Joey’s Home Movies For the Week of January 31st – ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ Continues to Delight

Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, the sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife is easily the top pick. Yes, this week is a very light one for new releases hitting shelves, but even still. This film would be the clear choice, regardless. Read on for more…

Joey’s Top Pick

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

I loved this film. Clearly, Jason Reitman loving the franchise was part of what was necessary to successful continue the story. The end result is Ghostbusters: Afterlife being incredibly winning and an utter delight. Leave your cynicism at the door and just enjoy the fun, heart, humor, and even horror. The movie is great, with a performance from McKenna Grace worth going wild over. Reitman hit this one out of the park and I’ll hear no arguments to the contrary. My rave review of the newest Ghostbuster flick includes this bit:

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is filled with heart, humor, and even scares. Reitman knows what makes this property special and leans into it all. The fan service hits all the right notes, the new characters, especially one in particular, fit right in, and the returning heroes (who I’ll leave for you to discover) are perfectly placed. This so easily could have been a lazy cash grab. The Reitman clan wouldn’t allow it, and the end result is something special.

Also Available This Week

Charli XCX: Alone Together

Clifford the Big Red Dog

Deadlock

Mainstream (interview with Gia Coppola here and Nat Wolff here)

National Geographic: The Hot Zone Season Two (TV)

Power Book III: Raising Kanan The Complete First Season (TV)

The Spine of Night

Criterion Corner

Written on the Wind

From The Criterion Collection: “The Technicolor expressionism of Douglas Sirk reached a fever pitch with this operatic tragedy, which finds the director pushing his florid visuals and his critiques of American culture to their subversive extremes. Alcoholism, nymphomania, impotence, and deadly jealousy—these are just some of the toxins coursing through a massively wealthy, degenerate Texan oil family. When a sensible secretary (Lauren Bacall) has the misfortune of marrying the clan’s neurotic scion (Robert Stack), it drives a wedge between him and his lifelong best friend (Rock Hudson) that unleashes a maelstrom of psychosexual angst and fury. Featuring an unforgettably debauched, Oscar-winning supporting performance by Dorothy Malone and some of Sirk’s most eye-popping mise-en-scène, Written on the Wind is as perverse a family portrait as has ever been splashed across the screen.”

Stay tuned for more next week…