Ghostbusters 2016: Talk about the movie(s).

[kirk55555]

Angry Joe should be interesting he most often tends to be pretty fair though he has time of rage and extremes.

But there's just something "special" about the Midnight Screenings, seeing these people's reactions minutes after they see the movie and discuss it in the the car. Much more first-hand and unpracticed with collected thoughts. Between all of the internvet reviewers combined it makes for a good barometer. I watch Jeremy Johns too but his fast talking, rapid editing, and the "personality" he dons for the videos doesn't work for me. He just speaks too damn fast and his impressions are annoying. And I just really, really hate videos with rapid-cut editing where the person will say a couple lines and then there's a quick cut to them saying the next line. It's not a process that works for me. And I've disagreed more with Johns than anyone else whom I'm usually at least in the ballpark with.

Yeah, I can see Jeremy's style being annoying. I like him, but its not a video style I'm a huge fan of outside of his videos. Midnight Screenings are pretty good, and Brad Jones does a good job with them. But, they can feel a bit long to me, and while his regular guests are usually ok I just like Angry Joe and his friends a bit better. Doug Walker is actually the one whose movie reviews I watch the least. I like him as a creator, and Nostalgia Critic is a classic, but I disagree with his out of character movie reviews a lot, and I don't find him as entertaining as an out of character reviewer as I do most of the other CA people.

 

[Trekker4747]

$300 million is very low for a summer blockbuster. Independence Day, Warcraft, and Apocalypse have reached $300 million and those films were all disappointments/bombs of varying degrees. The general rule of thumb is that movies need to make twice their budget to break even. Given a $150 million production budget and, what, a $100 million marketing budget? We're looking at about $500 million to break even. I'd guess expectations for success are $600-700 million? That seems doable to me.

With properties like this, though, I think it becomes a lot more complex. Yes they spent a lot on production and marketing but they also have other sources of revenue like licensed products/toys. (Though it seems already the toys are struggling and are being seen in bargain bins.) Hell, probably the only licensed product that's doing well for this movie is Ecto Cooler and inarguably that has more to do with that product itself and it's original ties to the original franchise/The Real Ghostbusters than it says about this movie. Ecto Cooler is something people have been dying to see again for decades, it'd do well movie or no movie.

Granted when talking about products there the costs and marketing there too but it's all part of a larger property so any exposure is exposure and any product bought is product bought.

I suspect the movie will be a middling success financially but I really don't think it'll be the franchise-maker Sony desperately wants it to be, which is good for all of us considering some of the things they had lined up including a Slimer-centric kids movie. Yeeeeeessshhhhhh. The whole thing reeks of desperation on Sony's part considering they're taking something that doesn't really lend itself to a franchise and they wanted to do a franchise with it including an Avengers-like team-up of Ghostbuster divisions.

Keep in mind Amazing Spider-Man 2 tried to set-up The Sinister Six and co-operation with Fox and the X-Men/Brotherhood of Mutants. How did that turn out? Sony giving-in to work with Disney/Marvel and releasing some of their Spider-Man control so Marvel can use him in their Avengers universe. The whole Sinister-Six thing suggested by the ASM2 tag-scene? Gone.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 was something of financial success in the BO but a critical flop. And while it made $700m in the world-wide BO it only met its production budget in the domestic BO. But the criticisms in it is likely what sank their franchise plans.

Sony *wants* a Marvel-like wide-universe/franchise and they can't pull it off. I don't think this one will do it for them either, though with a "smaller" production budget (vs. Spider-man) it has better chances. But I don't think the critical response and interest will be there for their wider universe plans.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, I can see Jeremy's style being annoying. I like him, but its not a video style I'm a huge fan of outside of his videos. Midnight Screenings are pretty good, and Brad Jones does a good job with them. But, they can feel a bit long to me, and while his regular guests are usually ok I just like Angry Joe and his friends a bit better. Doug Walker is actually the one whose movie reviews I watch the least. I like him as a creator, and Nostalgia Critic is a classic, but I disagree with his out of character movie reviews a lot, and I don't find him as entertaining as an out of character reviewer as I do most of the other CA people.

The Midnight Screenings can go long sometimes, particularly when they go off into tangents unrelated to the movie, but they're still sort of interesting to hear their thoughts. Though they're more interesting when they don't like the movie are indifferent to them.

I agree with you on Doug Walker, I think I disagree with him more than I agree. Previously him and his brother, Rob Walker, did the "Sibling Rivalry" bit and I find myself more often on Rob's side. They've not done Sibling Rivalry much this year, from what I understand it's due to Rob being busy/unavailable to see the movies and do the reviews.

Doug has shown up on some other internet review shows along with other bloggers/vloggers in panel-like set-ups which are often interesting as well. But, most often I find myself disagreeing with Doug. Never more-so than his take on "Jurassic World" which I really liked and Doug's problems with it was something about the movie not being savage enough with the dinosaurs fighting/eating people... or something. I think I was as baffled as Rob was on what Doug was on about there.

Still, it's interesting to hear his thoughts in those times when he's somewhat measured and not on some manic phase; but I agree with Rob more often. It has been interesting the few times Doug has shown up in Midnight Screenings.

Though, yes, as a creator Doug is stronger. The Nostalgia Critic is a lot of fun which makes me now wonder if he'll do a clipless review of Ghostbusters like he did for BvS, Jurassic World, Force Awakens, Fury Road and Pixels (among others.) Which should be interesting with only him, Rob, Malcolm and Tamara and a few other male talents in and out during the clip-less reviews it'd mean Rob, Doug and Malcolm will have to do their take on the clips in drag which should be fun. (And yeah, they have some female on and off again actors they use, but I suspect any clipless review they do will go the drag route. Though using an all female cast for the clipless review may play out more interestingly, like it did in Fury Road with the "feminists"/Tom Hardy fans clashing against the "Men-inists" fans played by Second-Tier CA male actors.

Should be interesting week around the Internet review circle for the next week and if Doug does a TNC clip-less review of GB that should be very interesting.

 

[kirk55555]

The Midnight Screenings can go long sometimes, particularly when they go off into tangents unrelated to the movie, but they're still sort of interesting to hear their thoughts. Though they're more interesting when they don't like the movie are indifferent to them.

I agree with you on Doug Walker, I think I disagree with him more than I agree. Previously him and his brother, Rob Walker, did the "Sibling Rivalry" bit and I find myself more often on Rob's side. They've not done Sibling Rivalry much this year, from what I understand it's due to Rob being busy/unavailable to see the movies and do the reviews.

Doug has shown up on some other internet review shows along with other bloggers/vloggers in panel-like set-ups which are often interesting as well. But, most often I find myself disagreeing with Doug. Never more-so than his take on "Jurassic World" which I really liked and Doug's problems with it was something about the movie not being savage enough with the dinosaurs fighting/eating people... or something. I think I was as baffled as Rob was on what Doug was on about there.

Still, it's interesting to hear his thoughts in those times when he's somewhat measured and not on some manic phase; but I agree with Rob more often. It has been interesting the few times Doug has shown up in Midnight Screenings.

Though, yes, as a creator Doug is stronger. The Nostalgia Critic is a lot of fun which makes me now wonder if he'll do a clipless review of Ghostbusters like he did for BvS, Jurassic World, Force Awakens, Fury Road and Pixels (among others.) Which should be interesting with only him, Rob, Malcolm and Tamara and a few other male talents in and out during the clip-less reviews it'd mean Rob, Doug and Malcolm will have to do their take on the clips in drag which should be fun. (And yeah, they have some female on and off again actors they use, but I suspect any clipless review they do will go the drag route. Though using an all female cast for the clipless review may play out more interestingly, like it did in Fury Road with the "feminists"/Tom Hardy fans clashing against the "Men-inists" fans played by Second-Tier CA male actors.

Should be interesting week around the Internet review circle for the next week and if Doug does a TNC clip-less review of GB that should be very interesting.

I'm curious to see if we'll have another Man of Steel scenario. When Doug, Brad and Linkara all disliked MoS, people freaked out We got a fun Nostalgia Critic/Angry Joe review out of that (actually two of them, with the Batman v Superman review). It will be interesting to not only see what they think, but how people react. I'll assume that a segment of the audience will react badly whatever they think, but one of the things i like about Angry Joe, Brad, Doug, etc is they don't back down from their opinions. If they don't like a movie, they're not going to lie or change their opinions because some of the viewers yell at them.

As for a clipless review from Nostalgia Critic, I'd be into it. I find them to be hit or miss myself. Batman v Superman was great and Pixels was also pretty good, but Fury Road was kind of boring and Hocus Pocus was painful. I think a Ghostbusters one could be great, though.

 

[Trekker4747]

Hocus Pocus was very painful. The other clipless reviews were pretty good, I think the BvS one was the strongest.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The Hollywood Reporter review.

 

[Trekker4747]

I love how the "anti-feminism" narrative is going so strong, people mentioning it like it's such a huge, big, factor in the movie's detractors over the last 18 months. While it was certainly there, we are talking about the internet which is full of assholes like that. Anyone *really* paying attention, particularly over the last year when more and more details of the movie came out, would have seen that most detractors weren't concerned about the all female cast but other aspects of the movie.

Melissa McCarthy being one of them, not being against her because she's a woman but just not liking her humor.

The way Sony wrestled and strong-armed its way into getting control of this property from Ivan Reitman, and pretty much the way they've handled the property the last 20 years. The once the trailers began coming out Sony really continued the narrative in the media that the movie's detractors were these "men-inists" who hated the concept of women in this property; ignoring that plenty more people were saying the movie just doesn't look good and citing problems with the look, tone and humor of the movie. And even female fans were saying these things. But, Sony controls the narrative by the way the edited the trailer's YT page by removing reasoned criticisms from male users but kept female ones.

James "The Angry Video Game Nerd" Rolfe posts a video on why he doesn't want to see the movie, making reasoned comments as a fan of the franchise and speaking of the problems behind Ghostbusters 3; never once speaking of the female cast and he's lambasted as being anti-feminist and a sad man-child. He made this video as himself and not as the AVGN character. But a female vlogger makes an anti-Ghostbusters (2016) video making similar comments and she even makes a statement against going with an all female-cast and she gets little negative feedback. She's a woman so it's okay for her to not like the movie, I guess.

I'm personally not too big a fan of Feig's, Bridesmaids was okay as was The Heat but nothing to make me think he's worthy of this property. And seeing the guy and interviews and on Talking Dead, I'm just not a fan of him either he just comes across as rather smug and his seemingly "anti-men" agenda/narrative sort-of grates. All for pro-feminism, in the strictest sense of the term I'm a feminist myself, but the choices made for this movie don't make sense. And, should feminism really rally behind a *man* to make female-led movies work in Hollywood? That sort-of defeats the point of feminism does it not?

Also from what I heard the movie may have a pro-feminism message/tone but at the same time has an anti-man tone to it with male characters in the movie being portrayed poorly; notably with Hemsworth playing a dim, idiot man-child. So the feminism "message" of the movie is going to be muted by the misandry in it. You can't prop one group up while trampling on another.

We'll see as more reviews come out and more public screenings happen towards the end of the week. But I think Sony is still going to be desperately trying to build a franchise out of some other property.

 

[Tosk]

Meh, I'm not worried about all the male characters being stupid or piggish. As long as one of them gets shot in the balls I'm happy. (Which is a gag the Feig has already used for a bad guy finale once before.)

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I've had disagreements with Trekker4747, but he's made a strong case for seeing the truth in the Ghostbusters situation...

Anyone *really* paying attention, particularly over the last year when more and more details of the movie came out, would have seen that most detractors weren't concerned about the all female cast but other aspects of the movie.

Melissa McCarthy being one of them, not being against her because she's a woman but just not liking her humor.

Agreed; her schtick is being obnoxious, loud or referring to her weight. We get it--she's morbidly obese. That's not funny.

The way Sony wrestled and strong-armed its way into getting control of this property from Ivan Reitman, and pretty much the way they've handled the property the last 20 years. The once the trailers began coming out Sony really continued the narrative in the media that the movie's detractors were these "men-inists" who hated the concept of women in this property; ignoring that plenty more people were saying the movie just doesn't look good and citing problems with the look, tone and humor of the movie. And even female fans were saying these things. But, Sony controls the narrative by the way the edited the trailer's YT page by removing reasoned criticisms from male users but kept female ones.

Sony is simply marching to the beat of the oppressive Social Justice Warrior drum, the same that tries to crush all opinion not accepting and/or pushing the agenda--in this case, "only misogynists hate this reboot."

James "The Angry Video Game Nerd" Rolfe posts a video on why he doesn't want to see the movie, making reasoned comments as a fan of the franchise and speaking of the problems behind Ghostbusters 3; never once speaking of the female cast and he's lambasted as being anti-feminist and a sad man-child.

A tactic not uncommon--even on this board.

He made this video as himself and not as the AVGN character. But a female vlogger makes an anti-Ghostbusters (2016) video making similar comments and she even makes a statement against going with an all female-cast and she gets little negative feedback. She's a woman so it's okay for her to not like the movie, I guess.

She's a woman, so she is protected to a degree, and the SJW do not want to risk looking like hypocrites for attacking one of their own, if only in gender.

I'm personally not too big a fan of Feig's, Bridesmaids was okay as was The Heat but nothing to make me think he's worthy of this property. And seeing the guy and interviews and on Talking Dead, I'm just not a fan of him either he just comes across as rather smug and his seemingly "anti-men" agenda/narrative sort-of grates. All for pro-feminism, in the strictest sense of the term I'm a feminist myself, but the choices made for this movie don't make sense. And, should feminism really rally behind a *man* to make female-led movies work in Hollywood? That sort-of defeats the point of feminism does it not?

Feig is a happily neutered mouthpiece for the agenda, so its okay that as a male, he screams "feminism" while condemning men. That's progress in 2016.

Also from what I heard the movie may have a pro-feminism message/tone but at the same time has an anti-man tone to it with male characters in the movie being portrayed poorly; notably with Hemsworth playing a dim, idiot man-child. So the feminism "message" of the movie is going to be muted by the misandry in it. You can't prop one group up while trampling on another.

Well said, but this is the drive of other TV and movie productions: women are the movers and shakers of everything, while all males are reduced to backseat passengers, only good for the very kind of objectification women complained was happening to female characters .Honestly, can you think of any other reason Hemsworth is in a film like this? They're certainly not trying to attract Marvel audiences, so in an obvious act of reverse sexualized mistreatment, the handsome Hemsworth might be the object of desire / plaything (who dare not resist) of any or all four, unattractive women.

It is an inverse of the complaint of women who could not stand "unrealistic" films where goofy, unattractive male characters (portrayed by comedic actors or not) ended up with attractive women. But this is different. This is to be accepted as normal--never to be questioned.

We'll see as more reviews come out and more public screenings happen towards the end of the week. But I think Sony is still going to be desperately trying to build a franchise out of some other property.

Probably.

 

[LJones41]

I think it's too early for anyone to judge this film, whether it proves to be a box office hit or not.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 was something of financial success in the BO but a critical flop.

Yeah, it was a critical flop because a certain character was bumped off, despite the fact that many had anticipated this demise in the first place.


I thought "X-MEN: APOCALYPSE" made over $500 million dollars. Which meant that it more than broke even.

 

[Kelthaz]

I thought "X-MEN: APOCALYPSE" made over $500 million dollars. Which meant that it more than broke even.

It did. It was still a disappointment.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I think it's too early for anyone to judge this film, whether it proves to be a box office hit or not.



Yeah, it was a critical flop because a certain character was bumped off, despite the fact that many had anticipated this demise in the first place.

I doubt Gwen Stacy's death made it a flop--the only reason this series even introduced her was the fact she is the most significant death in Spider-Man's published history. The film was a disappointment because it was misguided, and it did not help that its star behaved as if he suffered some kind of brain damage, along with acting strange. That's not Parker/Spider-Man, but something else.

 

[Owain Taggart]

But a female vlogger makes an anti-Ghostbusters (2016) video making similar comments and she even makes a statement against going with an all female-cast and she gets little negative feedback. She's a woman so it's okay for her to not like the movie, I guess.

I'm not seeing it that way at all. Rather, seeing as how the criticism has flowed as of late, most will find it a bit easier to trust how a woman views the movie and the opinions will seem less in the extreme and hold more weight. It's the unfortunate side-effect of how the whole campaign was conducted. His comments end up getting drowned up among the voices as a result even if his comments don't necessarily contain any negativity.

 

[BillJ]

Me, the wife and my nine-year old son are going either Friday or Sunday to see Ghostbusters. It looks like fun.

 

[LJones41]

It did. It was still a disappointment.

For me, it was less of a disappointment than "DAYS OF FUTURE PAST", which had so many plot holes that I could barely keep count.

But a female vlogger makes an anti-Ghostbusters (2016) video making similar comments and she even makes a statement against going with an all female-cast and she gets little negative feedback. She's a woman so it's okay for her to not like the movie, I guess.

I don't care what anyone has to say about the movie. I would rather form my own opinion than allow someone else to do it for me. Why is it so hard for some to do the same? Why make pre-conceived notions on the quality of a movie? It seems so lazy to me.

 

[Captain Craig]

I don't care what anyone has to say about the movie. I would rather form my own opinion than allow someone else to do it for me. Why is it so hard for some to do the same? Why make pre-conceived notions on the quality of a movie? It seems so lazy to me.

I'm not sure when it happened but it was sometime in the recent past, the homogenization of thought has come into existence. Yes, I know Siskel & Ebert have been around forever, newspapers and mags have had their own entertainment critics however now all that is coalesced and concentrated in a few easy sites.
If your mind isn't made up going into a film, album, polling station etc due to a cacophony of chatter about 'x' then you're very much in a minority now.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I think doing all the write-ups and watching and reading of reviews probably takes longer than just going to see the movie itself. :

 

[Amaris]

To me this makes it all worth it:

Look at the hero worship in those eyes. That little girl has been inspired, and her imagination has been set in motion.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

To me this makes it all worth it:

Look at the hero worship in those eyes. That little girl has been inspired, and her imagination has been set in motion.

Absolutely. Both girls have that look, but you see it clearer on the girl on the right.

I do hope the trailers are unintentionally misleading and out-of-context. I'm trying to keep an open mind and some of the reviews do give me hope. I'll find out for myself soon enough.

 

[Amaris]

Absolutely. Both girls have that look, but you see it clearer on the girl on the right.

I do hope the trailers are unintentionally misleading and out-of-context. I'm trying to keep an open mind and some of the reviews do give me hope. I'll find out for myself soon enough.

Agreed. I think it looks like fun, though I won't get to see it until it's out on DVD. That being said, people who don't like the film are perfectly free to do so, it's just the massive level of vitriol I've seen directed at it that makes me scratch my head. The venom spewed at the entire project is beyond irrational. There is no excuse for that. None. Then I see these little girls have that spark of magic in their eyes, that they've found role models, and I just wonder what the hell people really think they're doing when they say these terrible things.