The movie, directed by Feig, has been produced by Ivan Reitman and Amy Pascal.
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Director Paul Feig refuses to confirm if Kate McKinnon’s character is gay in recent “Ghostbusters” flim.
Disclaimer: I saw a free screening of the new Ghostbusters movie and my childhood is still intact. You start to go, ‘Oh, God! But then it was interesting. But he had another idea: Something new. Aside from some of that new ghostbusting tech, nothing in this film is particularly iconic.
“What do we love about the first Ghostbusters?”. The scene isn’t very long, maybe just two to three minutes, so be quick! We want to see the slime, all those trappings. “But when you’re dealing with the studios and that kind of thing…” Government regulations. That was such a Reagan-era story. And that means LGBTI characters are dampened down, pretending like they don’t exist. While it’s forgivable in some cases, such as Chris Hemsworth’s genius turn as dimwit Kevin, there’s one really big one that hurts the movie considerably.
As Feig said: “I would be sympathetic to (the backlash) if there wasn’t all this misogyny involved with it”. The jokes feel like part of some other random comedy film and not a Ghostbusters movie. Despite that, I came away pretty happy. There has to be a reason for them beyond being an easter egg for the fans. But the question among fans remains – is this one better than the original? While on set Hemsworth and Feig decided to make it into a joke in the movie and thus a whole comedy sequence is born that has nothing to do with his character, the plot of the movie, or anything really. Jillian Holtzmann is on the kooky side and she makes it work.
It depends. If you’re not open to a new interpretation of an established classic and can only envision the previous cast in the title roles, then it is admittedly an uphill climb. Both Reitman and Feig look at the release of the first Ghostbusters trailer as the jumping point for the bulk of the hate.
Why do movies get remade? “My movies have always had problems trailering”. As in the original, just about everyone here comes from “Saturday Night Live” or similar sketch comedy roots. “My style requires that you sit with these characters and you get in the rhythm of what they do”. “That’s my area of expertise, giving you a complete movie”. But, at the same time, I’m human. And then there is Kate McKinnon, who will surely go onto bigger things from her work here, which is nearly a shame in a way – she’s so unique, hilarious, and spirited that I’d be very afraid that some other filmmaker would try to pigeonhole her into something she’s not.
To punch back at the online haters, there is a scene where the Ghostbusters make fun of angry online comments, and the scene was something Feig simply felt he had to do. “But we played around with what it would be and wrote a bunch of [alternate dialogue] that day”. Just like the original, this one isn’t squeaky clean, but rather, “clean enough” in my book. We hit it and we moved past it.
While Feig was not interested in making Ghostbusters with the surviving members of the original he did want them involved in some way, especially Murray, who went on to become one of the coolest actors on the planet through his association with hipster auteurs such as Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) and Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou).
Despite that jab, the co-writer and director really hopes people give the film a shot.
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“Let’s see what happens”, Feig concludes.
