Review: Ghostbusters (2016)

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Remember when Sony rebooted Sam Raimi’s take on Spider-Man (2002) with The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)? Their whole conceit at the time appeared to be “What if you didn’t know the story?” so they just told it again. Only everyone actually did know the story. The result was an instantly forgettable retread, useless but for the printing of money. While that may have been the whole point, it left a lousy corporate aftertaste. It took the world gargling with some Marvel Studios mouthwash (aka Captain America: Civil War) to make people excited about Spidey again.

The good news is that the mega corporation appears to have learned from their mistakes. Ghostbusters NOW does not moronically assume you don’t know Ghostbusters THEN. Sure, it’s the same story again — the Ghostbusters set up shop, refine technobabble gadgets, fight against a supernatural invasion of New York and the bureaucrats that get in their way — but writer/director Paul Feig and his cowriter Katie Dippold (who wrote The Heat together) have correctly guessed that the fun of the movie will be in the makeover. 

the ladies fighting the (undead) patriarchy

The story gets a new look, freshened up details, and most famously, four female Ghostbusters and a male receptionist in place of the original’s four men and a female receptionist; that gender inversion proved more revolutionary that any rational human might have expected because a lot of manbabies have been freaking out on the internet ever since...

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Emmy Nom Aftermath Finale: Happy Thoughts

We'll return to the Emmys at a later date (the gap between their nominations and their ceremony is enormous) but for now, one last Emmy post. To end on a happy note I asked Team Experience two final questions:

1. What's your single favorite acting nomination?
2. What's your favorite non-acting nomination?

Our answers follow and yours should, too.

FAVORITE ACTING NOMINATION

Margaret de Larios: I honest-to-god pinched myself when I saw that Constance Zimmer was nominated for UnREAL. The Emmys have been so predictably blind to the sensational programming coming out of the CW these days, it was easy to believe that they would similarly ignore product from the notorious schlock-factory that is Lifetime...

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Next Two "Best Shot" Episodes: Zootopia + Cinematography of '77

Watch the movies. Pick a shot. join us! You can see all the past episodes here.

Tuesday Evening, July 19th
ZOOTOPIA (2016, Howard, Moore, Bush. 108 minutes)
It's the second biggest global hit of the year and now that it's available for home viewing let's have a second look at this delightful animated comedy about a utopia threatened when predators go wild again. 

BEST SHOT SPECIAL: Mon Jul 24- Fri Jul 29th
Oscar Battles: Best Cinematography 1977

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS Vilmos Zsigmond
ISLANDS IN THE STREAM Fred J Koenekamp
JULIA Douglas Slocombe 
LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR William A Fraker
TURNING POINT Robert Surtees 

Choose one or more of Oscar's 1977 Cinematography nominees for your "Best Shot" pleasure. We'll reajudicate the cinematography Oscar battle of 1977 over the final week of July. If this sounds crazy, please note that 1977 happens to be our "Year of the Month" and four of those five titles were also nominated for Best Supporting Actress so we'll be watching them anyway for the Smackdown so this is time management...albeit of an ambitious kind. That week at the blog we'll post our favorite image from each of those movies one a day along with links to whichever you've discussed at your blog, tumblr, twitter, or facebook. 

Difficult People Is Back!

There may be plenty of gripes about snubs from this year's Emmy nominations, but one of the bigger letdowns in my estimation is Hulu's Difficult People. Emmy is rarely kind to cult shows and the comedy's caustic humor is admittedly not everyone's cup of tea. However with its enviable explosion of big names guest stars, you would imagine that the voters could have recognized it with a nomination in the guest acting categories.

And with the start of the second season, they are only upping the ante for their day planners. By now I'm sure you have been teased on upcoming stints from the likes Lin-Manuel Miranda and Julianne Moore after the premiere episodes already gave us Tina Fey and Nathan Lane. In fact, as it returned this week all of the discussion around the show seemed targeted on who would be popping up rather than what hilarity we could expect from the season itself. When the fun of the show is its rat-a-tat, layered punchlines and the bad behavior of its two leads, that tactic seems in disservice to a show that's only getting better and funnier.

So here are five reasons we should be excited about the return of Difficult People that have nothing to do with its celebrity guests...

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I'm With Tweet

Everything comes back to the movies, even shopping and the Presidential Election...

Pretty sure this is a better deal than what Meryl Streep was offered. pic.twitter.com/JqXcpXYAKA

— Aisling Bea (@WeeMissBea) July 16, 2016

"when the time is right, he'll pay me back" - Chris Christie pic.twitter.com/OYD4EiMxom

— Lauren Larson (@lrnlrsn) July 15, 2016

There's more tweeting fun after the jump including Interview with the Vampire vocabulary lessons, Emmy nomination gratitude, Lady Ghostbusters, thriller rewatches, Movie Poster Typeface blunders, and more...

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