Do we not have a Ghostbusters thread? Let's have a Ghostbusters thread. Mostly because I just watched the new trailer and desperately need to scream and kermitflail about it: So... there's been a lot of whining from the organized fandom about this movie. The root issue behind that whining is, incidentally, a large part of why I am no longer part of the organized fandom--by which I mean, huge chunks of the organized fandom south of the Mason-Dixon line are infested with douchebros. OK look, I was in the theater on opening day when the original came out in 1984, old-school Ghostbusters was my first and dearest fandom, I have a proton pack that I scratch-built my own self for fuck's sake, and I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THIS MOVIE. Keep crying, fanbros. Your tears are delicious. also I'm gonna call it right now: Patty is going to be my favorite, hands down. Lost every last bit of my shit at "THE POWER OF PATTY COMPELS YOU!"
I ...thought it was a reboot? But maybe it is a sequel? Maybe a little of both? I'm still kinda wiggling with glee over the fact that they seem to have a piece of equipment that lets them punch ghosts in the fucking face.
I thought the humor was a bit over the top for my personal tastes but it seems to be in line with like...a lot of recent comedy movies? I find it interesting that dudebros are going ITS NOT FUNNY when you KNOW if a movie like this came out with dudes in it they'd think it was hilarious. I think the racism issue people are discussing could be fixed by, well, putting more black characters into the movie. The actress for Patty has stated she likes her role so I dunno if it's right to tell her how to feel about it. On the flip side i know Hollywood's track record with race is terrible. But once again all our problems could be solved with MOAR REPRESENTATION. What I liked about it is that all the women are different and NONE of them are the weird sexy female ideal, they look like real (quirky) people I could meet on the street anywhere.
YES THIS! They're being portrayed as PEOPLE. Who wear normal-people clothes and do normal-people things (well minus the whole "catching ghosts" but but w/e) and occasionally do silly awkward normal-people stuff (i.e. Erin vs. the door, okay look that's one of the oldest jokes in the world but it never stops being funny because literally fucking everyone, no matter how smart, has done that). Aaaand that's probably at least part of what's crawled up the angry fanbros' asses and died. :/
Thread necromancy because I just got back from seeing it and I'm kermitflailing all over the living room Spoiler: booyah. emphasis on the boo. Patty did turn out to be my favorite. Or maybe Holtzmann did. I dunno. They were all awesome. KEVIN IS THE BIGGEST HIMBO but he tries, oh my god does he try, and I'm still going to cosplay him. The fact that a) his glasses have no glass in them (because that makes them easier to clean) and his uniform is like a closet cosplay version of the ladies' uniforms will make this even easier. No, seriously, he just puts some tape on tan coveralls, HIS NAMETAG IS DUCT TAPE WITH HIS NAME ON IT IN SHARPIE, bless his heart THE CAMEOS. SLIMER AND LADY SLIMER AND THEIR GHOST BROS JOYRIDING AROUND IN THE ECTOMOBILE Patty walks into room full of mannequins in haunted theater. Audible noping from at least three people in the audience. We know who's played Silent Hill! Make sure you stay ALL the way through the credits, fun stuff is happening throughout but there is a thing at the very very end too.
I just came back from seeing it and would like to say that I am aro ace as hell and yet somehow still kinda find Holtzmann hot. Which is a little weird, considering she bears an uncanny resemblance to a friend of mine.
Holtzmann seems to have that effect, lol. I have a number of female friends who went into the theater reasonably sure they were straight and came out ...less sure.
The friend in question has decided she needs to see the movie immediately so she can determine how best to utilize her Ghostbustersona's ability to bring all the girls to the yard in real life.
(sets up camp in this thread) hi I saw this movie twice and I might have to find a bootleg for holtzmann outfit reference. for my new Halloween costume.* also, I really enjoyed the comedy - it was silly and over-the-top, but not too gross or cringey or embarrassing .. I can't watch most comedies because they're at least one of those things, lol. *this is in addition to the giant monster costume, which is rad, but impractical for class. :P
Oh, and in my nightly session of lying in bed wide awake after midnight waiting for my brain to realize it's supposed to go to sleep, I realized why this movie felt... "safe" in a way I've never experienced from a blockbuster comedy before. 2-hour comedy which definitely does not have a dry sense of humor, all of two jokes about a woman's appearance. Zero jokes about how well femininity is being performed or how hot they'd look to a man. Is this how straight guys feel at the movies.
I saw this yesterday and it was great. All the people who gave the movie negative reviews had their heads stuffed pretty far up their vested bias against the female cast I swear. I loved all of them but especially the engineer woman she was just the best
... man, I've already been swooning from the trailers. God, I need to watch this as soon it's out on DVD/streaming. (I can't do theaters, it's very frustrating.)
Also, expanding on this... Spoiler: Minor spoilers It would have been so easy for them to slip in a catty comment about the mayor's assistant. Skinny, perfectly-coiffed lady in a tailored suit and heels who's a minor antagonist in a movie where the protagonists are a bunch of nerdy, weird, Not Magazine Pretty ladies who spend most of the movie in baggy coveralls? But they didn't, and instead the jokes about her are all about her attitudes and behavior, and it was so nice.
Not to mention... the fanbro meltdowns over Kevin. "weh the only male main character was just eye candy and useless without the women" (conveniently forgetting about Rowan, and I'll get to that in a second) how does it feel, bros? how does it feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel Oh, and if you mention Rowan... Spoiler "But you saw how mean people were to Rowan! You can't blame him for being mad!" No, you have a point there, he's certainly entitled to be upset about the way he's being treated. But here's the thing: the movie makes a point of telling us that Erin was also bullied as a kid about the ghost thing, and showed her being treated like shit by her boss and even by her friend for a little while, and showed that Erin most definitely had the physics know-how to build crazy ghost-amplifying machines... but she didn't. Is it maybe, perhaps, because Erin isn't a whiny shitlord who thinks the entire world owes her because some people were mean to her?
Haven't seen it yet, but I super super want to. I'm obsessed with Kate McKinnon (I absolutely adore all of her bits on SNL, particularly as Hillary and also in the close encounter and related sketches). And Holtzman is, like, actually me. *thumps table excitedly* MY REACTION EXACTLY
Spoiler: also MAN I LOVE THIS re: Big Evil Can I also just take a moment to kermitflail about the Big Evil in this movie actually being A HUMAN? And a very human human at that? Like, okay, Gozer was scary but Gozer was a cosmic horror. Vigo was scary and ...had been human at some point, but had been a spirit in a painting for so long that he really wasn't anymore, and because I count the 2009 game as canon, Ivo Shandor was human, but again, it wasn't him you were up against, it was his long-dead spirit so... same deal as Vigo, pretty much. But now you've got a Ghostbusters movie where BIG EVIL IS JUST A PERSON. A person with weapons-grade Issues, yes, and a person with scary smarts, but still--a person. Yeah, he turns into a demigod thing at the end, but for most of the movie, he's just this dude that works in a hotel in New York. You could meet this guy on the street. You could be arguing with this guy on Reddit right now. He's just ...a guy. And that's scary and awesome.
Also forgetting that there are plenty of minor male characters (the mayor, the Aldridge guys, the administration at both universities, the cameos from the 1984 cast, the FBI agents, the delivery guy...). Which you can't say for women in most movies. Re: spoiler: And it even explicitly points that out! Can't quote the line exactly, but it was something like "You don't know how it feels!" "Yeah, actually, we kind of do." Spoiler When you consider Erin and Abby's backstory and Holtzmann's speech at the end, I think the only member of the team who wasn't bullied or shunned for Ghost Nerdery before the movie was Patty, and that's because she's primarily a History Nerd, not a Ghost Nerd. And they all got treated badly for it during the movie. And yeah, none of them decided to summon the Darkhallow and turn into Oogie Boogie and rampage through New York.
