Cleanin’ Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters by Claire Bueno – Review

By Roger Crow

As a huge fan of Ivan Reitman’s 1984 blockbuster Ghostbusters, I was amazed I’d never seen the 2019 documentary about the making of said movie. However, this lavish book version is a must for fans, though it could have done with a little editing.

Vast swathes of interviews are added in blocks of text with not enough breaks within the verbatim quotes. But full marks to the team who went the extra mile getting those quotes from the likes of Dan Akyroyd and 55 other major contributors.

Is it the best book you’ll ever read about the movie which spawned several sequels, including last year’s ho-hum Frozen Empire? Probably not, but there are fine nuggets of trivia here for followers of the 41-year-old classic, and no doubt a worthy companion piece to the doc itself, which I must get round to watching one day.

“Worthy anecdotes”

Just make sure you don’t drop the hardback edition on your foot as it’s such a weighty tome at 577 pages.

Among the highpoints are interviews with the likes of former Star Wars genius Richard Edlund, whose memories of creating some of the most memorable visual effects of 1984 are a must for film geeks (like me). Those effects looked amazing on the big screen back in the day, and still look pretty good today in a era where most VFX are achieved with CGI. There’s also a contribution from Sigourney Weaver, whose recent turn in a West End run of The Tempest was one of the highlights of the festive season. Plus, worthy anecdotes from Jason Reitman, son of original helmer Ivan, who did a terrific job with his own movie a few years ago, (the tear-jerking) Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

And though it’s only a small niggle, the tome was crying out for a few colour, glossy photos featuring stills from the film. It may have been too expensive for the book of course, but a shame to spend so much time, energy and research and not give the finished book the high quality finish it deserved. In fact more illustrations and photos in general would be a huge improvement, but don’t let that put you off. This is still a great investment regardless.

‘Cleanin’ Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters’ by Claire Bueno is available here