Ghostbusters Released by:
Columbia/Tri-Star Home VideoFeatures:
1984; 107 Min; Rated PG; Dolby Digital: 5.1 English; Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35).Extras:
1984 Featurette; 1999 Featurette; SFX Documentary; Audio Commentary by Director Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis and Production Designer Joe Medjuck; SFX, Multi Angle, Before and After Comparison; Production Photos and Conceptual Drawing Galleries; Deleted Scenes; Theatrical trailers; Subtitled Production Notes, "Tricks and Trivia."Review:
"We're ready to believe you." This could easily sum up many people's reactions to this disc after all of the hype that surrounded this release from Columbia/Tri-Star Home Video. When the initial specs were released on this disc, my gut feeling was sections of the supplement would eventually be removed from the disc... being a pessimist is a full time stress ;-) I was stunned when the disc arrived, everything was on the disc, plus a few items I'd forgotten about. This new DVD has the most supplements packed onto one disc. The only other title, that I currently own, that comes close Alien.While I don't think this is truely needed, here's the plot of Ghostbusters. Harold Ramis, Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray play the Ghostbusters (Egon, Ray and Venkman, respectively). Egon is the brains, Ray is the believer and Venkman is the con-man. After the three are kicked out of college for, in their school's opinion, wasting their grant money, they establish the Ghostbusters.
Their first major client is Dana, played by Sigourney Weaver. She has discovered an apparition named Zul in her refrigerator. Venkman is dispatched to her apartment to check it out, and to put some moves on her. Nothing is there, but eventually, she becomes possessed as the Gatekeeper, while her dweeb neighbor Louis (Rick Moranis) becomes the Keymaster. While all of this develops, the Ghostbusters are keep busy around town by, doing what else, chasing ghosts. This leads to many hilarious situations, including their primary encounter with a ghost named Slimer, who by part II, essentially becomes a pet.
Ghostbusters achieves a nearly perfect balance between comedy and horror, because it takes itself seriously. Not that the film doesn't play it up for laughs, it certainly does, but the film never really... how should I put it, winks at the audience? Reitman, and his group of actors, keep the film grounded in reality. True, all the scientific stuff was made up by Dan Ackroyd, but it was grounded in some fact.
While Ghostbusters would have been worth buying just for the movie, Columbia has pulled out all the stops on this special edition. The first part of the extra materials I went through were the three small featurettes. The first one from 1984 is very dated. It has a, how should I put it? A buy me feel, I assume this is the one that was shown to exhibitors to book the film. Everyone is featured in this part of the supplement, all of the star, Reitman and other production people.
The 1999 featurette from this year focuses mostly on Reitman, Ackroyd and Joe Medjuck, where they reminisce about the accomplishments of their film. Unfortunately, none of the cast, except Dan Ackroyd, are interviewed for this retrospective. This is probably due to contractual issues. The best of the featurettes is the one with the SFX crew, it's basically a round table discussion, with very little form, but everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. All of the technical people are involved in this featurette.
The final, major, piece of the puzzle was the full length audio commentary by Reitman, Ramis and Medjuck. The commentary is pretty decent, you learn about many of the behind the scene struggles, as well as compromises that week needed to complete the film for it's summer 1984 release. The "live" video commentary is a interesting idea, but not really need. The three do very little interaction with the film while talking. The only memorable moment was when Harold Ramis gets up, and physically shows everyone the evils of pan and scan, mainly because he would be cut out of the picture frame.
The other features of the disc include production photos, conceptual drawings , theatrical trailers and some basic biographies of the involved participants. The delete scenes were a nice touch, but I don't remember if there's any commentary involved. There was also a section called tricks and trivia, which is set of production notes, encoded into one set of the films subtitles. This was different, but I don't personally see much future use of this feature. It was there because they could do it.
The transfer of Ghostbusters is the best print of the film I've ever seen, and I own the CLV edition from Criterion. The film definitely shows it age though. Every once in a while, a nasty film scratches will pop up, and it does look a little grainy. Given the fact this film is fifteen years old, it didn't look too bad. The new Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix, is a little of a mixed bag. The music is re-mixed, as well as some of the ambiance, but there are virtually no split surround effect. Again, this is most likely due to the age of the film, so it doesn't bug me too much.
The only beef I really have with this disc was it's confusing main menu, you can't just cycle through the menu, you have to use the different directional keys of you remote. It was a little confusing. Other than that, I unequivocally recommend the purchase of this disc.
On a scale of 1 to 10, the movie ranks an 8 in my book.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll give this presentation a 9.75, it fails a perfect score due to the somewhat confusing main menu.
Dan Linzmeier, FIT Productions
Fitprod@aol.com
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