TheRetroCritic

It's a shame that Bill Murray was ignored at the Oscars for his performance in St. Vincent , the 2014 film about an ageing, grumpy, chain-smoking slob who becomes the unlikely babysitter of his new neighbour's young son. While on paper it may sound like just another Gran Torino , that movie was much less clever and well acted than this comedy which doesn't sugar-coat anything but still manages to have some genuinely funny but also touching moments. As we see Vietnam war veteran Vincent (Murray), change from a moody, down-and-out alcoholic to a "Saint" of sorts, in the eyes of young Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher) at least, nothing is forced or random and the tearjerker ending is earned. As we learn more and more about Vincent's troubled past, we understand his daily frustrations better and sympathise with him, even when he's being unreasonable or rude. As for his neighbour Maggie Bronstein (Melissa McCarthy), the film paints her as a bit of a deadbeat mothe

Released in 1988 and directed by Richard Donner, Scrooged was a modern retelling of Dickens' classic story  A Christmas Carol with Bill Murray as a particularly grouchy TV producer who is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. This marked a mini-comeback for Bill Murray after The Razor's Edge failed to make a dent at the box-office and despite Scrooged not sitting well with the likes of Roger Ebert, it's enjoyed something of a cult status since its release. This was certainly not the Scrooge re-imagining anyone was expecting as it's far stranger and more mean-spirited than you'd think, which might explain some reviewers' reservations. The tone throughout yo-yos between creepy and goofy so when the inevitable uplifting climax happens, you might find yourself too weirded out to really buy it. Perhaps part of the problem is that Murray sells his character's meanness too well so his 360 switch to "happy mode" needed more work to be convincin

Here's the video version of my Quick Change review.

In this review, I debate whether Ghostbusters II is as good as the original classic. Doesn't that sound nice?

As the internet finally recovers from all the silliness that surrounded the release of this Ghostbusters remake, we can now actually watch the film and talk about it like sober adults. I should point out that the real problems skeptics had with this movie was not the cast but the idea of another by-numbers remake nowhere near as good as the original films in the vein of Total Recall or RoboCop . And with the mostly unappealing trailers we got prior to the new movie's release, this was frankly a fair concern. Luckily, the film itself is far better than the awful marketing for it suggested but, on the other hand, it's still an inferior by-numbers remake that's not as good as the originals, which is why most reviews for it are so up and down. The cast, I can confirm, is likeable and does a decent job throughout. Melissa McCarthy is not the one-joke Chris Farley wannabe she tends to be in a lot of other movies instead taking on the Ray role with a slightly squeakier voi

There's the Bill Murray films everyone knows and then there's Quick Change , a comedy from 1990 co-directed by and starring the actor as a bank robber trying to get to the airport with his girlfriend and brother only to find that New York is not the easiest place to manoeuvre through. The film was critically lauded upon its release but it wasn't a big box-office hit so people tend to forget about it entirely. Which is a shame since this is probably one of Bill Murray's very best performances and movies. We first meet him dressed up like a clown holding a bunch of balloons as he enters a bank and holds a group of people hostage at gunpoint. After robbing the place, he escapes and reunites with his partners in crime as they set off with the loot towards the airport. Unfortunately for Grimm (Murray), Phyllis (Geena Davis) and Loomis (Randy Quaid) they keep getting delayed in increasingly frustrating ways whether it's Phil Hartman confusing them for burglars, gett

Review of the original Ghostbusters .

I talk about the original Ghostbusters after checking out the re-release. Boo!

Disney continues its merciless rampage of adapting every single one of its classic animated films into live-action remakes and, this time, it's The Jungle Book 's turn. Jon Favreau directs an all-star cast of voice actors and a young newcomer in what promises to be a CGI visual treat. Indeed, pretty much everything in this movie is CGI from the talking animals to the jungle itself so if it's "realism" you're looking for, you might want to go for the 1994 live-action retelling instead. The film follows certain key plot points from the original 1967 animation but it definitely takes a lot of liberties with both the story and its characters. Mowgli (Neel Sethi) willingly walks away from his wolf pack before wondering why he has to leave and later comes back to fight Shere Khan which leads to a very different ending. Speaking of which, the unnerving build-up to Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba) is now gone and we see the villainous tiger pretty much straight-

Ever since Rushmore , Bill Murray has starred in every single Wes Anderson film to date. Sometimes fleetingly, sometimes, like in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou , in the main role. Re-watching the latter, you really do wish that the actor tackled more roles like this one these days. The film sees a Jacques Cousteau-esque oceanographer, Steve Zissou (Murray), announce at a film festival that he's planning to seek revenge from a "Jaguar Shark" whom, he claims, ate his friend Esteban. His faithful red hat-wearing team and new recruit Ned (Owen Wilson), who may or may not be Zissou's biological son, follow him on this quest which proves to be his biggest challenge yet. The Life Aquatic is Wes Anderson at his very best as an all-star cast brings his razor-sharp script (co-written by Noah Baumbach) to life and he, with the help of stop-motion maestro Henry Selick, creates a unique visual style that's both more down-to-Earth than, say, the more obviously cartoon

George Clooney's latest film, The Monuments Men , sets out to tell the little-told true story of a group of ageing American soldiers (and a French dude) whose mission it was to recover as many precious art pieces as possible from the nazis who had stolen them from all over an occupied France. The film opens by giving us some background and Clooney's lieutenant is soon off to gather his team of all-stars including Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban and Hugh Boneville... together at last! After a promising Indiana Jones-esque first few minutes involving Cate Blanchett's cartoonish French (at least I think that's what she was going for) spy, the film's tone switches to something more akin to Stripes or the MASH TV series before occasionally dipping back into serious mode. Clooney clearly wanted to even out the film by putting in a sad, emotional moment for every jokey, light-hearted scene, Disney-style, but, after watching The Monu

After starring in a modern day version of Charles Dickens' classic tale "A Christmas Carol" in Scrooged , Bill Murray once again decided to play a grumpy dude stuck in a magical time loop where he learns a valuable lesson, becoming a better person in the process in Harold Ramis' Groundhog Day . It should have all been so tiresomely familiar and predictable and yet Groundhog Day out-shined Scrooged almost instantly as a much more original take on the whole Scrooge thing, essentially becoming the new and improved It's A Wonderful Life . The film follows Phil Connors (Murray), a cynical weatherman sent to the little town of Punxsuntawney to cover "Groundhog Day", a cute February event in which the end of winter is determined by a groundhog. Phil hates the idea of spending an entire day in that place but he finds soon enough that, not only will he be spending the whole day there due to a blizzard blocking his route, but every day after that. As it tu

Soon after the success of Lost In Translation and in between Wes Anderson projects, Bill Murray once again went down the indie route and starred in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers , an odd little movie about a guy on a mysterious quest to find an estranged son he may or may not even have. Upon seeing the film back in 2005, I was hoping for a clever mesh of laughs and quirky goings on but left the cinema feeling way more confused than expected. Yes the film was funny and Murray's deadpan deliveries did bring the occasional lol here and there but this "felt" more serious. Throughout the film there's a nostalgic, passive vibe in the air which increasingly gets more negative in tone. Murray's journey starts off fun enough but by the end you really start to feel the emotional weight of his quest that's being carried on his shoulders. It should have been so straight-forward and yet every time he meets an ex wife to try and find out whether they're the m

It's no secret that sequels never quite reach the highs of the original films they're based on. That said, some of them do have their merits. If they manage to recapture the spirit of their predecessors while introducing audiences to fresh new ideas then they have a reason to be and their existence is justified. Which brings me to Ghostbusters II , a sequel widely recognised as inferior to the first Ghostbusters . Taking place 5 years later, the Ghostbusters, it turns out, have been screwed over by the city they once saved and are now appearing at kids' birthday parties etc. I guess it didn't take too long to re-trap all those loose ghosts from the first movie... The film basically sees everyone get back together Blues Brothers -style to battle a brand new villain and re-earn the city's approval. It's a lot of fun to see these guys again and the team's chemistry is still as strong as ever. Peter MacNichol pops up as ghost painting demon Vigo's kin

If there is a prime example of how good the 80's were at making the most out of the coolest concepts then Ghostbusters is it. What if there were New York firemen but instead of stopping fires they caught... ghosts? It's a neat idea and from the offset you know you're in for a treat. A clever mix of cheesy horror movies, buddy comedy and creative 80's special effects, Ghostbusters not only introduces us to a new concept but it defines it so well, so completely that by the end you totally accept that ghost-busting could (and should) actually be a real thing. The way that concept is made three-dimensional is masterful: you've got the iconic hearse with the instantly recognisable siren, the proton packs with their unique rules (ghost traps, not crossing streams) not to mention Ray Parker Jr's immortal, catchy-as-hell theme song. Whenever those guys are driving around taking out ghosts and that music is playing, you reach a nostalgic nirvana few films manage