Really That Good: GHOSTBUSTERS (Now With Text!)

The debut episode of REALLY THAT GOOD was a resounding success, and I'm hard at work on the next one (next two, technically.) But that doesn't mean I want fans and followers to stop re-watching and sharing the original. To that end, after the jump of this post I'm going to post the full text of Episode 1's look at GHOSTBUSTERS, for those who prefer text to video-essay format (or who just want to be able to read it).



Thank you all, again, for helping (via The MovieBob Patreon or just by watching and sharing) to make this project a continued (early) success. I hope you enjoy the text for now, and the next episode as soon as it's able to be uploaded:

NOTE I: There are some minor differences between this text and the narration from the original episode, primarily to remove instances where a more casual/conversational spoken tone would've been awkward within a written document or where a point was made/punctuated by film clip rather than by narration in the original video.

NOTE II: If you like this piece and would like to read more like it, please consider a donation to The MovieBob Patreon. Thank you.

 REALLY THAT GOOD 

GHOSTBUSTERS (TEXT VERSION)

by Bob Chipman

GHOSTBUSTERS is one of those movies that basically everyone agrees is good - even people who haven't actually seen it. Its presence in the popular culture is such that its goodness is generally taken to be as much of a given as that it features both ghosts and the busting thereof. If you’ve seen it, chances are pretty good you love it. Even if you don't love it, chances are you like it. Even if you don't like it, you probably don't hate it. And even if you hate it... you probably long ago resigned yourself to the idea that it's simply not the film for you - that its charms are effectively lost on you and that you, not GHOSTBUSTERS, are the problem.

It’s a film that has permeated our popular culture: Other films use it as a reference point. Its catchphrases and zingers are part of the cultural lexicon. It’s impossible to describe characters like Peter Venkman or Egon Spengler without defaulting TO those very men, who have by now eclipsed whatever archetype from whence they may have been drawn. GHOSTBUSTERS has been sequelized, merchandised, video-gamed, Ecto-coolered, animated, re-animated and is on its way to being gender-flipped and rebooted. It’s not simply enduringly popular – it’s a film that has become one with our shared cultural essence.

...but does it deserve to?

Popular cinema, particularly the popular cinema of the 1980s, is littered with films whose stature is at odds with even the most generous appraisal of their objective quality. This is particularly true of films that spawned ancillary empires aimed primarily at children, which GHOSTBUSTERSmost certainly did. It’s entirely possible that for many audiences who came to the property from the sides, the original film is afforded an undue "boost" in affection owed more to lingering nostalgia for toys and cartoons than to its own merits.

Is that what's happened? Is this film a genuine comedy classic, or just another over-merchandised 80s genre flick permanently cast in rose-colored hues by nostalgic Gen-Xers? Is GHOSTBUSTERS... Really That Good?

Let's get the basics out of the way first: The main reason we're still talking about GHOSTBUSTERS is that it's an astonishingly well-made film that manages to feel effortless in its undertaking.

It presents a high-concept premise with a surprisingly coherent mythology in strokes exactly broad enough to not be at odds with a breezy comic tone but strong enough to have real weight and matter as a story: If you don't understand a single joke, the overarching narrative of an upstart team of paranormal investigators coming up against an ancient malevolent deity is entirely compelling... but if you don't really care about the occult machinations drawing Gozer the Gozarian back into 20th Century Manhattan, the central comic observation conflating the roles of exorcist and exterminator is just really, really funny.

When you couple that with a group of comic legends who also happened to be gifted character actors (and also Ernie Hudson but y'know what we're going to talk about Winston in depth later) playing at the absolute top of their game in an ingeniously well-balanced screenplay that gives each 'Buster a coherent character but doesn't let any one character overwhelm the piece - not even Peter Venkman, whose entirely personality is about overwhelming and filling up the space in any situation or conversation with his laid-back bravado.

In fact, let's start out by talking about those characters:

THE BASICS:

The first thing that everyone thinks they know about good storytelling is that characters are supposed to have "arcs," i.e. they're supposed to start the film with an incomplete goal or an incorrect outlook or a personal flaw and, over the course of three acts they're supposed to achieve, learn a lesson or otherwise improve themselves thus providing a framework for the rest of the story. But GHOSTBUSTERS... doesn't really do that.

One of the most interesting and unremarked-upon things about GHOSTBUSTERS is that it effectively opens in media res. The four heroes arrive in the story already fully-formed by events we're never fully privy to (that's because it's unnecessary, for the record, but we'll come back to that, too.) It’s an easy mistake to call this an "origin story" because the first act is a going into business narrative, but in terms of the film proper and the story it's telling that's not really the case.

Think about how much important story and what modern-day franchise-blockbusters call "world-building" has already been handled before the film has even unfurled: When we meet the three founding Ghostbusters; Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz and Peter Venkman have already met and become friends, already agree that ghosts are real, already have a theory about exorcising them through science *and* already have the basic Ghostbusters business plan cooking behind the scenes of their research. Granted, none of them appear to have actually encountered one until they find the library ghost, but once they have they already know what it is and what they plan to do next.

On one level, this is just efficient storytelling. But on another level it's establishing a setup whereby the film gets to be itself: The whole comedic "hook" of the film is watching this grand “invasion-by-dark-forces” occult adventure story play out in mostly serious terms while four snarky heroes react to it in funny ways; and since there'd be less room to BE funny if they also had to explain the plot and their motivations within it, the film relegates all that business to passing references to pre-film events - trusting that the screenplay is sharp enough and the actors good enough to get all the necessary data across in passing. And they are.

As a result, the Ghostbusters themselves don't really have individual character arcs, at least not as they'd be recognized in Screenwriting 101 today:

Egon is exactly the same guy at the end of GHOSTBUSTERSas he is at the beginning. His personality doesn't change, he was never "wrong" about anything and even the implication that he and Jeanine are eventually going to hook up and make adorable nerd-babies doesn't really seem to faze him. There's a sense that his Hail-Mary saving throw at the end about crossing the streams is a way out-of-character move for him, but he comes out the same guy.

Ray undergoes even less of a shift. He's the childlike "mascot" of the team, and the closest thing he has to an arc is right at the end when his attempt to thwart Gozer's scheme to draw The Destructor from the Ghostbusters own imaginations by regressing into innocent memories of youth (a coping tactic one imagines Ray employs a lot in his life as it is) fails and instead conjures The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. But while this mistake is noted, the both Ray and his colleagues mainly just shrug it off as “Well, of course that’s something Ray would do.” And yet, even devoid of anything resembling "growth," Ray remains fully the heart and soul of the film.

Even Peter, who feels the most like he should have an arc given that his would-be romance with Dana Barrett makes him the 'Buster with the meatiest B-story, really doesn't - and if he does, it's over by Act II when we see his first honest reaction in being attacked by Slimer. Otherwise, Venkman's story is all about misdirection: We're told from the get go, both by the film and the man himself, that Peter is the consummate con-man and pickup artist - which is meant to be ironic since The Ghostbusters are performing for real a "job" (i.e. exorcism) usually undertaken by phonies and charlatans.

But for all the talk, we never actually see him prove that reputation all that well: Dana sees right through him – it’s the basis of their relationship! As such, what would be the "payoff" to this arc in a more conventional narrative - i.e. The Player gets played once Dana has been possessed by the seductress GateKeeper demon - is yet more misdirection: As it turns out, ancient powers of manipulation are no match for 20th Century sleeping pills.

On the other hand, Peter’s lack of an authentic up-front “heroes journey” while still getting on-balance more screen time than the other four Ghostbusters WORKS largely because he’s sharing his non-Busting scenes with the great Sigourney Weaver, who – it’s easy to forget – was still two years AWAY from cementing her place as the First Lady of American sci-fi blockbusters.

For most of the film Dana Barrett is a thankless role – she has to be the straight-woman the literally every other character’s comic shenanigans until Act 3, wherein she gets subsumed by the more broad character the body-possessing Zuul. And while she’s not precisely the audience point-of-view character, she is the film’s anchor: Gozer, Zuul and 55 Central Park West are scary because she’s scared by them. We can accept that Venkman is actually a mostly-decent guy because she seems to think so and what non-comedic stakes the narrative has are indeed her stakes. In other words, she’s sort-of a plot device – and yet Weaver is so vibrant, real and engaging in the part Dana also works as a full-fledged character, and it never feels like the movie is just cutting back to her story because it “has to.” That’s not easy to pull off.

And while we’re at it, special attention must be paid to how brilliantly Annie Potts inhabits a hard-to-pin-down yet instantly memorable character like Jannine Melnitz, our how completely Rick Moranis commits to the outrageous caricature that is Louis Tully and the somehow even MORE bizarre Vinz Clortho the Keymaster. And, of course, has anyone ever been better at playing a complete dick than William Atherton (Walter Peck?)?

And then there's Winston Zeddemore. Let's talk about Winston Zeddemore.

Everybody knows by now that Winston's role was written for Eddie Murphy, and you can see where that makes sense in terms of the meta-symbolism of the older-guard SNL/SCTV comics enlisting the face of the new generation. But surely the luck of not being able to get Murphy can't be overstated. And not just because of the hindsight factor where Eddie's eventual superstar status would've turned GHOSTBUSTERS into a retroactive "Eddie Murphy movie" where the biggest star is stuck in supporting duty.

Yes, Ernie Hudson doesn't get an especially great amount of screen time as Winston (largely because he wasn't AS big a star as Murphy would've been, even then) but he *does* end up providing a vital component without which the film wouldn't feel quite as unique as it does. Of the four 'Buster actors, Hudson is the lone non-comedian among sketch comedy veterans; and by choice or happenstance that adds a welcome layer of meta-text to Winston - since he's the odd man out in the story, too.

Whereas Peter, Ray and Egon are all scientists from either well-heeled or at least academically-ensconced backgrounds, Winston is a regular guy - or at least he seems to be. In the original screenplay, he was actually meant to have been a former Marine and multi-disciplined PhD scientist who was actually more qualified than the three founders. But basically none of that ends up onscreen: as a result, Winston is presented as an everyman - the Audience POV character. In that respect, Hudson's energetic but grounded characterization humanizes and solidifies the proceedings in ways that, sorry, Eddie Murphy simply wouldn't have.

Finally, Winston being (or at least seeming to be) a regular person who can learn to master the Ghostbusters technology feels very much a part of what might be the film's most unfairly overlooked element of quiet yet revolutionary subversion.

LET’S DIG DEEPER:

One thing that sets the heroes of GHOSTBUSTERS apart from most of their contemporaries and nearly *all* 21st Century blockbuster leads is that there isn't a "chosen one" or a "destined hero" among them. Venkman, Stantz and Spengler are Ghostbusters because they discovered a way that they could use their knowledge and skills to earn a living and benefit society. Zeddemore is a Ghostbuster because he answered a Help Wanted ad. The qualifications for the role are wholly technical and real-world skills based - they aren't knights or samurai or wizards... they're basically just supernatural pest-control. And that is where the real genius of this whole enterprise resides.

Now, to talk about this most important aspect, we need to digress a bit and recognize the ways in which GHOSTBUSTERS is somewhat a victim of its own success. While rightly seen today as an exemplar of the wild creativity associated with high-concept blockbusters of the 80s, it’s easy to forget that this movie did not conjure it’s central plot element of ancient occult evil breaking out in a modern metropolis out of whole cloth - that particular aspect exists largely as a reaction to other films and aspects of the pop culture zeitgeist of the moment.

A particular fascination with the supernatural, occultism and even Satanism had gripped American popular culture from the mid-1970s well into the 80s; largely seen as part of a broader “traditionalist” reaction against the rising trends toward secularism in the 1960s that saw (among other events) the mainstreaming of televangelism, moral panic about hidden messages in rock music and culminating in the wholesale assimilation of the American right-wing by the so-called “Religious Right” that helped push Ronald Reagan into political prominence.

While most visibly transformative in political and social realms, this shift also had a profound impact on genre fiction – particularly in film, where features like THE EXORCIST, OMEN, THE GUARDIAN, ROSEMARY’S BABY, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR and countless others literalized the “demons among us” rhetoric of the new revivalism with stories about demonic occult forces lingering in the shadows; repurposing imagery and rhetoric from medieval “blood libel” propaganda to more modern paranoia about Freemasonry or global-government into tales of demons, devils and even Lucifer himself rising in the conspiratorial background of the world’s elite spaces – the inevitable result of a modern world turned from the One True God; ultimately (and tragically) giving rise to real life “Satanic Panic” hysteria via books like Michelle Remembers and tabloid journalists sensationalizing The McMartin Preschool Trial.

But that serious stuff is another show. We’re here to talk about the movies.

Now since GHOSTBUSTERS is a comedy but not a parody, it doesn't really make explicit reference to any of that. But make no mistake: From the secret pagan altar covertly concealed within a strange but otherwise anonymous old building, Zuul's Netherworld hangout glimpsed in Dana Barrett's refrigerator, the unsettling subsequent tableaus of Dana being engulfed by demonic limbs and "Gatekeeper Dana" vamping on the altar in the red dress, the city skyline overrun with streaks of ghost energy, the banal domesticity of the haunting sequences in Dana's kitchen and Lewis Tully's house party and Gozer "itself" standing with the Terror Dogs; GHOSTBUSTERS is *marinated* in visual iconography signifying a connection to the popular-culture's familiarity with then-recent possession/haunting imagery and also to more genre-savvy fans’ shared reference-points for D&D-style quasi-occult symbology and the 70s/80s resurgent popularity for early 20th Century pulp fantasists like H.P. Lovecraft. (That one especially being an unspoken ur-text influence later made explicit by an appearance by none other than Cthulhu himself in the spin-off animated series.)

Of course, using immediately-familiar aesthetic shorthand isn't in itself revolutionary. What's key is that GHOSTBUSTERS doesn't merely stop at borrowing post-EXORCISThorror's scenario of a Satanically-infected New York for effect, it twists the idea back around against itself to build up its own mythos and firmly establish its heroes as specifically-subversive counter-culture iconoclasts… ones whose subversion was so successful it ultimately supplanted the icons they both swiped-from and swatted-at in the public imagination, to the extent that the sheer grandeur of their victory is all but lost to popular memory.

To understand why and how, you first need to ask yourself a simple question: “What is Gozer?” Gozer is a god. An ancient, pre-historic (and, outside the context of the story, fictional) god, yes; but a god all the same. In fact, despite the overly convoluted Lovecraftian backstory involving Zuul, Vinz Clortho, Keymaster, Gatekeeper, etc being needlessly overcomplicated for humorous effect; the initial incarnation of Gozer is actually pretty well researched as these things go: There's a lot of subtle Freemason-esque detailing to the altar set, the Terror Dogs are an interesting mix of Pagan and/or Occult animal-iconography like goats, bulls and hounds with elements of Medieval and Gothic Chrisitan gargoyles.

And, of course, Gozer itself appearing in the form of a vaguely-androgynous but subtly female-favoring form that fits comfortably into the framework of various prehistoric Matriarchal goddess-figures like those associated with the pre-Olympian gods of pre-Hellenistic Ancient Greece - notably, while somewhat out of style today, the idea of Matriarchal nature-cults being especially widespread among prehistoric humans was enjoying popular favor as a branch of hypothetical occult scholarship at the time.

But Gozer also incorporates elements closer to more familiar masculine-identified gods - specifically The God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam: What's the humanoid Gozer's main special-attack? Lightning. And then there's the enemy's final form: A giant booming voice in the clouds, shouting down at humanity. It's easy to miss the daring significance of this visual given that it precedes the much more iconic and GHOSTBUSTERS-specific introduction of Mr. Stay-Puft as The Destructor; but think about it for a minute: In this moment, Gozer is largely indistinguishable a decidedly Old Testament vision of not simply a god but The God. And that's pretty damn interesting when you remember that The Ghostbusters aren't standing before Gozer as worshippers, challengers, sacrifices or even rival-religionists trying to work out the proper prayer or incantation to banish it.

Yeah! Ever think about that? In most movies involving all-powerful deities or demigods, the "finisher" tends to be finding a talisman or long-forgotten trick in the canon OF the otherworldly fiend itself; with the explicit or implicit moral to the story almost *always* being that a familiarity with and respect for The Old Traditions is necessary to remain safe even in modernity. Remember: that's the underlying theme of even THE EXORCIST – if only Reagan's all-too-modern mom (a single mother acting in movies about leftist political-activism, by the way) hadn't raised her as a godless, secular heathen, she might not have needed an Old Priest/Young Priest tag-team to keep Satan-by-way-of-Pazuzu from taking hold of her.

But that's not GHOSTBUSTERS. When Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler and Winston Zeddemore stand before Gozer the Gozarian; they are scientists of no discernably notable religious disposition (except for Winston, sort of) standing against a god - and they've come to defeat that god *with science.* GHOSTBUSTERS, fundamentally, stripped to its core, is a movie about science versus superstition - the ascendant technological ingenuity of man (and, as mentioned, not even “special” ingenuity that only certain benighted scientists can use, since the Ghostbusters have already refined their tech into a democratized user-friendly form that a newbie like Winston can evidently learn to wield in the course of a day or two) versus (literally!) the ancient powers of the gods. And since nearly all modern stories about humanity's relation to ancient or fictional gods are subtextually "about" the relation of said story's society of origin to its own currently-dominant spiritual belief systems... yeah, you see where this going: GHOSTBUSTERS is a science vs religion story where religion gets its ass handed to it.

Four men of science, representatives previously of a secular academia that institutionalizes the forward-thrust of knowledge against belief and the Western city that most iconically symbolizes the upward ascendance of human progress - stand before an ancient all-powerful lightning-tossing voice from the clouds and declare in no uncertain terms: "No! You don't get to win anymore. You don't get to be in charge anymore. Knowledge is power. We've got it. We know how to use it. Everything from the management of Spirits to the date the world ends isn't under your control anymore, it's under ours!"Or, as Peter puts it:

“Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!”

Now, again, I'm talking strictly subtext and meta-text here (and not necessarily even intentional extra-meaning, at that!) I'm certainly not looking to suggest some kind of insipid "fan theory" that the prehistoric god Gozer and the modern understanding of the Judeo-Christian God are somehow one and the same (by way of mythic-appropriation and widely-recognized historical record of Monotheism assimilating prior Polytheistic traditions) or that The Ghostbusters aren't simply cancelling out Gozer's world-ending shenanigans but in fact thwarting God Himself’s plan for the actual Biblically-proscribed Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation. Nope, not at all. Firstly, because insipid fan-theories aren't what REALLY THAT GOODis all about. And secondly... because I don't need to suggest that - the movie does it for me, in the quiet scene where Ray and Winston discuss their respective relationships with religion while driving at night in Ecto-I: When Ray (seemingly an Atheist or agnostic) refers to Judgement Day as one of many “myths about the end of the world,” Winston (either a Christian or at least was raised as such) asks him if he ever considered that they’re recent spike in business could be evidence that Judgement Day has actually started to play out.

But, again, I don't know or care if we were “meant” to take The Ghostbusters as Atheist Superheroes. I'm interested in subtext and symbology within the words and moving-pictures; and once you recognize the technology-conquers-superstition theme at the core of GHOSTBUSTERS, the symbology is everywhere.

What's often seen as the very beginning of science re: man taking control of powerful natural forces rather than seeing them as things to be feared and worshipped? Fire. What real-world heroic vocation are the Ghostbusters most explicitly associated with? Firemen. What's the role of a god in most spiritual systems? Creating and managing The Universe. What's the Universe made of? Atoms. What's the source of The Ghostbuster's spirit-wrangling and eventually god-killing powers? They harness the power of splitting those very atoms. Dana and Lewis Tully are freed from their enslavement to Gozer by the (literal!) smashing of decayed, powerless stone idols - stone idols not unlike the lion statue that looms large and imposing in the first shot of the film. Hell, if you want to really stretch things, both Ectoplasm and the viscous remains of StayPuft could easily be taken as flood, baptism and rebirth imagery... or maybe not.

LET’S TALK IMPACT:

I'm not going to claim I'm the first person to point out that GHOSTBUSTERS is subtextually a science-versus-religion movie. And besides, while subtext and symbolism are interesting they only mean so much without examining what their presence accomplishes in terms of how the work in question impacts its audience; and while I'd happily argue that the mere presence of these themes makes GHOSTBUSTERS a smarter, richer, more intellectually-layered film than it's commonly understood to be (perhaps even by some of its biggest fans); that doesn’t automatically explain why this isn’t simply a good movie and a smart movie but a great and beloved movie… but, you know what might?

I know it’s been a few pages and we’ve covered a lot of ground, but remember how I mentioned that it’s an interesting screenwriting gamble for the heroes of GHOSTBUSTERS not to have conventional individual character-arcs? Part of what’s interesting is that you can easily see how a less inventive, more cookie-cutter screenplay could try to impose one: Just make one or two of the heroes outwardly and openly resistant to the idea that spirituality has any place in fighting ghosts, only to have the tech come up short against Gozer and said resistant heroes have to “open their minds” and get some magic talisman of spellbook or whatever for the real key to thwarting Armageddon; thus learning a lesson about considering other viewpoints and blah blah blah… You get the idea. Oh! Hey, people writing the scripts for these “new” Ghostbusters movies? That thing I just described? Don’t do that. That would be stupid.

Ahem. In any case, the original GHOSTBUSTERS doesn’t do that. And while in subtext that means it’s a rare science-versus-god movie that comes down definitively and enthusiastically on the pro-science side and that’s all well and good… in the actual text of the film, it means it’s a movie about how all you need to rid the world of evil of darkness is the tools and talent. Now that might be a foregone conclusion (or commonly-shared fantasy of a just world order) to you and me, but… there are people for whom it’s not. They’re called children.

Something else I mentioned back at the start was that one reason GHOSTBUSTERS is sometimes suspected to be “overrated” is that a lot of people who love it came to love it as children, and thus could be expected to be nostalgia-blind to any hypothetical flaws it might have. When GHOSTBUSTERS hit in 1984, it had been 7 years since the advent of STAR WARS and a lot of Hollywood was still slowly absorbing the idea that children and teenagers had supplanted college-aged and adult moviegoers as the prime audience for blockbusters and the sci-fi/fantasy genre in particular, and GHOSTBUSTERS is very much a sibling to BACK TO THE FUTURE, ROBOCOP, TERMINATOR, ALIENS, POLICE ACADEMY and other films made decidedly for an adult that wound up being adopted with unexpected zeal by kids.

GHOSTBUSTERS is a movie made overwhelmingly for an adult audience. Sure there are things in it that a younger crowd is inevitably going to zero in on like monsters and lasers and… well, that’s actually it - monsters and lasers - but they aren’t even close to having majority screen time. Most of the movie is about grownups and grownup “stuff”: Starting a business, money problems, flirting at work, dating, sex, ghost sex, legal trouble, red tape, etc. And there’s actually not a great deal of physical comedy, with most of the humor being verbal digs, one-liners and clever wordplay. Even the pop-culture references are decidedly Boomer-centric.

So what was so appealing about it to kids? Was it *just* the monsters and lasers? Remember, the home video era hadn’t fully dawned yet, so the kids who were enraptured by GHOSTBUSTERS in 1984 largely became so watching it in theaters. Were the relatively brief onscreen appearances of Slimer and Mr. Stay-Puft really so compelling that Gen-X kids were willing to sit fidgety and bored through story-points about the upscale New York dating scene and haggling with regulators at work just to get to them? Well, it wouldn’t be the only time the world went nuts over a movie for one or two scenes, but… I don’t think so. I think GHOSTBUSTERSspoke to kids – to everybody, but especially to a generation and now generations of youngsters – in a way that nobody could’ve predicted.

The world of GHOSTBUSTERS is a world where big cosmic horrors are omnipresent but always just out of sight. Where that creeping feeling of dread in an otherwise familiar home or that something “off” about the banal sameness of a hotel hallway at night or the unsettling staleness of an old library really are evidence of lurking malevolent horrors. Where that rustling in the bushes at night really is something evil out to get you, and that creepy stranger is… more than *just* creepy. Where something really IS going bump in the night, hiding under the bed, lurking in the shadows and, yes, where there is a monster in the closet. But if they scare you, you’re likely to be told it’s all in your head, or not really all that scary, or that you should get over it; which in turn is going to make you feel not only frightened but alone.

To children, that world is also known as their real world, day to day. Kids don’t need to make much of logical leap to understand a movie where people live at the mercy of seemingly malevolent forces beyond their understanding or control – most of them feel like they’re living it, already. But in the GHOSTBUSTERS’ world, there’s something that can checkmate all the scary stuff: You.

The subtext that underlines and empowers the narrative of GHOSTBUSTERSis science and technology overcoming superstition and the supernatural, but the practical surface-text is monsters and ghosts being overcome by cool gadgets – and not cool gadgets powered by the same indeterminate scary stuff that the bad guys are made of or cool gadgets that are rare and hard to find or cool gadgets that only certain special people can use like in so many other stories. It’s made unmistakably clear that the Ghostbusters thought up, made and maintain the proton packs, traps, PKE meters and the containment unit themselves – and that is all-important for understanding the power of this particular fantasy.

The unique, powerful idea at the heart of GHOSTBUSTERSisn’t simply that ghosts and demons and things that go bump in the night are real, and it also isn’t simply that they can be busted. It’s that with the right equipment and a little bit of know-how you could bust them. And while there is a grownup appeal in that idea particularly in the aforementioned subtextual mans-conquest-over-god sense, the appeal of that to the mindset of kids is far more potent, more obvious and more powerful: With cleverness and determination, you can take control of what scares you, assert your own power over what lurks in the dark and beat back the things that frighten you; and that core idea makes Spengler, Stantz, Venkman and Zeddemore more than movie heroes: it makes them the Spirit Animals of every kid who ever set a trap for the monster under their bed or even stayed awake trying to catch a glimpse of The Tooth Fairy.

Incidentally, this was *another* idea later realized in more explicit terms by the more deliberately kid-focused animated series, wherein The Ghostbusters fought the (literal!) Boogeyman (Season 1, Episode 6: “The Boogieman Cometh”) revealing that having been menaced by the creature as a child played an all-important role in inspiring Egon’s commitment to mastering the how and why of blasting away the supernatural - which of course makes perfect sense. Just like the fantasy of being a Ghostbuster appealing so strongly to audiences of young kids makes perfect sense, even as the filmmakers had never planned it that way.

ON THE OTHER HAND:

Now, this is a series about positivity. But accentuating the positive of good movies doesn’t mean ignoring flaws, denying issues or glossing over the problematic. GHOSTBUSTERS is a truly great film (if you’re not convinced of that by now, then why are you even still reading this?) but it’s not a perfect film and it’s imperfections deserve notice amid the praise.

The storytelling in Act II leans a little bit heavy on montage. Louis Tully is kind of a thin character relative to how much screen time and story-investment gets, while by contrast Janine and Winston both feel like they could’ve used a bit more. The ghost-blowjob is a funny gag but it feels just a touch out-of-step with the rest of the film and the importance of crossing (or rather NOT crossing) the proton streams could’ve stood at least one more hat-tip between the hotel sequence and finale if we’re talking structural business.

More substantively, while it holds up “better” than just about any other 80s movie featuring a supposed “ladies man” hero does in this regard, Venkman’s pickup-artist routine does feel more and more… well, a little bit skeevy as time goes on. Granted, the film does a good job at subverting this in the story-proper, with his introductory scene falsifying the psychic test making it pretty clear that we’re to recognize this behavior making Peter kind of a dick and Dana (an independent-minded, successful grown woman) not buying his schtick for a minute and seeing through to the (presumably) redeemable Ghostbuster within right away. That’s fine, but then you remember that nobody has that many go-to lines to say nothing of self-confidence without putting in a lot of practice and you recall that he held a position of significant power at a co-ed University for years and, well, the unquestioned presence of this kind of character as “just” a playfully rakish scoundrel is the sort of thing that can’t help but date the film and not in a good way.

And then there’s the Walter Peck subplot. Yeah, that thing. Peter Venkman getting even less pushback for his creeper-tendencies than, say, Glenn Quagmire is some “bad old days” cold water to the face of GHOSTBUSTERSwarm n’ fuzzy 80s nostalgia factor; but the red-herring villain being an environmental regulator with actually pretty reasonable concerns about nuclear-tech in the middle of a city is a genuine eye-roller – an unfortunate relic of the Reagan-era “backlash culture” cynically reframing the disastrous corporate-fellating rollback of Federal health, safety and general-welfare regulations in terms of idealized small business Davids beset by beaurocratic Goliaths; rendered even more unfortunate by how at odds it is with the film’s otherwise smart and decidedly forward-looking themes of scientific progress, entrepreneurship for the common good, class-consciousness and re-assertion of the melting-pot metropolis as societal pinnacle worth defending.

On the other hand, I’m inclined to at least give the film credit for casting Peck strictly in terms of a petty tyrant, not necessarily representative of his vocation. Hell, there’s not even any trite, overly-tidy reveal that he’s somehow “working for” or “influenced by” Gozer (and you’d better believe that if they wrote this today, that’s exactly what would end up happening). Also, well-intentioned red tape creating a pain in the ass for startup businesses IS a thing that happens. Sorry, it is.

THE VERDICT

Even while acknowledging the film’s imperfections, the relative triviality of their presence mainly serves to highlight just how startlingly close to perfection the total package actually gets. Upon full inspection – its component parts broken down, analyzed from all possible angles, studied bit by bit under the metaphorical microscope and reassembled for posterity and a more complete re-appreciation – GHOSTBUSTERS isn’t just a good movie or a great film… its existence is something close to miraculous.

The ingenious premise of exorcists as high-tech exterminators is inventive enough that you’d almost have to try to make a boring movie out of it, and 1984 was indeed the ideal moment in both the development of the modern special-effects blockbuster and the overall pop-culture zeitgeist for such ideas to first be explored, granted. And both the grownup-skewing subtext of scientific conquest over mystic superstition and the kid-empowering surface-text of your worst fears being no match for creative know-how are pretty-much always going to “work” in terms of audience engagement.

But that it also maintains such an easygoing, deceptively laid-back, jovial comic tone? That it feels so loose, unkempt and anarchic even as it fires the imagination of the young and prods the humor-center of the older? That it comes across so effortless and idiosyncratic even as it builds a complete lived-in world, develops iconic three-dimensional characters, lays out a functional comprehensive mythology while also deftly satirizing a genre and the culture swirling around it and covertly challenging the beliefs and worldview of a big chunk of its prospective audience?

That’s not supposed to be possible. That’s not supposed to happen. And that’s definitely not supposed to work. Not while also being this funny, this exciting, this imagination-expanding, this subversive, his meaningful, this compulsively watchable and absolutely NOT with this once in a lifetime confluence of such specific talents behind and in front of the camera. But it did happen. And while it might be talked to death by some fans, championed for exactly the wrong reason by others and indeed over-praised in the grand scheme of things… it holds up. The damn silly thing holds up.

GHOSTBUSTERS holds up.

GHOSTBUSTERS is as good as you remember.

GHOSTBUSTERS is smarter than you might’ve given it credit for.

GHOSTBUSTERS is deeper than you may have considered.

GHOSTBUSTERS matters.

GHOSTBUSTERS counts.

And that’s why GHOSTBUSTERS… is Really That Good.

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Pitch Me, Mr. B

I'm a big believer in the "use it or lose it" school of creative aptitude, and that concerns me as I find myself (or, at least, feel like I've found myself) with less and less time for creative experimentation when it comes to writing.

Sure, my movie reviews (back again!), REALLY THAT GOOD, the re-launch of GAME OVERTHINKER (coming soon!) and a few other projects that can't be announced yet are all keeping me sharp in terms of analysis and critical-thinking, but I'm feeling like I stand to put in more practice-time on fiction, particularly screenwriting. On the other hand, it's not like I feel comfortable putting effort into "just for kicks" experiments when I should be busting ass (relatively speaking) here and elsewhere on behalf of my exceptionally generous Patreon backers, who expect (and should expect!) some entertainment and interaction.

So! Here's how I'm going to combine the two for a bit:

Okay, here's the basic idea:

This post from awhile back, laying out a hypothetical Hollywood pitch for a (proper) live-action SUPER MARIO BROS* movie, turned out to be pretty popular. Since I'm always thinking about this kind of stuff anyway (and since this is the age where we're officially making movies out of fucking anything) I've since worked out the basic outlines of a few other "if I had to pitch _____" scenarios on similar lines as thought experiments. I'm going to list four of them below, and ask anyone who wants to to vote in the comments (Blogger has no good option for putting polls into posts) either for which one they'd like to see an actual full pitch for OR rank all four (1 being highest, 4 being lowest) on a scale of most to least want to see pitched. I'll keep the poll open for a week (so you've got until 4/10 at 11:59pm) and then I'll start posting the actual pitches in the order decided by the votes (schedule yet to be determined as consensus emerges)


The four possible pitches are:

MEGA MAN

X-MEN (hypothetical near-future Marvel Cinematic Universe version)

CAPTAIN PLANET

CARE BEARS

Okay. Get down into the comments and get to voting. You're also welcome to toss out other ideas as well, but these four are going first no matter what. Yes, even if like 300 people all demand STREET SHARKS.


*Since I'm sure plenty of people are wondering, the reason ZELDA isn't among the choices is that the lore there is so rigid yet also so loose mapping it out in detail doesn't hold that much appeal to me. But if you want a quickie: Trilogy of films based loosely on OCARINA but with the "quest" streamlined. PART I: Young Link, end on Master Sword aquisition and time-jump. PART II: Adult Link, Tri-Force quest in ruined "future" Hyrule with Sheik, end on Sheik/Zelda reveal and realization that key past mistakes make victory impossible. PART III: Final battle against Ganon, with time-jumping between kid and adult eras to ensure defeat of evil.

Film Review: FURIOUS 7

Vrrrroooom! Vroom vroom!

TV Recap: AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D - Season 2 Episode 15: "ONE DOOR CLOSES"

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I gave less-than-great marks to last week's AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D, largely because it was a "setting things up" episode and not much else beyond it. The good news? This week's episode turns out to be where almost all of that setup starts paying off immediately and without much extraneous padding: The new characters/ideas? Explained as fully as anything on this series gets explained. The worldbuilding? All functional. Subplots? All in motion. Good stuff... though with the unfortunate caveat that it looks like the show is about to take an obligatory swing on a tried-and-true comic-book story idea that almost never works.

That's the non-spoiler version. For SPOILERS, hit the jump:


This is roughly the time last year when AGENTS' first season got to "Turn, Turn, Turn," the episode that happened in conjuction with CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER and enabled the show to finally tip it's hand about the MCU's big HYDRA-infiltration subplot. That reveal (and the narrative re-focusing it allowed) is what mainly rescued the series from its iffy mid-season slump, and laid down the template that the superior Season 2 has largely adhered to. "One Door Closes" doesn't achieve nearly that level of turnaround, but it does move things forward and hint at big things to come - impressive, considering it would've been unsurprising to see the show just rest on it's "yup, we snuck the beginning of THE INHUMANS in right under your nose" laurels.

Last week, we learned that Agents Bobbi and Mac are actually double-agents for a seemingly bigger, better-armed incarnation of S.H.I.E.L.D (led by Edward James Olmos' Agent Gonzales) founded by Agents who've rejected Nick Fury's way of doing things and are looking to put a stop to the antics of Coulson's Fury-approved Agency... though they mostly seem preoccupied with Coulson's alien-blood ressurection and the secret index of superhumans. This week plays this rivalry out in a dual narrative: In the present, "Real S.H.I.E.L.D" invades and locks-down Coulson's base; while in extended flashbacks we learn the origins and ideology of the organization.

Short version: They're mainly the surviving crew of a S.H.I.E.L.D aircraft-carrier called The Iliad, who opted to disobey Fury's orders to sink the vessel (regardless of remaining crew) in hopes of keeping an unidentified precious cargo out of HYDRA's hands; instead recapturing the ship, saving hundreds of lives and deciding (somewhat reasonably, you've got to admit) that since Fury's methods didn't do anything to prevent the rise of HYDRA, maybe they should do something else. Hence why they've got a mad-on about Coulson, whom Gonzales sees as little more than a (literal) creation of Fury's built to keep his flawed vision in power (specifically, they're angry about him keeping yet-unknown Enhanced Superhumans and unexplained artificats hidden around the world.)

Meanwhile, Skye is off in what feels like her own separate episode entirely as she staves off cabin fever in the safe-house (it's actually more for keeping people/things outside the cabin safe) Coulson has her hiding out in until fellow Inhuman Gordon (aka The Reader) shows up to talk heart-to-heart. This is the first time this guy has showed up long enough to do anything other than make a cool entrace/exit and a quip, so it's a relief that he comes off as a pretty interesting character - even if all he really does, substantively, is deliver a good(?)-guy version of the "embrace your superiority" speech Skye has already gotten several times from Mr. Hyde (Kyle McLachlan).

For an episode sold primarily on the promise of the plot going somewhere again and the long-awaited May/Mockingbird fight (good, but no May/Agent 33) The flashback business turns out to be the strongest element to the proceedings, giving new insight into the "Other S.H.I.E.L.D" characters (nice move including a sort-of return for Lucy Lawless' presently-deceased Agent Hartley character from the pilot) and taking the best possible shot at the innevitably futile task of trying to make us not regard them (in the present) as the bad guys. Unfortunately, the effort expended there can't really help with what I'm worried is a "baked-in" problem to the "Other S.H.I.E.L.D" storyline. Specifically...

This story never really works.

I'm not sure there are words for it, but "wouldn't normal people eventually get paranoid about superheroes?" belongs to the roster of obvious, easily-answered questions that sound like head-slappingly great angles for this or that genre that generally don't pan out in practice. Fundamentally, what works in a "contained" continuity like WATCHMEN or THE INCREDIBLES usually doesn't every few years or so when some enterprising writer decides to try it in the Marvel or DC Comics Universes (the X-Men being the exception, as this conceit is built into their mythos). The fact is, everybody knows that in the real world superheroes/mutants/inhumans operating like they do in comics wouldn't work out, but everyone also knows that these stories don't take place in the real world.

In this case, AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D is inextricably linked to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and viewers/audiences have spent almost a decade being reinforced that the "rules" of said Universe is that superhumans doing their own thing evens out on the "positive" side. So no matter how noble "Other S.H.I.E.L.D's" origins or reasonable their perspective, it's all just so much song and dance before they innevitable wind up as the bad/misguided guys. We already know Skye/Coulson/etc are the good guys, we know THE INHUMANS will likely be the heroes of their own movie, we can guess that some of this will inform CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR and that Cap (the moral center of the Marvel Universe) will be on the "leave us alone" side, and frankly just the fact that Other S.H.I.E.L.D is preoccupied with this threat rather than HYDRA is a pretty big red flag in and of itself.

This isn't to say that S.H.I.E.L.D vs S.H.I.E.L.D can't be a fun angle to round out the season (though I have a feeling that, with Nick Fury already popping up in trailers, AGE OF ULTRON is going to blow up the last few episodes the way WINTER SOLDIER did last year, so...) I just hope they don't drag the "maybe they've got a point" business out too long, because no one is going to buy it and that get's frustrating fast.


PARTING THOUGHTS:

• The digital color-grading used to differentiate the flashbacks from the present was effective... maybe too effective, as it immediately made everything look slicker and more cinematic than the CBS police-procedural lighting the series usually uses. Why not break that out more?
• The big obvious question: What the hell is this "cargo" that The Iliad is carrying that was so important Fury was willing to sink it? Well... honestly, at this point the MCU is so broadly-constructed it could be anything from another Obelisk to a tranquilized Fin Fang Foom and it'd make the same amount of sense. FYI, though: "Iliad" is the name of a repurposed S.H.I.E.L.D hellicarrier which, in the comics, currently serves as the base of operations for a Secret Avengers team that includes Maria Hill and Daisy Johnson - aka Skye.
• Two guesses for the Iliad Cargo, none the less: 1. The nascent form of whatever Tony Stark is going to build Ultron out of (in the trailers, it's described as a "reactivated program") 2. Mar-Vell, since The Kree are already part of the show's regular mythos and they've got to start setting up CAPTAIN MARVEL at some point.
• Two questions that I don't think have been asked or answered yet: Can Kree people touch The Obelisk and not die? If so, can Coulson do it because he's full of Kree blood?
• Skye finding the Hulk's fist-print hidden behind the fake "rustic" walls of the cabin was not only a perfect reveal of what's actually going on, it might be the best "Oh, right! The Avengers!" shoutout in the series so far.
• Agent Weaver supposedly fought off an "enhanced" sicced on S.H.I.E.L.D Academy by HYDRA. Any chance we find out who it was? (Probably not - it's a sympathetic backstory detail that exists to give her pledging "Team Lock `Em All Up" a rational basis.)
• Did Bobbi actually see "dickhead Agent" try to shoot Skye with a real bullet against her orders? If so, is this step 1 to ensuring that she winds up defecting from her current allegiance over to "Team Still Gonna Be On The Show Next Season?"

NEXT WEEK:
Gordon BAMFed in to spirit Skye off to The Inhumans' (still officially not named as such) secret space to close out the episode, which means "Afterlife" will probably explain more of that while bringing Cal/Mr. Hyde and Raina back into the story. Luke Mitchell will debut here as "Lincoln," a seemingly-original character who will apparently be pretty important.


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TV Recap: WRESTLEMANIA XXXI (Partial)

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Did one of these for the old outlet a year ago, figured I might as well put a new one up here and see how the reaction goes. Almost didn't, because the "venue" I chose to watch the show wound up not actually putting it on the main screen until almost an hour in because a prior sports-event tied and ran long, but I saw what seemed to be the "big" matches so I'm going for it. I feel like there's a pretty solid crossover between Wrestling fandom and the rest of geek culture, but I also feel like it ought to be even moreso. Anyway, we'll see.

PROLOGUE (NON-SPOILERS):
On the off chance that you've decided to read this recap as a non-fan (or casual fan) of pro-wrestling, a brief explanation behind (some) of what's going on here: Wrestlemania is the WWE's biggest annual event, and while it's not a strict rule this is the show where the biggest spectacle match-ups (i.e. "you never thought you'd see these two fight!") and title defenses are expected to take place and where (some) of the year's long-running kayfabe (in-ring/in-character) biggest storylines are expected to either resolve or twist in some dramatic fashion.

(More prologue and SPOILERS after the jump)


Last year's 'Mania was one for the ages (or, at least, it's being short-term remembered as such) mainly based on two huge moments: The Undertaker's 21 year/21 match undefeated streak being ended by former UFC wrecking-machine Brock Lesnar and uber fan-favorite underdog Daniel Bryan (real name Bryan Danielson) becoming World Heavyweight Champion. Those two angles, happening at once, seemed to (and seemed meant to) solidfy Lesnar and Bryan and the new top heel and babyface (villain and hero) of the company, and storyline that could've potentially carried through much of the year... but didn't.

Bryan sustained an (actual) injury that ended up grounding him for months, by many accounts scrambling a good number of intended creative directions, leading to franchise-mainstay John Cena getting thrust back into the top face spot (replacing his then-waning "white rapper" persona with a semi self-aware Superman/Captain America-style implausibly-earnest good guy routine) and endure an utterly brutal squash (re: super-lopsided) match against Lesnar at Summerslam that most suspect was meant for Bryan. The intended (narrative) outcome was the same re: The Championship Belt is now on the waist of the hated "legend-killing" heel who not only enrages fans with his cocky lack of repect for WWE history but also terrifies... well, pretty-much everyone by looking more physically-lethal than anyone else in the business now (seriously, go look up a picture of this guy - he looks like something out of FIST OF THE NORTH STAR.) But it helped supercharge an awkward rift between WWE and it's own fanbase.

Short version: Present-day WWE is working through what's being called "The Reality Era." This is supposed to mean that the kayfabe storylines stick semi-close to either actual reality re: Wrestler's personalities/life-situations or a semblance of reality in general - no more magic powers, no more outlandish excuses for rivalry. What it actually means, so far, is WWE doing the same storyline stuff it's always done, just augmented by oddly-arranged boundaries of "realism." For example: No one is supposed to believe "scary" characters like Undertaker have supernatural powers anymore, but we are asked to believe that they can control the practical special-FX, pyrotechnics and arena electrical-systems used to simulate those powers... and that this is just as dangerous. See also: Big Show (real name Paul Wight, aka "The Giant") is allowed to roll his eyes and laugh-off the silliness of starting off his professional career billed as the vengeance-seeking son of Andre the Giant (he's not)... but his most-recent heel-turn into an enforcer for reigning heel-squad The Authority? That's "real."

Problem? The "reality" of the business as envisioned by WWE Creative itself (or, if you buy the scuttlebutt, as-envisioned by aging WWE CEO Vince McMahon, with the rest of the company being more in-sync with the fanbase but powerless to change the boss's mind) is increasingly at odds with fandom. The best illustration of this is Cena, a workhorse perpetual-babyface beloved by younger fans (supposedly he's resisted a long-expected heel-turn because it might impact his usefulness to charities like Make-A-Wish) but increasingly disliked by older fans weaned on "Attitude Era" (re: WWE's violent/sexually-charged 90s incarnation) anti-heroes who drive the message-board and podcast side of wrestling fandom. It doesn't help that he's also emblematic in general of the "Vince-preferred" superstars (big-personality stars whose skill-set is often second to looking like live-action comic book heroes) that core wrestling fandom views as getting unfair pushes over guys like Bryan (i.e. scrappy multi-talents with real technical grappling chops but who don't have the "look" the company prefers in champions for marketing purposes.

As such, the REAL "reality" storyline of the last year has been crowds (fairly or not) vocally refusing to support the kayfabe narrative - which, since these shows are live, can derail matches and force Creative's hand. As a result, fans turned on Cena (hard enough to effectively derail the "Death & Rebirth of Superman" story meant to spin out from the Summerslam squash) and even more harshly on Roman Reigns, a relative newcomer also seen as a "Vince pick" (depending on your frame of reference, he either looks like Cena and The Rock had a baby or if Khal Drogo joined G.I. JOE) which has thrown the face/heel dynamic into utter disarray: Heading into 'Mania, a good deal of fans are actively rooting against Cena in favor of "bad guys" like Rusev (a Russian-aligned, America-hating usurper of the United States Championship) and even Lesnar - since it's Roman Reigns who emerged from The Royal Rumble having won the right to challenge the champ.

So what happened? Here we go, match by match (including the ones I didn't see) with FULL SPOILERS:

PRE-SHOW: 
Wasn't able to see either of these (okay Vince, you win - I'll get The Network) because I was watching the regular PPV feed at my usual hangout for 'Manias of the last few years (shouldn't have this year, because of the delays), but it's weird to see the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal - such a fun event last year - relegated to the two pre-show matches (the other was a tag-team title fight, and WWE's tag division is dull as hell right now). The change is likely mostly to do with last year's winner, Cesaro, failing to get real heat off of it, but it still feels like a miss considering they wound up using this match to end the "Mizdow" storyline (Damien Sandow being the "stuntman"/indentured servant to The Miz) and handed the tropy to a dominant Big Show. Now comes the big (pardon the pun) question: Does Show take this opportunity (I doubt he's going to have a title run again, realistically) and retire into a Legends contract?

LADDER MATCH (Daniel Bryan, Stardust, Dolph Ziggler, Luke Harper, Dean Ambrose, R Truth & Bad News Bryan for Intercontinental Championship):
Only got to see snippets of this, because of venue issues, but it's the one I'm most looking forward to seeing (I'll update this recap afterwards) because these guys are all damn good performers and it's being called the match of the night by some folks I trust. Booking-wise, this is the kind of "meta-match" (i.e. the kayfabe storyline is a nod to real-life fan/sport/business issues) that seems set to define the Reality Era: The IC belt has been passed around so much at this point, WWE has essentially thrown up it's hands and said "fuck it, just hang the damn thing above the ring and let six guys fight over who gets to pull it down."

The result, of course, was a foregone conclusion: Bryan takes the belt and the title. At first glance this seems like a downgrade, relegating the fan-favorite (of vocal "hardcore wrestling" fans, in any case) to a mid-card title, and maybe it is... but it also feels like a canny move. WWE has been letting the Heavyweight belt become less frequently-contested as it moves to having more and more "superstars" under limited-appearance contracts like Lesnar, so putting a "second tier" belt on a crowd-pleaser like Bryan potentially gives them opportunity to have regular title-stakes matches with at least one guaranteed draw on non-Mania PPVs the rest of the year. Bryan gets another title run, fans get high-profile matches more regularly and the IC Title itself gets some much-needed prestige back.

RANDY ORTON vs SETH ROLLINS
Shitty venue impediment #2 (last one, I promise), only caught the end of this one. Decent match (these guys are good) that wound up as a Battle of The Special Moves, but lacking heat because Orton has already been allowed to get his revenge on Rollins (he bounced Orton out of The Authority back when they were both henchmen) by brutalizing him on Monday Night RAW the last few weeks. Basically, it was overly transparent (even for Wrestling) that this match only existed to provide a plausible excuse for Rollins to be at the show other than to cash in his Money In The Bank briefcase (a totem won in a yearly contest which its owner can exchange for an anytime/anywhere/no-exceptions shot at the Heavyweight Title) but did we really need a whole match for that?

STING vs TRIPLE H
Okay, a little more history for non-fans who (for whatever reason) might be reading this: Once upon a time, WWE had an equally (for the most part) powerful rival Wrestling outfit in WCW (World Championship Wrestling) which both peaked and ended during the 1990s "Monday Night Wars" (both companies had competing Mondays shows). Big stars used to go back and forth between the two companies based on who was offering better contracts (or hiring guys the other league had kicked out), but not always: Sting stayed with WCW all the way through to it's eventual conquering and assimilation by WWE and never once changed teams; effectively making him WCW's equivalent to both Undertaker (eternally loyal to WWE) and Hulk Hogan (Sting has almost-always been one of the good guys.)

Now, he's making his first ever WWE debut at the age of 56 for what most assume will be a handful (at best) of big Nostalgia Bait fan-service matches to ensure his place as a proper Wrestling legend since - with WCW gone and apart from a stint in the short-lived TNA outfit - he's been out of the game long enough that a whole generation of fans doesn't really know him. This is the first of these matches, against Triple H (aka "Hunter Hearst Helmsley" - also not his real name) who was also a Monday Night Wars fixture but has since ascended to being an in-ring part-timer with powerful connections to WWE management (he's married to Vince McMahon's daughter Stephanie, which actually started as an angle and turned into the real thing) that have him playing the role of (kayfabe) Chairman.

Problem: This is a match fans would've killed to see... 15 years ago. Today? These guys are both in shape you or I might even in our 50s, but they're still past prime in terms of physical combat - even partially-staged. So they went and made the match memorable by doubling-down on 90s Nostalgia and old-school rasslin' silliness. Sting entered via a Japanese drummers' corps, Triple-H rolled out flanked by Terminator endoskeletons (I don't get it?) The match itself was mostly a mid-speed, methodical slugfest and exchange of special moves... and then the crazy shit started.

Triple-H's 90s bad guy team, Degeneration X, came out to help him. Sting got his own backup in the form of his WCW frienemies The New World Order (Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall). Yeah, it was a bunch of old men pretend-fighting for a nonsensical nostalgia pop. But, damn it... DX VS NWO AT WRESTLEMANIA!!! STING GOT HIS BAT! TRIPLE-H GOT HIS SLEDGEHAMMER! HOGAN ACTUALLY TAKES A BUMP! SCOTT HALL (who was near-death not long ago, supposedly rehabilitated by Wrestler-turned-yoga-guru "Diamond" Dallas Page) STING'S BAT CHOPS THE HAMMER IN HALF!!! AND IT ENDS WITH A MUTUAL-RESPECT HANDSHAKE THAT'S TOTALLY OUT OF CHARACTER FOR BOTH GUYS BUT WHATEVER!!! The whole thing was stupid-awesome in the way that only Wrestlemania can be. Sting ultimately lost, which was to be expected - it means he'll be doing at least one more match (the worst kept secret in Wrestling is that WWE is hoping Sting and Undertaker remain able to move under their own power for a double-retirement match at next year's 'Mania.)

DIVAS TAG-TEAM (AJ Lee & Page vs The Bella Twins)
Oy. The Divas (Women's) Division is the other spot where WWE is having problems with fan-management - in this case, with the divided nature of their own evolving fanbase. The Divas have more cultural cache than ever thanks to the TOTAL DIVAS reality show on E!, but that very show and other (admittedly clumsy) attempts to make the division appeal to an actual female audience has engendered backlash from traditional (male) fans more used to the Attitude Era approach to female wrestlers (read: a smaller stable whose kayfabe characters are carefully-fitted into the "cool athetlic chick" sweet-spot on the tomboy-to-pornstar scale of hawtness).

As a result, the only story Creative seems to know how to tell is positioning whichever Diva core fans are most "okay" with (right now it's English goth-rock/bike-chick Page, who to her credit is a hell of a talent) as the lone "cool girl" up against the rest of her division as caricatures of annoying (to men) trends in female-skewing pop-culture. It's a shame, because everyone in this match has good wrestling fundamentals and work hard in the ring (AJ and Page earned their victory), but the division needs an overhaul if they want to stop wasting talent.

RUSEV vs CENA (United States Championship Title Match)
That thing I mentioned in the prologue about Daniel Bryan's sidelining and fandom mutiny blowing up the heel/face dynamic this year? Big bad Russian (he's actually Bulgarian, said to be living in Russia) heel Rusev is the guy whose probably both benefited and been hurt by it most in equal measure. His still young career is a case-study in the unpredictability of living kayfabe. WWE has run a perfect playbook of turning him into a Putin-era revival of the Soviet Super-Athlete heels that reigned in the 80s: He (and his girlfriend/manager Lana) trash talk the U.S., beat down patriotic soldiers who rush the ring, wave the Russian flag, deliver monologues in praise of Vladimir Putin and proudly rub Rusev's ironic ownership of the U.S. Title in the faces of fans...

...but it hasn't really worked. Putin may be a bastard, but he doesn't get the kind of "villain pop" from patriotism-susceptible audiences that, say, an ISIS-aligned figure probably would (no way in HELL is WWE touching that again, though); and the in-on-the-joke Millennial "smark" fans who might be inclined to go along with an obvious throwback storyline like this don't really care about a storyline that's basically a longform ROCKY IV reference. Finally, without a properly "over" (crowd-loved) face to be the hero, the story doesn't work. Ironically, this has actually helped Rusev on the non-narrative side: The crowds increasingly love this guy. He's a tremendous specimen for one thing, sporting a 1920s circus-strongman build with most of his weight is in his barrel-chested torso and propelling himself around on nimble legs with alarming speed for a brute this size; and he's a great in-ring storyteller with expressive pantomime.

In other words, he'll probably be the first popular young heel to emerge from a beatdown from Cena better for the experience in the immediate (a similar loss derailed Bray Wyatt's character for much of last year). There'll be some reinvention, but properly-managed this guy could easily be a Heavyweight contender in a year or two - especially if they can find a decent opportunity to flip him to babyface since he's already over with the fans. For now, it can be said that this was a HELL of a fight from a pure physical standpoint. Whatever else can be said about Cena, he works his ass off in the ring, and Rusev has such a unique physicality to his move-set that they couldn't help but make eachother look good. Finally, much like Bryan becoming IC Champ, Cena having the U.S. belt makes it a major title for the first time in forever and gives WWE a chance to book meaningful title matches more often and with bigger stars (Cena, in particular, will pretty-much fight anyone in any venue The McMahons point him at.)

TRIPLE-H & STEPHANIE vs THE ROCK & RONDA ROUSEY (non-match)
And now comes the part where you (here meaning the people in charge) put on some heavily scripted business guaranteed to go over huge and leave the crowd shell-shocked because the very next match could potentially go super-bad and you need something to overshadow or at least level-off that for Monday.

So out come Triple-H and Stephanie McMahon (currently known as "The Authority" in a double-act version of Vince's Attitude Era "bad boss" routine) to piss all over the nice handshake ending to the Sting match by reminding the fans that they're arrogant bad guys. Then out comes The Rock (presumably this is part of his FURIOUS 7 tour) to "stick up" for the fans. Stephanie slaps him and pulls the "you won't hit a girl" card... so The Rock goes down and retrieves UFC WOMEN'S CHAMP RONDA ROUSEY from the crowd so she can talk some trash before judo-throwing Triple-H out of the ring and snapping an arm-lock on Stephanie. Oh, and she does so while sporting a Dragon Ball Z tank-top, which suggests she "gets" Millennial gym-culture WWE fanboys better than WWE Creative does.

It's a ridiculous spectacle (the Reality Era version of stunt-matches featuring celebrity athletes from other vocations) but it kills. This is the Wrestlemania Moment people will be talking out this year. Even if just for this bit, Rousey is a huge "get" - she's probably the best known Mixed Martial-Arts fighter on the planet of any gender right now - but if this is (as many suspect) a setup for her taking a few event matches (or even a full stint?) in WWE that's a big damn deal for the sport given how much steam the idea of WWE contracts as an acceptable halfway-point for MMA stars who want to go out healthy but not fully retire has gained in the last few years. If Rousey was wrestling in WWE, it'd be the biggest thing to happen in the sport for years in terms of pop-culture visibility and "real" sports-world coverage.

But what do they do with her, if she does take a run at it? A decade ago, it'd be an easy answer: Work the "world's deadliest woman" angle, have her qualify for the men's division, set up some showy victories over impressive-looking male opponents (since she's UFC, crowds will "buy" that she can put big guys out with head-strikes), put a mid-card belt on her, maybe build up a "sexist" heel (oh man, how good would Miz be at this schtick??) for some Billie Jean King/Bobby Riggs business for a PPV. But today? If she was willing to sign for a full stint, Rousey could be the legitimizing force the Divas' Division has been hurting for - put the belt on her, and suddenly The Divas' Title is on the cover of every fight/fitness magazine still in print, and any challenger who doesn't embarrass herself against The Champ can quickly shed the "reality stars pretending to wrestle" stigma unfairly slapped on the whole division. As of now, if she jumps in at all it'll likely be for an "official" mixed-tag rematch of this gag, but man do I want to see the Divas Belt on her now.

UNDERTAKER vs BRAY WYATT
Fun meta-booking with the old and new "scary guy" wrestlers going at it, but tension is pretty-much nil here: Taker needs to win at Wrestlemania to erase the Lesnar-launching loss from last year, Wyatt is a well-booked opponent because he's a brawler but not a speed-demon so Taker's age looks like less of an issue than it did against The Beast. The result is a very solid match between two consumate pros, but... let's get real here: I think most men would give up quite a bit to be in the kind of shape Mark William Callaway (Undertaker) is at 50, especially considering the brutal physical endurance that's characterized his career... but it's still increasingly hard to watch him take some of these bumps - or even some of these landings. In-motion it's one thing, but go look at some of the stills of this match and try not to think "Jesus - that man could cripple himself in that ring right now."

But! It played out decently, and the point was proved: He's still got it, and if he can hold his own against a young scrapper like Wyatt he can probably make one more 'Mania. If the dream match comes together and he and Sting do go at it for Double Retirement at Wrestlemania XXXII, what you'll likely see is two 50+ men beat eachother to the brink of mutual oblivion, then stand up together for the biggest sustained cheers/tears wave in WWE history.

BROCK LESNAR vs ROMAN REIGNS (World Heavyweight Championship match)
And here it is: WWE's chance to set right the off-kilterness of the fans' non-engagement with Lesnar as a villain, Reigns as a hero and THE Championship as a meaningful stake. Fair or not, the crowd just isn't on Reigns' side right now. They can't put the belt on him without risking full-scale mutiny. Maybe he can work a "no, fuck YOU!" heel-turn later, but it makes no sense to start here because while Brock is over with the fans in a big way nobody wants to see them try to make a face out of a guy whose appeal is that he looks like he can end your life in one move.

Straight and to the point: While they're definitely being douchey about it, "the crowd" is right - Reigns is just too green and underdeveloped to be a top face and Champion right now. He's obviously got potential to spare, but that he looked better than he's ever looked here is largely owed to the choreography and pretty good ring chemistry with Lesnar (it makes sense, both of these guys are well-balanced strikers leaning on speed/power combos.) It's a bloody (for the post-Attitude age) fight, too, but it has to be: Lesnar's character is "I will kill you with my bare hands," and we have to believe it to care. You might hate Reigns, but you can't say he didn't leave everything in the ring tonight; and by the end of it either guy would've earned the win...

...but since this is Wrestling, neither of them did. Instead, Seth Rollins "surprisingly" rushes out (brief history: Rollins, Reigns and Dean Ambrose used to be a three man tag team called The Shield, Rollins violently betrayed the others and joined The Authority as a hench-heel) while both men are injured and cashes in his Money In The Bank contract, transforming this into a three-way match where he gets to go fresh against two guys who've beaten eachother into near-unconsciousness. Because he's the bad guy, you see. The heel swerve is perfectly played: Rollins tries to take out Lesnar, but get's manhandled easily - so instead, he lets his opponents knock eachother down again, pins the more badly-hurt, less-superhuman Reigns for the win and gets the hell out of dodge with the belt and the Title.

Perfect, perfect, perfect finish... and even better IF they can capitalize on it. Amid everything else, WWE has managed to end Wrestlemania XXXII with the company set up for really strong set of emerging narratives. The Authority now have the Championship under their control for maximum villain heat, Rollins (another workhorse) can defend the title more often than Lesnar could, Lesnar himself gets a boost for his "monster beyond face or heel" persona, Reigns' "too soon" push has been crushed, now he can be rebuilt into a (hopefully) more likable form while they prime a rekindled rivalry with Rollins. That, plus title belts on their most over face (Bryan) and their most sellable face (Cena) means this should be a really interesting spring/summer, booking-wise.

Overall, good event. Not an all-timer like last year, but lot's of memorable moments. Dug the hell out of most of it, wish I'd seen the parts I'd missed, but I'll tell you one thing: I'm sure as hell not missing RAW tonight.


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Really That Good: GHOSTBUSTERS

NOTE: Sony has released the copyright claim against this episode. Good on them.



The first episode ("pilot," if we're being honest) for my new project: REALLY THAT GOOD, a film essay series based on the radical idea that our most beloved movies probably became our most beloved movies for a good reason; and that just because "everyone" agrees a film is great doesn't mean it's not worthy of a serious second look:

A lot of work has gone into this one, folks; and I'm pretty damn happy with how it came out especially for a first try. I hope you all enjoy it.

TV Recap: AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D - Season 2 Episode 14: "LOVE IN THE TIME OF HYDRA"

One reason it was rough going getting this up for Wednesday (hence why you're now getting it on Saturday)? This wasn't an especially strong episode, and it was hard to find anything useful to say about it other than to recap what happened.

This an episode almost-exclusively about putting various characters into the positions they need to be in for a promised "explosive" storyline next week, buoyed by some character/relationship melodrama that was nice to see but would've worked better amid the support of a stronger overall setting. Upkeep-episodes are all well and good (and necessary, given that AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D is now clearly pacing itself with an eye on bulk re-watchings whenever the various future Marvel movies it's laying foundation for hit) but the word "obligatory" was hanging too prominently over the proceedings.

Full review (with SPOILERS!) after the jump...

The structural theme at play in "LOVE IN THE TIME OF HYDRA" was various character pairings being shaken by the continuing changes to their status-quo. To wit: Coulson and Skye re-solidify their surrogate-family bond amid his decision to remove her from active Agent duty and relocate her to a secret rural safe house. Fitz and Simmons have it out, verbally, over their unexpected divergence on the Inhumans (still unnamed as such) issue; i.e. Fitz wants to treat Skye's powers as a "difference" to be understood and accepted, Simmons sees them as a dangerous flaw to be cured (or worse?) Hunter finds out that Bobbi (Mockingbird) has been lying to him re: her and Mack being double agents for a second, better-equipped rival S.H.I.E.L.D revival.

Finally, Ward resurfaces, still seemingly in the midst of whatever long-term agenda he's been working this whole time but now with a smitten Agent 33 (the brainwashed HYDRA spy with the face-changer mask fused to her face) in tow. Their's is the "new" and more unconventional "Loves" referenced in the title, and I liking their dynamic even if they're over-telegraphing the "Hey! Remember how Ward pulled this exact same nuturing-crush thing on Skye!?" aspect. Their game-playing with Talbot was also the most entertaining aspect of the episode, re-establishing the tricky edge Adrian Pasdar has to walk with Talbot being not so much "incompetent" but utterly-outclassed as an ordinary General in a world of spies and superheroes.

"The Real S.H.I.E.L.D," on the other hand, is more of a mixed bag. The setup works: These aren't (evidently) more "bad" Agents, nor do they seem to be HYDRA (again, which would be lame,) they just represent a much larger (than Team Coulson) consortium of ex-Agents who also want to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D but see said rebuild as an opportunity to jettison the (in their view) failed Nick Fury model of secret-keeping that Coulson (ever the in-universe fanboy clinging to the old-school) and his ownership of Fury's personal files is standing in the way of.

The problem with this setup? It's already too apparent (unless one hell of a curveball is on the way, granted) what it's there for: Real S.H.I.E.L.D's leader Gonzales (Edward James Olmos) is specifically concerned about Skye's transformation, Coulson's alien-infused blood and the proliferation of enhanced superhumans in general; which means that in addition to worldbuilding for the INHUMANS franchise we would now seem to have some infrastructure for the (MCU version of the) Superhuman Registration storyline that's expected to be the inciting incident for CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR.

All well and good. But for now, no matter how much "moral gray" AGENTS wants to feign by lampshading how haphazard Coulson's style of running a covert spy agency would seem if he wasn't a TV character on an AVENGERS spin-off, the cat is out of the bag in terms of The Inhumans being MCU's replacement for X-MEN/Mutant characters and storylines. As such, it feels pointless to pretend like "Real S.H.I.E.L.D" is going to end up as something other than variations on Stryker, Gyrich, etc.

Presumably this will all pay off handsomely moving forward, but right now we're strictly in piece-arrangement territory, and that doesn't leave a lot to actually think about.


PARTING THOUGHTS

• Also not a great sign: Ward's return mainly reminded me how not-interesting his family-issues and undefined "agenda" are. It still feels like the show made a mistake keeping him around as a semi-regular after he'd served his "gotcha" purpose in Season 1.
• Agent 33 is still more hypothetically interesting than interesting, but it feels like she'd be a better solo wild-card to have onhand than Ward's counterpart.
• I get the reasoning (budget and otherwise) but after all the buildup it was seriously dissapointing to have Skye's "inhibitor gloves" look less like gauntlets than shiny carpal-tunnel bracers. Yes, I'm interested to find out what "drawbacks" Simmons built into them, but still...
• Fitz seeing Skye as a potential Captain America while Simmons is thinking more on the lines of The Hulk is about as close to not-clunky as the movie call-outs have ever been on this series, so good job on that.
• We're long overdue for a return from The Koenigs, right?

NEXT WEEK

At the very least, the ominously titled "One Door Closes" should move things along in terms of who's going to make a (likely temporary) jump to "Real S.H.I.E.L.D;" though the main attraction seems to be finally get May vs. Mockingbird. Should be fun.

News & Such

Short version: Yes, you're still getting an AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D recap for this week (between tomorrow and Sunday) and I apologize for the delay. I could pin some of it on work (things are gathering steam, and I should have exceptionally good news for fans pretty soon) but it's not just that...


The main fact of the matter is that some personal business (even the vaguest details of which are not public in any way yet, so don't bother looking) came to something of a head, which put some added delay onto my current workload. Since I'm not really ready to share anything about this on The Internet, I can only ask for patience and understanding in that regard. Either way, nothing I've been planning or doing has been canceled, just delayed and shifted. Incidentally, along with S.H.I.E.L.D recaps I'm aiming to start movie reviews (video and text) started again in earnest in the near future, i.e. in-tandem with the start of "big movie season."

More to the immediate: The main (non-personal) thing drawing my attention this week has been finalizing the first episode of REALLY THAT GOOD, which I'm aiming to have up for the weekend (we'll see.) It's been a slightly bigger undertaking than I'd anticipated, and perhaps I should've started with a less intimidating subject for a pilot than... well, you'll see; but I'm very happy with how it's coming together and I'm excited for you all to see it.

As ever, fans and well-wishers who like what's going on (and/or are excited for what's coming) are invited to express their enthusiam via The MovieBob Patreon.

Dronehood

Andrew Niccol's (GATTACA, IN TIME) GOOD KILL is being touted as the first major Hollywood war movie specifically "about" post-9/11 drone warfare, which one can (cynically) assume is coming out now because we're almost on to the next election and it's now that much less lightning-rod-y to criticize a war-fighting method that's seen (fairly or not) as belonging uniquely to the Obama Era rather than as a Bush/Cheney holdover.

Ethan Hawke stars as an oldschool fighter pilot who, with the demand for his actual flight skills waning, reluctantly joins a squad of joystick-jockeys blowing up Taliban/Al-Qaeda/ISIS/etc (it's unclear what time period/enemy-cycle this takes place in) from the comfort of a stateside cubicle:



What's interesting about the trailer is that the emotional/moral focus seems to be more about the hero feeling like this detached/no-risk version of war fighting is somehow less "fair" or righteous than doing the same basic thing but from an actual plane, which is certainly a... unique way to go about the "old soldier questions his values" story-arc.

You've got to wonder how far (or in what direction) this aims to go: You can easily imagine, from this trailer, the main narrative being that this "Real Soldier" tested/trained by "Real Combat" gradually becomes horrified by the callous cruelty of a new generation that sees this as one big video game and striking back against that mindset i.e. "MY warfare was good because we had real men taking real risks - this is... something else!" (Supposedly that was the basic storyline for Maverick in the once-again stalled TOP GUN sequel.)

...OR is this one going the even darker, more difficult route of the impersonal nature of drone-piloting causing Hawke's character to realize that - removed from the visceral thrill of actual flying and the nominal risk of injury to his own person - maybe the war-fighting he'd dedicated his whole life and being to wasn't as righteous and good as he'd believed it to be?

I'm guessing it's the first one - the John Henry vs. The Steam Drill "aging noble hero versus the cold technology replacing him" narrative is a powerful siren's call, particularly for leading men themselves of advancing age. Early reviews have been mixed, but with Niccol (who could really use a hit at this point) directing it should at least look pretty good.

In Dog We Trust

Below, the trailer for MAX, which answers the question "How do you make a story about an Afghan War veteran recovering from severe PTSD even more wrenching and instantly sympathetic?" as follows: "Well, what if he's also a dog?"



Jesus.

I've got a well-acknowledged "thing" for dog movies, and between this and WHITE GOD it feels like someone in the movie business might actually be trying to kill me. Just the idea of this is so instantly rough I can almost forgive the trailer essentially giving away it's own third act (a soldier who knew Max's Marine owner shows up, he's a bad guy up to bad-guy stuff, Max and teams up with the kids to fight them) - it's likely a calculated move to let audiences know that it's not going to be wall-to-wall sad dog business. Oomph.

Seriously, though - this looks like the good version of a movie that get's pitched as a joke in some THE PLAYER-style satire of predictable Hollywood sentimentalism ("It's not sad enough! What if it's a sick dog instead?"). I'm onboard, but damn. And it's directed by Boaz Yakin, who did REMEMBER THE TITANS (I just made at least one person cry by typing that title - garaunteed) so you know he's really good at this shit.

MAX is due out June 26, opening as family-friendly counterprogramming against TED 2. I'll be spending the intervening months learning to steel myself into a sob-proof-state, since I'll likely have to see it at a press screening.