5. Cleanin' Up The Town: Remembering Ghostbusters; movie review

CLEANING UP THE TOWN - REMEMBERING GHOSTBUSTERS
Cert TBA
96 mins
BBFC advice: TBA

Ever wanted to know how a classic movie is put together?
It took until the 4,999th review of the everyfilm challenge before I had a full grasp - thanks to Anthony and Claire Bueno's excellent Cleanin' Up The Town - Remembering Ghostbusters.
They go behind the scenes from the director, actors, writers, producers, visual effects crews, puppeteers, cameramen and many others to show how Dan Aykroyd's vision became reality.
Aykroyd combined his comedy background and family history in the spiritual world to come up with the concept for the runaway box-office success of 1984.
The process in any other film may not have been quite as fascinating but Ghostbusters was made on a tight deadline with an inexperienced team and had huge ambitions.
And yet three weeks before it was been trumpeted for release, its iconic marshmallow man scene had not even been filmed!
Director Ivan Reitman, writers and actors Aykroyd and Harold Ramis give an overview of how the movie's life began.
Meanwhile, other frontline stars such as Sigourney Weaver and Ernie Hudson tell of their introduction to the Ghostbusters family and how their parts played out.
Even more interesting are the stories of the usually unheralded background team.
They tell of how they developed Ghostbusters' famous visual effects in the pre-digital age, how New York's traffic was stopped with the help of the mayor and even how they developed the movie's famous logo.
Indeed, Anthony and Claire Bueno travelled across the United States for 12 years to interview more than 40 members of cast a crew.
The movie cleverly anchors the crew contributions with confirmations - usually from Reitman, Aykroyd and Ramis and photographic evidence to back up the anecdotes.
For anyone interested in movies, especially Ghostbusters, it is revelatory stuff.
Indeed, it made me much more interested in the processes and the fun that can be had - as long as the end product is a winner.
Ghostbusters certainly was.
Just a shame there isn't a contribution from Bill Murray.

Reasons to watch: Gives a brilliant perspective on how many people are involved in a movie
Reasons to avoid: Missing Bill Murray!

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 8.5/10

Did you know? Dan Aykroyd grew up surrounded by spiritualists. His great-grandfather, Samuel A. Aykroyd, was a noted nineteenth-century psychic investigator who conducted séances at the Aykroyd family farmhouse in eastern Ontario. 

The final word. Claire Bueno: "Because of this documentary, cast and crew have reconnected, not having seen each other for twenty years plus. To play a tiny part in this has been a real privilege." Dread Central

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