been around for Donkey's years. There's obviously an 80s film with uh Sting and Patrick Stewart and Carl McLaughlin, uh David Lynch film that was. Um and this is Dennis Villeneuve's one, so there's been June, June part two, and I think June part three is due, if not, end of this year, beginning of next. Um I don't know, I haven't seen them yet. I kind of people say, oh, you'd love them as you're it's up your street, but they just kind of look a bit too sci-fi for me, which is weird because I like a lot of sci-fi, but I'm not really into the hard fantasy sci-fi, that sort of stuff really. Um and I'm also not a huge fan of Timothy Chalamet, who's just like everywhere and just can do no wrong for most people. Um but yeah, it just leaves me a bit cold, really. I'm not a massive fan. Um but uh other than that, you know, he's a really good cast. Vilner is a good director. Um he's going on to do the next Bond film by all accounts, uh at the moment of uh speaking. But um yeah, one day I'll get round to it. Maybe I'll uh do a little double bill before the third one comes out, we'll see. Um what else have we got? Uh Free Guy, which was a very funny um Sean Levi film with Ryan Reynolds. Uh obvious he went kind of straight from this into Deadpool and Wolverine uh with uh Ryan Reynolds as well. Uh I've liked Sean Levy's stuff a lot. You know, Nighting Museum, really like those ones, and um particularly Real Steel. I think that's a fantastic film. Uh so yeah, Three Guys basically about Ryan Reynolds, who's uh what they call a non-playable character in a in a video game world, who gets sort of there's a crossover with real life and people playing the game and trying to get him out of him. Um and it's good, there's some really funny bits in there. There's a great cameo towards the end, which again is something that leads into another great cameo in uh Deadpool Wolverine, uh, without saying too much. Uh it's it's Jodie Comer is the female lead in it, who was obviously big on uh from killing Eve at the time on TV. Um and I don't know, something about I don't mind the c mind the actor, um, but the character just somehow didn't quite work for me. It was she was very obviously a British girl playing a sort of an American sort of nerdy. It just didn't quite all gel for me, unfortunately, on that one. Um, one I really do like though, um, and I got a bit of stick for it when I mentioned how much I liked it, is the Many Saints of Newark. Now, this is David Chase, uh he was the creator of Sopranos um on TV, which obviously one of the sort of touchstone um you know peak TV series that everybody loves. Um and this was a prequel. So it stars none of the stars of the the uh TV series, because it's set sort of earlier on, uh, but it does star Michael Gandolfini as James Gandolfini's younger Tony Soprano, basically. Uh so he's his own real-life son playing uh the younger him. Um and he's very good and he's very convincing. And a lot of the actors that they've cast in are really good in those roles, and it does, you know, puts a bit of I don't know, flesh on the bones of of some of those characters' motivation, particularly Tony's mum and Uncle Junior and stuff like that. And I just thought it was really good, really great period piece as well. There'd been some episodes of the Sopranos that had had some sort of flashbacks to um, you know, when Tony's parents were younger and all that sort of stuff. Uh and yeah, this expands it, you know, big time. And I thought it was an absolutely brilliant film. And actually came out of there, and I think I'd sort of uh tweeted or put on Facebook, you know, I actually think you know it's better than The Sopranos, and yeah, I got a lot of flack for that. But yeah, genuinely I thought it was a really, really, really good film. I'm sure it does help if you're you know familiar with the TV series, but um, yeah, certainly a good sort of mobster uh standalone film on its own as well. Um uh yeah, what else we've got? So Loudhouse movie is a really fun one, uh, which I think was made for sort of Nickelodeon. It may have gone to the cinema, I'm not too sure. Um but if you're not familiar with the Loudhouse, it's a Nickelodeon kid show about uh a really big family of siblings, um and it's yeah, it's just very, very funny. There's been uh already spin-offs and stuff on TV, there's been a live action version on TV as well. Um but this movie basically the family finds out their Scottish ancestry and go to this big castle and um you know hijinks ensue. But yeah, when this was on um on TV to begin with, you know, my kids watch it all the time and I really got to love it, so that's a great one to watch. Um uh like was it one Encanto, which was a big, big hit for Disney, uh, particularly the the music, you know, we don't talk about Bruno, that sort of stuff. Uh I want to say it's something to do with Lin Manuel Miranda. Am I getting that muddled up with Moana possibly? Um but yeah, it's sort of a fun film about you know, a kind of a fantasy thing about these uh this family living in a just walking eye eggshells here, uh South America country somewhere. Um, and yeah, they're sort of mystical and you know, there's lots going on, and yeah, it's to do with magic and stuff like that. But quite a sweet film. Kids were massively into it, and then all of a sudden weren't and could be bothered with it anymore, so as happens with kids certainly. Um but what has stuck around a lot longer is Sing Two, where the sequel to obviously Garth Jennings Sing, um about musical animals, uh putting on a show. This is more of the same, but uh yeah, even bigger. They sort of hit in the big time, and there's uh a few more sort of celebrity cameo guests in there for you know Bono plays uh this sort of retired singer who they're trying to get back in uh in the show and stuff like that. But yeah, that's really good. Uh some great stuff uh from Garth Jennings again there. Uh The Kingsman. So this is a prequel to the King's Man and King uh Kingsmen uh Kingsmen, King's Man, hang on, which is it? Um yeah, the Matthew Vaughan films with um Matey from Colin Firth and uh from Eddie the Eagle, we talked about him the other day, and he's in Singh as well, and his name is Taran Edgerton. There we go. It's uh it's all in there somewhere. I've just got to dredge it out sometimes. Um and yeah, this is a sort of prequel uh to those two films, so it's set more of in the sort of earlier part of the century. Uh you've got I think it's is it Tiller the Hun or um somebody in there as well? Um I'm a font of knowledge, aren't I? I can see why people like listening to this. Ridiculous. But yeah, all based on the um Secret Service comic by Mark Miller. Um yeah, so far a trilogy. I think they're planning to do more, entirely sure. Um uh Edgar Wright, so real sort of left turn from him this one. Last night in Soho, Last Night in Soho, which is a real sort of psychological horror. Um set in the 60s in sort of swinging London. Um a girl sort of moves from the country to try and make a fortune um and sort of just gets mixed up with weird murders and freaky stuff happening, and yeah, it's kind of creepy. Um you know, a lot of sort of jump scares and yeah, some some big old twists at the end there. So yeah, I think probably a Geroit's always been, you know, a horror fan, but this is kind of the first time he's he's really done something along that sort of side of suspense thing rather than the jokey um stuff that we're used to from him. Um but yeah, well worth a watch, certainly. Um what else we got? We got um Boss Level. Oh, that was yeah, Mel Gibson uh with Frank Grillo, actually directed by Joe Carnahan, who did the quite decent A-Team film with Liam Neeson. Um he had a couple of films out this year, actually. Boss Level, in which Mel Gibson is a really, really good sort of villain again, uh, as we've talked about in the last few episodes. He's really sort of embracing that sort of side of his uh character in the last few years. Um another one with Grillo called Cop Shop, uh with uh Gerald Butler, I think, in that one as well. So yeah, both really solid action films, um, well worth a watch, um, but not as good as Nobody, which is uh Bob Odenkirk from um Breaking Bad and obviously Better Call Saul. Um and yeah, he it's basically one of these sort of jury action films, so everything you've had in happening since you know Liam Neeson and Keanu Reese, these older sort of characters, Sean Penn had a go at it and something. Um Denzel Washington, obviously, certainly. Um but yeah, he's just a a nice, mild mannered guy, just living his life, and then his family's uh robbed, I think. Uh and he has to basically take revenge, and it turns out that yeah, he's you know got a bit of a past and uh you know has a few special skills and breaks them out and uh yeah, yeah, his dad is Christopher Lloyd, obviously Love from Back to the Future and everything else he's ever in, and he's fantastic value as well. Yeah, yeah, it's really good. It was just a bit kind of a bit of a sleeper hit that came out of nowhere, but certainly one of the best films of the year. Really, really good fun. Um and Nobody 2 came out last year, I will say 2025, possibly the year before, um, which is quite good, but let down a little bit in that one by um Sharon Stone hammy overacting as the villain in it, really. Um but yeah, Odin Kirk's fantastic, really, really good value in that. Um and yeah, on that subject, if you've not watched Better Call Saul, you definitely should, because it's one of the greatest. Really, really good. Um what else? We got uh Godzilla vs. Kong, so that's the fourth one in the Monsterverse that we've talked about a little bit lately. Um I didn't see this one, but when I went to see the follow-up, which was Godzilla Kong New Empire, it was kind of on the thinking that I had seen Godzilla vs. Kong, but actually turned out I haven't. Um but it didn't really make a lot of difference when I went to see that one. It was kind of like, well, I expected to see a you know massive monkey beating up a massive uh you know sea monster, and that's exactly what I got. So, you know, can't go too far wrong. Um but yeah, that was the fourth one in the uh ongoing series. Uh we had Luca, which was a pretty solid Pixar film. Um I think that did get a cinema release, but well, I think we only watched it on Disney Plus when it came. It was quite a short window until that was on. Um and that's basically about some well, a kid living on a um kind of like remote seaside town, and he sort of makes a new friend, and it turns out that that friend is actually basically a sea monster. Um, but when he's out of the water he becomes a sort of human and um and it's yeah, uh basically about them two forming a friendship against all the prejudice that this uh monster has, which is a real sweet film. Um, you know, it's a big sort of coming of age thing and sort of breaking out into the real world's pretty good. Um Hitman's wife's bodyguard. So this is a follow-up to Hitman's Bodyguard with uh Ryan Reynolds again and uh Samuel L. Jackson, and this time they chuck in um Oh my god, I'm getting another mental block. I only watched her in something last night. Um you know, from Desperado and you're all shouting at the screen. Um Eternal, what the hell's a name? I'm coming back to it. Um but yeah, that's more to say. Um so the Hitman's Bodyguard had a really good sequence in um Amsterdam, one of the best car chases I've seen in a long, long time. Um and yeah, so this sort of ramps it up by putting in uh Salma Hayek. There we go. It just it does come to me, it does come to me, it's all in there, um, you know, as a sort of a real hectic um another element into the sort of what is now a a triple hander, I suppose. Um what else have we got? We got Mitchell's versus the machines, so might have touched on that the other day when I was talking about Chris um Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Chris Miller, Phil Lord. The the Spider-Verse guys. Um this very much is that same style. Um it's not quite as um I don't know, doesn't look quite as much like an artistic painting as the Spider-Verse films, but you know, that same zany sort of you know, if someone's shocked and there's sort of lightning bolts coming out and speech bubbles and you know, sort of hand-drawn sort of elements and goes into anime and all that sort of thing. Really crazy, but it's a very, very good animated film about a family who decide that they're gonna have a week off from their devices because everybody's just obsessed with their phones and tablets and everything. So they want to go on a nice traditional family holiday, so they lose their devices at the same time as a corporation, which is basically Apple, um, in disguise decides that it's gonna take over the human race. Uh everybody's phone is actually gonna be in it and suddenly against them, and you know, race of robots trying to take out the human race. Um and because the Mitchells haven't got their devices, they're actually the only ones that aren't affected, and they have to well, it's the Mitchells versus the machines. I think you can probably work out the rest. Um, but yeah, really, really good fun. Um and I'd like to think that my kids liking this film would have made them sort of put down their phones a little bit more, but that's not really been the case. Uh they are absolutely obsessed, as all kids and quite a large majority of adults are these days, but there we are, good film nonetheless. Um and yeah, obviously talked about you know Marvel coming back with Spider-Man No Way Home. Uh other ones you've also got this year uh is Black Widow, which was obviously Scarlett Johansson's, no, you know, spoiler alert, but her character dies in Avengers Endgame. So this is essentially a prequel, uh, and it's set uh around mostly I think it's flashback and forward and all that sort of stuff, and it tells a sort of origin story in a lot more detail than we've seen before. Um but it's essentially set just after Civil War, um, where she's kind of on the run and has to try and get back and eventually wants to reunite the Avengers and everything. Um but that's very good. That was obviously caught up with a bit of uh controversy about the um streaming windows and stuff like that. I think Scarlet Johansson actually fell out with Disney about it. Um didn't think it was giving its sort of fair shakes at the cinema. Um but again it's kind of understandable because things were so manic at the end of uh COVID and whatnot. But uh yeah, it's a good film, it's good it reminds me a lot of um Alias, which I've mentioned several times before. Uh it also touched on things like uh Red Sparrow, which is uh film with a similar sort of plot about you know kids getting um used as weapons and basically raised uh in a in a in a um well, raised to be weapons. I I was like um but that's it. There's also a couple of sort of outliers of the um Marvel Cinematic Universe so far, although I do get the impression that they are going to be a little bit more integrated into the sort of ongoing narrative of it, um which is Shang Chi, uh Legend of the Ten Rings. So this is a very brings in a lot of mystical elements of the sort of Far East side of it. Obviously a lot more sort of martial artsy. You know, you've got dragons in there, you've got uh Michelle Yo, obviously, who's got to be in any of them sort of films as well. Um, and there's some really good bits in there I I kind of could do without Aquafino. I don't know why she was suddenly in everything. She's uh kind of an annoying presence, but yeah, generally speaking, uh it's a very, very good, solid film. It brings back Tony Slattery, uh Tony Slattery, Trevor Slattery, uh played by Sir Ben Kingsley, who obviously has now had uh Wonder Man, his uh sort of spin-off show, uh, which I've just learned this week is coming back for a second series, which is good news, that was very good fun. Um but yeah, so far most of those characters haven't really been seen since. There's a bit of a sort of tie-in to previous films with um Wong from um the Doctor Strange films, and you've also even got Abomination from um the Incredible Hulk film right back at the beginning of the MCU. So that's good. Um and then also Eternals, which I just watched again this weekend, funnily enough. Um and so this, you know, talk about opening up the MCU. This goes back, you know, thousands of years in history, even before the beginning of time, essentially. Um, and it shows that basically it's the human race has been sort of protected uh and nurtured by a race of eternals who are you know uh essentially immortals uh who've been with us since the beginning of time almost um and looking out for us and you know not interfering. There's a line in there, you know, why didn't you come and help defeat Thanos and stuff? Um yeah, and then it basically turns out that they've been sort of duped into you know shepherding the human race to create more life so that uh this evil entity that's been seeded inside this planet uh can feed off of all human life and eventually explode and become a new um not Sentinel, what's the word? Um is it Sentinel? Uh millennial centennial millennial, no. I can't remember what it's called. I only watched it on Saturday night. Um but yeah, so it's uh very, very vast. It's obviously got a lot of sort of magical powers and mystical powers, great cast on there. You've got the aforementioned and formerly uh forgotten Sal Mahayak, you've got um Angelina Joe Lee in there, you've got uh Kamel Najani, who was previously sort of uh stand-up, is currently in the uh new series of uh UK Taskmaster as well, which he's been really really funny in that. Um but yeah, this was his sort of first big action film, and um yeah, loads of other sort of up-and-comers as well in there. Um British cast the like, you know, um is it Jemma Chan? Uh but yeah, it's some really really good stuff in there, and it's sort of it's so vast, it's I would say honestly, it's taken me a couple of viewings to kind of get the gist of how big the scope of the film is. Um because it is, you know, if you if you do sort of sit and think about it, which I I do tend to with these films, um, yeah, it's pretty vast, and it could affect everything so it's coming from the MCU as well as everything that's gone before. Um but yeah, it remains to be seen again. Five years down the line, these characters haven't really been seen again since. So uh it's interesting to see what um happens with sort of Avengers Doomsday and beyond that. Um be good. Um and yeah, I think that is it for the MCU. Uh the DC EU, as it was at that point, was still sort of dribbling out bits and bobs. You had not only the Suicide Squad, which is not to be confused with Suicide Squad from a couple of years before, um, it's kind of not related. This is James Gunn's one, so between being sat by Marvel for saying weird things years ago and coming back to do Garden of the Galaxy 3, he sort of jumped shipped to DC and did Suicide Squad, um which is sort of a sequel to the previous one, because it's got some characters that sort of cross over, but mostly it's new characters. Um probably most notable for A, having um Harley Quinn and Margot Robbie back, and also uh introducing Peacemaker, played by John Cena, who relatively small role in that film, but then got a spin-off series of his own on HBO Max. Um and it's brilliant, particularly the first series, if you've not seen that. Uh unbelievable, one of the best sort of superhero series that they've ever done. Um and it it introduces some really good characters in Harcourt and stuff like that as well. Um yeah, a little bit off the boil on the second series, but yeah, still pretty, pretty solid. Um and it's weird because he seems to be on, you know, although he sort of chucked the baby out with the bath water when he started his new, you know, James Gunn's come back to DC, and he's now the head of the DC films, uh, and he's kind of you know chucking out everything that's worked before, but he's still sort of maintaining and he's going with this sort of narrative of the suicide squad, even though he you know they were sort of tied in with films that have been scrapped. It's it's really odd. Um it's still not sort of gelling and working in the way they want it to, but um yeah, it's okay, it's not too bad. Um, and also there was the release of uh Zack Snyder's Justice League, which it's not to be confused with Justice League, which had come out a couple of years before, initially directed by Zack Snyder, but he had to leave for personal reasons. Uh I think his daughter died in real life, so he obviously um had to prioritise his family. Joss Whedon was brought in, obviously, as a director of note from things like Avengers uh and Buffy, obviously, and refilmed some stuff. There's still a lot of debate about what he filmed and what Zack Snyder filmed. Um so the Justice League film as it was released originally wasn't particularly well thought of. Um, and so a campaign was begun, and I still suspect that it was actually Zack Snyder that probably started the campaign, which was like released the Snyder cut. Everybody thought, oh, there's this you know amazing unreleased film out there getting back in to recut the footage. And you know, to be fair, you know, Warner Brothers did. They paid him God knows how many million to come back in, cut this stuff together. I think there might have even been some refilmed stuff with the actors, I'm not too sure. Um, to cobble it together into a longer but no more coherent film, to be honest. I don't think it benefited from it. Um, yeah, it's a bit of an arse number, um, but it doesn't really do anything amazing. So yeah, it's up to you which one of them you watch if you do do a little DC rewatch, but uh I don't think it makes too much difference, and like I say, most of it's been chucked out now anyway, so uh yeah. Good luck with that, DC Films. There we go. Um but yeah, I think that was everything I wanted to talk about outside of uh Ghostbusters, but yeah, my absolute film of the year for 2021. Um one of the best sequels ever made, I think. Certainly, I think the best threequel ever made. Yeah, I might go out and say that. Uh oh, that that might be uh a little bit harsh on Lethal Weapon 3. But anyway, it is amazing. So a bit of background, and I did talk about Ghostbusters at length back in one of the early episodes, 1984's original release of Ghostbusters. You know, Ghostbusters is one of my all-time favourite films, the first film I ever saw in the cinema. Uh, I love every second of it. I watch it at any given opportunity, anytime it gets a re-release in the cinema, I'm always straight there to watch it. Uh, all the sort of spin-offs and everything, cartoons, the comics, love, love, love them. Uh, so much love for the second film, Ghostbusters 2 as well. Um, and yes, I've said it before, but I've never watched the Paul Feig version that came out in 2016. Uh, also known as Answer the Call, also known as the female Ghostbusters. Um, and it's not because I'm sexist, some might have said all this before. It was basically I was chomping at the bit for Ghostbusters 3 since you know 1989 when the second one came out. Um, and you just were reading and hearing all the time that it was going to happen, that all the casts were coming, but Bill Murray was the holdout, and then it sort of would get delayed for that, and then eventually, unfortunately, Harold Ramus died before they could get it going. Um, and I always kind of resented Bill Murray a bit for that. And then when it was announced that he was doing a cameo in this remake that Paul Feek was doing, I was just like, I just really I can't understand. He's the sort of reason that we haven't had a Ghostbusters 3 now, and yet now someone's decided they're gonna scrap it and remake it. He he's happy to be there for that, and I was like, I'm not happy with this. Um, and I've never watched it, and I still haven't seen it to this day. I do hear good things about it, but I just can't bring myself to watch it. So I was, you know, maybe a little pessimistic about when they were announcing Ghostbusters Afterlife, because essentially you see it on paper, oh, they're passing the talks to younger Ghostbusters, it's about about a bunch of teenagers who find the Ghostbusters equipment and you know start being Ghostbusters themselves, and you think, okay, uh, kid Ghostbusters, not too sure about this. And then the more and more that would sort of come out, it was like, oh, actually, you know, Jason Reitman, who is the son of Ivan Reitman, is coming back, is he's gonna direct it. Um, Ivan Reitman's still about and he's producing it. Uh Howard Raymond uh Dan Ackroyd is involved, um, and then actually Annie Potts is coming back, who played Janine, and Ernie Hudson's coming back, and then eventually it was like Bill Murray's gonna come back, and they're like, hang on, this could be decent, you know. I'm I might be interested. Um, and then the more and more you see, and then Paul Rudd sort of released a little video of in front of the um Ghostbusters House, you know, the firehouse, and it was like, who you gonna call? Guess who's answered the call? I think it was. Um, and you know, love Paul Rudd, it's brilliant. So I was like, yeah, okay, I'm quietly optimistic now about this. I've gone from pessimistic to optimistic to you know quietly hopeful that this could be something. Um, and I'll be perfectly honest with you, even you know, the trailers were being announced, and there were little teasers of the Ecto 1 sort of covered up and being you know revealed and stuff like that. And that I tried not to sort of look too much into it, I didn't want too much sort of spoiled, but you know, there was bits they were releasing about you know the original Ghostbusters coming back and stuff. I thought, yeah, okay, it could be. I still thought it was a little bit disrespectful to to Howard Ramis that they were doing it, but I was like, okay, I'm gonna give it a go. Um and say it was delayed, I think it was originally it was coming out in like summer of 2020, it was delayed to the end of the year, and then it was delayed to the start of 21, and I think it was eventually like end of November 2021 when it came out. So by that point, you know, I was very ready for it. Um and even then I could not have expected it to just hit me in the feels like it did. Um so yeah, apologies if you've not seen it. I'm gonna talk a little bit spoilerifically now, um, which I do apologise for because if you've not seen it, maybe pause this and go and watch it because I guarantee you'll love it, and also the the big gut punch of a reveal uh will be sort of lessened if I talked about it before you've seen it. Um but yeah, so essentially it starts off it's years later, you know, it's done in real time. Um there's a little bit of a sort of setup at the beginning that shows well, we know it's Egon Spengler, um, and it's done very cleverly with sort of a bit of sort of computer animation and sort of body doubles and stuff like that. So he's never sort of seen full on, it's all sort of done in shadows and stuff like that, which allegedly was um the body double was actually Ivan Reitman standing in for Howard Ramus as Egon. Um and yeah, essentially he's trying to capture ghosts, it's transpires it's to do with uh Ivo Shandor, who's the one who created uh Spook Central uh in the first film. Um and yeah, so he sort of tracked him down, all this sort of comes out later on. Um but yeah, so essentially you've got this little sort of bit at the start, and you think, oh, actually, you know, they did that pretty well. You d they didn't sort of, you know, dump all over his character or his legacy sort of thing. They've sort of set him up and he's kind of the catalyst for everybody else sort of coming together and the the rest of the story going, and as it goes on, um it's basically about Spengler's family, so he's Estrange Daughter, uh her own kids. So it was Carrie Coon and then her kids are played by Finn Wolfhart from uh Stranger Things, uh and McKenna Grace, who was still very much upcoming at that point but has gone on to be a pretty big star, um, as uh Egon's grandkids, basically, who didn't know him, and they sort of start discovering all this stuff in his farmhouse where they inherited it and moved into it, um, about the stuff that he'd been there researching and what was going on, and they get their school teacher involved, who's uh Paul Rudd's character, who's a big Ghostbusters fan, it turns out, um, and is certainly open to the idea of it, and then stuff sparks up a little bit of a romance with their mum and whatnot. Um, and it all just works really, really well, to be perfectly honest with you. And there's little bits in there, you know, they try and find out about Egon, so they phone like Ray, which is still Dan Aykroyd, and uh just when you think he's gonna be like, you know, yeah, I'll help my friend out, it's like uh Egon Spengler can you know rot in hell and all this sort of stuff, and it's like they'd had this really big falling out um because he'd broken up the Ghostbusters, and it's basically it just transpires that he was actually trying to, you know, save the world by doing this, and that's why he went off and did his own little thing. Um but yeah, and so essentially it's really, really just it's just done so thoughtfully and so tastefully, and with so much love for those original characters in that original film. Um and it's just the little bits in there that you don't even realise. See, I've never thought about why Shandor built that thing in the middle of New York and you know what he was trying to do and what his end game was and why it was built with this weird metal, and you know, they discover this other sort of temple and all this sort of thing to bring Gozel back and all this sort of stuff, and it's just yeah, it's really in depth, like a way, like levels, it adds levels to the original film that you didn't even realise it were missing, um, and it's just done so well, it looks so good. Um, you know, you've got obvious sort of callbacks to the earlier one with sort of Marshmallow Man and Slimer and stuff like that, but it's done well. Um, and you think, yeah, okay, well they did, they've acknowledged Spengler, but they haven't, you know, overdone it. And then at the end, where there's basically a big battle, original Ghostbusters come back, so you know, Ray, Winston, and Venkman come back and they're all in the gear and they're, you know, doing the quips and they're you know shooting the proton packs and all this sort of stuff. Oh mate, this really it can't get any better. And then it kind of pans along and there's this sort of purple spectrally form, and I don't if you've not seen it, if you've not seen how they've done it, I mean I'm almost getting choked out now just thinking about how good it is. And it's Harold Ramis, and he's genuinely there in ghost form, and it's done, you know, obviously with computer effects, it's obviously done with reusing old footage, it's done with you know um body doubles and stuff, but it's so well done, you can't believe that it isn't something that they filmed before he died because it's just amazing, and the way that the cast react to it, I am I've genuinely got tears in my eyes. Every time I've watched it, I have been an absolute blubber and mess because it's just it just honours that character and that film so much, uh, and it's just it blows me away every single time how good it is. Um and it the fact excuse me, idiot I am, um getting so choked up about it, but uh it is just so respectful and it's so it just ah I can't even put into words how brilliant it is. Um if you've not seen it, I well I will have just ruined it for you because you you're probably not gonna have that same effect. But yeah, uh even watching it now when I know it's coming, I do still get that. So I hopefully you will get some of the uh some of the feels I get from it. But yeah, it's just I couldn't believe how good it was how well it was done, how good the film was. Um and yeah, it's just really, really it's just honours, it honours that first film so much. Um and it's great. And obviously it was a big success, as it deserved to be. Probably would have been even bigger if it, you know, cinemas were all properly out and about, you know, fully open. Um but you know, big enough to generate another sequel, which is uh Ghostbusters Frozen Empire a few years later, um, for which the majority of the um the original cast returned as well. Still nothing from Rick Moranis, who's uh retired, although I do believe he's coming back for the new space balls that they've uh announced for next year. Um but yeah, very good as well. And uh uh even that is kind of respectful again because they don't over-egit and go back and bring Egon back again for the for um Frozen Empire. Um but yeah, it's um it's just a fantastic film, and I do absolutely love it. And it's really odd that you know they would come out with that sequel so long after the original sort of pair of films, and it to be you know as good if not you know on a par with with those ones. So yeah, absolutely love it. Right, I've recovered myself now. I'm gonna be a little bit uh I came over a little bit unnecessary there, but uh yeah, it does do that to me, it really, really does. Um yeah, and there we go. So yeah, no, no question really that that was my film of the year for this year, uh 2021. Absolutely brilliant. Um and that is kind of it for episode 47. I'm actually literally just gonna go and get changed now and head off to the cinema because the Spielberg season uh is reached Jurassic Park tonight. So we're gonna watch Jurassic Park for the first time in a few years. I've seen it in the cinema at several re-releases already. Uh, but yeah, it's got to be done every single time it's out, hasn't it? It's just one of those films, it's got to be done. Um so we'll go and do that, and then uh we will see you back here same time next week for 2022 and the films of that year. So I look forward to speaking to you then. Thank you ever so much for listening. Um, and in the meantime, watch lots of movies and we'll see you back in next time. Thanks very much. Bye bye.