Ghostbusters 2016: Talk about the movie(s).

Why yes, I do enjoy lame and demeaning humor, doesn't everyone?

 

I'm a big fan of the Underworld movies too. I didn't mean anything bad by what I wrote, I just meant that they didn't have the immediate obvious draw of A-list talent or a pre-existing IP. I think they're actually a great example of an original IP that has actually been able to succeed. I'm really looking forward to more.
I got a big kick out of seeing the actor who played the "wolf-shifter" Dyson in Lost Girl, play another werewolf in UWA.

 

Heh, yeah. I found out last night they named the fifth one "Blood Wars" while I wasn't looking, about a month ago. The studio has already signed off on a 6th movie and a tie-in series.

They obviously make enough money off them to keep the franchise going.

 

Right after my other post I got on TV Guide and saw that they are just starting Awakening on FX.

 

B v S proved it doesn't matter what the movie may be, it's the name brand audiences will cling to. Even if the plot doesn't make any sense they're there for the rollercoaster ride. The shiny, gleaming FX which gaze our eyes, and laugh at the adolescent humor. Standard affair for most Hollywood blockbusters.

 

Here's the odd thing, in the original movie the Ghostbuster, three bachelor men one of whom is shameless womanizer, hire a secretary based not on her looks but, presumably, on her ability to do the job. This is New York City, when they put out an ad that they were hiring a secretary they no doubt got plenty of interested parties and Janine is the one they settled on and not to malign Annie Pott's looks, the way she's made up in the movie she's made to look like a mousy, stand-offish, "stereotypical" New Yorker secretary, but even Peter seems accepting of her role in their business even when he sort-of insults her later on when she asks about them hiring more help.

So, the Ghostbusters, it would seem, hired a competent secretary who likely had some kind of secretarial skills/background and based their selection on that as opposed to just getting some knock-out, blond, 20-something who looked good in a mini-skirt and could answer a phone.

In this "reboot"? It would seem the girls hire their secretary because he's good-looking even though it would seem he doesn't quite have the qualifications to be a secretary and he's kind-of dim.

(The Ghostbusters even trusted Janine with the interviewing of a new Ghostbuster given their odd questions on the interviewing paper work.)

So.... is this really "progression?" The original movie was hardly misogynistic; the closest we get is the lech that is Peter Venkman and we're supposed to see this as the flaw in him and not as an acceptable behavior.

 

Yes, and Weaver's Dana Barrett is a prominent character. She's highly cultured, intelligent, as independent as anyone and noone's fool.

It seems these new filmakers had a bee-in-their-bonnet and assumed the simple fact of four male leads in the earlier films equals some misogynistic "Triumph of the Will" film that needed to up updated. They then set about committing many of the very "mistakes" that they had hallucinated about in the first films.

 

Only if kittens are involved.

 

Also true the closest we get to anything misogynistic in the movie is Peter's character (of note the ESP test he's giving to the students at the beginning and he uses it to pick-up on the female student) but I don't think we're supposed to "like" him because of these actions; maybe we're supposed to take them as sort of humorous but we're supposed to see what kind of character he is and that is that he's an opportunistic, manipulative, ass and he gets his comeuppance by the end of the movie when this behavior of his pretty much directly leads to the breach of the containment unit; he's put in a situation he can't BS his way out of.

But, yeah, *both* of our female characters are strong characters who don't take any BS. Even Dana doesn't take much from Peter when he inspects her apartment but at the same time it's clear she's somewhat charmed by his antics by the time he leaves and then later accepts his invitation for a date on the plaza.

Hell, I'd argue this new movie seems to *almost* be treating Hemsworth's character as like the "dim dad/man" character you see in laundry and yogurt commercials.

I'm going to see this movie, and I await to have my mind changed on it but for me, right now, it doesn't look good or funny. The humor in it is broad, obvious and slap-sticky, the effects in look horrible (the ghosts in the original looked more.... "real" for want of a better term. The librarian ghost is damn-near haunting looking compared to the Haunted Mansion/The Frighteners look of the ones in this new movie. And a new take on the Marshmallow Man? Really?!) and McCarthy and Jones's characters look like they're pretty much going to "stick to type" for the roles those two actors usually take. I do think Wiig and McKinnon's characters look to be good ones but even they both have cringe-worthy "comedic" moments in the trailers.

The movie looks to broad and wide in it's humor compared to the drier humor in the original. Dry humor works better for me than broad humor.

Again, I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if the movie turns out to be good and McCarthy and Jones surprise me in their performances, though from the trailers I'm doubtful (the "is it a race thing or a gender thing?!" moment. And, really, the movie uses one of the oldest comedic "jokes" in the book of someone getting hit and saying, "That's going to leave a mark!" and the doubles down on it with someone "thinking someone needs to be hit for some reason or another, their first hit takes and the person is snapped back, but the hitter doesn't realizes it and doubles down on it and hits again." With the bonus addition of a "humorous" quip or something after the second strik That is almost entry-level stuff in script-writing. I mean, that is basic, basic, BASIC, low-brow obvious humor. "That's going to leave a mark?"

Fucking really?!

 

It is funny enough. I know people I would love an excuse to smack the shit out of more times than needed to help them.

 

Some people are too blidended by their ideology to accept facts. When it gets to the point that facts are being ignored it's best to just move on from the conversation.

 

"Yeah, the movie doesn't look great, but you know what really sucks? How this provides cover for the fucking awful aspects of 'geek culture' to pound their chests self-righteously and make shit worse for all of us"

 

^ I hate that guy. And I say that as a woman who hates when some men think they need to speak for or 'defend us' or some crap like that. He consistently shames nerds, despite being the very negative stereotype of one. The first trailer looked awful, but not because of women in the starring roles. Let the trailer be judged by its merits, not defended simply because 'women need to be protected' from critique.

This movie isn't getting any more hate than TMNT before it released, or GI Joe, or any of the other multiple reboots that were obviously made for a quick buck off a popular old franchise.

 

F'ing A! It's a piss poor counter argument by people who don't have any other argument.

 

I wonder how many people on the criticizing end are women simply saying it looks awful based on not being funny?

 

Yeah, I'd be far more supportive of it without the low-brow humour. And thing is, if this were written to be more sophisticated, wouldn't that be more of a win for the cast compared to what it is now? I'd think it would be a win/win. Even a change in tone would help.

Well, one of my woman friends after having seen the trailers said something to that effect. Said that from what she had seen, she wouldn't want to see it as it looked horribly unfunny.

 

Having seen the trailer three times now with three different women - my friend Tracie, my mom and my niece - they've all had the same reaction - that it looks bad and unfunny. My mom didn't like it because she doesn't like Melissa McCarthy and my niece likes the original and wondered why they were remaking it. And all three I wouldn't describe as being up to date on what's being remade and rebooted in terms of films. So it's not that it has women in it, it's just a bad trailer. That and maybe they're not the right demographic being targeted.

 

I like Wiig, don't know McKinnon (but she looks like she might be the best actress of the bunch), never took to McCarthy (the same way I never took to Sandler or Ferrell), don't like Jones. Could be a good movie, could be a bad movie, but it's just not my thing. Even good McCarthy movies aren't my thing.

Yes, there are a lot of Gamergate types hating on the movie just because it has women in the lead even if it turns out to be good, and yes, there will be groups supporting this movie just because it has women in the lead even if it turns out to be awful. But the way Feig and McCarthy have been spouting off, they act as if there is no place in the middle where people aren't feeling this movie because they just don't think it'll be very good. They're lumping the Return of Kings loudmouth pigs into the same category as people who can't wait to see Wonder Woman and want Black Widow to have her own movie.

Some of the reaction reminds me of the movie Bad Girls. A friend I knew was gushing in support of the movie even though she never saw it just because it was a western with female leads. It wasn't good or bad but rather pretty average and faded pretty quickly. But if it had come out now I can imagine the same kind of "you don't like it just because it stars women" response.

I wonder how differently response would've been to that horrible Point Break remake if it were the same movie with women in the main roles.

 

I think the problem is that the reasonable voices are being drowned out by all the assholes, and so everyone assumes the assholes speak for everybody. I do think the excessive hate is probably do to it replacing men with women, but it would be ridiculous to assume everybody who doesn't like it is sexist.

 

I think the excessive hate comes from people who critiqued the trailer being told they were sexist. People don't like being called sexist or misogynist, and will defend themselves, usually by expanding on why the trailer doesn't work for them which then one side points at as 'look how hard the nerdboy is trying to justify his hate!' type commentary.

I didn't find the trailer to Barbershop funny. Am I somehow then racist for saying so? Or by not buying a ticket to support the black actors in it? Go check out reactions of women on youtube for the Ghostbusters trailer, nearly all either hate it, or are ambivalent towards it because 'the humor just doesn't work' for them. Do they now have internalized misogyny for not wanting to see the movie? I'm sure there's some men who hate it on the basis women took the places of men, but we're talking microscopic numbers. Like dozens. Sony is just sitting back and hoping all these angry feminists who wouldn't have gone to see the movie, now will because 'we have to teach the manbabies a lesson' or whatever. It's insulting to me.