Pop Culture Blind Spot: Ghost

In honor of it being October and all, I figured my Pop Culture Blind Spot should be Halloween appropriate, hence, Ghost… Get it? This is the movie where they’re all dressed like this, right?

JK, I’m not that dumb.

I somehow missed out on a bunch of hit 80s/early 90s movies, as evidenced from my last post about Dirty Dancing (am I secretly on a Patrick Swayze binge? Maybe). But Ghost was also re-brought to my attention recently after listening to Aisha Tyler’s Girl on Guy podcast from May, when she interviews America’s favorite philandering fictional president, Fitzgerald Grant, aka Tony Goldwyn. If you have 2 hours to spare and are a Scandal/Fitz fan, you should probs listen to this (interview is here!). So they obviously discussed his role in Ghost, and I remembered that I haven’t actually seen the movie. Weirdly enough, my first real introduction was in the form of the musical adaptation during the national tour last year.

Prior to seeing the musical, I knew this about Ghost: Patrick Swayze is a ghost who maybe was dating Demi Moore and comes back to haunt her? Fitz from Scandal is the bad guy and Whoopi has a miscellaneous part.

And although I saw the musical recently, my knowledge is scant, Whoopi is a psychic and someone gets shot? Lit’rally saw it a year ago but don’t really remember what happened. I also figured the musical is a bit different from the OG movie.

So here we go – first time watching Ghost for real real – my body is ready for you young Fitz. (It’s on Netflix Instant if you want to follow along!)

Title credits are happening as the camera pans over a dark and dusty attic. It’s already more freaky sounding than I thought? It’s like the precursor to the Are You Afraid of the Dark? intro.

how

:03 TONY GODWYN ABS MAN HAS NOT CHANGED ALSo that was a typo. I somehow skipped the ‘L’ in Goldwyn but that’s gonna stay that way moving forward.

:05 The office office looks like Sterling Cooper in the 1980s. Patrick Swayze is Jon Hamm and Tony Godwyn is Pete Campbell. Except way hotter

:07 For some reason, they’re lifting an angel up into their apartment (FORESHADOWING??)

Forgot Demi’s name is Molly, and suddenly remembered the Molly, You in Danger Girl GIF. V excited about seeing its origin.

:10 Sam (PSwayze) is looking a little concerned, and tells Molly, “Whenever anything good in my life happens, I’m just afraid I’m gonna lose it.” More foreshadowing?!

:12 Even for 1990 that record player looks super futuristic.
Ah yes, the pottery scene. I get why people think this is sexy but I’m just thinking how messy this is going to be and what a pain it’s going to be to clean up.

Wait they went from the pottery tutorial straight to having sex in the middle of their living room! But their hands are clean!!

:15 LOL at these old DOS screens Sam and Carl (T Godwyn) are using at work. How did we ever get stuff done on those things? Also, why type of company is this? A run-of-the-mill financial firm? I think I missed something.

Knowing Godwyn is the villain is totally changing how I’m watching him in this movie, because I’m looking for hints to his evilness now (this is along the same lines of why I hate spoilers). Per his interview with Aisha Tyler, Tony was recalling how during his audition, he was playing the Carl role as a sympathetic nice guy, but the director didn’t want him to do that, insisting that the viewers need to know he’s evil. But Tony argued, “‘I’m not doing that. You have to invest the audience in this character and make them hopefully fall in love with them and then the betrayal will be that much worse. You want to make them believe that I’m their (Molly & Sam’s) friend’. So I stuck to my guns and (director) Jerry was like, ‘You were right.'”

:19 Sam: “I say I love you all the time”, Molly: “No, you say Ditto.”

After seeing Macbeth on Broadway (Sam fell asleep), they walk home and talk about getting married when a guy appears from the shadows and attempts to rob Sam at gunpoint. Sam tries to retaliate and the mugger ends up shooting and subsequently killing him.

OK BUT ALSO why were you guys walking on a street with no street lights and at a leisurely pace late at night what did you think was gonna happen also how is it possible there’s no one out IT’S THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS.

:21 The blood looks so fake? There’s also a lot of it, but they take Sam to the hospital anyways.
:25 This old guy shows up to the hospital like hes been trolling the place forever and said of a guy doctors are attending to in the ER, ‘He’s not gonna make it. I’ve seen it a million times.’ What is the quality of this hospital?

Omg the special effects are like the magic school bus level when someone goes through Sam

:29 Molly & Sam’s cat just screamed and ran away after looking into Ghost Sam’s eyes. Nine lives and all, amirite?

:31 The mugger sneaks into Molly and Sam’s apartment looking for something, but let’s get down to it – why is there is so much crime in NY rn?

Molly comes back in and he sneakily watches her change her clothes. What a perv. GS manages to leverage the cat to jump and scratch the mugger, and he escapes because, he ain’t messin with no cat.

Molly hears noises (the mugger leaving her gd apartment) and says, “Is somebody there? Hello” YES SOMEONE’S THERE LOCK YOUR DOORS THERE IS CRIME

Well there’s one pro to being a ghost: free subway rides.

:35 This dude just attacks Ghost Sam because it’s “his train”??? Get a grip. Can’t a ghost just ride the train freely?

:38 Ghost Sam spots what I assume is Whoopi’s storefront as “Spiritual Advisor” who contacts the “dearly departed”. Is this the same thing as Long Island Medium?

This entire scene looks like a set up to steal customer Mrs. Santiago’s money. I mean look at Oda Mae’s outfit
~~Also shouldn’t she be feeling the presence of Ghost Sam in the room?~~ I wrote this script, it’s fine.

:44 “Are you white? It’s a white guy!” Oda Mae, getting to the bottom of things.

:47 Ghost Sam sings obnoxious diddies as a way to get Oda Mae to visit Molly so he can talk through her, including I’m Henry The Eighth I Am and 99 Bottles of Beer. Yup, he’s definitely white.

To be fair, both Molly & Oda Mae have vaild points in this – Molly doesn’t want to believe her dead boyfriend is talking through a rando “spiritual advisor”, while Oda Mae just wants to get this white guy out of her head.

:53 MOLLY – YOU IN DANGER, GIRL! I’M DYING THIS SCENE IS AMAZING I GET WHY WHOOPI WON AN OSCAR

Guys, Tony Goldwyn is SO HOT in this movie I cannot. But also, he hired this dude to steal Sam’s wallet but ended up murdering him? All for $80,000? Hope it was worth it. Also how did Carl even get in contact with Willie Lopez?? Craigslist on the DOS?

1:06 Molly finds the penny in a jar Sam found the first day they were tearing down the apartment and smashes it to bits. RIP Sam. RIP lucky singular penny in a jar.

1:08 For selfish reasons, I would like to see Tony Godwyn in a sex scene right now, but preferably not with Molly because that would be horrible.

look at that face. look at that chest.

AS SOON AS I STOPPED TYPING THAT Carl purposefully spills HOT coffee on his shirt as an excuse to take it off and flaunt himself in front of Molly I’m dead. *Not as dead as Ghost Sam I asked for it and it started happening and I’m not okay with it. I just – what if Kerry Washington showed up and there was an Olitz scene I’d be fine with that. I’ve been watching too much Scandal.

1:12 Sam’s back on the train and sticking his head through the train in a hilarious fashion

Train Ghost is teaching him how to move objects.

“YOU AIN’T GOT A BODY NO MORE, SON” – Train Ghost, channeling Alexander Hamilton in Meet Me Inside

1:20 All the ‘spooks’ are in Oda Mae’s office because they somehow heard she can actually channel the dead. Some ghost named Orlando takes over Oda Mae’s body and Whoopi is killing it as this 50ish year old black guy. It’s legit as if this dude took over her body, it’s fantastic.

1:23 Ode Mae’s “I have a formal meeting at the bank to pass as someone who looks like they normally go to these meetings” outfit is *on fleek*

Ghost Sam is instructing Oda Mae to get money out of some account before Carl can get to it and it requires him talking through her again and I would watch a spin off this if I could

1:30 Ghost Sam forces Oda Mae to give the $4 mil to some nuns, prompting her to say the second best quote in the movie:

Oda Mae Brown: I know you don’t think I’m giving this 4 million dollars to a bunch of nuns!
Sam: Think of it this way, you’ll go to Heaven.
Oda Mae Brown: I don’t want to go to Heaven, I want to go to the bank and cash a GODDAMN CHECK!

Carl checks on his account that he’s planning on swindling money from and he freaks out bc it’s not there and he’s literally sweating trying to find out where the money went

1:35 HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Carl is BUGGIN because Ghost Sam is haunting him, so he goes to Molly’s apartment, covered in sweat.

Molly Jensen: Carl, are you all right?
Carl Bruner: It’s just my stomach! Do you have anything like Pepto Bismol or something like that?
Sam Wheat: Cyanide!

Thanks to Train Ghost, Ghost Sam has mastered the art of touch animate objects, including people, so he pokes around at Carl, who looks like he could vom at any second. GS continues to punch Carl and even though I’ve never seen Roadhouse, I imagine it’s akin to this. Maybe that will be my next PCBS (Pop Culture Blind Spot), seeing as how I’m apparently on a Swayze streak.

1:39 Arsenio Hall cameo!
“Don’t try to adjust your television, I’m black!” There’s a lot of race talk in this movie, which is interesting. I didn’t think that would be a recurring theme in Ghost.

1:41 Willie and Carl come looking for Oda Mae but she manages to escape. Willie on the other hand can’t escape Ghost Sam. He makes the books and art on the wallpapered walls come down towards Willie and they end up in the bathroom, where GS leaves Willie a sweet message:

And Willie decides to shoot at the mirror, because that will do the trick. Oh and Willie is dead. In a horrific accident that includes four vehicles, one of which runs him over. He becomes a ghost and sees Ghost Sam for the first time. All of a sudden what sounds like zombies are coming for Willie, then I realize he’s probs being taken off to hang with the Dev.

1:46 Oda Mae is still trying to get Molly to believe Ghost Sam is speaking to her, so he manages to “levitate” a penny (aka pick it up with his finger and hand it to her), but still, the 1990s special effects still make me laugh.

1:49 Oda Mae lets Sam take over her body a la Orlando from earlier and they cut it so Demi’s dancing with PSwayze to Unchained Melody and I might be crying a little

Ugh Cock Block Carl comes in during this tender moment, and Molly and Oda start running away from him, because he wants the check from Oda Mae, which as you remember, is being spent by those nuns from the street.

Yo Carl calm da fuq down, why do you have a gun and why are you trying to shoot at a ghost you can’t see??

For some reason, there’s still a lot of construction going on in their building, and their chase leads Ghost Sam and Carl to a part of the place where there is a hanging rope with a giant metal hook at the end, which Carl swings into NOTHING because he can’t see Ghost Sam, but it rebounds a second time, making glass from the window fall down onto Carl and impale him in the gut. Carl basically inflicted this upon himself.

You know, Ghost isn’t really about the supernatural, it’s a cautionary tale about greed.™ Life Lessons with Cookies + Sangria.

As a surprise to no one, Carl dies and goes to be Willie’s pal with the Dev in Hell. The foley artists probably had a blast making these groaning sounds the zombies/dementors make when taking someone away.

1:58 Ghost Sam checks in on Oda Mae and Molly, and surprise, surprise, Molls can actually see and hear him – because he’s about to go into the light. They have a super awkward “kiss” before he goes away for good, and legit his last words to her are, “See ya.”

And with that I say, it’s been quite a ride, P Swayze & Tony Godwyn. until next time.