27 Comments
Mar 21Liked by Scott Tobias

Your opening paragraph nails what I hate about the trailer for this new Ghostbusters. The portentous tone and music is so, so *off.*. You wanna know what the tone of the Ghostbusters (1984) movie is? Listen to the original song. That's the tone.

Imagine an Animal House remake where the trailer features the Kronos Quartet playing the Winter Overture from Requiem for a Dream as the VO intones "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son"

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Mar 21Liked by Scott Tobias

Big problem with trying to turn Ghostbusters into franchise is that there nothing particularly funny about busting ghosts. Grafting snobs-vs-slobs comedy onto horror premise was clever conceit that not was going to work more than once, and original largely caught lightning in bottle because everyone involve was at peak of their powers.

So continuing series as comedy not really work. But if Reitman is determined to continue series in Stranger Things mode, then why call it Ghostbusters? Why bring back aging comedians for non-comedy movie? Answer, of course, is oppressive nostalgia, which seem to be sole justification for this dire exercise.

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Dammit, Cookie Monster! This sums it up so much better than my review!

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Mar 21Liked by Scott Tobias

Me always in top form during Girl Scout Cookie season!

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Me also had it easier because me not actually had to watch that movie, and can just rail against general idea of it. Me always give most thought to movies that *almost* work, or have interesting ideas that it not express well (see Menace, Phantom).

So Ghostbusters sequels particularly frustrating because while they have no reason to exist, me feel like they almost worked. 2016 movie could have been great if it not had spent half of running time re-explaining what ghostbusting is and shoehorning in previous cast. Get director who can actually direct action and give more time for McKinnon, Jones, and Hemsworth to run wild, and it could have been terrific.

Likewise, supernatural kids movie starring Finn Wolfhard at peak of Stranger Things mania seem like money in bank, but they not could resist drowning thing in nostalgia. (and as you point out, not trying to make it funny, even though gawky teenagers being ones who have to save us from apocalpyse have as much comedic potential as Lampoon-style asshole slackers doing same in 1984).

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Picked up some Samoas yesterday and tried Adventurefuls, too. Those Girl Scouts keep jacking up the price, and I'm still on the hook!

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Mar 21Liked by Scott Tobias

Just like any dealer, they give you taste, get you hooked, and then they can charge whatever they want, because they know we not can resist!

Me also give them lot of credit for selling cookies in March, objectively worst month of year. Me feel like America's fragile mental state is only being held together by sweet, sweet cookies staving off seasonal depression every year!

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Mar 22Liked by Scott Tobias

Wait, I thought they dropped Samoas? I haven’t been seeking out Girl Scout cookies because I thought they dumped my favorite flavor. They still have them??

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Oh yeah, you can definitely have Samoa.

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To this new film's credit, it would classify as a comedy. That's a step up from the last one.

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Interesting observations in this thread, which have helped me to verbalize what I find off about today's Beetlejuice sequel teaser—the tone of it feels reverential and not fun, which is the exact opposite of the original movie.

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Mar 21Liked by Scott Tobias

Always happy to see a new horror movie that's not outright terrible. Oh and also that one about a possession on late night TV. David Dastmalchian has gone from "hey it's that crazy guy from the Dark Knight" to "hey it's that guy I see in lots of things now", but has not quite made it to "hey it's that guy whose name I can spell without copy/pasting".

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I think we have a workable three-tier scale for character actors here.

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Ehhh not sure about this. I was looking forward to Late Night, but AI sets a bad precedent that I don’t want to support. https://variety.com/2024/film/news/late-night-with-the-devil-ai-images-clarification-1235947599/

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Yeah, don’t do that. I think I know the images they’re referring to and it’s a very small part of the movie, but leave that door shut.

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"...to a cameo appearance by infamous German director Uwe Boll."

I had at least a minute of fun going through those four film titles and imaging how Uwe Boll might turn up in each one.

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Mar 22·edited Mar 22

I'm stridently against using AI in film — except for digitally replacing Conor McGregor with Dave Bautista, who can serve up menace AND nail a funny, campy note at the same time.

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Of all the new Ghostbusters reboot’s crimes, I forgot that one of them was wasting Carrie Coon. I hope she’s getting private jet money if not private island money for this.

Also, no Problemista review?! “I STAND WITH BANK OF AMERICA!”, best movie line of 2024.

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I want to see Problemista. (Loved Los Espookys.) There were conflicts with the screenings here, though. Problems with being a two-person operation.

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Said in Angelica Huston's accent from The Witches: You are in for a treat!

I get that not everyone is on Julio Torres's very specific comedy wavelength, but for ppl who are, Problemista is basically perfect. I had super high expectations and can't believe how well it pulled everything off.

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I caught DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD in December (the AFI EU film festival is likely going to be its only DC-area theatrical showing) and wasn't quite in love with it as I was BAD LUCK BANGING. I did take 2 bathroom breaks so I do need to revisit, but it felt like a rehash of the former film, only much longer, and didn't quite grab me as Jude's other work (I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS and AFERIM!). There is one montage in DNETMFTEOTW that really moved me though--I'll let people see it for themselves, but it did take my breath away in its simplicity and its rage.

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I will say it's probably a better intro to Jude than BAD LUCK BANGING since there's less hardcore porn in it lol

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I also noticed some similarities with Barbarians (didn’t go in realizing they were from the same director but became pretty obvious) but I preferred the more casual tone of End, really the one of the few times I feel like the possibilities of internet video have been used well in film (haven’t seen BLB). I internally kind of split End in two, though. It’s such a formal shift after Nina Hoss checks in that the commercial shoot almost feels like a separate movie, and one for me that got hard to watch in a way that went beyond thematic-formal correspondence without adding much that hadn’t already been shown or said.

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Right--the last 40 minutes are kinda just testing our patience. I did like his use of TikTok though, probably the best use of it in any movie to date

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Thank you both to Keith and Scott for the Ghostbusters and Road House reviews -- today was a day I could use a laugh, and I got two for the price of one. For some sadomasochistic reason, I now want to see both movies...

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Mar 25Liked by Scott Tobias

Watched Road House yesterday. Conor McGregor is the first performer I've ever seen who is somehow unconvincing speaking in his own accent.

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This is brilliant. Perfect description of that performance.

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