Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Ghostbusters (2016)

Big fun. We knew we'd like this reboot of the 1984 classic in which four intrepid women battle the paranormal in New York, and you will, too. Though not first billed, Kate McKinnon is my favorite here, and she's joined by Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Leslie Jones (McKinnon has to her credit 89 episodes of Saturday Night Live, a small part in Sisters, and a bunch of other stuff; Jones has 42 episodes of SNL and other projects I haven't seen; McCarthy and Wiig were last blogged in The Boss and Welcome to Me, respectively). They're all very funny. As the male version of the dumb secretary, Chris Hemsworth (most recently made another Thor appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron) fills the bill nicely. The enormous cast is too big to list in detail, but watch for all the cameos. We missed the appearance of the son of the late Harold Ramis as a heavy metal music fan who says "Ozzy rocks!" and I don't recall noticing the bust of Harold's head in Wiig's office. Now you know so you can watch for those. The other cameos are obvious.

Directed by Paul Feig (last helmed Spy) from a script written by Katie Dippold (Parks and Recreation, MadTV, and The Heat) and him, this movie zooms right along. And though New York is important to the plot, this was actually shot almost entirely in Massachusetts.

The original Ray Parker Jr. version of the title track is right at the beginning and the rest of the music is by Theodore Shapiro (most recently composed Trumbo). You can listen to Shapiro's score here, and read a list of songs here. There are two dance numbers during the movie and I expected one scene to turn into a third. It does, but not until the credits are rolling.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics liked this more, averaging 73%, than its audiences at 58. We had a good time  when we saw it three weeks ago and, naturally, we stayed for the bonus after the credits.

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