Paul Feig is such a whiner. "Once upon a time I loved the internet" Yeah, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when it came to his ability to do the 2016 GHOSTBUSTERS. The guy has no talent. He's good with comedy, but GHOSTBUSTERS was not a comedy. It's a bit like 1982's CREEPSHOW, except instead of the exploitation of 42nd street broadcasts, it relied more on the suspense model provided by Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960) and THE EXORCIST (1973). The suspense driven horror film was derivative of other movies before it but if it'd been an all out horror film, it would have been boring at worst and too scary to watch at best, neither one good for business. I personally don't recall ever being scared by the film. I've been watching the film since I was 2 years old and even though I can piece together a composite understanding of why people all over LMAOd, I honestly have never had an extreme funny bone reaction to GHOSTBUSTERS. But it is still a fun movie. The only thing one can argue with against it is the ambiguous (at best) stance the filmmakers have on Christianity. The notion of ghosts definitely defies general understanding of God's Word. And as far as being "important" -- the film is definitely not any kind of instruction. It provides no spiritual nourishment and it is not a means to any profitable end to the general public. It's what many would call a "waste of time". In fact, this blogpost is taking way too long to complete, but I can't exactly stop now.......
But I think there is still a spirit of optimism that sweeps through even the grimmer sequences and I think the world at large could benefit from more pondering on the merit of optimism it it could withstand the mental stamina needed to do so between work hours or after.
There are so many elements that worked well with each other in GHOSTBUSTERS (1984). Many people talk about them when comparing it to GHOSTBUSTERS II and people do that even still with the remake.
The fact of the matter is the same things that made GHOSTBUSTERS a smashing success would not have worked with 1993's JURASSIC PARK. Nor would they have worked with 1973's THE EXORCIST. Nor would they have worked with CADDYSHACK or LIAR LIAR or MEN IN BLACK or BACK TO THE FUTURE. Obviously, there needed to be something unique to the original that was re-used in the remake. Gus Van Sant's 1998 re-make of PSYCHO was pointless --- unadulterated mindnumbing WTF POINT-LESS! It's in color. Oh, so now snotnose brats can enjoy it! Except they didn't because the 1960 remake that was re-shot frame by frame (in color and with a different cast) is extremely slow moving by 1998 standards. Those old enough to appreciate the quality of the storytelling probably don't mind the 1960 orig. being in color. In fact, if reading and literacy were not so perrenially unpopular, the movie PSYCHO would have been pointless given how closely it kept to the rather short book in which it was based. However, there is indeed something to be said of how skillfully Hitchcock put the thing together.
Talent does not stem from intellect or preconceived notions of graphic design. A lot of people interested in clothing insist that polka dots and stripes don't go together. Bull. That's the same logic that Hollywood executives have about so-called "blockbuster" movies. "Put monsters and randomly inserted large doses of destruction with a little bit of dialogue interspersed and money will follow" Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. It worked with JURASSIC WORLD big time. Not as much for GODZILLA (2014) and not at all for INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE. Art is a complicated blend of things that have to go together just so or it just doesn't fly. If you don't want to look like you've failed, don't try. Don't bother wearing polka dots and stripes if you have no idea how to make yourself look good in it. Some people probably literally cannot pull it off. Some people literally cannot pull of a GHOSTBUSTERS remake. Sony Pictures and Ghost Corp. may as well have thrown their money down the toilet. It would've incited less disappointment in a lot of people.
I tried to enjoy it on a second viewing, knowing it was a weak ass film compared to the original. I thought maybe Sigourney Weaver's comments on the film maybe had merit. It's not much of a wonder why nobody sees her in anything anymore except people who have too much time on their hands and rent movies like TADPOLE and THE GUYS. The rest of the Ghostbusters cast and major filmmaking players also seem to have lost their touch. Dan Aykroyd might still have his, but he hasn't been in show business much the past 20 years, which I can hope is in correlation to the decrease in quality motion pictures, but then again why was he in Ghostbusters? Maybe he had unrealistic expectations of the movie based on a loose draft of the script. He generally doesn't do movies that he thinks poorly of, at least that's what he said in an interview one time with Oprah or someone. Also, he'd been the GB franchise's biggest cheerleader since 1990 and might've been afraid of what his absence in the film would do to the future of the GB franchise. It'd been dead for so long, maybe he was OK with it having such a rocky re-launch .... I really do hope Sony & Ghost Corp. do better with any further attempts to come if any. Ivan Rietman is still in show business, and who keeps hiring him and why?? Ernie Hudson, the smaller name in the GB cast, but easily recognizable, just basically keeps busy as he always has.
Paul Feig might've been able to do a better variation of the film had he had more unbiased feedback. There was a lot of gender based hatred spewing from the public. There was a lot of idiotic "sequel, don't remake!" comments floating about, and a lot of Hilary Clinton-type "girl power!" comments (and asskissers for sure) but none of that is productive and none of those in and of themselves, alone and/or in part contributed to the lack of quality in the movie. He stated his technique generally is to test screen which scenes give the biggest laugh. He said he would try different takes of the same scene even. I think a lot of people just were not interested in the idea and were not going to be pursuaded to be. There was obviously a lot of pre-release anticipation and it opened with a bang, but quickly declined in sales. The home video sales were also strong. There obviously was/is an audience for the film aside from those who went back to the theater to see it -- which were obviously fewer in number, hence the decrease in ticket sales as week 2 and 3 came to a close. I can only guess that the Los Angeles/SoCal area has more bias than the nation & the world at large? I don't know. It's quite possible the SoCal residents were a lot harder to please given the onslaught of junk coming out of Hollywood. How can anyone who was old enough to be watching an average R rated movie in 1994 even stomach being reminded of how low film's quality has sunk since the days of Summer 1984? ESPECIALLY in a town/area where everyone *wants to be* a filmmaker (actor or screenwriter) but can't be because the stupid executives can't just put out a good movie and let that be that. Heck, the movies that come out these days aren't *bad* movies. They're just so damn middle of the road. 2001's NARC, recently bought for $0.99 with some store credit @ CD Warehouse after having memories of the little bit I'd seen of it before giving up on it (possibly unfairly) and the critical response it had overall, had some elements that made it watchable. It was an entertaining 2 hrs, if what the word getting spread out on the street is indeed true. But how many people in SoCal have submitted much better screenplays, dealing with subject matter that isn't so tried and tired? Surely Paramount Pictures could have scrapped whatever stupid ass box office bomb came out that summer and released such a screenplay and it probably would not have been any bigger of a financial disaster. I wouldn't think the barrage of sexism that flooded the internet would be such a driving force in SoCal....but then again....idk.....I really do wonder about that whole thing. Maybe the final product really was the best Paul Fieg could muster.
No comments:
Post a Comment