Film | KTP

Night Trap (1992)

Posted on June 28, 2024 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Somehow, you set the wheels in motion, now haunts our memories…”

Although I couldn’t verbalize it at the time, I felt a sense of confusion and betrayal as I left the shopping mall multiplex on a summer afternoon with my father in 1989– my only lasting memory of the day. We had just seen Ghostbusters II (1989).

Ghostbusters II is the first movie sequel I remember anticipating. Ghostbusters (1984) was the very first movie we watched as a family– my father, my mother and me– after my dad brought home our brand new, front loading VCR. Even if the VCR was mostly bought to watch pornography in a comfortable setting, he was also excited to watch big Hollywood blockbusters months before they hit HBO. He was a movie guy.

Forgiving Your Father and “Return of the Jedi” (1983)

Posted on August 12, 2017 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside. It’s hard, but it’s harder to ignore it.”

Re-watching Return of the Jedi (1983) as an adult makes the scene where Luke burns the body of his father stand out as the true climax of the original trilogy- the culmination of Luke’s journey. While it may seem tragic that sister Leia wasn’t there beside him, this was something Luke had to do alone. After all, it was only Luke who saw the human face of his father and bore witness to his humanity- only Luke would have been able to understand his father. Luke delivering his father’s funeral was his final rite of passage into manhood, and the true return of the Jedi.

Every man will have to bury his father, but will every man have understood his father when the time comes? The evolution of a man’s relationship with his father mirrors Luke’s struggle with Darth Vader throughout the course of the Star Wars saga- from not truly knowing him through the inevitable conflict of a young man’s transition to adulthood. If you’re lucky you’ll have a moment where the pieces come together and you see your father as a part of yourself- but not everyone gets there… and, unlike a Hollywood movie, the story may end first.

Heartbreak and “Big” (1988)

Posted on September 4, 2016 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Who wants honey? As long as there’s some money. Who wants that honey?”

In a flash Amy was able to transform our hetero-normative experience back into something she was more comfortable with, her own safe space of gender neutrality, with the magic words: “get this shit off me.” Tossing her the tissue box, I chastised her for breaking the narrative, something usually reserved for slightly longer than fifteen seconds after sex. Amy may have rolled her eyes, but the fact of the matter remains: sex is the narrative of attraction.

Authenticity and “The Cable Guy” (1996)

Posted on June 9, 2016 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“I’d rather be anywhere, doing anything…”

There was a gleam in her eye when Ghostbusters (2016) came up in the group’s discussion. She corrected the speaker, a male, who didn’t make an elaborate point to reference the movie’s notorious gender component- “the new Ghostbusters” he offhandedly called it, but this was “girl Ghostbusters,” she said with pride. After all, she was a high school Science teacher and this was a victory with which she could attach herself.

This attachment was the point, existing independently of the movie. She may not see it, nor should she have to- her attachment to “girl Ghostbusters” had served to bolster her identity. The actual film is an afterthought- a big budget talking point. Beyond all the fuss, Ghostbusters is a pile of crap with regurgitated jokes, so who really cares?