I first witnessed the film Ghostbusters as a six-year-old. I only vaguely recalled the storyline and made an asinine “parody” comic of it as a twelve-year-old based on the vague memory and titled it “Grossbusters” based on a specific memory of a Mad Magazine article I could not possibly have read beyond the title that I ripped off. I believe the book I drew that in is presently in a storage unit a few towns over from here. Whether for its protection or yours is yet uncertain.

I can understand how, as a child having viewed ghostbusters, my ability to construct a coherent story may have been adversely affected. I finally re-watched it a year or so ago, and it seems to be unexplained how the Ghost-Busters transition from bumbling oafs who run when they meet a ghost into professional oafs who have the means and skill to operate the means to restrain and capture the ghost. It’s even less clear why Dana the lady falls in love with Peter the ghostbuster, who is a total creep and didn’t even find the ghost he was hired to remove. I suppose this is a natural follow-up to Indiana Jones, the 1980s icon who established beyond anything that a highly paid male lead is irresistible to women however self-centered, unfeeling and barely-acted he is. I also don’t understand how Bill Murray WAS the lead; he’s billed first and probably gets the most screen time, yet he doesn’t seem to have any idea what any of the other characters are doing nor to care. It surprises me little to learn that he adlibbed most of his lines. The film moves along despite him rather than because of him. I was surprised to learn that Bill Murray only read the Ghostbusters script on the first day of filming, for from his performance I assumed he had not read the script at all.
I do not HATE Bill Murray; he reminded me of my cousin Bill, who was, at a time when having the same name was a strong association for me, “my favorite person,” but is Murray a “comedy genius?” Not for what he did in Ghostbusters.

It is probably a better movie than it would have been had all the actors been held rigidly to a script, and the lack of fun in some big budget movies after this one was a primary factor in co-star Rick Moranis getting out of the business, so hooray for Ghostbusters! But it is not my favorite movie.

The environmental protection agent, the man I am supposed to hate, has a point. These dorks are storing ghosts quite illegally. Although he also doesn’t have a point since he believes the busters ghost have not truly captured anything, which means they are not storing anything illegally.

Why do towns-folk cheer when the ghostbusters are released from prison? All the ghosts they were paid to bust are on the loose all at once, likely with vengeful attitudes after having been cruelly imprisoned. Real citizens would be furious that they paid to have these ghosts stopped and now the brutes are back. They wouldn’t care if you told them somebody ELSE messed with the ghosts, even if you managed to convince them of that. They would tell you “I don’t care. Just get this ghost out of here or I’m suing.” I know this because I have an aunt from New York City and that’s exactly what she would say. She has no interest in the reason anything went wrong. Therefore ensuring a life of the same things repeatedly going wrong. In my life I like to have a different thing breaking down every week but this is a digressionary topic. I should keep this relevant.

Ray is baffled when Winston suggests that the ghosts are spirits of dead people. I thought that much was implicit in the terminology “ghost.” Even considering this, neither has any regret or remorse about continuing to trap these lost, unfulfilled living desires in a box, and then transferring them to another box, for, presumably, ever.

It is still an entertaining movie that is not held back by its plot holes and I can see the appeal in it. Not the overpowering nerd-dom, but I never do. The costumes and made up technology are neat, I suppose. There is good stuff here for an extended series. But these two movies do not fill me with desire to see more like them, and I recall being underwhelmed by the tie-in animated show.

Through being a “comedy” it can better get away with its science not making sense. Although it is just barely a comedy. If not for Rick Moranis and Bill Murray playing themselves in the movie it wouldn’t have been. If, when Moranis was being chased by the gozer dog (whose function, if it is explained, I missed), he had been shouting “Help! I’m Rick Moranis!” the scene would have worked just as well. If the police officer who finds him later had said to Egon “here, we caught Rick Moranis wandering around. Why don’t you keep him” it wouldn’t have made a difference. The funniest thing Harold Ramis did was hold up boxes of Cheez-It and cans of Coke from time to time. He was still alive when I wrote this and I never got around to posting what I think about the film Groundhog Day so this should not count as slandering his legacy. I have no posthumous quarrel with him!

And that song, gosh that Ghostbusters song is awful, whether it’s a Huey Lewis ripoff or isn’t. Bustin makes me feel goood!
Well how do you think it makes THEM feel?
I, personally, only bust out of necessity.
The most peculiar aspect (of several) in the official music video is that Ray Parker Jr himself is a ghost, meaning that he is inviting for himself to be busted. He follows some lady around insisting that she make this happen. She fails to get the deed carried out. Now we all have to suffer.

That actually did not require much editing. I am not sure what I was waiting for. Not the announcement of a new all-lady Ghostbuster cast, but that was enough. Another dumb nontroversy I would not be aware of if I lived alone.

Do I care that there would be an all woman ghostbusters cast? Do I care that there is a female Thor? Do I care that there is any Thor? I am more bothered that at least 3 are from Saturday Night Live, the most complacent inescapable and self-fellatingly uncancelable television institution of our times. A show that I have liked things on, but that I do not need repeated in or influencing any other context, which of course it never stops doing. I am bothered that we can’t just leave the Ghostbusters or anything else alone that belongs in the 1980s. If this movie can be made without requiring fawning 80’s themed advance-nerd-dom from its audience, then we still aren’t going to know for another year so what is the point of getting worked up over it now? I don’t even care about the new star wars, and I LIKE star wars, even when I hate it. Thankfully they do not yet have the means to produce Star Warses on a weekly basis.

Two of the initial ghostbusters were from Saturday Night Live, of korf, but Ghostbusters was their concept (or their inventive take on somebody else’s older gorilla suit employing concept), so they can be from wherever they want. I permit it.

And I realize I mentioned Mad Magazine earlier, which is even older and setter in its ways but nobody else I am within influence rage of cares about it, so I have the option of forgetting it for a while if I need to. And nobody is going to give Dick Debartolo a nightly tv show in which he pays audience members $10 to lick things and then that’s the whole bit, and then somehow be given an even more visible show a few years later based on that. Also Lorne Michaels hates bald people.

But it is my fault for knowing any of this, or being exposed to people or things that talk about it. Especially people who present it in the form “hollywood is FINALLY catching on that woman are funnier than men.” No no no that angle only exists to make people argue, cannot be proven, and helps nobody. I am tired of THE battle of THE sexes. Nobody can win. If you changed “funnier” to “better at math” you would get fired immediately, even though that’s equally inflammatory and actually nearer to possible to get a real statistic on. Why is it not permissible to examine something in a reasoned manner?
We have woman ghostbusters because that is a gimmicky casting choice designed to get attention. Otherwise the story would just be that the new ghostbusters cast had been announced. Or the movie itself would be the story, and we would wait for it to exist to decide if it was quality material. If we weren’t after dumb attention for the dumbest reasons possible we would make less stupid “reboots.” Media is obsessed with gender. You can change all the characters into talking ducks and nobody is the slightest bit surprised, but swap some crotches around, something we actually have the science to do, and professional boneheads wet themselves with fury and giddiness.

I am going to start an online petition to get Dogtanian and the 3 Muskethounds changed back into people. This is BLASPHEMY!!! Coming up next, TWITTER WEIGHS IN on the all dog musketeers! Hollywood is finally catching on that dogs are better flamboyant chocolate bar infantry than men!

I wish I could install a program inside my television that made it immediately turn off whenever a smirking nimrod said “twitter weighs in.” True enough I could just smash the thing but somebody else in the house might catch on.

It is unfortunate that it took the death of Harold Ramis to put a stop to Stephen Colbert stealing his identity. And also that it took that to get people to shut up about forcing out a Ghostbusters 3. Even though Ghostbusters 2, made when the actors were still in their primes (and willing, and alive) was criticized in its own time for not doing a whole lot to differentiate it from the first film. I personally do not mind more of the same if I like the same, but as I said the first one did not feel as special as it wanted to. I do prefer the Bobby Brown Ghostbusters song to Ray Parker’s, but apart from the goofy rap breakdown and the more conventionally terrible music video, it has nothing to do with and could have existed without the film. And so could I!