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Now that's I called a badass horror film, and damn does Stephan Lang kick some major ass at his age!
They should do the ultimate 60 years old action star showdown between Liam Neeson, Denzel Washington and Stephen Lang. Have them hunt each other and then team up to fight the enemy, which would have to be Lee Byung-Hun.
Honestly, if there had to be an agenda-pushing all female Ghostbusters, I'd swing for the fences and get Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Jamie Lee Curtis, Carrie-Ann Moss and/or Jodie Foster.
And for a younger guard, maybe Ruby Rose, Kate Mara, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Michelle Rodriguez, Milla Jovovich, Tatiana Maslany, Emily Blunt and/or Katee Sackhoff.
Now those are some badass chicks. B-)
Like I said I have no interest in the movie itself, and no intention to watch it. However, since that "agenda-pushing" thing keeps getting mentioned, and it sounds like a shitty thing to say, I have to ask: what's the agenda, and how is the movie pushing it?
It sounds like the female cast is somehow offensive just because it's a female cast. So... you're saying that if it was a different female cast then it would be more acceptable since the actresses would be preferable, but it would still be a case of "if there had to be" and "an agenda-pushing" and "all female"... Wtf is that all about?
I'm asking because I know you're an intelligent person and I can't imagine that you'd be that offended by a female cast, and I've never yet heard of the mostly male casts in most movies being called "agenda-pushing". So what am I missing here concerning this movie and there being apparently several women in it? (Instead of the usual lone female love interest/girlfriend/wife/damsel in distress among the male cast.) It sounds like it wouldn't matter as much if the movie was crap if they had at least had the decency to cast men... Eh?
Now, I'm sure there's some of that out there. I'm not naive enough to think that there isn't. But, I think the vast majority of us that don't think the movie looks very good aren't against an all-female take on the franchise. That part doesn't bother me one bit. Did they pick the four women I would have picked? No. If it were up to me, I would have probably kept Kate McKinnon and then gone in different directions with the others, but that's not really the point. Given the current cast, a perfectly good film could still be made.
The problem lies with Paul Feig and his take on the franchise. The original was great because, while it was a comedy, it didn't stay anchored to just that one genre. It was a perfect blend of comedy, science-fiction, horror, and whatever else you might be able to find in the film. But, above all else, it was a story about a team of great characters and the journey that they go on together over the course of the film. That doesn't seem to be the focus of the new film, as it seems to be trying to be too many different things, but curiously, nostalgia seems to be the one area that they've decided to not try to tackle, which even if everything else turned out terrible, could have still helped the fans of the original films, cartoons, etc. find their way into it. It just all seems overly goofy (the look of the ghosts, the slapstick nature of most of the jokes, the awful-looking CGI that doesn't even look as good as the effects in 1984 or 1989, etc.) whereas the original films were rooted in a sense of realism and the mundane (treating ghost busters like any kind of pest exterminators), and the comedy was derived from that. That doesn't seem to be the case this time around, and that's what a lot of people are reacting to, but the issue that many who are disappointed with what they've seen so far are coming at it from a similar angle as I am (and obviously different ones, as everyone has their own opinion about what looks to be wrong), which has nothing to do with the all-female team, and are told that they're only upset because it's an all-female team, which couldn't be further from the truth.
@Tuulia, the film has pushed an uber, overly feminist agenda from the beginning, and the filmmakers have crammed the idea down our throats. "Hey, guys, guess what? We're making a Ghostbusters movie, but with a twist. Wanna know what it is? Instead of all boys, it's all girls. Woo hoo."
When I see a movie, I just want to see good characters, I don't care if they're male or female, or freaking aliens. The issue lies in when filmmakers clearly make certain casting decisions just to push an idea on the public, as in this film. It's like the people involved took a script for the film with an all male cast and sloppily put in women just to say they did it. All the new female leads and their characters are exact copies of what the past male cast were in character archetypes, and add absolutely nothing new to the game, beyond really garbage comedy, as we've seen in the trailers.
Since the film has been out, we've endured endless tweets, pictures and yada yada of the cast saying things like "Girl Power" ad nauseam in set photos that only focus on the women in the production (because who cares about the boys), and nobody else. In addition, the female cast teamed up with Hillary Clinton to go on national TV and parade around the "all women, all powerful" thing yet again, giving the film a political tinge too as anyone who had the gall to call out the marketing of the movie and Clinton's campaign was labeled a misogynistic pig on both fronts.
So, this Ghostbusters movie was never made for the best intentions. It was meant to sucker people in with nostalgia to rake in cash, and the team didn't care to tell a compelling story with it. Adding to that, because we're in such a PC culture, every popular film now has to feature a PC edge that panders to an audience for no other reason than to say, hey, look who we've cast. It's too much work to actually create interesting characters for underserved races or genders in original films, they have to be recycled and crammed into franchises where they don't fit in well and are forced, as in Ghostbusters. This is obviously most common with all female led movies, like the upcoming box office bomb that is taking the Oceans heist series and doing one with, you guessed it, an all female cast. Why? 'Cause.
As a writer, it annoys me when filmmakers seek to make characters a very specific thing just to cater to an agenda. Again, this film doesn't seek to tell an interesting story with interesting characters, just make some money and throw out a feminist message for us to choke on while we're at it. The characters are made women just to be women, and even then, they are given no actual substance or depth, because they are literal ripoffs of the last cast in everything but their gender. That's what is most annoying. The filmmakers are pushing the agenda, and while they're doing it, they aren't even giving the female cast anything new to do, and worse yet, who they've cast are so predictable it's mind-blowing.
I think feminists would hate this film, as it resembles the opposite of what strong women in film should be. Women being cast in films shouldn't be done just because it's PC, it should be done because they're the best fit for the characters, regardless of their gender and wholly based on talent and screen presence. As the female heavy film is being made, no agendas should be pushed down our throats by the filmmakers who make us feel like garbage for being the misogynists we apparently always have been just because we don't agree with their approach to the film. In addition, the fact that the cast is heavily female should not be crammed down our throats and pointed out ad nauseam until we want to gauge our eyes out, as that makes the film more about a PC agenda than delivering an interesting story to audiences that gives the women in it something truly novel, interesting and empowering to do (see Mad Max: Fury Road for how this is done properly). When women are cast in a populated female movie, they also should be given rich content to work with, and not be expected to work from the scraps of what some men did thirty years prior in a recycled mess of tired ideas and tropes, where they are demanded to fill the exact same roles as the men all over again. It's artificial, it's correctness over talent or story, and it's a condemnation of actresses because they aren't given the job for what they can bring to it beyond their gender. I'd find that insulting if I were a woman. I'm already a bit upset now.
Let's make this clear: this movie would be a failure with all men or all women, and I don't have issues with all female casts when they're done right (again, the female heavy Mad Max: FR is a beautiful way to do this without making a mockery of the exercise), all the leads have things of substance to do, and the filmmakers of the movie don't make a big deal about it or shove a feminist message down our throat and make us men look like generalized pigs because of a male heavy misogynistic past we weren't even part of.
This is all part of why we can't discuss things as a collective culture, because no opinions can be had over things like this without you being called a misogynist or racist or bigot when you're not fighting even the idea of the thing (in this case, a female heavy movie), but the way it's all handled and delivered to the public.
Honestly, this movie isn't worth getting ruffled up about, so I'm going to stuff it. I've said my piece.
And Brady, just to clarify: I never assumed any misogyny on your part, that's exactly why I asked because I didn't understand why you were writing the way you were, not being familiar with the context of that commentary - I knew there had to be context that I wasn't aware of - and you guys explained it.
MMFR was indeed feminism done right - just a natural part of story telling and movie making, as it should be.
@Tuulia, I never thought you were labeling me or anything, I was simply stating that comments of misogyny abound in circumstances like this (aimed at men who dislike these kinds of approaches to having female casts), as they have in the past. Apologies for the confusion. I'm glad we've all come to a greater clarity on each other's points. :)
Btw, the whole thing reminds me of how everything is potentially racist these days, and reminded me how sick I got of the OscarsSoWhite crap earlier this year. Another case of yes, there are important and valuable issues to consider and all, but getting ridiculous about it is likely to do more harm than good.
Why, do so many trailers feel the need to insert a rap song? often contrary to the tone of the film. Fassbender's Assassin's Creed being the worst offender.
Yes I'm sure I'm showing my age but it's a real turn off for me.
Comment of the year for me! So very true.
Samuel L Jackson did a video chat on IMDB for 'Legend of Tarzan', and revealed that he is a massive fan of Asian action/crime films, and has tons of South Korean/Hong Kong films in his DVD collection at home.
@DaltonCraig007, Sam and Tarantino should do a podcast where they just talk about Asian filmmaking each week, and pick a specific film to speak on for that time. I'm sure they've had some rousing private conversations about it in the past.
I need this right now.