Moments when a piece of entertainment completely rocked you.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 8:05 am

EH, the comedy is hit or miss with me. I remember liking the original GB and not the sequels. I'm not a 'True' Ghostbusters fan so all the outrage over there being a reboot really struck me as odd because there have been a bunch of reboots recently. The trailer 'did' make the movie seem lame but not as lame as most people were make it out as. I mean the movie itself (at least in my opinion) delivered exactly what the trailer advertised. An over the top reboot of GB (with vaginas this time) and that's what I saw in the theaters. I'm not sure what makes the original so sacred that this reboot pisses in so many people's Cheerios. I mean I liked the new Judge Dredd movie more than I liked this movie but I don't think it did well or caught this much shit. (Quick look at Metacritic has it at a 59 but with an 8.8 User Score so I guess I'm not alone)

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 11:34 am

A substantial number of people's cheerios have been pissed in because how dare a movie be about women. These people deserve a lukewarm glass of urine alongside every meal, so I can't say I feel sorry for them. But some people look back fondly on the original Ghostbusters for its particular brand of ... dry snark? (I haven't watched the original Ghostbusters in more than ten years, so I am not at all qualified to discuss how much of that is nostalgia and how much of that is legit), and the new Ghostbusters trailer... well... it was wholly generic commercially viable modern comedy. It's people smacking one another around a room to such hilarious lines as "ow, that's gonna leave a mark" and "the power of Patty compels you." That is the sort of comedic genius that earns you a B- in Adam Sandlers' filmography. At his worst, Paul Feig seems to be a dude who does Kevin James flicks with female leads - a pretty radical departure from the original's formula, and I can understand why fans would be upset to have him take a crack at the IP.

Also the sexism. Did I mention the sexism? Because that's definitely a factor.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 12:00 pm

No one cares that they're women. People care that they're replacing the original four. Any reboot would have gotten the same reaction.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 12:22 pm

hyzmarca wrote:No one cares that they're women.

Um... no actually a lot of people DO care about exactly that.

The "how dare you remake a classic" crowd MAY (and almost certainly does in some minority) include a few people who really just care that it's women and are looking for cover, but I'm more than able to believe there IS a genuine large block of people suffering from insane levels of childhood nostalgia or whatever is wrong with them.

But fucking hell if you think that "no one" cares that they're women you are a liar, an idiot, a blind deaf hermit, or worse.

And yes the trailer for the new one was shit and even with moderately good word of mouth recommendations I remain cautious, but my specific criticism here is actually of the people who put the FIRST film on a pedestal it really doesn't particularly deserve and who bizarrely knock down the second film despite it being about the same and if anything not aging as badly as the first one.

(seriously for example, watch the opening scene from the original. The one where Bill Murray uses abuse of authority, lies, smarm, scientific fraud and electric shocks to torture some chump and try to pull a slimy creep pickup on some bimbo just to establish his lovable character. )

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 1:17 pm

The fact that other classics of the era got rebooted genuinely badly and no one seemed to give a fuck makes me believe that sexism is literally 100% of the reason there is an outcry about Ghostbusters specifically. I mean, did you see any petitions to not remake Robocop? Total Recall? Karate Kid? Conan the Barbarian? Of course not.

But if you gender flip the cast, suddenly everyone's a purity freak. No fucking way. It's all sexism, all the way down.

-Username17

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 1:29 pm

I definitely remember people were angry about Robocop and Karate Kid.

Tiny very nearly voiceless minorities of people.

And fuck it. The Jackie Chan Karate Kid was the better one.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 6:25 pm

DSMatticus nailed it. The shrillest complaints are being made by crazy people but part of what gives this whole thing legs is that the remake simply isn't the kind of film you really feel compelled to defend on its own merits, especially if you're only guessing at what those merits are from the trailers. With that said...

DSMatticus wrote: (I haven't watched the original Ghostbusters in more than ten years, so I am not at all qualified to discuss how much of that is nostalgia and how much of that is legit)

Now, that's by far the trickiest part to untangle. Ultimately, I much prefer Ghostbusters to the aforementioned Sandler films or even Animal House but it's an ephemeral thing to talk about because the differences are almost entirely a matter of tone and execution rather than content. Ghostbusters is entirely too broad to ever really qualify as subtle but it does do a good job of matching up straight men with characters that are inherently ridiculous rather than relying on one-liners all the way through. For example, Louis Tully's punchlines are augmented by his mastery of the run-on sentence and a total lack of self-awareness.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 7:13 pm

So, I'm working my way through Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Trilogy.

The part in Book 2 where the Xenophobic party in not-England sends the not-Syrian refugees North of the Wall to be eaten by the Not-White-Walkers struck me as amazingly relevant satire for something that was written 15 years ago.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 10:34 pm

So, I saw Ghostbusters '16 last night. I thought it was y'know, not awful, but not 2001 level good, either. There were some moments and scenes that made me laugh, and I honestly did not think or feel at any point that the film shat over any memories or preconceptions I had of the original 'busters, which is far more than I can say about anything Michael Bay has put his syphilis ridden cock on, but I suppose that isn't a far bar to hurdle. Basically, I felt it was an enjoyable movie.

Fun fact: My brother is in the movie as an extra. He's in the crowd at the heavy metal concert.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Jul 19, 2016 5:38 pm

Shrapnel wrote: Fun fact: My brother is in the movie as an extra. He's in the crowd at the heavy metal concert.

Can you pick him out in the film?

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 1:44 am

My brother says that he can be seen in the bit where the villain enters the crowd and gets high-fived (he's behind the guy). I couldn't spot him, myself, but my Ma says she saw him.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 5:49 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:The fact that other classics of the era got rebooted genuinely badly and no one seemed to give a fuck makes me believe that sexism is literally 100% of the reason there is an outcry about Ghostbusters specifically. I mean, did you see any petitions to not remake Robocop? Total Recall? Karate Kid? Conan the Barbarian? Of course not.

But if you gender flip the cast, suddenly everyone's a purity freak. No fucking way. It's all sexism, all the way down.

-Username17

No one seriously wanted a Robocop 4 or a Karate Kid 5 or a Total Recall 2. People have wanted a Ghostbusters 3 for a while, still excited about it. Getting a reboot with a new cast instead of a sequel with the original four is disappointing. People respond to disappointment with rage, particularly since everyone was hoping that Bill Murray would finally sign on for another sequel.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 6:00 pm

Dumbass the original 4 are most definitely not getting back together on this plane of existence.

I do not buy that there was a huge demand for GB3, especially with the surviving cast. I have no desire to see Bill Murray in anything dating after Groundhog Day.

Misplaced disappointment becoming rage is the lamest argument in defense of the misogy driven GB haters before the movie ever came out.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:29 pm

There's a lot of reasons for the rage behind GB3, which is in many ways a microcosm of how rage builds around social issues on the internet.

Yes there are people who are misogynistic who attacked the idea of an all-female reboot from the start. Those people caused various feminist outlets to defend the idea from that perspective, which of course was justified, since while there's no particular reason to have an all-female reboot neither is there any reason why not to have one.

The problem came when the 1st trailer was released and it was pretty much universally a terrible trailer. The trailer was criticized heavily both by misogynists - for stupid reasons - and by lots of people who just thought it was stupid, which it was. The feminist outlets then emerged to defend the trailer by shouting at all the critics that they were misogynists, which only some of them were. The result was a backlash and a lot of piling on to the trailer and the film. Then it all just snowballed.

The internet in general has a real problem with accepting that there are lots of things that are produced that are nice and trend-setting and socially progressive in pop culture while still being, from an artistic perspective - garbage.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:53 pm

I recall the timing of the outrage regarding ghostbusters, both the anti-girl cooties outrage and the how dare they touch the mona lisa of cinema outrage.

Both of those outrages were raging STRONG well before the terrible trailer.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 10:11 pm

Trailers being good or bad is not a reason to rage. Not on the internet or otherwise. As it happens, the new Ghost Busters movie is "pretty good." The first two acts are quite funny, and the special effects finale is relatively speaking a let down because the joke density goes way down when the final fight starts. And anyone claiming that the new Ghost Busters is in any way disrespectful to the original cast is a fucking idiot because every surviving cast member except Rick Moranis is in the movie anyway.

Ghost Busters 2016 is simply a 3 star film that could have been a 4 star film if they'd nailed a better ending. That's it. If you have enough time and budget to see 3 star films in July, you should see it in the theater. If you like comedies but don't meet the previous criteria you should see it on the small screen. There is literally no reason - and no excuse - for anyone to rage.

Robocop Rebooted was a 1 1/2 star movie. It was genuinely a bad film. Anyone who didn't use at least three exclamation marks to condemn that piece of garbage has no fucking right to say a single fucking thing against the new Ghost Busters. Not one fucking word.

-Username17

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:48 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:I recall the timing of the outrage regarding ghostbusters, both the anti-girl cooties outrage and the how dare they touch the mona lisa of cinema outrage.

Both of those outrages were raging STRONG well before the terrible trailer.

The trailer really accelerated the rage though - mostly because it became the most disliked ever on Youtube (which was, in itself, an act of internet snowballing, since at some point it simply became trendy to click on dislike) - and simply due to the fact that the audience for a trailer is massively greater than the audience for production diaries and set announcements and all that kind of pre-release press.

That the new Ghostbusters is apparently mostly an okay movie (I haven't seen it yet and will wait for the small screen) has meant that the rage state mostly hasn't moved. It's hard to use the film itself to change opinions when it's difficult to make a strong case for it either way, though the rage will probably surge again when the overall gross numbers come in. Initial projections suggest that the film will probably not break even (in part because it can't be shown in China because of the weird 'no ghost' rule there) for Sony, so there will be acrimony about that. Probably won't reduce the frequency of reboots though.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:08 am

Personally, I liked it enough to see it in theater twice.

A lot of the hate for it is pure unbridled misogyny, as you can see from Milo YapYapnopoulis unleashing a torrent of racist, sexist douchebags on Leslie Jones' twitter. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say almost all of the hate for it. I'm sure there's some lone asshole out there who just hates the idea of any reboot, but most of the haters are just misogynists.

Now, I'm not saying it's the greatest movie ever, but I am saying it was a lot of fun, and I certainly haven't gone to see any other movie in theatres twice in recent memory. I can actually agree with Frank's assessment that the third act was somewhat disappointing due to the dropoff of jokes, though.

On the other hand-

Holtzmann's asskickery was at least worth the $5 I spent to see it again last night all on it's own

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:34 am

The outrage surrounding Ghostbusters absolutely predates the trailer. When the new Ghostbusters was announced, the battlecry wasn't "Paul Feig? Fuck you for ruining for Ghostbusters, Sony!" it was "Four women? Fuck you for ruining Ghostbusters, SJW's!" The trailer brought more attention to the remake, because of course it did, trailers are promotional material meant to do exactly that. It also gave people room to make legitimate criticisms of the movie, like "holy shit this looks like the least funny thing since Pixels."

But yes, we live in a world where "SJW's ruin everything" is a meme (and SJW is almost always a dogwhistle for "any kind of egalitarian") and "women and minorities already have equal (or greater) privilege, so anytime the uppity bitches start whining you know they're just trying to pull one over on you" is a common political talking point even in mainstream conservative media outlets. A lot of people have been taught to perceive any step towards equal representation as an attack against them personally, and as such the mere existence of an all-female cast of the remake was "misandrist propaganda by feminazi [EDITED]" and the all-male cast of the original was "so what it's four guys, who the fuck cares, that doesn't make it sexist." And that inconsistency doesn't fry their brains at all, because that persecution complex is really only there to (internally and externally) justify all the sexist and racist shitbaggery they actually believe but don't want to admit is sexist and racist shitbaggery.

That is the public face of modern sexism and racism - pretending that equality has already been achieved and crying persecution. Well, no, the public face of modern racism is apparently shouting "coon" at a black woman on twitter. Oh, how far we've come.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:00 am

I'm pretty sure Trump is the face of modern racism and most racists* comfort themselves by believing as long as they aren't as (openly) racist as 'him' then they are not true racists. Going through the back log of talking heads like Sargon there seems to be some kind of anti-feminist(SJW) thing going on where a bunch of people have started finding the worst of the worst as far as BLM, feminists, etc and then claiming that 'they' represent what 'progressives' want and then point to legislation and rules being changed to suit the worst of the worst. However these types don't seem to be as eager to dig around and find any kind of conservative or otherwise right leaning legislation that targets minorities. For all the bluster about being anti SJW they seem very silent about any actual anti minority fuckery.

I've met quite a few people who are somewhat into the anti 'SJW' thing (wouldn't call it a cause or a movement) and I always find it interesting that when I argue with them they seem to have a bunch of ready to post statistics and videos of disreputable behavior by certain members of different movements. They get really dismissive when I launch back with any number of quotes, statements, legislation, videos/stories/etc of police abusing minorities, as if they'd never heard of half of it or claim that these instances don't represent a trend. It's like the conservative parties are making inroads with what otherwise would be left leaning people.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 5:12 am

People are currently doing that whole "wait till all the facts are in before you are allowed to have an opinion" on Alton Sterling and Castile. These people are just racists with a double standard so deep that they tell themselves they aren't racist, it's just "looking for the facts" where looking means ignoring them whenever they don't like them and waiting for 46 years of investigation before admitting that any fact they don't like is true.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 8:07 am

I have yet to find any member of the youtube commentariat who used the word SJW unironically and wasn't using it as a mask for deeply bigoted beliefs they don't want to believe were bigoted. A quick glance at Sargon's latest bullshit, for example, shows us that he is "concerned" about Milo's twitter banning. Milo was tweeting screencaps of blatantly fake Leslie Jones tweets - tweets which made her sound like a racist caricature and included racist memes ("bix nood"). We are not even talking about a situation in which an ordinary surface-level acceptable twitter feud between two famous people lead to an accidental hatemob against one of them. We are talking about someone who joined their followers in tweeting racist bullshit at a black woman. What the fuck, exactly, is supposed to constitute the sort of harassment at which Sargon would draw the line?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 3:25 pm

DSMatticus wrote:What the fuck, exactly, is supposed to constitute the sort of harassment at which Sargon would draw the line?

Mild disagreement with racists... Like if say, hypothetically, a black person were to say "Please stop being racist" that would be the sort of harassment at which Sargon would draw the line, and would be totally okay with that person being banned.

K · Post by K » Sat Jul 23, 2016 6:15 am

The reboot is a forgettable film. It's an extended SNL skit with shallow characters, no plot, and no heart. There are no memorable lines, most of the scenes are just reskinned or reworked versions of scenes from the original film, the social commentary of the original is gone, and the cast are playing characters they've played before.

It's just poorly written and unoriginal.

It has some laughs, but it feels like it was made for not-particularly-bright kids. It should have been animated.

Luckily, I don't think they hurt the cause of female comedy.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 6:33 am

Having finally gotten to see the new ghostbusters, its actually good, not great or amazing, but definitely somewhere more than just "ok", arguably better than both the originals by a slight margin if you adjust for the ravages of time, and a large one if you don't.

And if your criticism is shallow low plot over extended SNL skit with comedians playing their same old one trick pony characters... all of that seems far more applicable to the original than to this movie.