Ghostbusters: a 1984 supernatural comedy starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson as brave, wise-cracking men trying to rid New York City of its poltergeists one slimy green ghost at a time.
Ghostheads: what the super-deluxe fans of Ghostbusters call themselves. Not the fans who watch the movie every time it comes on TV, or the fans who collect all the Venkman bobbleheads. Ghostheads are fanatical. They dress up. 
They own proton packs. They drive Ecto Ones. They horde merchandise to the extent that it threatens their marriages. Ghostheads is the 2016 documentary that takes a good hard look at these amped-up fans. Ghostheads is the new Trekkies.
The delightful thing about this documentary is how earnest it is. It’s easy and maybe even tempting to make fun of a grown man who believes he is “more himself” when dressed up as someone else, but this film never does. These fans may be extreme, but the documentary aims to humanize them. Some interesting things I picked up from watching the documentary:
- Ghostheads are not the ones hating on the 2016 film. Their enthusiasm for the franchise is all-encompassing. Paul Feig reached out to the community and included them every step of the way. They seem to embrace it.
- In fact, “Everybody can be a Ghostbuster” is not just a tagline for the new toy line, but a credo that Ghostheads seem to have been living by for the past 30 years. At Comic Con, you’ll see dozens of people dressed up as Wolverine, Ariel, Walter White, Sailor Moon and Doctor Who. You’ll see plenty of Ghostbusters too, but more often than not their name tags don’t read Ray Stantz, it’s their own names on the patch. Because every body can be a Ghostbuster.
- While Leias and Leeloos tend to stand alone at conventions, Ghostheads are almost always found in packs. These cosplayers aren’t just connecting with a movie, they’re trying to connect to each other.
I’m the first to admit that I don’t really get cosplay. I’m a huge movie nerd but I’ve never loved any one film so much that I decided to make it my life. I’ve never, as an adult, dressed up as a fictional character. But people at comic cons are doing more than trick-or-treating, they’re doing performance art. 
Suddenly shy geeks who rarely interact with the human species don these alter-egos and strut around like heroes. In Ghostheads you’ll encounter one painfully shy man who doesn’t hesitate to walk up to total strangers to spout any of dozens of lines of dialogue memorized from his favourite movie. He’s happy to pose for pictures and merrily draws attention by flipping on the siren on his Ghostbusters car (his only car. He drives his daughter to school in it). Fandom has really kicked into high gear these past few years (we discussed FANdementalists on a prior podcast) but I think the Ghostheads embody the very best of it: a sense of community. Just like-minded people sharing something they love, a movie that happens to be about camaraderie and helping others (and mutant marshmallows).
Ghostheads is nostalgic and sweet – maybe too sweet. It deftly sidesteps the whole “girl Ghostbusters” controversy and chooses not to look at a darker side at all. So this may not be a balanced view. But with interviews with Ivan Reitman, Dan Aykroyd, and plenty of real-life Ghostheads, it’s an awfully compelling one.
pregnant. “Get an abortion” he says, and she agrees, because who’d want to have a baby with him? But he has a change of heart and she agrees to consider it if only he’ll finally introduce her to his surviving family members – a grandmother and a sister he hasn’t spoken to since his parents’ funeral.
gleefully catching them all on fire. Trash Fire has its roots in horror of course, a fact that constantly slithers up and down your spine, especially when AnnyLynne McCord tiptoes into the bedrooms of the sleeping guests with nothing but a ghostly white nightie and a shotgun.
After a ten year hiatus, Shainberg is back with Rupture, a film decidedly less kinky but a little more kick in the teeth. You know how when a cartoon character falls in love, his heart visibly pounds out of his chest? I’m pretty sure mine was doing much the same while watching this film, out of discomfort and dread.
exposing them to it – not to scare them to death, but to scare them beyond it.
Canadian cinematographer Karim Hussain creeps around corners to give us a relentless and increasingly cramped view of our heroine and her struggles, soaked and saturated in hues of viscera. He tightens the frame like a vise so her pain is sharply in our focus. Noomi Rapace, no stranger to body horror, is up to the challenge, aided and abetted by Peter Stormare, Lesley Manville and Michael Chiklis, who are surreally spooky. Things are so peculiar that the audience sometimes titters with nervous laughter.
Cue Showgirls, the movie where she somehow failed to earn accolades or respect by baring her beaver. In fact, the film positively dies every time she’s on screen. She’s horrible. Horrible. I was literally annoyed by her in less than 2 minutes flat (watch it and see if you can do better!).
Verhoeven turned up in personal to collect both Worst Director and Worst Picture. He was the first director to ever do so (Berkley opted not to collect hers).
MacLachlan can – he’s said to have walked out of the premiere but he denies it, insisting “I sat thee and suffered for the whole two hours.” Steven Spielberg also gave up on the movie halfway through, saying “Sometimes, I hate this town.” It does have a fan in Quentin Tarantino though – he calls it “the Mandingo of the ’90s.”
Fantasia favourite Mike Flanagan (his debut Absentia premiered at Fantasia!) is welcomed back enthusiastically with a special screening of his eerie and poetic horror/fantasy Before I Wake, starring Jacob Tremblay (the cute kid from Room) as a troubled orphan whose dreams spill out into the real-world while he sleeps – as do his nightmares. Also starring Kate Bosworth, Thomas Jane, and Annabeth Gish.
that gives an intimate look at his late father and the iconic character he’s known for, just in time for Star Trek’s 50th anniversary.
scenes for her behind her back, forcing Alba to keep the bikini thing going for far longer than she was comfortable with. The gimmick worked though, and her bikini is
what people remember most about the movie. Kate Bosworth made her bikini mark in Blue Crush, a movie about “girl surfers” with an impressive amount of wardrobe changes. Bosworth wasn’t the only one turning heads – her whole crew, including Michelle Rodriguez and Sanoe Lake, looked equally fabulous wearing not very much.
a better example than Kate Upton bouncing around in 
o make Cameron Diaz, an honest-to-god-Charlie’s-Angel, to feel vulnerable? (Sidebar: who among us could forget when a 40&fab Demi Moore strutted around in her bikini, putting those Angels to shame?) Meanwhile, Brooklyn Decker was on hand to heat things up in Just Go With It
and did a mighty fine job of it until her co-star Jennifer Aniston took off her own clothes revealing that “sneaky hot 
body” (and then had a coconut-bikini-off with Nicole Kidman, just to keep things classy). And I can hardly write a bikini post without mention of Bunny Lebowski (Tara
Reid) in her lime green bikini (and matching scrunchie!) asking for her toes to be blown on. The 90s were a fabulous time. Just two years later, another bikini was making an impression on me: Virginie 
Ledoyen was looking fine in Danny Boyle’s The Beach. Oh to be the sand upon which she lays. The bikini, by the way, has a great built-in sand disposal unit. It has nowhere to hide! And how can we forget Salma Hayek revealing herself to 
English-speaking audiences in a daring little bikini (boldly accessorized) in From Dusk Till Dawn. She owned that thing like she owned us. Also 
sealing sex symbol status in bikinis: Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider. Not that her usual Lara Croft attire left much to the imagination, but fan boys like skin and she was prepared to flash it, as long as she could still strap on
her weaponry. Margot Robbie, however, didn’t need knives, because she’s got killer curves and puts them to devious use in 
Mousketeer, the epitome of wholesomeness) so you could say that it was her rather dowdy swimsuit that helped pave the way for newer generations of Disney stars gone sexy, like Selena Gomez in Spring Breakers.
pin-up-worthy movie poster for One Million Years B.C. in which she wore a bikini made of animal skin, infuriating PETA. Sorry PETA, but I think it’s clear that Raquel wins.
Another dubious choice for bikini material: Pam Grier’s crocheted bikini. I don’t want to think about what it looks like if you get it wet, but here’s the thing about Pam Grier: she makes everything look cool. And speaking of bikinis you wouldn’t want to get wet, how about that m
etal slave bikini that Leia wears in 
This list wouldn’t exist without Bo Derek. She has proven over and over to be a perfect ’10’ and has more bikini looks than I can count. I might be slightly partial to this one. Brigitte Bardot has also earned herself multiple entries onto this list and actually starred in a movie called The Girl in the Bikini, although she’d popularized 
the look as far back as 1956 in …And God Created Woman. No matter when or where, she’s always doing it justice.
Gloria Hendry is to be applauded not just for sporting a bikini while kicking ass in Live or Let Die, but for successfully accessorizing it with a machine gun. She’s tough and fit but proves she’s also sassy and feminine in her swimwear. James Bond never stood a chance.
send-up to an earlier Bond Girl: Ursula Andress 40 years prior in Dr. No. She too appeared from the sea in 
nothing but a bikini and a blade. The copycats don’t end there: you may remember that Heather Graham sported a similar look in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. 
ssory: Sean Connery.
Diamond-smuggling bad girl in a hot bikini: Tiffany Case (Jill St John) from 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever.
Caroline Munro throws a kimono over her bikini in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me.
came out – gulp – 20 years ago. 20 years! To put that in context, filming at LAX was delayed because of a threat from the Unabomber. The Unabomber! And re-shoots were done on the day the OJ Simpson verdict was announced. And it was referenced in Aileen Wuornos’s (Monster) last words, as she was executed. That’s a long time ago. So long that the movie held two weird records: first, a record for most special effects shots that has since been pulverized a billion times, and second, for most miniature models to appear in one film. That second one really dates it for you, because CGI was so expensive and so primitive that models were still the way to go. A tiny 1\12 White House was built (about 10 feet by 5 feet) just so they could blow it up. And now because of advances in technology, this record will probably stand forever.
Smith into a movie star, but he was not the first choice or even the 10th to play the role of Steven Hiller. Smith was a last minute replacement for when Kirk Cameron dropped out. You read that right: Kirk Cameron. Bruce Willis, David Duchovny, Pauley Shore, Mel Gibson, Eddie Murphy, Charlie Sheen, and Yakov Smirnoff all passed on the role. Yakov Smirnoff, guys. Will Smith was lower on the list than Yakov Smirnoff. Although, there’s clearly a screw loose in the casting department – Kevin Spacey was passed over in favour of Bill Pullman since Spacey lacked movie-star potential, they thought.
Smith back (he demanded $50M) so the sequel will be Smithless. It’ll also be Mae Whitmanless. She played the president’s daughter in the first and her role has be recast. She’s been largely silent about being replaced but both fans and Mae’s friend Anna Kendrick have been outspoken about her perhaps not being “conventionally pretty” enough for the part. Perhaps she could call up Kevin Spacey for some consolation pie? Or better yet, Susan Sarandon, who was offered a substantial part but turned it down, having found the script to be “incomprehensible.”
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