Oscar fluke number five hundred seventy

Rating: Null/10 (4 June 1999)

The comedy scenes between Goldberg (who won the Academy Award)and Swayze give the film some heft, and the makers' idea of the little fellows who take us to hell rather than heaven is genuinely spooky, but overall this cosmic afterlife-romance doesn't have a whole lot going for it.
Still, to this day, viewers (women in particular) have rose-colored memories of the picture. Most talk of the pottery/love making, or the awkward Goldberg/Swayze/Moore kiss-channeling scene, and an the film clearly struck a chord with movie-going masses and Academy members back in 1990.
Are there any films that deserved the Best Picture slot that it miraculously managed to snag? No, unless you count the gruesome independent classic "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", the majestic sci-fi allegory "Total Recall", the tense, hard-boiled con game "The Grifters" or Whit Stillman's fearsome dramedy "Metropolitan". And besides the fact that I'd rather have seen "GoodFellas" take up TWO spots on the Best Picture voting ballot than "Ghost" once (who wouldn't have?), I can very nearly see how it finagled a chance to go for Hollywood's top prize.
"Ghost" isn't entirely dislikable--not at all. But its high-concept ideas (from "Jacob's Ladder"'s Bruce Joel Rubin, no less!) to its slick, by-the-numbers execution have probably done more for the independent film movement than three of "Pulp Fiction", two "Clerks", and a half hour of "Sling Blade" put together. In the early nineties, like many other times over the past century, young men and women sat up, pricked up their ears, and in unison, cried "Well heck! Even I can do THAT!" Today, it is they who are winning the awards.
In short--thank you, "Ghost".