Ghostbusters (4/5 Stars)

This Ghostbusters is not a remake (in which the same characters do the same things) or a sequel (in which the same characters do different things) but a reboot. It has the same name and the same overall structure but different characters that do different things. For example, in the first Ghostbusters (1984), the crew look for office space and stumble upon an old fire station in Tribeca, New York. The place is a piece of junk in a terrible neighborhood but it is thankfully cheap enough for them. In the reboot, the new crew looks for office space and is shown the same fire station. This time they are told it costs $21,000 a month in rent.

It’s a good joke and one this movie tells many times. However, doing so reveals the weirdness of the movie. See if you can wrap your head around this. In the 2016 version of Ghostbusters, the 1984 Ghostbusters don’t exist. That in and of itself is normal for a reboot. What is weird is that the reboots wrings every callback opportunity possible out of the earlier film. Some examples: The Ghostbusters logo is “serendipitiously” created by a graffiti artist, the original cast shows up in cameos and quote the original’s catchphrases, and a giant stay puff marshamallow man is fought in the climatic scene. The movie treats these situations as if the movie knows about the original film, but the characters in the 2016 version don’t know about the original film. So there’s a disconnect between what the audience experiences and what the characters experience because the audience remembers the thing that is being called back in a scene but none of the characters in that scene remember it. Like I said, weird.

It is fun to hear all these callbacks but I would posit that it hurts this movie’s ability to be a stand-alone movie because to understand these many jokes one would need to see the original movie. A viewer who has not seen the original would probably be confused as to why the movie would make such a big deal about a callback moment when the characters themselves, by definition, can’t. To draw a contrast, take the movie “Creed.” That was a reboot too in a way. But the new character existed in the same time universe as the original so when it made callbacks it made sense for the characters to feel the weight of them. Those moments do not work in this reboot (if you take the time to think about it) and that is this Ghostbusters oddest and biggest mistake.

It’s an odd mistake because this movie probably didn’t need the callbacks and nostaligic jokes. This movie is a “Bridesmaids” reunion, a movie that will be a classic once I convince everyone. It is directed by Paul Feig and stars both Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. Kristin Wiig continues to impress. She has been cast in this movie as the straight man (she is a scientist at Columbia trying to distance herself from a ghost book she co-wrote with Melissa so she can gain tenure) so she has not as many opportunities to be funny but that doesn’t stop her from having the movie’s funniest moment in a restaurant freaking out in front of the mayor. She should be funnier more times but this is not really her fault, as I will explain later.

Melissa McCarthy continues to be not as funny to me as she apparently is to everyone else. I would compare her to Zach Galifinakis. She rose to stardom in a very well written supporting role, which has been hard to translate into mainstream comedic stardom. What seems to happen, just like Zach, is that most of her funny moments come about not through chracter revelations but from non-sequitor asides, quite a few of which distract from the narrative flow of the movie. There is one more thing and this actually does happen to do with her gender. Melissa McCarthy is fat but won’t do fat jokes. This distinguishes her from every male of ample gut that calls himself a comedian. Her writers won’t do it also (here that is Katie Dippold and Paul Feig) and it leads to some unbelievable situations, like in “The Heat” where she is cast as the sexually vigorous and attractive one opposite to Sandra Bullock of all people. Unfortuately for our politically correct culture, fat jokes will always be funny because (obesity epidemic due to subsidized corn syrup excepted) it is fundamentally true that they reveal character (unlike say racial jokes or misogynistic jokes). And jokes that reveal character are and will always be the best ones. Melissa McCarthy’s pride ignores this to her own peril as a comedian. It is about time for her to own it and join the big boys of comedy (Rodney Dangerfield, John Candy, John Belushi, Zero Mostel, Jack Black, Jim Gaffigan, Jason Alexander, to name but a few).

The revelation in this movie is Kate McKinnon. She is hilarious. I’ve known her a little bit from Saturday Night Live (she is probably going to blow up big time impersonating Hillary Clinton this fall) but have never seen her in a movie. She reminds me of the early freewheeling zaniess of Jim Carrey in a 5’5” frame. Making her more fun is that she is in charge of the really dangerous equipment. She does a dance at one point with blowtorches. Classic McKinnon.

The fourth is Leslie Jones. She fills the Ernie Hudson role and then some. In fact she shows up earlier, has more jokes, and says more smart things (she reads lots of nonfiction and knows all sorts of things about the city) than Hudson ever did in the original. It doesn’t matter. This Ghostbusters, unlike the first, is getting shit for not giving the black woman a role as a scientist, as opposed to the (apparently undignified) job as an MTA worker. I’m not sure what Ernie Hudson was doing in the first Ghostbusters. He shows up three quarters of the way through and then doesn’t really do anything in it besides postulate about the end-of-the-world, but if he was absent from that one and Leslie Jones (who is only here because of Ernie’s presence in the first) was absent from this one, the only thing missing would be the liberal outrage.

(I’ve been trying to figure out why this sort of controversy irks me so much. I can only ascribe it to what I would consider an unfounded and pathetic sense of entitlement amongst those that are outraged (not just black people of course, I remember Mahnola Dargis of the NYTimes complaining about it too.) Its unfounded because to tell a good story, even one with paranormal elements, it helps to set it in a realistic context. I think it is fair to say that a black person in NYC in 2016 is more likely to work for the MTA than for Columbia University as a scientist. If that is a problem, it is a problem for the real world. It is not a detriment to Ghostbusters to merely reflect reality. That is to say the solution to this problem should be to fix it in the real world, not insist that a movie project falseness. Its pathetic because (and I shudder to accuse people of this) it insists that a person’s self-esteem comes from how they see other people who look like them are portrayed in movies. It should be a basic thing taught to all five-year-olds that movies should not dictate how one feels about themselves. To say Ghostbusters, of all movies, made you feel less than, well, that’s just, it’s just one of the saddest things I could possibly hear someone say.)

The largest difference between the original and the reboot has to be the extraordinary progression of digital effects in movies. The comparison is a good reminder that being able to do anything with computers does not necessarily make it better than the old cheap way. The special effects in the original were crappy but they had thought in them and quite a few of them were jokes. In the reboot, the effects are so big that it is damn near impossible for them to be comedic. There is a big action sequence at the end in which the ghosts of New York City past attack the four ghostbusters. It is notable for its lack of laughs while being great to look at. Roger Ebert made the observation that the original movie was an exception to the general rule that big special effects can wreck a comedy. He explained:

“Special effects require painstaking detail work. Comedy requires spontaneity and improvisation; or at least that’s what is should feel like, no matter how much work has gone into it…rarely has a movie this expensive provided so many quotable lines.”

The suits in charge of the reboot have, like so many recent movies, used big budget spectacle, nostalgic throwbacks, and political correctness (where are the ghost hookers of Time Square in the climatic battle? Why are they fighting pilgrims instead?) as a crutch in the place of character, creativity, and originality. The tragedy is that all the ingredients for greatness are here but they have not been given space to breathe and grow. In the meantime it’s good enough. Perhaps the sequel will do a better job at making the apocalypse work for the comedy and not the other way around. At least there should be less callbacks.

Bridesmaids (5/5 Stars)

“Why can’t you just be happy for me and talk about me behind my back like a normal person!?!?”

Shouts the bride-to-be Lillian, played by Maya Rudolph, to her ex-best friend Annie, played by Kristen Wiig, at her bridal shower. There has been a seething conflict brewing between the bridesmaids, Annie and Helen, played by Rose Byrne, underneath all of the polite smiles and passive-aggressive I-hope-once-I-get-to-know-you-I’ll-like-you-better mannerisms. Annie is Lillian’s best friend since childhood. She is a failure at business (her bakery went out of business), at love (her current boyfriend considers them to be nothing but fuck-buddies), at home (her roommates are really weird and consider her the weird one), and everything else. Helen, the wife of the groom’s boss, is very rich, always beautiful, extremely organized and although she has only known Lillian for a couple months, seems determined to become her new best friend. Compounding things are Annie’s many failures at organizing the pre-wedding events from serious mishaps at the bridal dress fitting to a bachelorette party in Vegas that goes awry much earlier than you would think is possible. At one point, Annie is fired as the maid of honor and Helen is put in charge of planning the Bridal Shower. And what a shower it is. It’s just so goddamn infuriatingly perfect. So perfect in fact that at one exceedingly over the top moment that Annie would have loved to provide but couldn’t because she is poor and that Helen does provide because she is rich, Annie finally snaps and angrily exclaims, “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” What follows is a completely truthful/inappropriate tirade directed at the ex-best friend who has sold her out and a crowd of shocked party guests capped off with Annie running into the backyard to destroy the larger than life party decorations, which, it should be noted, she isn’t particularly good at doing either. That description unjustly summarizes one of the funniest scenes I have ever seen in a movie and more than anything should solidify Kristen Wiig as a bona fide movie star. The level of comedic ecstasy achieved in this movie is on the level of the best comedies ever made. The key to getting to that high level of superior comedy basically consists of finding a way for the characters to do outrageous things in ridiculous situations while still staying true to reality and the reasonable character motivations. That takes not only a large amount of creativity but also an in-depth understanding of human nature. This movie has both in spades. If this won’t be the best comedy of the year, it will definitely be one of the best. In my opinion, it should be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

A general rule in the movie business if you are a talented actor but aren’t getting good roles is you should take the initiative and write your own material. For years now, Kristen Wiig has been a virtuoso performer on Saturday Night Live, but unlike so many other great SNL alumni, she has been relegated to supporting characters in feature length movies of inferior comedians. Here, following the advice of producer Judd Apatow and with the partnership of Annie Mumolo, she has co-written her own screenplay. (You can see the fictional and real Annie sitting next to each other in the airplane scene.) This screenplay is perfect. Or should I say, Kristen’s performance makes it perfect. So many of the laughs in this movie would not exist if Kristen Wiig had not delivered the lines. She has an incredibly impressive ability to squeeze the utmost amount of humor out of a single phrase. Even most of her whispers get laughs in this movie. Sometimes she doesn’t say anything at all and simply employs her eyes and facial expressions to tell the joke. How many comedians can you think of who can do that? (I’m judging you, Seth Rogen.) That ability it especially important in this story because so much of it involves situations in which it would be rude for a character to complain about anything out loud lest it would ruin the experience for the bride. To be realistic then, Kristen has to convey her character’s enormous frustration with true subtlety. It is flat out brilliant the way she can say one thing and at the same time so clearly convey to the audience that she means something else entirely. And when the character finally gets loud, Kristen knocks that sort of thing out of the park too. Not to mention her ability to do great physical comedy, something most actresses aren’t even willing to try. In my opinion again, this is an Oscar caliber performance and she should at least be nominated.

Surrounding Kristen Wiig is a very good ensemble. Maya Rudolph as the bride has mastered the art of the straight character. When things get crazy she rightly underplays the social awkwardness in order to keep the scene going even farther. When things get fun she looks like she is definitely enjoying herself, which naturally suggests that the audience should too. The other bridesmaids include Rita, played by Wendi Mcloven-Covey, a blunt and frank long-married woman with three teenage boys. Rita is looking forward to the bachelorette party more than anything else. Then there is Becca, played by Ellie Kemper, who is young, naïve, and recently married. She and her husband went to Disney World for their honeymoon and haven’t been with anyone else. The wildcard is Megan, played by Melissa McCarthy, a short very stout and manly woman. She brings up the idea of a Fight Club themed Bridal Shower. All of these characters are so well defined and have such different comedic styles that the group scenes play effortlessly. No matter where they are or what anyone says, somebody in the group is going to feel out of their element or disagree or be offended on some level. When they talk in a group, it’s just one joke after another. Rita and Becca work wonderfully together. Finally, there is Helen, who is played by Rose Byrne. I was reminded of Russell Brand’s character in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Here you have a character that could have been so easily given no depth and made solely to be hated. Instead, similar to so many other great Judd Apatow productions, even the antagonist in this story is made to be deliberately sympathetic. There aren’t any real bad guys in this movie and, above all, in the midst of all the raunchy scatological humor there is a core of emotional honesty. The relationships, whether between Annie and Lillian or Annie and Helen or Annie the two love interests in the movie, (the jerk played by the dashing Jon Hamm and the nice guy played by Andy O’Dowd) are sincere and affecting. These are characters you can truly care about. Well, everyone except Jon Hamm.

Of course, I don’t want to downplay the comedy by upholding the dramatic stuff. It should be mentioned just how well this movie constructs gags and conversations with humorous payoffs. One example of many includes a scene at the engagement party where Annie and Helen give speeches about how great the bride is. Annie goes first. Helen gives a better speech. Annie decides to tack on an epilogue to hers. Helen comes right back. This happens a couple more times and includes a great laugh dealing with just how many microphones there are in the room. The tug-of-war goes on in more elaborate fashion until right before the scene starts to feel really awkward. Then the movie snatches victory out of the jaws of defeat by ending it with a speech that turns into a song that turns into a duet. This conveniently spares both participants from embarrassment because the crowd logically thinks the entire competition was planned between the two. Another example involves how Annie loses her sales job in a jewelry store. A 12-year-old girl walks in and wants to buy a “Best Friends Forever” bracelet as a present for a friend. Annie, deeply distressed by that time in the movie, suggests that the word “forever” might be pushing it. The girl rightly suggests that Annie’s loser life is her own loser business. A whisper fight ensues and how it ends, well, let me just say I never ever thought a situation in which the C-word was directed at a 12-year-old girl could be so funny.

Dare I say that “Bridesmaids” is an important movie. If you take a look at most of the broad comedies out in the movie marketplace you will notice that they are almost exclusively anchored by male comedians. The few women who do anchor comedies, like say Katherine Heigl, Jennifer Aniston, or Anna Faris, usually do not find themselves in truly funny movies. This has quite a lot to do with the way movies confine the way that nearly all women look and act. To be more specific the general rule is that the main female character in a movie has to be beautiful all the time. This may be fine in drama but it hardly ever works in comedy. This is because the work of comedians is based in so many ways on self-degradation. “Bridesmaids” is a special movie in that it enables actresses to not wear makeup, curse up a storm, act awkward in conversation, act awkward physically, make disastrous embarrassing mistakes, be immature, and even, from time to time, be disgusting. That’s a good thing comedically speaking. It may seem odd that I would be arguing to allow women to degrade themselves in movies, but may I please point out that we certainly allow men to do it without any qualms whatsoever. Think of all the many lead actors in broad comedies that are not abnormally good looking or have incredible flaws. When a movie casts men of ample gut, like say Kevin James, Jack Black, John Candy, Vince Vaughn, or Chris Farley, in romantic leads in broad comedies, it essentially means that the movie is making a bet that the audience will accept that person romantically despite their appearance based in part on their personalities. Movies are very rarely willing to make the same bet with women comedians. To rephrase a classic Nora Ephron conversation between otherwise good-natured men from “When Harry Met Sally,” to say a woman has a good personality means nothing more than she is an ugly woman.

That type of attitude is precisely why the average Katherine Heigl/Jennifer Aniston Rom-Com will never be as funny as “Bridesmaids.” There are some jokes you just cannot do with makeup on. There is a very funny scene in “Bridesmaids” where the women eat at a Brazilian restaurant right before getting fitted for dresses. Everyone but Helen, who didn’t eat the meat at the restaurant because she is a vegetarian, gets food poisoning. And as the rest of the group is throwing up in the bathroom, the prideful Annie will not admit that she too is sick, as that would prove her inability to choose a good restaurant. Helen pressures her. Annie stubbornly sticks to her story even as she turns a sickly pale and lines of sweat start running down her face. Does Kristen Wiig look sexy in this scene? No way in hell. Is the scene funny? It’s hilarious. The big question of course is whether the audience will accept Kristen Wiig as a romantic interest even though she is a brave enough comedian to allow herself to be ugly. I hope so. If there is any woman that can become the first female comedic movie star it is Kristen Wiig. I hope that this movie makes a ton of money and becomes the first in Wiig’s hopefully illustrious career.

Surely some people who read this may comment that there are plenty of great female comedians on television. I surely agree. I intend to make a distinction between television and feature length films. Television broke this barrier at least fifty years ago when it allowed Lucille Ball to flex her comedic muscles in order to get drunk on cough syrup and eat an assembly line’s worth of chocolate. Since then, the vast majority of great female comedians from Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, Roseanne to recently Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Sarah Silverman, and Tina Fey have found their home on television. In fact, it should be noted that the majority of the cast in “Bridesmaids” have done their best work on television. Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph are both from “Saturday Night Live.” Wendi McLendon-Covey is from “Reno 9-11.” Ellie Kemper is from “The Office.” Melissa McCarthy can be found on "Mike and Molly." The only bridesmaid who is best known from movies here is Rose Byrne (aka the abnormally beautiful one). Rose, by the way, is not a comedian and is not so funny in this movie, although she does get much funnier as her character is more developed and her perfect hair gets out of place. I don't believe that is a coincidence. 

I don’t want to seem like a feminist in bringing this sort of thing up. (Quite frankly, the more I think about this sort of thing the more I'm inclined to think requiring an -ism to be treated equally is itself demeaning) I am much more comfortable saying it as a person who considers comedy to be a hobby and passion. To the studios I would argue that there is plenty of money to be made by giving talented female comedians like Kristen Wiig leading roles that allow imperfect looks and behavior. There are plenty of profitable comedies that are directed entirely at male audiences. The same should be able to be done conversely. “Bridesmaids” might be a very clear example of that.