2 Best Movies To Watch After Night Shift (1982)
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
There are few names as deeply ingrained in the fabric of American pop culture as Ghostbusters, the action-comedy franchise spawned by Ivan Reitman’s beloved 1984 film. Nonetheless, despite its staggering financial success (netting nearly 300 million against a 25 million dollar budget) and pop culture permeance, Sony has had trouble recapturing the magic in later entries. Neither 1989’s Ghostbusters II, 2016’s Ghostbusters, and 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife have neared the original’s success. Despite that, it seems the Ghostbusters franchise has finally found a sequel concept it’s willing to forge ahead with. The franchise’s latest installment, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, is a direct sequel to Afterlife. It once more reunites Egon Spengler’s (Harold Ramis) children with the three living original Ghostbusters— Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Bill Murray. Despite an intriguing subplot for Phoebe, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is an incohesive, unoriginal entry. It coasts on fan service to carry a paper-thin plot and a lukewarm crop of characters, new and old. Bill Murray and Paul Rudd discuss their love of fog machines. (Sony Pictures) Picking up two years after the events of Afterlife, Frozen Empire follows the Spengler family (Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard) to New York City. After the previous film's tradition-breaking decision to unfold in rural Oklahoma, this returns the franchise to its true home. Bankrolled by the uber-wealthy Winston (Hudson) they're back operating out of the old Ghostbusters firehouse. There the Spenglers struggle to juggle ghost-hunting with their interpersonal dynamics. That's all while working to keep the mayor (William Atherton) from shutting the family business. Continue Reading →
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos directs a sumptuous adult fairy tale featuring Emma Stone at her very best. Here’s the thing about Yorgos Lanthimos: you’re either on board with him, or you’re not. Even in The Favourite, arguably his most accessible film, there’s a sort of joyful grotesqueness to it, leaving the audience laughing and wincing simultaneously. His latest offering, Poor Things, is his most visually dazzling film yet, with moments of stunning beauty and bittersweet insight, but still isn’t afraid to test the audience’s sensibilities. It’s a film about what it means to be alive, every little disgusting aspect of it. Based on Alasdair Gray’s novel of the same name, Poor Things opens in dreary black and white London, where eccentric scientist Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) is overseeing an experiment that’s both miraculous and horrifying. Baxter, whose face looks like it was carved into several pieces and then put back together the wrong way, has brought a woman back to life after she committed suicide. The woman, whom he’s renamed Bella (Emma Stone, with a magnificent pair of eyebrows), initially has the mind of a toddler, but she’s learning and maturing at an astonishing rate. Bella refers to Godwin as “God,” and so far knows no one and nothing else but him and their home together. Continue Reading →