{"id":747,"date":"2016-05-17T21:31:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T02:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/chrisicisms\/?p=747"},"modified":"2016-05-18T07:46:23","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T12:46:23","slug":"why-i-hope-the-new-ghostbusters-is-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/chrisicisms\/2016\/05\/17\/why-i-hope-the-new-ghostbusters-is-great\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I hope the new ‘Ghostbusters’ is great"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Photo<\/a>
Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Two months before the release of \u201cGhostbusters,\u201d I have to wonder if Paul Feig\u2019s answer to \u201cWho you gonna call\u201d is \u201cA better PR team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feig\u2019s remake of Ivan Reitman\u2019s beloved 1984 comedy is making entertainment headlines, but probably not for the reasons he\u2019s hoped. Its trailer has earned the distinction of the most disliked trailer on Youtube<\/a>. Today, a reviewer at the website Cinemassacre <\/a>announced that he flat out refuses to review the film. While I\u2019m sure the world will continue to turn without knowing what a man who bills himself as \u201cAngry Video Game Nerd\u201d thinks about \u201cGhostbusters,\u201d the 20 pages of comments on the page suggest he\u2019s struck a chord\u2026at least with other angry \u00a0male video game nerds.<\/p>\n

What is it that\u2019s making these men <\/del> guys\u00a0so riled-up about a summer movie? It seems to boil down to two things: 1.) Someone has the guts to remake \u201cGhostbusters\u201d and 2.) They\u2019re remaking it with women.<\/p>\n

Listen, I can understand their concern on the first point. Ivan Reitman\u2019s \u201cGhostbusters\u201d might be the first movie I fell in love with. As a kid, I watched it until we wore the video cassette out. My brother and I would run around the house with our plastic proton packs and containment traps, making our own \u201cGhostbuster\u201d movies with my grandfather\u2019s camcorder. When I was in fourth grade, the first lengthy thing I ever wrote was a 99-page story called \u201cGhostbusters, Jr.,\u201d featuring my friends and I as the protagonists. Were it not for the Ghostbusters, I probably would not be writing today.<\/p>\n

\"ghostbusters\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The great thing about \u201cGhostbusters\u201d is that it got better as I got older. When I was a kid, I liked the special effects and ghost-busting mayhem. As I hit my teenage and adult years, I picked up on the deadpan humor and the wonderful mixture of blue-collar comedy with supernatural shenanigans. It was the movie that taught me the joy of Bill Murray, but I also cherish Dan Aykroyd\u2019s childlike enthusiasm and Harold Ramis\u2019 ultra-dry delivery. Finally seeing it on the big screen a few years ago was as great as I\u2019d dreamed, and one of my highlights of 2015 was spending a half hour on the phone talking to Ernie Hudson about the movie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So yeah, the idea that anyone thinks they can just come on in and recapture that causes me to raise an eyebrow.<\/p>\n

In his manifesto, Angry Video Game Nerd says that what fans wanted was not a remake of \u201cGhostbusters\u201d but a sequel with the original cast. Here\u2019s the thing: I didn\u2019t even want that<\/em>. The magic of the original \u201cGhostbusters\u201d was very delicate, and the same cast and crew couldn\u2019t even replicate it with \u201cGhostbusters II.\u201d What would make anyone think they could do it 30 years on, especially with Ramis gone, Rick Moranis retired and Bill Murray disinterested? Anytime \u201cGhostbusters 3\u201d rumors would surface, I\u2019d roll my eyes and say \u201cwe don\u2019t need this.\u201d Sometimes you just have to let a perfect movie stand on its own.<\/p>\n

And then it was announced Paul Feig was remaking the film with an all-female cast of Ghostbusters. And guess what?\u00a0That\u2019s when I got excited.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: a sequel to the original with Old Ghostbusters would be painful. Watching them hand off the torch would be anticlimactic; you\u2019d constantly be comparing the new recruits to the old ones. Aykroyd\u2019s comments worried me. He was so focused on new supernatural aspects, elaborate mythologies and building a Ghostbusters universe. He seemed to forget that the success of \u201cGhostbusters\u201d never lied in its concept but in the chemistry between its stars.<\/p>\n

And the idea of a straight remake just seemed foolhardy. Were you really going to get another actor to play Peter Venkman? Was there any way to do a remake of \u201cGhostbusters\u201d and not have it compared to one of the greatest comedic casts ever assembled?<\/p>\n

\"ghostbusterscharacter1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But when they announced Feig, and then brought in Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, I got excited. While I still was suspicious about the idea of remaking \u201cGhostbusters,\u201d this seemed like the only possible way to get it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cGhostbusters\u201d isn\u2019t special because it\u2019s a supernatural comedy. There are many of those. \u201cGhostbusters\u201d is special because it captured a moment in 1984. There were few bigger names in Hollywood comedy in the early eighties than Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd. They\u2019d gained fame on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d and \u201cSCTV,\u201d and their filmographies at that point already included \u201cThe Blues Brothers,\u201d \u201cAnimal House,\u201d \u201cMeatballs\u201d and \u201cStripes.\u201d This wasn\u2019t a movie with a bunch of upstarts trying to make a hit; it was an all-star team coming together to make magic\u00a0\u2014 and it worked.<\/p>\n

If you wanted to recapture that spirit today, you would very likely turn to this director and this cast. Wiig, Jones and McKinnon have been the funniest people on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d over the past five years or so. Melissa McCarthy is a comedic superstar and a proven box office draw (and her hosting gigs on \u201cSNL\u201d are regularly the best episodes of the year). Paul Feig would merit inclusion just for his work with \u201cFreaks and Geeks,\u201d the best television show of the past 20 years. I think \u201cBridesmaids\u201d is the best comedy of the decade so far, and I thought McCarthy deserved an Oscar nomination for her work in last year\u2019s very funny \u201cSpy.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you want your \u201cGhostbusters\u201d remake to have any chance of being memorable, you need a solid director and a very funny cast. And while I\u2019m sure there are enough funny men to fill out an ensemble, the truth is I don\u2019t know that you have a more reliable cast than these four very funny women. And reversing the genders means we won\u2019t be comparing each one to the original Ghostbusters. This can be its own thing. When this cast was announced, it didn\u2019t just make me okay with the idea of a \u201cGhostbusters\u201d remake; it made me excited about it.<\/p>\n

Does that mean it will be good? Not necessarily. It could fall flat. As great as it is, \u201cGhostbusters\u201d was something of a miracle, with a tone that had to be precisely navigated to pull off the mixture\u00a0of\u00a0special effects and humor. Many comedies that try to mix those two things\u00a0\u2014 including \u201cGhostbusters II\u201d\u00a0\u2014 have stumbled in their attempts, and it\u2019s possible Feig and his cast could, too. I still have my apprehensions about them doing a remake instead of letting this be a sequel set in the same world. And while I didn\u2019t think the trailer was bad, it didn\u2019t make me laugh much; but then again, the trailers for \u201cSpy\u201d and \u201cBridesmaids\u201d didn\u2019t do much for me, either. Like any movie I haven\u2019t seen, \u201cGhostbusters\u201d could be great, or it could be a disaster.<\/p>\n

\"ghostbusters2016\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But I hope it\u2019s great. And the more people I see like Angry Video Game Nerd, the greater I hope it is. Because as much as they want to say that their problem is that someone is daring to remake \u201cGhostbusters,\u201d the real issue underlying much of the rage is that they\u2019re remaking it with\u00a0female<\/em> Ghostbusters. They remake movies all the time, even great movies. But it\u2019s the one with the gender swap that\u2019s causing fanboys to go apoplectic (after all, if the nerds truly hated remakes, we\u2019d get these same manifestos about \u2018Ben-Hur,\u201d but I don\u2019t see them coming). And we see it coming out of the same curdled culture that gave us Gamer-Gate or that blast angry comments at female critics who disliked a Batman movie.<\/p>\n

Women historically don\u2019t get a fair shake in Hollywood (or anywhere in the world). Execs still think films with female leads can\u2019t be successful at the box office, even after \u201cThe Hunger Games.\u201d They think women can\u2019t lead franchises, even after Charlize \u00a0Theron stole the last \u201cMad Max\u201d right out from under Tom Hardy. They think women aren\u2019t funny, even as Amy Schumer\u2019s \u201cTrainwreck\u201d and Feig\u2019s \u201cSpy\u201d were two of the best comedies of 2015. And they\u2019re still cautious about female superheroes, even after Wonder Woman was one of the only things that worked in \u201cBatman v Superman\u201d and Black Widow has consistently been one of the best presences in the Marvel movies.<\/p>\n

So you know what? I want \u201cGhostbusters\u201d to be great, because I want them to get the world\u2019s attention. I know these are very funny women; I know they can knock this out of the park with the right script. I want people to see that these women can stand toe-to-toe with one of the greatest comedy ensembles of all time. I want it to be as funny as I know it can be.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two months before the release of \u201cGhostbusters,\u201d I have to wonder if Paul Feig\u2019s answer to \u201cWho you gonna call\u201d is \u201cA better PR team.\u201d Feig\u2019s remake of Ivan Reitman\u2019s beloved 1984 comedy is making entertainment headlines, but probably not for the reasons he\u2019s hoped. Its trailer has earned the distinction of the most disliked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2598,"featured_media":350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56,57,372,177,61,371,181,182,6,179],"class_list":["post-747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-murray","tag-comedy","tag-dan-aykroyd","tag-ghostbusters","tag-harold-ramis","tag-ivan-reitman","tag-kristen-wiig","tag-melissa-mccarthy","tag-movies","tag-paul-feig"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy I hope the new 'Ghostbusters' is great<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two months before the release of "Ghostbusters," I have to wonder if Paul Feig's answer to "Who you gonna call" is "A better PR team." 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