the supernatural themes in this and the visual effects of undead would definitely fall in line with China’s view on banning the movie overall. But I am curious, what gay themes were in it? Did I miss some references somewhere, because I don’t recall anything that put off that vibe.
For my own view on the film…I enjoyed it immensely. Was it as good as the original, no. But in some regards it was better. Yes the primary male character of Chris Hemsworth idiotic Kevin was absolutely a brilliant take on the Jeannine character. Hemsworth was a scene-stealer in no small part due to who knew he could be that funny?!? McKinnon’s Holtzman was a complete improvement on Ramis’ Spangler, no small feat whatsoever. McCarthy’s Abby version of Akroyd’s character was on par. No better, no worse, just as lovable. Leslie Jones was far more involved than Hudson’s Winston was, and the trailers did not do her justice. I was pleasantly surprised that she was not the one note character they made her out to be in the trailers.
Lastlly is Kristen Wiig’s Emily version of the immortal Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman. This is where they fell down. Kristen Wiig was perfectly fine. Her character was fine. Emily was not my favorite Ghostbuster, but she was not bad by any means. But Venkman? Come on. He is one of the best characters in movies ever. There was no way anyone could have topped Murray in this regard, and I didn’t expect them to.
All in all it was enjoyable. I like it. While the original GB I would give 5/5, Id give GB2 1.5/5, and this new incarnation let’s call it GB3 would be 4/5.
I went to see this just out of spite of the Red Pill crowd, and I actually enjoyed it and the audience that I was in enjoyed it as well. It’s one of those movies I’d take my kid to go see. Nothing serious, just fun and spectacle and it did rehash some of the feel of the original.
Honestly, I’m not outraged, but I’m treating Ghostbusters, Jumanji, Magnificent Seven, etc., like I’ve been treating all the remakes of the past few years: I don’t watch 'em. I get it, remakes have been a part of Hollywood ever since Hollywood was a thing, but it seems like nobody’s coming up with anything new.
If I see any reviews of the new Ghostbusters that can praise it without resorting to saying it only gets negative reviews due to misogyny, I’ll see it. I don’t feel like giving money to Sony in any way fights the patriarchy. I’ll, I don’t know, do things to lift up the women in my life instead, thanks.
I think Magnificent Seven is a special case, because as a remake, it’s now almost completely removed from the cultural appropriation that brought it into being. Pass.
This is tangential but re-watching Ghostbusters II the other night I was struck by how disappointingly Janine Melnitz was handled. Yes, there were a lot of disappointing things about the sequel but that stood out as the biggest. Her change in look–new hairstyle, flashier clothes–hinted at an interesting backstory, that she’d been through some major upheavals during the five-year interval.
I realized she should have been the one to don a jumpsuit and proton pack and to hell with the manbabies.
It’s another reason I’m looking forward to the new one but I also see the new one, good or bad, as a chance to make up for what Ghostbusters II missed.
I haven’t seen a single review in any paper or website that uses “see this and like it or you’re a misogynist” as its way of praising it. In all honestly, it’s not a remake. It’s a reboot. Completely new story, new characters, new direction. The women don’t map to female versions of the original characters, they’re more complex than that.
I didn’t see it to ‘fight the patriarchy’, I saw it because friends told me it was funny and fun, and it was. It’s a good movie on its own terms. If you want to boycott it (and all unoriginal ideas), well, okay, but how far does that go? I mean, even A Bug’s Life was basically a Seven Samurai remake.
It reminds me of how when Al Franken’s last few books came out there would immediately be bad reviews on amazon, literally on the day the book was first available, always by people who just disagreed with him politically (some reviews would even say “I haven’t read this, and I’m not going to!”)
Regarding Leslie Jones being hounded off Twitter, I am reminded of a Dave Chappelle quote: “If the internet were a real place it would be disgusting and unbearable.”
Do I have to like this movie to avoid being labeled a Manbaby? Is it one of those films above all criticism like Schindler’s List? One of those downvotes on the trailer is mine. I’m sure I have downvoted Sex in The City at some point as well (I have seen many hours of the show thanks to my wife and I hated every minute of it).
I soured on the movie after reading comments made by Feig early on. It was apparent to me that he had turned a beloved comedy franchise into a vehicle for his personal political goals.
I think women can be funny. I particularly enjoy McKinnon and Wigg on SNL. I have enjoyed McCarthy in the past (loved Bridesmaids) but have tired of her playing essentially the same character in every movie. I kind of wrote her off after paying to see “Tammy”. I don’t understand why Leslie Jones is famous. I have never seen her do anything funny ever. Her performance on SNL is what I would expect to see if they grabbed a random person off the street and inserted them into the cast.
Look through this thread on BoingBoing. “I went and saw it, to spite the Red Pillers!” Ugh. Yay, you gave money to a large corporation to fight the patriarchy. Woo. Hoo. And nearly every bit of positive praise I’ve seen contains some sort of “manbaby” reference. Maybe I just look at the wrong media, and should ignore sources like The Mary Sue.
I wouldn’t go to IMDb to rate it down. That’s childish, and shame on the dudebros who do. I lost enthusiasm after I found out Bill Murray kept shredding the scripts, and lost almost all enthusiasm after Ramis died and they talked about a new, younger cast (actually, I think they were talking about a young cast way before that.) My level of enthusiasm didn’t magically change when I found out the younger cast had vaginas. My total lack of enthusiasm happened when I saw those godawful trailers.
Or another way to put it: back when Star Trek: Voyager was announced, I was excited for the show. I found out more about the cast, and eh, I was still excited. Hadn’t seen it yet. Predictably, there were a bunch of whiny manbabies who didn’t like the fact that Janeway is a woman. I didn’t care, because hey, it’s another 24th-century Star Trek set on a starship, and the premise sounds awesome! And I watched it…and it was bad. So bad. Well…okay, the first season of TNG was “cancel this immediately” bad, but it got better. And Voyager got better…but it was never really all that good. My criticism of that series doesn’t come from a place of, “Eww, the Captain and chief engineer are girls!” It comes from just what a steaming turd it tended to be. Now, when people like Berman weren’t paying close attention, they would crank out a fanfuckingtastic episode or two, but it’d go right back to being based on goofy ideas like, “It needs to have conflict, but it needs to be like TNG,” and, “the human characters need to tone it down so the aliens shine,” and “what’s a show bible?”
Oof, I was willing to let you have this one. But that second sentence made me literally (no wait… figuratively? No… definitely literally) suck in my breath.
Schindler’s List is NOT above criticism. No great film is. Since films are made by people they are by extension fallible as well.
And sure, maybe Jones has never tickled your funny bone, but her stints on weekend update consistently make me at least smile. (Which is more than I can say for poor lame milquetoast Colin Jost) And while you probably like Dane Cook and/or Bill Hicks, I don’t find much of their stuff to be entertaining either.
Right. How exactly did they explain how that 90lb one armed woman somehow rose to a position of power in a warrior culture where every other woman appears to be a sex slave? Because she was such an awesome driver? Apparently not as good as Nux who had to take the wheel to get the war rig out of the mud.
At this point we may as well remake Rocky with Hilary Swank in the title role knocking the shit out of a 250lb Apollo Creed. If you can’t believe it enough to sit through it you must be a misogynist.
Just to be clear: those are two completely different movies we’re speaking of. The scripts that Bill Murray rejected and Harold Ramis was working with were the ones Dan Ackroyd developed with the idea of the ‘old’ Ghostbusters mentoring a young crew to be the new generation. That movie will probably never be made. The new Ghostbusters movie is a separate thing entirely from those scripts. Having actually seen the movie, I think that gender-flipping it was a clever way to wipe the slate clean with four really funny women, rather than have, say, Josh Gad as “young Ray” or Ben Stiller as “young Venkman”.
Its time to stop listening to review aggregators and crowd sourced reviews, it’s all gamed anyway. Critics have lost credibility as of late, but now we know we can’t trust any online ranking system to be free of gaming by people with an agenda.
I understand why people would want to rely on a simple score from Rotten Tomatoes to decide if they’re going to buy an expensive movie ticket
But if all people are looking is at the score and not the thought process, the reasons for that score, the review itself, then scores become meaningless. As they have now.
nothing substitutes a review from a critic you trust, (yes, this is another flickfilosopher plug)
Only slightly off topic, I thought this was an awesome post in the comment section from that review:
The way I put it in Fandom and Male Privilege many years ago, was:
A situation that is perfectly equal between men and women is perceived as being biased in favor of women.
And
if you don’t believe me, you’ve never been a married woman who kept her
family name. I have had students hold that up as proof of my “sexism.”
My own brother told me that he could never marry a woman who kept her
name because “everyone would know who ruled that relationship.” Perfect equality - my husband keeps his name and I keep mine – is held as a statement of superiority on my part.
I don’t know. I’m not sure you can get away with going around saying “Schindler’s List sucked!”. The movie is too close to a documentary about true and tragic events. FWW I liked Schindler’s List, I was just using it as an example of a movie that is difficult (or dangerous) to criticize.
“Philadelphia” would be another one. I’m sure there are more.
There was some lady flirting happening; I wouldn’t call it a “theme.” But nah, China’s issue with this movie is definitely the ghosts (which is also the obvious explanation for the first two movies not doing well there). Ghosts and human bones are a no-no.
Get away with it where? Lots of critics and viewers objected to it, and as far as I know, none of them suffered persecution as a result.
Here’s a summary of much of the criticism:
Schindler’s List is certainly an outstanding achievement that is not without value as an entertaining film that can potentially introduce people to the subject of the Holocaust that otherwise would never have known anything about it, but it has deep flaws. What some people consider to be the greatest Holocaust movie of all time, others feel is a shallow movie that turns a real tragedy into a fairy tale between good and evil, black and white. But perhaps the most serious problem with this film is that it poses as a historically accurate educational tool, making the defining movie about the Holocaust a Hero story about a Nazi instead of a film depicting the dehumanization, suffering and death of millions of Jews. And that’s not even counting the disservice it does to the millions of non-Jews who died in the Holocaust that it doesn’t even mention.
I’ve read only one media review (Guardian, they loved it) but after reading these comments, I don’t think I need any more encouragement. (I value BBers’ opinions more highly than ‘the critics’ anyway.)
Makes one wonder if the milquetoast trailer was just a head-fake.
