Back from the Dead

Film: Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

Any time someone messes with a classic, there’s going to be some worry. Look at what happened with the Ghostbusters reboot, for instance. While I thought it was about as good as it could be, all things considered, it never found its own voice and relied far too much on trying to ape the original film. There were worries about Ghostbusters: Afterlife for the same reason, at least for me. How do you add on to one of the greatest genre films in history nearly 30 years afterwards?

That’s not to say that this hasn’t been done before, and done successfully. The 2018 direct sequel of Halloween is a case in point. With Ghostbusters: Afterlife, we are very much looking at the same sort of thing—an iconic film with a reboot that may or may not tarnish the reputation of that original film. There’s no way it could honestly measure up to the first film, but we can hope for it to at least be good, right?

Terminal Relationships

Film: Up in the Air
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

Up in the Air has been sitting on a shelf in my house for a long time. It’s a weird bit of reality that I find it sometimes difficult to pull the trigger on movies on my list that I own. The reason is simple: it’s a movie I don’t have to look for, which means other movies are more pressing concerns. The availability of the movies I own isn’t limited in anyway. Still, I do need to watch them, and it was time for this one, about which I knew nothing. Honestly, I bought it in a group of movies at a sale a few years ago and bought it specifically because I knew I’d have to watch it eventually.

The selling point of Up in the Air is that we’re given a main character who is almost unique in certain characteristics. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) works on the road more than 300 days a year. His job is being called into companies in some sort of transition and firing people because the various bosses in those companies don’t want the direct responsibility. So, Ryan flies from city to city, lives in a series of hotel rooms, and spends his days firing people and attempting to move them through at least the initial transition into unemployment.

Obscure Pregnancy Reference

Films: Juno
Format: Streaming video from HBO Go on rockin’ flatscreen.

Juno is one of those movies for me. I’ve been a little scared of it for some time because I figured it probably couldn’t live up to its hype. People seem to like it a little too much for what it is. It’s a teen pregnancy comedy, at least on the surface, and it was nominated for four major Oscars, winning one (original screenplay). Sure, it’s got a solid cast and a lot to recommend it, but I struggled with the idea that it could be the sort of end-all, be-all that everyone seems to think it is.

Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page), a 16-year-old high school student, gets pregnant one night thanks to her best friend/love interest Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Initially intent on getting an abortion, Juno instead decides to have the baby and put it up for adoption. With the aid of her friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), Juno finds Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), a local couple who would love to adopt her child. At least that’s what they think initially. After all, there wouldn’t be a movie if there weren’t some problems along the way.