Since rediscovering Ghostbusters this summer, I have watched several other films and DVD presentations featuring Ghostbusters actors and other creative personnel for the first time. With my usual pretentious pedantry, I like to refer to these films as "the Ghostbusters cycle“, although a more accurate term might be ”SNL/Second City cycle“. Some of my observations about this body of work:

SNL: The Best of Dan Aykroyd: The screen test is amazing – you can see the promise of the great career Dan has ahead of him. It's oddly moving how the DVD begins with the Blues Brothers performing ”I Don't Know“ and ends with the skit where Dan plays a mechanic telling his daughter, Gilda Radner, a bedtime story.

SNL: The Best of John Belushi: ”Samurai Delicatessen“ lives up to its reputation as one of the best SNL skits of all time. It's amazingly appropriate that Aykroyd plays McCoy in the ”Star Trek“ sketch, given that Ray arguably fills McCoy's role (the ”heart“) in the interpersonal dynamic of the Ghostbusters. Has any TV show ever done anything that has acquired a more powerfully ironic retrospective significance than ”Don't Look Back in Anger"?

Animal House: Perhaps the most memorable section of this film for me as a GB fan is the sequence where Bluto, D-Day and Flounder bring the horse into the Dean's office, for two reasons. First, the moment when Belushi dances up the steps of the building in time with Elmer Bernstein's music, which hadn't been written yet – an amazing demonstration of Belushi's sense of rhythm and Bernstein's musical genius. Second, the fact that the three students' terror-struck departure from the building is the obvious precursor of the GBs' exit from the NYPL (both movies being co-written by Harold Ramis). And there's an alternate universe somewhere where two of the actors are the same…

1941: Despite some funny moments provided by that fabulous cast, this film is a failure for me, primarily because the characters never actually accomplish anything other than property damage. Most interesting scenes in the context of the “GB cycle”: Sergeant Tree referring to the Germans moving across Europe “like a slime”; Tree and Kelso saluting each other (their only moment of interaction in the movie).

Meatballs: This movie begins the typecasting of Bill Murray as a humorously unlikeable person who demonstrates his innate decency by the end of the film. IMHO, few of Murray's movies accomplish this development as successfully as GB1. In Meatballs, for example, Murray's treatment of his fellow camp counselor verges on sexual assault, and there is no clear reason why she decides to fall in love with him. The only rational reason why these scenes might have been played this way is to make sure Murray's friendship with Chris Makepeace's character doesn't make the audience think he's a pedophile.

The Blues Brothers: Although immensely likeable and memorable, this film is far from perfect. The opening and closing sections are wonderful, and the ending is nearly as strong as that of GB1, but parts of the middle sag. My mother pointed out to me the moment when Elwood says, “Who you gonna call, Jake?”

Caddyshack: Best moments: Murray's “Dalai Lama” speech; the love scene with Chevy Chase. Murray's famous “in the hole” speech, while good, is not really nearly as funny as several of his lines in GB1.

Stripes: The most direct forerunner of GB, this film feels very much like a rough draft for its successor. The early scenes share the spirit of GB more fully than any other film I have seen (even GB2!), due largely to the rapport between Murray and Ramis.

In my opinion Stripes loses its way when Murray's character allows Ramis to step forward and admit going AWOL without stepping forward himself. Although this leads to the excellent scene where Warren Oates beats Murray up, nothing in the rest of the film convinces us that Murray has redeemed himself for this action. This may be because the climactic section of the film (the rescue mission into Czechoslovakia) lacks the genuine suspense and heart that the climax of GB1 so miraculously balances with the humor. As a viewer, I am never convinced that John, Russell and their friends are in real danger. Therefore, when Oates salutes Murray at the end, I don't feel like Murray's character deserves it. When Dana allows Peter to kiss her at the end of GB1, Peter deserves it. (Also, although P.J. Soles and Sean Young may have delivered fine performances in other vehicles, many of their line readings in Stripes make Natalie Portman sound like Meryl Streep.)

Trading Places: Although less famous than some other movies in the “cycle”, this film is actually one of the best to feature a star of GB. It is certainly far more fully realized than The Blues Brothers (sharing the same co-star and director). Its thematic content is richer than that of most other films on this list: the film is a full-fledged, politically incorrect indictment of racism. I especially like the romance; although Aykroyd's character doesn't really deserve for Jamie Lee Curtis to fall in love with him, this feels like a natural consequence of the blind, unconditional nature of love rather than a scripting convenience.

Eddie Murphy's performance reminded me of how much I loved him on SNL as a very young child (even before I first saw Ghostbusters); the scene where he tells the cops about his Vietnam experiences is especially priceless. It's interesting how the ghost of Vietnam seems to hover over several of the films on this list: Animal House (Wormer's threat to make the Deltas draft-eligible), Caddyshack (much of Carl's dialogue), Stripes (the “10 and 1” line). No wonder GB fandom assumes Winston must have served in Southeast Asia…

To be continued with the post-GB films.

I probably should have put a spoiler warning on my previous post. Well, consider yourselves warned now.

Driving Miss Daisy: A masterpiece that I'm embarrassed to admit I would never have discovered if it weren't for my renewed interest in GB. With most of the films on this list I was primarily interested in the GB talents involved and was waiting for their scenes, but in this film it was Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy who had me riveted. Aykroyd's performance, while excellent, was arguably less Oscar-nomination-worthy than that in GB 1; unfortunately the Academy seldom gives comedy acting enough credit. Still, the subtlety of Dan's reaction in the film's last scene as he realizes his mother recognizes Hoke justifies his nomination.

Quick Change: Unlike the other movies in this group, I saw this one on broadcast television rather than DVD. The problem with that wasn't so much the censorship of profanity (although it was amusing that the actors' mouths were actually blurred when they swore, presumably for fear that children would read their lips) as the damage done to the movie's momentum by the commercial breaks. Anyway, this is a delightful, above-average Bill Murray movie with an especially satisfying twisty ending that allows both protagonist and antagonist to win. It also comes closer to echoing the close emotional bonds among the central characters of Ghostbusters than most of the films on this list; it's especially noteworthy how neither Murray's nor Geena Davis' character even mentions the possibility of leaving Randy Quaid behind when he's injured.

Groundhog Day: This classic comedy has been named a “Great Movie” by Roger Ebert. Although superb, it did not quite live up to its hype for me (a frequent problem for me with movies I haven't seen – I was almost unable to enjoy Casablanca for the same reason). I was dissatisfied with the ending because I wasn't sure it was clear enough that Phil breaks the cycle by reaching some kind of level of enlightenment rather than by getting Rita to fall in love with him. I was very glad, however, that it was made clear that Phil and Rita hadn't made love – the ending would have been even less satisfying otherwise. Nonetheless, this is an extremely impressive film, and far more somber than I had expected, especially in the sequence of Phil's repeated suicide attempts.

Coneheads: An unusually sentimental film for the “cycle”, Coneheads fails to live up to the films featuring Aykroyd's other two most famous characters (Elwood and Ray). Jane Curtin's performance struck me as superior to Aykroyd's. Dan seems to have concentrated on making his character alien and wacky. Jane, on the other hand, apparently understood that a movie demanded a greater humanity and emotional reality from her character than she possessed on SNL, and she pulled this off beautifully without sacrificing the humor and wackiness. If one can use the word “radiant” for a guy, Chris Farley was thus as Connie's teenage love interest, and pulled off playing a character younger than himself far better than his idol Belushi did in Animal House.

Celtic Pride: In which Aykroyd proves that he's the kind of actor who can deliver an excellent performance even in a really, really bad film.

Grosse Point Blank: While John Cusak and Dan Aykroyd are both excellent in this movie, it's not really to my taste. Films enter dangerous territory when they pit “good murderers” against “evil murderers”.

Lost in Translation: I saw both this film and Mystic River on the big screen in 2003, and at that time Murray's performance narrowly squeaked past Sean Penn's in the latter film in my estimation. When I saw Lost in Translation on DVD, I again saw Mystic River around the same time, and this time I preferred Penn's performance. Perhaps the small screen of my DVD player did not sufficiently display the subtleties on Murray's face?

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou: I have seen an Internet review of this film that warns viewers not to "expect Ghostbusters III". But in fact The Life Aquatic feels to me very much like GB3 if Sheila Paulson or some other writer of angst-ridden fan fiction were to write it. Although the personalities behind Ghostbusters have gone on to other projects which I have not yet seen (Broken Flowers, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, etc.), The Life Aquatic feels to me like the culmination of the “cycle” of films that began with Animal House. If these disparate films share any common theme, it is the unexpected and powerful connections that can be forged between people, and The Life Aquatic develops this theme to a powerful and bittersweet conclusion.

Cool read, I like your cycle.

I know what this is trying to say, and I'm sure it's interesting.

But that is far too many words

Thanks, Sayingkingkilla. And I agree with you, LordVego. Sorry…