Various Shorts from the recent past

Some new, some as old as 15 or 20 years.

Classes of Movie Comedy

In 1980, Private Benjamin was released. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081375/?ref_=nv_sr_1 In 1981, Stripes followed close behind, having shot around the same time. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083131/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Either one of these movies - or the one-two punch of both - could have been the final statement of the long-standing comic premise of "funny people join the army." Goldie Hawn's character Judy Benjamin allows the titular name of the Nancy Meyers script to be male, despite there being no disguising the hook of the movie in posters - Goldie's clearly female peepers under a military helmet. Her film had the added element of not only a funny person in the army but a woman and also a fish out of water in the sense that she is a spoiled upper-class type who must win over her hard-nosed working-class drill Sargent who is also a woman and ultimately overcome her short comings to an extent and gain self-respect. Even though there is a plot twist later in the film which involves a blatant sexual overture that is clearly coercion rape which Judy has to escape by skydiving. So it manages to get its digs in. What is remarkable in our present culture of twitter wars and SJW Facebook discourse is that this popular and award-winning film plays indeed as a final thesis statement and not the start of a trend with feminist narratives. Nine-to-Five, produced by Jane Fonda and directed by the late Colin Higgins, came out the same year. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080319/?ref_=nv_sr_1 That got a short-lived TV series but nothing much else. Again, perhaps it said what had to be said at the time about sexism and injustice in the workplace. Decades Later, Horrible Bosses 2 came out. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2170439/?ref_=nv_sr_1 This is noteworthy because it contains a scene where the the men at the core of the two films acknowledge that their story is basically Nine to Five and which one of them is the Jane Fonda. Nine to Five is to Horrible Bosses what Stripes and Private Benjamin are to the 1994 Paulie Shore vehicle In the Army Now. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110123/?ref_=nm_knf_i4 By the same principle, the 1984 Ghostbusters is to the 2016 Ghostbusters by Paul Feig. The Ivan Reitman film written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis with improvisations by Bill Murray and much of the cast (it was Sigourney Weaver's idea that she become possessed), could have been the last statement of the premise "funny people chase ghosts" which acknowledges a legacy that goes back to Abbott and Costello. Stripes contained a mud wrestling scene that ultimately involved toplessness. It also had the Aunt Jamima treatment scene in which Bill Murray's character lifts P.J. Soles (Halloween, also in Private Benjamin!!!) onto a stove and playfully uses a spatula on her -- something that as described might be infuriating and would cause hard core bloggy types to hit the roof but someone like Bill Murray and P.J.'s measured reactions allow to be funny and light. It may have been improvised by Murray as it would cause false red flags in a script. Both the characters played by P.J. and Sean Young in Stripes are MPs - Military Police. They out-rank Murray and Harold Ramis their love interests and they are the ones licking in fences and doors and shooting the guns and driving the souped-up recreational vehicle at the end. It would be a hard-nosed, humourless person that would call the movie sexist in that context. Ghostbusters with the same crew three years later contains a scene where a ghost visits Dan Aykroyd's character Ray in bed, unbuckles his pants (which he is wearing in bed for no reason) and gives him oral. It also has a scene where Dr. Venkman (Murray) administers thorazine to the possessed Dana Barrett (Sigourney) without explanation of why he happened to have the substance on him when he had only showed up at her apartment expecting to go on a date. We can choose, again because of Murray's tone in the scene, to write that off as convenient screenwriting and/ or the eccentricity of a scientist. It is most likely a scripting quirk and not meant to imply that Venkman is so far gone that he would recreationally drug a date. Especially because of the way he reports this matter-of-fact to his fellow ghostbuster on the phone. Now let's jump ahead to the much-hyped 2016 Paul Feig remake of Ghostbusters, for which the appearance of feminism and the importance of female role models busting ghosts took the focus away from the true concern of most fans, the abandonment of the continuity and universe created in 1984 embellished in the seven seasons of The Real Ghostbusters animated series and also 1989's under-appreciated Ghostbusters II. We might have liked to meet Oscar Barrett, the grown son of Dana, who might have become a Ghostbuster as the adopted son of Venkman. Maybe he would have a sister from Peter and Dana who is also in that field. Re-connecting with the surviving cast and giving fans a chance to mourn and pay tribute to Harold Ramis who played Egon would have been a substantive, culturally healthy thing to do. On top of that, they also could have introduced a count of four female ghostbusters anyway. But instead, the bare bones of the brand were strip-mined and a comedy of lower class ended up passing itself off as Ghostbusters. Along with Melissa McCarthy and Paul Feig, as well as others in support of the remake, throwing shade on anyone who is not excited about the bait and switch Amy Pascal at Sony and Paul Feig had connived to foist on the "Mother's basement-dwelling, forty-year-old, neck-bearded Trump supporting assholes" that aren't eager to shell out admission for something that appears to close the door on something that had been teased out in drips for ten or fifteen years. Not that the 2016 film doesn't have some charm and entertainment value, but so so the most reviled Adam Sandler movies that Sony has cranked out of late. If it had been announced after the death of Graham Chapman that Benny Hill would be in charge of remaking Monty Python's Life of Brian, the drop in comedy cachet would be similar.

Ghostbusters (2016) Angry Movie Review + Rant!

These guys are entertaining and accurate.

Solid Points !! Ghostbusters (2016) | Great Movie Review

Counterfeit Ghostbusters ?

Shared Universe or Clean Slate on Ghostbusters

Just looking at reports on changed plans to have a Channing Tatum Ghostbusters introduced as competition for the Kristin Wiig vehicle that is coming out this summer. Apparently the new male version won't be this decade, and I could not care less. There is tweeting and clucking that bemoans the idea that these movies might not all connect, Marvel-style. The time to think of shared universes was before Feig e-mailed Amy Pascal with his idea that humans have had NO evidence of the afterlife and the 1984 Ghostbusters never happened. The Orkin pest control idea was already suggested in the 2009 original cast video game, wasn't it? The old traps did not have to look like bear traps, since the essence of a ghost has nothing to do with apparent size. The original props could have been made available if Wiig and team simply bought into the franchise as a branch of Ghostbusters. They could have moved into a property across the street from a Westboro Baptist Church type of organization and might even find ghosts or possessions there. Maybe their branch doesn't have to be in New York. If Dan and Ernie Hudson just were seen in an ad that might have been enough. There are plenty of satirical reasons to justify people not believing in ghosts despite there having been huge events. There was no twitter nor smart phones in 1984 or 1989. Cell phones weren't even common when The Real Ghostbusters show ran. It is possible that ghost believers might be treated as 9/11 Truthers. That is what should have happened. Speaking as a moviegoer.

What is a "Troll" ?

A central principal or conceit of mine is that intelligent, worthwhile people get the idea of parallel ideas and parallel arguments. If one person presents a post or a link or a set of arguments and another person comes along to examine and refute part of it, we understand that the two arguments co-exist and that the intention is not necessarily to erase the other. Even if a movie is remade, the second statement of the premise is likely to be viewed as an also-ran and a knock-off coasting on a brand, with the original benefitting from a new marketing push in association with the next version. If we are talking about Ghostbusters - as will be mentioned later in this blog - people searching the internet or chancing upon a discussion might like to gauge what kind of support an upcoming reboot will get. My position on most issues is left of the middle. If someone is a zealot at either extreme, that person might find me too aloof on matters that they hold with disproportionate importance. A worthwhile and constructive dialogue must be open to the idea that some people in your community don't believe in cheating their way to a win by lying about the state of the zeitgeist on one issue or another. It may come to a point where on the surface nothing can be said that is tested and true, only what is popular and painless to those on the margins. It is expected that a victim of a crime or abuse might be in such a state of trauma - repressed or actively remembered - that their own behaviour is impacted and they are in danger of becoming offenders in their own life. Being is only intelligible in terms of becoming. And yet, the posture of the victim is growing as if it is a badge of honour and there is now a blind spot where it is verboten to even consider implying that the said victim or champion of the victim could possibly develop the traits of the offender by abusing others. We know someone by how that person treats those he or she does not HAVE TO be nice to. If someone tests or challenges your preferred premise, that person must not be dismissed as a troll or perhaps even cyber-swarmed. That person should be engaged with the expectation that he or she has only the best intentions and wishes the issues to be complete and to fairly represent each voice and angle. Here is the definition found on Wikipedia for "Internet Troll." This is as I understand it and have all along. ************* In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[3] This sense of the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, but have been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families."[4][5] In addition, depictions of trolling have been included in popular fictional works such as the HBO television program The Newsroom, in which a main character encounters harassing individuals online and tries to infiltrate their circles by posting negative sexual comments himself.[6][7] **************** Seems logical. Recently, I found myself being told by someone on my Facebook that a comment was "trollish." I argued that it was not. The standard she wanted to go by was that any dissenting view or fact-check under a posted or linked article was a troll. I prefer to treat people as I want to be treated. Ads and random posts appear in my "News" Feed, and randomly if I invest a few moments checking out an article that is posted, I think it is reasonable and welcome to ask a question or point out an error or oversight. My former "friend" or frienemy as it turns out apparently wants a standard where whatever propaganda is being presented must be received in a vacuum of agreement, and any representation of the dissenting voice must be pathologized by a slap-down term like "troll" or "truther" in the case of conspiracies. In this case, it was something rather basic. ---------------------------------------------------------- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ An article link was posted by this person on the topic of "The Male Gaze." Apparently the topic was introduced in the 1960's. I do not recall the blog name or the website, not that I would want to promote it with my vast influence. I first asked a simple question, "Isn't there a "Female Gaze?" The blog or article kicked off by railing against the movie adaptation of "Fifty Shades of Grey." It argued that there was too much erotic view of the female form, as if to appeal to men, despite having a target audience of women. I pointed out that the director of that movie was a woman. The response I got, along with the accusation that my post was "trollish," was that the director may have been influenced by others to put that stuff in. So the woman who is directing doesn't count as contributing to the "Gaze" of the movie, and this person discounts the idea that she might even recognize the beauty of the female form despite being married and ostensibly straight. A lot of women on this person's FB posts will add comments about binary sexuality and fluid this or that, yet not entertain the idea that these factors might be part of the director. If said director is not responsible for what is on screen, then why the fuss about more female directors? (This last part is my own aside now, and was not part of my posts.) The article chose as its second example of the offensive "male Gaze" the unlikely target of Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which it argued that females "aren't shot the same way as men. I pointed out there that the director was Joss Whedon who is a known feminist and a old sort, not to mention the fact that nothing unflattering or leering struck me in the movie. Finally, the blogger/columnist gave qualified praise to Mad Max: Fury Road but stated that the camera strategy forced everything to be in the centre frame so that women could not be pushed off to the side. There is some invocation of the "rule of thirds" in framing invoked, which seems to diminish the fact that the STORY and deliberate DIRECTING of GEORGE MILLER is what actually guided that movie to have strong female characters we care about. It was not "forced" by some sort of centre-framing policy. The research of the person seems to have come from straight out of the rectum. Yet - and I have heard this from a third party who followed the discussion - my posts remained restrained and clearly well-intentioned. The woman who had posted the link and was playing what she called "moderator" by seemed poised for attack from word one. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -------------------------------------------------------------- Here I am calmly and idly going back on my smart phone as alerts come up, answering whatever post on a Sunday evening, matter-of-fact, and I'm getting kind of a shrill vibe from even the most trivial and innocuous remark. When we got into the trend of women leading films and changes and so on, I remarked that the new reboot of women as Ghostbusters casting Chris (Thor) Hemsworth as their secretary or receptionist is not really a parallel or inversion of the original film, because Annie Potts as Janine was not portrayed as a sex object. The response I got was an affronted spiel along the lines of, "Annie Potts in that movie is super sexy!" Now at that point what am I to say other than reiterate what I have already said, not that I have said anything against Potts. She is funny and an effective character. Sexy isn't a descriptive that I expect she was going for. Any more than Rick Moranis' character would expect to be called sexy. The conversation is like stepping in shit and not being able to scrape it off. And the core of it must be that this person had some sort of spite against me personally from the beginning, despite adding me on Facebook and voicing no objection to past posts over the years. ------------------------------------------------------------ ########################################################################### Then a shark swam into the cove. I would not have noticed if I had not procrastinated about disabling Facebook alerts on my smart phone. It had been giving redundant messages whenever someone replied to whatever. For those alerts, I could wait until when I choose to hit the site myself. But this particular Sunday night I hadn't figured out what to delete or uninstall. So I looked over and saw my old antagonist's name and thought FRIG ! Sure enough, he had put up oner of his boiler-plate bait posts to pathologies me and make an unflattering estimate of my intelligence because I am not reading the script of the party line and not "all in" with whatever zealot intransigence he represents. This post meets the above criteria for a definition of a troll. In fact, I'd say Troll is a weak word for what this guy does. It is harassment, certainly couched in some sort of smug sheep's clothing of ostensibly liberal platitudes and standing up for women which he appears to regard as so fragile that they must be handled with kit gloves and those of us who are not part of a minority (outside of the discussion) are somehow twisted and defending the "status quo." A "like" appeared on his missive around this time. The next day, I was on my laptop and noticed that the like came from the individual who started the thread, and who started a new post to say that she was not moderating or following the thread after a while. . . not mentioning that she had followed it enough to support the most offensive and truly trollish or trollesque post! My antagonist had deleted a couple of his posts over night, leaving my own posts hanging with less context. Knowing that his own had been valued and mine had not, I decided to delete my posts from the thread. I only found out half an hour later that she - the poster of the flawed article link - was upset that I had removed my posts. She said, "Why did you do that. They were important." She then bent over backwards to try to re-tell the story to "followers" of the thread, as if there are pages missing from a Gnostic Gospel. She entreated me to return to the thread, hot-linking my name over and over, only to answer me with what can only politely he called guano. It was all circular. Accusation, my defence, followed by the accusation of being "defensive." Total mind f**kery. It was a merry-go-round that was now eating up a Monday that I had off and which was supposed to be spent on writing and editing. I bowed out, asked her to stop hot-linking my name, and in tern advised that I would stop following the thread. I also ended up clicking "unfollow" of her, since it was clear that any comment on any post could have an unpredictable and soul-sickening result. She responded by de-friending me. I sent one more PM to say something like, "At least that's an answer." &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& ///////////////////// Somewhere in the middle of that, before I had gone to sleep Sunday, I'd sent her a first private message asking if there is anything wrong that I should know about, given the tone of some of her Sunday night replies and the "trollish" accusation. I reminded her that since helping out the previous summer documenting a project of hers I had not heard any reply - timely or otherwise - about what was to be done with footage I had captured and so on. The questions had been time sensitive. I got the feeling she cancelled her project or something, but never got the full scoop. I mentioned the shark/troll that had chimed in on the thread to really mess with me, and apologized for drawing that fly. But I did not hear back until some time after I had asked about her unfriending me. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ She did reply to that. I'll paraphrase rather than paste someone's actual words. She mentioned knowing me for 15 years and liking me in person and having fond memories of the play reading group (she performed a reading of a one-act I wrote in 2001, and did a good job) but then went on to characterize the way I am on Facebook. She also mentioned that the had taken the council of my adversary - the one guy I considered to be a TROLL - whom I had to delete the year before, and who I had failed to block. (I have blocked him since this blow-up, but would have rather not have him seeing and commenting on any of my posts this past year, and have no idea why I have neglected to block him and have somehow allowed him to harass me. It must be discomfort with the settings of the site, which I am a little more familiar with now.) Anyway, it was not encouraging. I can dislike someone and still feel sick if I am rejected. She mentioned a short I made back in 2000, which I would not have thrown in her face and never have. As she describes it, what she signed on for was a western stand-off where two girls fight over an abandoned cigarette in the street. She claimed that she walked off the set because I "added a girl-fight." I mentioned that I don't recall how others characterized the fight, which was part of the script she read and part of the storyboards. If my camera operator whose camera we were using mentioned Russ Meyer, it is beside the point. She had stated that she worried I would "edit in" shots of "nudity or sex" later, which offended me as someone who is only interested in making a straightforward film with no artsy flashes. I reminded her that I did remember her also complaining that there was no craft services table with flies buzzing around and that we did get someone to buy her a bottle of water when she asked for it. She came back with a totally wigged-out lecture about what a hot day it was (not very hot and I hate hot days) and how she wasn't being paid (which she knew going in. She accused me of not even taking "responsibility" for what she complained about and said "there is no apology here" as if I should apologize for questioning or fact-checking a blog she had linked in the news feed. She ended on a note like "please don't contact me again." ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That's the way to end a conversation that might actually answer questions intended to be rhetorical by someone who can't handle reality. Someone on her page left a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson to the effect of "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted when I am contradicted." Her friend meant for this to be something to answer the likes of me, but it would have been more appropriate applied to her. I ended up blocking her as well as my main annoyance. But the infuriating thing is this ploy of throwing down an accusation and demanding that it not be answered. On the movie she mentioned, the only reason I have not nursed any animosity over it is that I had another actress who stepped in and saved my ass and did a great job. I got to make the movie people were there to make. I didn't have time to worry about a snack table, but I did ask the remaining people if they needed anything and volunteered to get it. They said they did not and appreciated that time was of the essence. This was a guerrilla-style shoot, less than an hour. I asked how they felt about what was said by the departing actress, and nobody felt the same despite both remaining actresses being principled people themselves. Luckily for me, their principles also included staying with a project they have agreed to shoot instead of abandoning the director and wasting everyone's time. The departing girl had - ironically - flashed her chest in a movie the year before. I won't name the film, but I taped it from City TV and have not het gotten around to trashing the VHS. Just seems hypocritical to me. @@@@@@@ As I reflected on this I recall better times but I also recall an odd moment at the home of the person in question while I was documenting her project on video and having a break with her other guests in her kitchen. The subject of comedy came up and what this or that person likes. I mentioned liking Sarah Silverman. One guy said, with a hint of mustard, "I hear she has a great rape joke." I honestly forget what I said back, but it created no fuss. I could have gone for a quip like, "Your momma is a rape joke." But I likely would not, unless that person were a heckler and I was on stage. I might have ignored his sarcastic intent and the idea that he "hears" and obviously has not heard for himself what Silverman's joke actually was and its context or delivery. I might have said, "Yes, in fact she has a few good rape jokes." I think I mentioned that she also has a great Holocaust bit. I'm a firm believer that comedy can and must include gallows humour and explore the most painful and difficult to process traumas of life. Smokey and the Bandit or Blues Brothers wacky car accidents will not play as amusing to someone who just survived a real car accident or lost someone in one, or killed someone with a car. But that can't be the standard for what is talked about or joked about. Even Blazing Saddles has a couple of "good" rape jokes, as well as frequent use of the notorious n-word. There is definitely a culture or subculture of net nannys playing word police and over-inflating reactions to behaviours and habits and old ideas and slow adaptations to the culture of sales and affirmations and propaganda wrapped up in the fear of a lost audience or a lost market. Sometimes it is fair. It is better to know if Cosby is known by many people as a creep or worse. It is better to know that Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird had more to say in his late seventies and that Scout had to actually get to know him as a human being and get over her disappointment that her dad was not an icon in her head 100% uncomplicated and on-side with all of her own political package deals. I had recently listened to Reese Witherspoon's unabridged audio book of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, and it was very appropriate timing. People will project. There is little to be done about that. People wrap themselves in a rainbow flag or turn their home country flag upside down when the wrong candidate for them gets into office. But what can be a problem is discarding the heart of politics - that your adversary or opponent on one issue or sub-issue may be an ally on many others. I know a few more intransigent jerks than I thought I knew. I'm better off knowing. I've done my own fearless moral inventory and flipped the finger at one imposed on me by a presumptuous and inexplicably pompous pair of piranha. I don't have to boost myself as any kind of moral example to feel wronged and irritated. But perhaps I have bigger fish to fry.