M: I wish they'd change the hair. Or make them both better somehow. All I see is hair. Bad hair.
M: Why is she dressed like a man?
M: This is one of the top ten romance movies? For what?
M: We should have just watched Beauty and the Beast
M: This movie sucks! It sucks! Why did we watch this movie if you knew it sucked?! You did this to us! You did it with Ghost!
M: Baby... Next time we have sex do you want me to pretend I'm Patrick Swayze in Whoopie Goldberg's body? Is that what this is about?
I sat through this movie for her. I saw it a second time because she wanted to watch something romantic. When she said that, I bit my tongue, because I love her. When she suggested Ghost, I didn't flinch. The man inside me was screaming and crying and scratching at the walls of my psyche, but I held back, because why not? She's done some pretty heroic and incredible things for me in the past. No judgment in brainstorming, after all, and it's not entirely up to me what we watch. The complex inner workings of the Modern Woman are largely unknown to me. Relationships are about compromise, and it was, before tonight, my understanding that chicks dig the Swayze.
Having said that, I was both relieved and dismayed at her response. It's good to know that she is, in fact, a human being with full sensory capacity. But if she's not going to get all weepy about the tragic death of Sam Wheat, why did we watch it? I went into the film hoping for (at the very least) a bargaining chip to be used at a later date. At this point I can't see using Ghost as leverage to get Total Recall into the mix... She's blaming me for this fucking movie. Even now, at this very moment, she's scanning the internet and saying things like:
M: "You know, you can buy Ghost on VHS at Amazon for fifty-nine cents. What a ripoff."
M: "Yes! This movie is commemorated in the top ten worst movie lines ever. 'Ditto.' Pfft."
So what can I say? The story was flimsy and requested far too much suspension of disbelief. I hated all the characters. The storyline itself confuses romance with men jumping through hoops for their partners. I hate that shit. Why does romance always have to circle around a confused, helpless woman? Who cares? I wanted that Pourto Rican dude to kill her. The inevitable 'woman in peril' hook came up far too many times to be effective, and the whole money-laundering thing they kept dragging us back to felt forced.
Again: who cares? This movie was too squeaky clean and predictable to even approach being watchable. Why didn't Sam kill either/both of those guys when he had the chance? You're telling me he wouldn't? He gives four million dollars to the salvation army so that no-one would come after the psychic? Why not have her speak with Molly and divert that whole confluence of events? What? If they both just disappeared to some Caribbean island... I'm getting mad, now, and I'm sorry if we're getting off track.
He couldn't have gotten at least some of it to his girlfriend, who's only source of income is pottery?! I hate to try forcing logic into something that's not meant to be observed practically, but that's why she was with a banker in the first place! Now she's got the mortgage on a New York city townhouse to contend with, funeral bills, even the cost of living in that city would be back-breaking after a few weeks. They clearly weren't married, so what happens with his life insurance? Money never really seems to come into these boiled-down idiotic love stories. It's immaterial when compared to the loss of a loved one, I understand that, but she didn't need to think clearly to recieve the money.
I felt Patrick Swayze was miscast in this movie as an actor. Besides that, the character was not a man. It was not a male person. They tried to make him seem more masculine by having him dislike Macbeth and act hesitantly around the notion of marriage, but that was really the only attempt at humanizing him in that way - everything else was him reacting with an over-exaggerated gasp to the plotline. Every bad movie has some side character who's only job is to push the plot along; everything they say is the next step in the story. Usually this is a roommate, or a sibling, or a best friend. It shouldn't be the male lead.
This was a ghost story. It was a story about a ghost. It wasn't a love story, or a tale of resilliance and lasting affection that supersedes space and time... It was a fucking bank caper. Who cares? It doesn't matter! Things like this happen all the time! It would have been nice to see Demi Moore do anything but cry. Or have anything come out of it that was good. The best thing that happened was Demi Moore learned that she truly was loved by Patrick Swayze, who is now dead and gone forever, so enjoy your reopened wound. You know what? If Swayze hadn't interfered, that Willy guy probably would have avoided her, come back when the house was empty, got the money, and she never would have known the difference. Instead she was menaced by a man with a knife and lead on an emotional roller coaster and came out with the ghost (pardon the bad pun) of a man nobody could ever live up to the memory of. That banker dick probably would have been exed out by whatever faceless and briefly mentioned organized crime outfit (read: "... These people are drug dealers!") he was working for anyway, because when four million dollars goes missing you don't get to keep eighty thousand. You're not getting paid off. They're not real keen on witnesses like that. When that guy goes back for his cut he winds up in a hole. Nobody's giving you money, you idiot!
I guess the underlying current of Justice is what really bothered me about this movie. Bad people go to hell, Good people go to heaven, true love prevails and crime doesn't pay. Because that's not boring and useless and oversimplified at all. Never mind the super creepy Whoopatrick touching scene. Lesbianism isn't creepy. Patrick Swayze posessing Whoopy Goldberg's body and touching on his girl is creepy. Even creepier is the way Whoopy kind of... Submittingly subjected herself to it. Yuck.
Don't watch Ghost.
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