Ghost

Certain movies will just always be hard to write a review for. You can give your opinion and say what you enjoyed or didn't enjoy but I find myself hesitating in certain aspects just because a classic must be left some space to be a classic. Ghost as far as I'm concerned will forever be a romantic classic. It's sheer brilliance is it's twists, it is incredibly, deeply, romantic and at the same time terrifying, and has an underlying story that is never fully explored. It's got action, mystery, horror, and at the heart is the pure, simplistic romance of it all.

The story is about an investment banker played by Patrick Swayze and his girlfriend, played by Demi Moore. Sam and Molly are deeply in love, planning for the future and happier in their lives than ever before. Until Sam discovers laundered money in investment accounts. He is robbed and subsequently murdered for his password to the computer in order to empty the laundered money from the accounts. But Sam doesn't go the other side. He is kept on earth in spirit form because of his unfinished business both with Molly and to discover his murderer. He must learn the ropes of being a ghost and nobody else can hear him until he runs into a so called psychic who scams people into believing she can contact their dearly departed. However it turns out, Oda Mae Brown played in her academy award winning role by Whoopie Goldberg can actually hear Sam. Together the unlikely team must help each other uncover the horrible murder plot and save Molly.

Swayze and Moore make an incredible couple..hot on screen. Their careers have perhaps slipped since then one might say but this was them at their best. Swayze was indeed at the top of his game coming out of Dirty Dancing and Roadhouse and Moore was young and a new hot commodity which made them undeniably perfect together. Their roles fit them perfectly. Whoopie Goldberg was hilarious and believable as Oda Mae and her character was such an integral part of the film. Tony Goldwyn plays a great villain as the betrayer of the film. In a short time director Jerry Zucker establishes a best friendship between Goldwyn and Swayze, a deeply loving relationship between Swayze and Moore, and a plot line that goes far beneath the movie. Obviously Goldwyn's character is being used by a much higher up criminal to launder money although we never see him. Is he being blackmailed? Paid off? Something held over his head? Maybe he's not the bad guy but rather forced to commit these acts? It's a big job because we also know Willie Lopez played by Rick Aviles is involved in this as well. And deeper than that we have the theology in the film. The light brings good people to the afterlife and the dark shadowy beings torture the evil.

This film is one of a few that is endlessly watchable meaning you can sit down any time and watch it through over and over and over again which is exactly what makes it a classic. It has it's holes, it has to with a plot like that. And it has it's disturbing moments, a gratituous death scene, a make out scene which although features Swayze and Moore is actually Demi and Whoopi...you have to see it to understand it. Also if Sam Wheat must learn how to physically touch things in his ghost form...how does he sit, walk, etc before he learns that? And his first experience with walking through a door happens days after his death. I'm sure sometime between then and that point he would have had to have walked through something. Perhaps those are minor points but they are things that will come up especially if you have seen it as many times as I have.

The film is a must see and if you haven't seen it, go watch it right now!! Because it's one of those staples of films that everyone must know about. Ghost is amazing!! 9/10

Happy Anniversary to my beautiful Sam...we watched Ghost together last night.

The imaginative but well-conceived idea of dishing up a romance upon lovers communicating spiritually owing to one of them is dead, was first filmed by Steven Spielberg 8 months before the Ghost's silver screen release. Spielberg's movie Always(1989) had classy use of visuals fulfilling the needs of viewers with mystery-based expectations. Yet, Always lacked the sense of essential romance concept, despite having the same plot and even the same storyline in Ghost. Originally the idea has been created by Chandler Sprague and David Boehm.

However, Ghost accomplished of what "Always" tried and failed to accomplish. Thanks to the great acting trio of Patrick Swayze + Demi Moore + Whoopi Goldberg, for together they registered indelible moments into Ghost. It is scraped in our memory how in time Molly and Sam happen to keep their thoughts off each others' feelings, and that taught us: "Love begins with emotions, ends with thoughts". On this account they never called off their faith on believing that they will keep an enduring love affair. These indelible scenes in Ghost are conceptually cut where the editing was so impressive that instead of trying to make the story more plausible, it empowered the devotion of lovers onto their relation. The scene which Sam's ghost drew upon Oda Mae's body to break the longing with Molly by kissing her is an imperishable cinematic instant.

I was in love with someone, and it was February,2005; we were both watching the Ghost on TV, both talking on the phone. Then that scene came upon(Sam's ghost kissing Molly in Oda Mae's body), I felt lost deep in my heart seeking the girl I'm talking on the phone. I heard she was crying and sobbing, and keep saying to me: "I will never forget the first time you kissed me and I don't need to be alive to recall this" Ghost is one timeless romantic masterpiece that had its moments. For me the kissing scene was the best kiss in movies of all time. MTV had honoured this kiss as well, several years after the release of the movie, as the best kiss in '90s. Superimposing that, the scenes where Oda Mae Brown convinces Molly that Sam's ghost is around her and then Molly reasons with police that Oda Mae knows what nobody is able to know but Sam and herself only, are the scenes that deliver the magic beyond eyes and beyond ears.

To watch Ghost is in the to do list of what to do when you're on a date.

Ghost is the latest of a dozen or so films that I have come to appreciate much more over time. I had seen it a few times in the '90s and liked it, but not on the level of yesterday's viewing. Every film is a world unto itself, and generally speaking, the more interesting the world, the better the film. I like the world of Ghost. I like the treatment of the supernatural. The denial thereof and other character annoyances can be rationalized away quite satisfactorily. I would, however, prefer a more restrained Whoopi Goldberg, who is a little out of control for the sake of humor. It is something of a comedy after all.

The special effects hold up very well. Maurice Jarre's score hits the mark (no surprise there). Jerry Zucker directs very competently. Bruce Joel Rubin won the Oscar for his marvelous original screenplay. Demi Moore is a must for Molly. Likewise for Patrick Swayze as Sam. His regrettable and untimely death adds to the mystique.

Only a 6.9 on this site, but nothing talks like money with over a half-billion dollars worldwide. If you last saw Ghost many years ago and thought it good, not great, I suggest you rewatch it. It quite touched me, and may do you as well.

"Ghost" isn't very subtle, and similar themes have been done elsewhere with more depth, but I say just relax and enjoy. The best reason is of course, Whoopi Goldberg, who is hilarious and as always, very good. As for the story and the characters' reactions not being plausible, you really need to have a little imagination when you watch movies! I give any movie credit for not being bad, since there are so many dreary movies out there, and Ghost is not bad.

If nothing else the popularity of the film Ghost guaranteed a revival of that great love song Unchained Melody. It's always a pleasure when good music is heard on the airways and we have Ghost to thank for this little treasure making a comeback.

Ghost also provided Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore with a couple of career roles as a typical yuppie couple settling in Tribeca when tragedy strikes one of them. But as it turns out, that's only the beginning of the story.

If you were to describe Ghost I guess the best way you could describe it would be a drama/fantasy with some humorous moments, mostly as a result of the casting of Whoopi Goldberg as a fake psychic. But she comes into the story in the middle of the film. Patrick and Demi, those brat pack alumni are now eager young urban professionals, Demi makes and sells her own pottery and Patrick works in a bank, in the high end area of one, he's not just a teller. When we meet them they are starting to fix up their Tribeca loft with one of Swayze's co-workers, Tony Goldwyn.

But one fateful night after seeing a performance of MacBeth, Swayze is killed as a result of a street mugging. But was it just that, a simple robbery? Not by a longshot and Swayze who was killed before his time is angry enough to stay on Earth and find out what really happened.

Of course he needs an ally and that's where Whoopi comes in. Turns out that there might be a little truth in her advertising as a spiritualist and consultant to the dead. Good enough for Whoopi to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, the other Oscar Ghost won was for original screenplay.

But you won't forget Patrick and Demi as a pair of literal starcrossed lovers. You also know that the universal fates will reunite them because people who care for each other as much as they did aren't destined to stay apart.

I do so love Unchained Melody. Introduced originally by blues singer Al Hibbler in the Fifties it got a revival a decade later by the Righteous Brothers. Tony Bennett also recorded a fine version and after his death a previously unreleased version of it was put out by Bing Crosby's estate. It's a perfect song for the theme for Swayze and Moore.

One of the best love stories of the last decade of the last century, despite the tragedy that takes place, Ghost is one feel good motion picture.