Movie Review: Ghostbusters

I've been a bit lax on updating here in the last few weeks, as I'm running to an exam and that's eating a fair bit of my spare time. Hopefully once that's done - and the frantic summer holiday scheduling is over with - things will settle back to normal. I am, of course, still consuming a fair bit of culture, and this weekend I took the Teenager to the cinema for the first time in what seemed like ages, to go see Ghostbusters. Now, I'm a huge fan of Ghostbusters '84, which came out when I was 11, but it's also a film with a good many "of it's time" flaws and a dissapointing sequel, so it's probably no great surprise that the Remake Train eventually reached that stop. This time, they've handed it off to Paul Feig, swapped a cast of male ensemble comedians for a cast of female ensemble comedians, and raised the ire of some of the darker cesspools of the internet. On this latter point I will only say - if this film is part of your "childhood" then you're my age, right? So grow the fuck up. Right, onto the review. 

First Impressions: Thunderbirds Are Go!

When I was a kid, Thunderbirds was already a "thing, because old as I am, I'm not that old. Airing originally in 1965 and 1966, it saw revivals every couple of years, it seemed, and I loved it. There was - is - something about the miniature work that transcends it's slightly twitchy effects, something deep in the design of the vehicles and the secret Bond-Villian-esque Tracy Island, and roaming missions that International Rescue get sent on. I can't now, but that was a time I could tell you which vehicle was in which one of Thunderbird 2's pods, and countless more pointless facts that I stored in the space of my brain I now use for Star Wars trivia. I've never seen the 2004 Hollywood adaption, because I'd heard so many bad things I didn't want to spoil those memories, but I had to have a look at the new sort-of-puppet, sort-of-CGI series that just premiered. 

DVD of the Week: Robocop

It's often cited as a sign of Hollywood bankruptcy that we are are living in age of sequels and remakes, compared to perceived earlier ages when we didn't. Like most "ohhhh back in the day" arguments it does't really hold that much water, and largely comes along over the summer when the most visible things in the multiplex's are franchise fodder, and it's largely from people of my generation, who are seeing their youth remade and rebooted. I'm not totally sold on the idea of these sorts of films being safe bets anyway; nostalgia is a dangerous thing, and there is always the risk of a backlash before a film even starts shooting, especially once they start sliding down the ratings towards the PG-13 (12A) rating and perceived "watering down".