I AIN'T AFRAID OF NO GHOSTBUSTERS 3

Ghostbusters quotes


The other week Drew McWeeny over at Hit Fix asked the following question:

“Do you really want to see Ghostbusters 3?"

In the article that followed he tried to convince us that before we said an automatic geek fueled 'Hell yes!' we should take a moment, weigh up the real, actual Hollywood business model pros and cons before then coming to the eventual answer of 'No.' His argument was predicated on the idea that in order to make the film, to satisfy the many differing requirements (four quadrant movie making – selling toys, fast food/sponsorships, paying talent/back end deals) what we'd end up with would be some ghastly bastardization of a much loved classic. A pale and unfunny imitation. You know, kinda like R.I.P.D.

Drew is right. I don't wanna see that. At all. Who would?

But I like to keep a glimmer of hope alive in my heart. Just a small spark of light fighting the good fight against cynicism and low expectations.

Maybe, just maybe we could get a new Ghostbusters movie done right.

Of course 'done right' depends very much on your own personal take. Many would argue that you simply can't do another GB movie without the original line up, especially Bill Murray. Twenty years ago I would have shared that same view. But not now. Not after all this time has passed. Don't get me wrong. I adore Murray, Ramis, Aykroyd et al but the world they created is so darn good, has so much potential that it can and should live beyond them. And anyway, Murray has shown epic disinterest in the project for decades now meaning it just ain't gonna happen with him. End of. Plus the recent sad passing of Harold Ramis has now made the 'getting the old gang back together' approach a non-starter anyway. So it's a no then to that approach.

But I don't want a remake either. Or a reboot or whatever you wanna call it.

No, what I want is a continuation, only with new characters and a wider universe to explore. That's not to say the old crew can't also appear in some shape or form. Of course they can. And they should if they want to. Personally I love the franchise idea Drew posits in his article. One that builds off of the first two films. I mean, the guys float the idea themselves in the original movie saying that the franchise rights alone could make them rich. So lets see it. Lets see other teams of Ghostbusters around the US, around the world. Some good, some bad, some screw ups, some amazing. Mix it up. Expand the universe. Go play. Go crazy. Franchise doesn't have to be a dirty word. Not here. When done right it can be the best thing ever. When done wrong it can be Transformers.

Opening the Ghostbusters concept up to go international and inter-dimensional is the way to go I say. I've always thought the concept was so awesome and so potentially huge that it could live well beyond the original movie if handled right. I mean, you could create a truly weird and funny Marvel-ous kinda universe full of monsters, ghosts, inter-dimensional worlds and beings and different groups of Earth-based Ghostbusters who work on their own or team up for various crazy missions. And with the right actors, writers, directors it could be really fun, funny and spectacular.

Okay, glimmer of hope starting to fade. Cynical hat coming back on.

Sadly I fully expect that when a new Ghostbusters does get made - and rest assured folks, we WILL get one at some point - it'll probably be a remake/reboot, a bland corporate ghost of its former self and a complete waste of potential. But we'll see. I'll still hope for the best and will keep everything crossed...except for the streams of course. Never cross the streams. Because crossing the streams is bad.

Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

RIP Harold Ramis

It's Dark Days as Stella strikes back...kinda.

30 Days of Night: Dark Days

30 Days of Night: Dark Days is the sequel to David Slade’s excellent 2007 adaptation of the popular IDW graphic novel 30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. 30 Days of Night told the tale of a band of feral vampires who attack the isolated Alaskan town of Barrow after the sun sets for a month. The original graphic novel was a big hit in 2002 spawning sequels and offshoots that are still ongoing. Dark Days was the first sequel published and told of how vengeance craving Barrow survivor Stella Olemaun heads to LA and writes about what really happened to her town, using her book and its related publicity as an attempt to expose the truth about vampires amongst us.

In 2007 Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures produced the movie version of 30 Days of Night starring Josh Hartnett and Melissa George and directed by David (Hard Candy) Slade. Though in my opinion fangtastic, it was given a middling critical and commercial reception upon release. But despite not being a big commercial hit, the powers that be have decided there is still on screen cash to be made from Niles’ nasty blood hunters…as long as it doesn’t cost them very much to produce.

So welcome to the movie sequel: 30 Days of Night: Dark Days.

And guess what?

It hasn’t cost them very much to produce.

This is a direct to DVD sequel shot in Canada (where else) with almost no budget and a recast female lead. Out goes the always good, always cute Melissa George as vengeful Stella to be replaced by Kiele (A Perfect Getaway, Lost) Sanchez. And to be fair, Sanchez is fine, even if it is a strictly one note performance - all scowly and sullen and not saying much at all. But that’s okay cuz in this story Stella is a severely damaged character hell bent on doing lots of damage of her own to the vamps of the world.

Now, I haven’t read Dark Days for a while, so I went back and quickly skimmed through it after watching this film. What I discovered is that the film’s story is a fair bit different. It’s simpler, less character based, more of a straight forward, slightly dull, overly familiar vampire hunt/stop-their-next-evil-plan type story. It’s very basic A to B to C plotting broken up by a couple of okay fights, a few nicely gory deaths and a bit of morose bathroom sex before ending with a girl on girl smack down as Queen Vamp Lillith (Mia Kirshner wasted in a nothing role) meets Stella for what is a (literal) bloodbath finale. Elements from the book are present in the film if pretty thinly sketched: FBI Agent and vampire wannabe Norris who gets his undead wish and causes Stella plenty of grief; the vampire Queen Lillith; the ‘good’ vampire Dane who Stella allies with. But these elements are used differently and less effectively in the movie with Dane being possibly the biggest disappointment. He is potentially the most interesting new character and yet he is rapidly sidelined and is only in two or three scenes. Instead, what we get is more focus on the small group of human vampire hunters who work with Dane and who recruit Stella. Problem is they are a pretty bland, useless, forgettable bunch. But in the end, as we would expect, it all comes down to Stella. It is our mightily pissed off heroine who must stand alone and defeat the nefarious Lillith’s evil plan, a plan which involves yet another vampiric maritime trip up north.

30 Days of Night: Dark Days is an okayish direct to DVD effort. It's better than most of its low budget ilk but is not a patch on David Slade’s excellent original. It's solidly directed and does manage to look pretty good despite its obvious low budget. I liked the photography with its gritty washed out days and sodium yellow lit nights. And the film also has a solid central performance from Ms Sanchez and some rather nice blood and gore to excite our interest. But what lets Dark Days down is the obvious cheapness of the whole affair, its pacing problems (it gets rather slow in parts) and the overly familiar and predictable storytelling. What is also rather annoying is that Steve Niles co-wrote this movie with director Ben Ketai. Niles could and should have done a better job of adapting his own work as this flat, formula script couldn't have taken him more than a few hours to bash out. C’mon, Steve, try harder next time. (2/5)

Kalix is back!

Curse of the Wolf Girl by Martin Millar (2010)

Curse of the Wolf Girl is Scottish author Martin Millar’s brand new sequel to his brilliant 2007 novel Lonely Werewolf Girl. As posted on my blog back in January, Lonely Werewolf Girl was my favourite book I read in 2009. It did everything exactly right. The characters, story, tone and mood, and most of all the humour were all utterly perfect. I’ve never laughed out loud so much while reading a book as I did with Lonely Werewolf Girl.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Curse of the Wolf Girl follows on several weeks after the momentous events of the previous novel. The epic struggle that reached from the highlands of Scotland to the streets of London to determine the next Thane of the MacRinalch werewolf clan is now over having culminated at the end of LWG in a bloody battle at the Yum Yum Sugary Snacks gig, the punk band fronted by rebellious werewolf twins Beauty and Delicious. Relative peace and harmony has been restored to werewolf life. But it doesn’t last for long. There’s a resurgence of the Avanaris Guild – human werewolf hunters dedicated to hunting and killing as many werewolves as they can. And the remaining allies of slain Thane contender Sarapen MacRinalch are back in town and looking for bloody revenge - mostly against Sarapen's teenage sister, the antisocial, psychologically messed up Kalix who killed her brother in the heat of battle.

However these major plot threads are only two of many that are all drawn gradually and inexorably together by book’s end.

We also have Kalix’s mother, Verasa, Mistress of the Werewolves, and her attempt to arrange a big charity opera event at one of the MacRinalch’s Scottish estates. Verasa ropes in her oldest daughter, the reluctant sorceress werewolf and fashion designer Thrix MacRinalch, to help get a famous Italian opera star to sing at the event. At the same time, Thrix is struggling with a rapidly failing business and is also being distracted by a new suitor who seems far too good to be true. Luckily for Thrix, her friend and client, Malveria, Fire Queen of the Hiyasta, volunteers to help her out on the opera front. But Malveria has major problems of her own brewing in the form of a complex conspiracy to overthrow her reign back home. Meanwhile, Kalix and her friend Vex - the innocent and always cheerful teenage niece of Malveria - are struggling in their attempts to attend human college and to contribute money to the flat they share with human students Daniel and Moonglow. And then there’s the beautiful but ice-cold white-haired werewolf Dominil MacRinalch. Dominil is still fighting to successfully manage her cousins Beauty and Delicious’s band Yum Yum Sugary Snacks, with her fight being mostly against the twins never ending partying and lack of focus, but also against the unwanted attentions of Yum Yum Sugary Snacks’ amorous guitarist who's developed a major crush on her. Plus Dominil seems to have gained herself a psychotic stalker too – a face from her past who was once rejected by her and who is now bent on revenge. As if all of that wasn't enough there's also a murder that puts Kalix on the warpath to find the killer, a curse that keeps Daniel and Moonglow from getting together romantically, the constant threat of bailiffs at the flat they share with Kalix and Vex, the romantic troubles of the new Thane Markus MacRinalch, and Thrix's search for an illusive fashion blogger who can help save her business. Add in the romantic pursuit of Kalix by another young werewolf and you get one hugely plot heavy story. Whew!

It is to Millar’s major credit then that all of these many varied threads are so expertly woven together by books end.

But, to be honest, I could have done without some of them in order to be able to focus a little bit more on a little bit less.

Millar writes in very short chapters. Most are just a couple of pages in length with some being as short as only a couple of paragraphs with the action flying between multiple characters, story lines and locales. It flits about so much that it can get quite dizzying and a tiny bit frustrating in places. There are a lot of characters in this book doing a lot of things, perhaps too many things for just one book. As a result I felt that some of the characters suffered somewhat. Don’t get me wrong, I love them all – especially Kalix, Vex and Malveria. But here they just didn’t have quite the same level of offbeat flourish that they had in Lonely Werewolf Girl. For instance, one of the things I loved most about Kalix was that she was obsessed by 70's all-girl rock band The Runaways and longed for Joan Jett to be her real mother. This is entirely missing from Curse of the Wolf Girl. There is no mention of The Runaways at all, though Kalix’s laudanum addiction remains as does her depression, anxiety and self-harming. It's a shame as her Runaways obsession gave a really sweet side to her often dark, violent and antisocial nature. Vex, however, is mostly as she was before - a cute, goofy, innocent teenage fire elemental who just wants to cheer people up, buy weird clothes and boots, listen to music and watch cartoons. Vex is such a loveable character. You can’t help but smile and laugh when reading her. She is just so enthusiastic and naïve and clumsy. And she is also fiercely loyal to Kalix despite the pair being like chalk and cheese with the moody and sullen young werewolf not always being deserving of that loyalty. It is this odd and unlikely friendship that is the heart of the book. Despite Kalix often finding Vex annoying, she eventually discovers that the young fire elemental really does have her best interests at heart. And by books end it is Vex who has truly proven herself to be a hero, to be selfless and brave, if not always wittingly so. She proves herself to be more than what others ever thought she could be - Kalix and Malveria especially. Yes, by the end of the tale even 'Aunt Malvie' finally sees that her 'dismal niece' is deserving of some new-found respect.

I mentioned earlier about there being less of a flourish to this book than there was to Lonely Werewolf Girl. This extends to the humour too. Lonely Werewolf Girl was a book where I laughed out loud almost every page. There were character beats and obscure, off kilter moments and hilarious lines of dialogue that just killed me. There was less of that here. That’s not to say CotWG isn’t still very funny and home to lots of great and funny lines and moments, because it is. Just not as many as with LWG. For me, much of the laugh-out-loud humour in LWG came from Malveria and her emotional outbursts, her verbal sparring with Vex and just some of the bizarre things she’d come out with. She didn’t quite reach the same highs here. But she remains a brilliant character and we do get to see her in proper full-on sword wielding, dragon slaying warrior queen mode.

In the end, Curse of the Wolf Girl is an excellent and most entertaining follow up to Lonely Werewolf Girl even if it doesn't quite reach the giddy heights of utter brilliance that its predecessor managed. But even if it isn't quite as awesome as LWG, Curse of the Wolf Girl is still pretty damn great and Martin Millar has certainly not lost the knack for writing wonderfully weird outsider characters, complex plots, laugh out loud lines and strong, compelling action. The universe he has created in these two books is odd, epic, and always fascinating, especially when underpinned by his gritty witty punk attitude and the Buffyesque mixing of the humour and humdrum of everyday life with crazy, bloody supernatural thrills and spills. By books end there's a few new surprises and a few avenues left to be further explored. I pray that Millar is both willing and able to continue telling the tales of Kalix and co. as there is still so much life left in these characters who are some of the best and most fun I've ever had the pleasure to meet on the page. 4.5/5

Link to my review of Lonely Werewolf Girl.

Third toy time is yet another charm

And so Pixar strikes again with TOY STORY 3, which against all the odds of sequel making turns out to be just as good as the previous two Toy Story films.

And you can’t get much better praise than that.

To be honest it should have come as no surprise. I mean they do have form, a LOT of form. But creating a third film in such a successful and high quality series is often a difficult task with the final result usually proving to be something quite a bit lesser than what came before. But not here. Why so? Simple really. Three things: story, story and story. Pixar invest so much time and effort in story and character. It is the beginning and end of everything they do. This (amongst other things) is what raises them to a level well beyond their animated competitors with the script for TOY STORY 3 being a perfect example. It is a precision machine of perfect storytelling yet it remains wonderfully warm with genuine emotional depth and layers of subtext. This new adventure for Woody, Buzz and the gang is based around the structure of a prison escape film, though with darker, deeper, more duplicitous undertones than, say, the great CHICKEN RUN from Aardman. Pixar know that we have to genuinely connect with and care about characters in order to fully invest in a story. And, boy, do we ever. Wait until you get to the big scary finale as together, hand in hand, the gang face certain doom. Lump in throat time. The main thrust of TOY STORY 3 is about moving on, learning to let go and finding new purpose in life. It is also about loss and how we deal with loss, a theme that has run through all three films. Pixar aren't afraid to confront these big important themes in their films. And bless them for doing so. For it's that extra emotional oomph that can, when done well and with genuine feeling, reduce a grown man to tears. Remember Jessie telling her heartbreaking tale of abandonment in TOY STORY 2? Remember Anton Ego's flashback to childhood in the glorious RATATOUILLE? Remember the utterly devastating first ten minutes of UP? I rest my case. TOY STORY 3 also contains allusions to faith including imagery of heaven and hell with things getting pretty dark and intense in places. But just as with the previous two, it is the theme of family and friendship and what that really means that underlies everything. However, never fear, for along with all of that serious stuff, TOY STORY 3 is also one heck of a laugh out loud funny film with Buzz Lightyear switched in to Spanish mode a particular highlight. This is pure comedy gold that allows the smitten space ranger to go all romantic Latin hero with Cowgirl Jessie. Brilliant! The film looks utterly gorgeous too, with Pixar going and raising the bar even higher for CG animation. Also, the 3D presentation works beautifully giving so much depth of field and sharpness to the image with no discernable motion blur. It is by far the best use of 3D since AVATAR. And then there is the cast. As always with these films the voice cast are perfection led by the now iconic work of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as Woody and Buzz. There is also memorable work from new arrivals Michael Keaton as a conflicted Ken doll who finally finds his Barbie, Ned Beatty as the villainous, emotionally scarred bear Lots-o-huggin and Timothy Dalton as the classically trained hedgehog Mr Pricklepants.

I’m pretty confident that this will be the last of the Toy Story movies as it really does feel like an apt and fitting finale to the story of Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Rex, Slinky et al. And if it is to be their very last outing then they’ve sure gone out in style leaving the audience with big smiles on their faces and a few tears in their eyes, just as it should be. Simply put TOY STORY 3 is a total and utter joy to watch from its very first frame to its final heartfelt denouement.

So thank you Pixar, you’ve gone and done it again.

Like there was ever any real doubt. (5+/5)