FILM REVIEW: Ghostbusters (2016)

Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) once wrote a book together collating their hypotheses around the paranormal, but their lives have diverged and they're no longer speaking. Erin is approached by a man with the book she thought was lost who wants help with a resident ghost. She tracks Abby down to beg her to stop selling the book, only to find herself discovering the haunting is real, their theories are correct and someone is trying to bring a whole host of ghosts to New York. Together with Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) and their ditzy secretary Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), the Ghostbusters must fight to convince the city that ghosts are real and everyone is in danger.

I'll not dwell on the ongoing furore around the film until now because, ultimately, it falls away as soon as you watch the film, reduced to a classy punchline and closed as fast as an internet browser window. Ghostbusters counters those toxic attitudes with a relentless positivity. As with The Force Awakens, I want to bottle the feeling I get of seeing these women - in all their strength, vulnerabilities, quirks, body types, intelligence, wit and determination - up on that screen. I also want to bottle the feeling I get when I see women and girls responding to this. It's hard to explain how it feels to have heroes like these, entirely independent of men or the male gaze, but it's really, really awesome.

A huge part of that is down to the central four cast members with not a single weak link among them. Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy's chemistry is present and correct, used to power the emotional core of the film. We may not see much of their prior friendship, but Wiig and McCarthy convey enough to make their key moments land as well as sparking off of each other to regularly bring the laughter. They're the heart of the film and ground it just enough to let the wackier comedy of McKinnon or Hemsworth's dumb blonde to keep the gag rate high.

McKinnon is the particular breakout here, walking away with most of the film's most memorable lines as well as carving out a character that is always eccentric but never rings hollow. Holtzmann is zany, hilarious and also very sweet. She also works well alongside Jones' Patty, whose more forthright humour contrasts Holtzmann's flightier moments. Then there's Chris Hemsworth, gleefully playing up his blockbuster beefcake persona with Kevin, who doesn't quite know how glasses work nor is he capable of answering a phone. The scenes with all five of them together have a dysfunctional family theme to them, playing well with the film's continual positive drive.

Even when dealing with Rowan, the walking version of toxic masculinity villain of the piece, Abby tries to save him first, the four only prompted into fighting when they have no other choice. Rowan's an intriguing character, a riposte to the types that have been hammering away at keyboards and furiously clicking their mouse to downrate a film they have no intention of seeing. He's the perfect villain to contrast our heroes with; he's been bullied and uses this as his excuse for his power grab and he's resentful of everyone around him, alone in his rage.

Despite what Rowan thinks, Abby is keen to point out that they're not so different; we see these women belittled, mistreated and suppressed by those around them, whether it's a cameoing Charles Dance's stern professor, Andy Garcia's polished mayor or Patty's customers on the subway. The difference between them and Rowan is that they own it and turn it to their advantage, trying to save the world regardless of how it treats them. It might be largely a kids' film, but Ghostbusters was a pretty insightful examination of how society treats men and women differently and how they react in turn. In truth, it could have made more of this analysis; it's a hopeful message about turning adversity into strengths and successes.

There's a couple of bumps along the way; Kevin goes through a bit of a character shift without any real explanation and there are one or two jokes that linger a little too long. However, the good-natured charm of it all and the crackling chemistry of the cast powers it through to a rather spectacular climax. The final battle arrives suddenly, but it's a vibrant sequence, full of wisecracks and badass moments (Holtzmann, man) with gorgeous and creepy ghost designs. It feels fitting for everything that has gone before, one in which the four women get a chance to show off not only their skills, but their love for each other in that so much of the battle is about them working together to solve the problem.

There will always be naysayers when it comes to this film, whether it comes from a deep, abiding love of the original or, as has been largely the case, because there are women in it. The important thing, however, is how it makes women and girls watching this film feel. And it feels awesome. I can forgive the bumps for that.

- Becky

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BOOK REVIEW: Life Moves Pretty Fast - Hadley Freeman

There are certain films which leave an indelible impression on the memory after you watch them for the first time. Back in the days when Sky+ boxes were a thing of the future and the only way to record things on the TV was to wind up the VHS Player, I set a shiny new blank tape up to record a film. That film was Wing Commander because I was very much going through a Freddie Prinze Jr phase (shush).

The brilliance of the VHS recording system, something that has since been lost with the more precise recording equipment of this century, was that sometimes you ended up with whatever came after your initial choice too. In this case, it was The Breakfast Club. I got to the end of another enjoyable viewing of Wing Commander (shush again, I like it and revel in its naffness) and, hearing the nice BBC announcer say that The Breakfast Club was due next, I settled back down for a film that sounded like it might involve pancakes. And I like pancakes. 

Instead, what I got was the John Hughes masterpiece that didn't involve pancakes, but sushi, Barry Manilow's wardrobe and a collection of misfits who I adore to this day. It was one of the first films I'd seen in my awkward teenage years that actually spoke to me about the difficulties of trying to be cool and 15 at the same time. I fell in love with Bender because who doesn't love a brash yet sensitive burnout who wears plaid and a grotesque amount of demin? I empathised with Bryan and the comments about his deeply uncool desire to get good grades because I too was an insufferable swot. And then there's Allison who remains to this day the kind of social outcast I always wanted to be, but was never quite cool or confident enough to become. 

These were my people. Those characters coupled with an endlessly quotable script saw the film enter my favourites list immediately, even with the lack of actual pancakes. John Hughes would also go on to become one of my favourite directors. 

When I cracked open Hadley Freeman's ode to 80s cinema, Life Moves Pretty Fast, I knew immediately that I was in the company of a kindred spirit and settled down to read what turned out to be a pleasant surprise of a book. The subtitle, "The lessons we learned from eighties movies (and why we don't learn from the movies anymore)" may create an initial trepidation regarding rose-tinted nostalgia, but the result is that the book is a fairly well-balanced mix of that nostalgic fondness mixed with genuine insight and interesting analyses. 

It does of course help that a fair few of my favourite movies are featured within the book. Dedicating a chapter to The Princess Bride is always a swift way to get me on side (because it's obviously the best film ever made - unlike many films, I don't remember seeing it for the first time because I'm fairly certain I've been watching it since birth), not to mention another on When Harry Met Sally (because it's obviously the second best film ever made). 

Yet it's not just the content, but the way it is written that makes Life Moves Pretty Fast such an entertaining read. Freeman's easygoing prose feels more like you're having a conversation over a pint with a friend rather than burying yourself in some weighty tome, especially the fun Top 10 lists at the end of each chapter. I found myself nodding gleefully at several parts in the book, not least of which the moment in which young Dan Aykroyd is declared to be sexy (he was Elwood Blues; of course he's sexy). Given that the best place to have highly enthusiastic, all-gesticulation conversations about film is in the pub, this is definitely to the book's advantage. It's pretty much a film geek's dream.

Freeman is also not afraid to tackle some more weighty issues in her analyses either. The feminist focus of the book arrives at a particularly interesting time when it comes to representation of female characters on screen, given the recent debates surrounding Avengers: Age of Ultron (oddly enough, Freeman's analysis of modern superhero blockbusters is the one section I don't really agree with). Whilst there are examples of bigger blockbusters getting better, it's not hard to disagree that we have gone backwards since Sally had her deli moment or Andie refused to change one iota to get Blane to continue dating her. 

The book allows us to celebrate those characters, many of them now iconic in popular culture. Freeman's analysis of Dirty Dancing as a surreptitiously major feminist work in cotton candy clothing and her conversations with the film's screenwriter, the great Eleanor Bergstein, are a particular highlight, demonstrating the power of letting women tell their own stories behind the scenes. The feminist focus may run through the book, but a wide variety of topics are tackled also from the way in which race is represented on screen, the decline of mid-budget films and issues of masculinity in cinema. There's even a list of 80s films that Freeman regretted not mentioning. My heart soared at the albeit too brief inclusion of St. Elmo's Fire.

In a world where cynicism reigns supreme, particularly in the film world when snark is seemingly more regularly dealt out than praise, Freeman's book storms in like a breath of gleefully positive air. It's hard not to get swept up in the sheer amount of love within these pages, but it's grounded in carefully thought out analysis that keeps it both conscientious and relevant. I can pretty much guarantee that the first thing you'll want to do upon finishing Life Moves Pretty Fast is finally get round to seeing or rewatching the films mentioned. As for me, I've got a glorious Reiner/Hughes marathon planned. 

And for anyone else with fond memories of VHS days, I really do recommend picking up the paperback edition rather than the ebook (see above). It's gorgeous.

- Becky

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