CHARLIE'S GHOST STORY (1995) *1/2 Ultradoofed yuppie professor works with Daphne Zuniga, and has Linda Fiorentino as a housekeeper, and can only think of a dead Spanish guy in pantaloons. Incredibly his kid doesn't respect him much. Ambitious only in the sense of thinking that you can hold a mirror up to yuppie culture and it'll notice anything missing. Cheech Marin is a little cute in his conquistador suit, but things could have been best improved by giving more lines to the Fiorentino character. Instead loose ends are left hanging everywhere, the script is the most juvenile tripe in which every time they run into a situation the metaphysical ground rules are changed and the ghost comes to the rescue (of the writers mainly, by saving the kid). What about Fiorentino's Catholicism, they couldn't have worked in something interesting about ghosts and that? Or Cheech's lust? I mean, they forget to even have the kid get the girl in the end, or marry off the dad or at least get him fired, or grant Cheech one more bountiful moment of physical glory be it sensual or violent. Unbelievable.
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