As for the rest of the romance in the film, it is still interesting in concept but I feel like the acting is heavy-handed and doesn’t translate well to our big television in this BD version. I’ll probably going to get a lot of flack for this statement. The upside to having the technology of a big screen in your home is that you can watch movies as you’d never expect to see them in your own home which I still think is pretty cool. The bad part is that it seems to amplify sections of films that might otherwise pass muster. And I do think that’s the case with Ghost.
Don’t start tossing those rotten tomatoes at me just yet because I don’t hate the movie and there was some of it that I liked quite a lot. The best part of watching Ghost again is Whoopi Goldberg. I know Ms. Goldberg often gets the raspberry for some of the roles she’s done. But I think that she shines when portraying over the top characters, no matter how off the wall they might seem. As Oda Mae Brown, the fraudulent clairvoyant, Whoopi is a breath of fresh air on top of being the plot’s comedic turn of the screw. The real twist is not her fakery, but the fact that once the door of communication is opened between Oda Mae and the ghostly Sam, she is constantly haunted by spirits wanting to get messages to the loved ones they’ve left behind. I’ll bet that there were plenty of clips to make up a great gag reel for inclusion into the special features section of the BD.
There is a special features section on both the DVD and BD versions of Ghost and they are identical in both formats. Nothing too out of the ordinary, they include running commentary by director Jerry Zucker (Airplane!, My Best Friend's Wedding) and writer Bruce Joel Rubin (My Life, The Last Mimzy), a High Definition version of the theatrical trailer, and a photo gallery. There are three short documentaries as well. Ghost Stories: the Making of a Classic has interviews with all the major players involved in the movie. For Inside the Paranormal there are clips of various mediums, spiritualists, and psychics talking about their craft. And Alchemy of a Love Story, as the title suggests, is about the magic needed to bring such a tale to life. All nice little extras that fit well into both formats.
But BDs have the storage capabilities for so much more material than standard discs do, so I’m always a bit disappointed when all that available space isn’t used. Working with a talented comedienne like Whoopi must have generated takes that had to be re-shot due to the actors flubbing their lines. Those gags are the type of thing that I always enjoy watching along with deleted scenes that didn’t make the final cut. These throwaway materials must be archived somewhere and it’s a damn shame that they aren’t put to better use.
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