tylergfoster

I realize you were responding the end of my post, but would you say cultural impact is necessary to nominate a movie for The Canon or something to consider after the fact? There are plenty of Canon-worthy movies that were flops upon release, only to gain a cult following later, and some of them still aren't really beloved by the mainstream. In the Ghostbusters thread proper, 1984 alts included Stranger Than Paradise and Repo Man. I love them, but I don't know how influential they are, and yet I doubt anyone would find it confusing to see them nominated.

It looks like Ghostbusters position is secured. I might've approached this as an alternate suggestion had it been given the chop, but even with it in the Canon, I hope that the one other movie that captures the same kind of character-based comedy/spectacle magic (in my opinion anyway) also gets a shot: Galaxy Quest. (Without the sexual aggression, I suspect that one would receive less complaints, although maybe its significance would still be just as debated.)

While I really enjoyed this movie, it feels a little slight for a Canon submission. It'd be an easy yes for a list of overlooked comedies, directed by women or directed by anyone, but I don't know that it brings anything particularly special to the table (other than maybe being about an older woman and parenthood).

That's true, but that was before he brought it to Reitman and Reitman brought on Ramis. We're talking about a draft that had Stay-Puft on Page 10 and took place in the future. The shooting draft was a comedy, period. The movie Reitman directed was a comedy, period.

I'll accept all sorts of criticisms and takes on Ghostbusters but the most inexplicable one for me is anyone who claims the original is not a comedy. You can say it doesn't make you laugh, but there's no argument that the intent of the filmmmakers is to make a funny movie.

While I would personally push for many of the 1984 alternates mentioned here, I don't think it matters. If 1984 was a good year, then you could have a hundred picks from it, no?

It's been long enough that I didn't actually remember The Blues Brothers wasn't already in The Canon. If this was a versus I'd go for that. The underwhelmed reaction by many here is what I'd say about Stripes and Caddyshack.

Lots of people saying The Matrix but I maintain the Wachowski's masterpiece is Bound. I would also go to bat for A New Leaf.

OK, wait, since it came up, Ron Jeremy is IN Ghostbusters. When the containment unit is exploding and passerby are gathering, he can be seen standing on the left of the frame behind a police barrier.

I'm a lifelong Ghostbusters fan. That extends to the remake, and it highlights one of the most valid complaints about the original: Venkman really is a dick. It's easy for me, even as someone who loves the movie, to agree with Amy's assessment that the film is deferential to him, as well as the comments calling the movie obnoxious. If you don't like Murray's brand of smarminess, that doesn't leave much to enjoy. Venkman telling Janine to get a better job is especially mean-spirited, and the movie repositions his pursuit of Dana from creepy to charming for no real reason, between him leaving her apartment and meeting her outside the orchestra hall. The jokes that I like from Venkman come from his detached POV and ribbing his friends, but if you like Venkman as a ladies' man, that's absolutely the part of the character that resonates with the part of the fanbase that loathed the idea of the remake. I also don't entirely know how to feel about the sexual undertones in the Keymaster / Gatekeeper stuff through the lens of 2017 sexual politics. Is it not rapey because they were both possessed? On the other hand, I do think this is an excellent character comedy with a really great dynamic between Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis, as well as Hudson when he shows up. All of the most memorable exchanges are the characters bouncing off of one another (the library sequence, the Sedgwick ballroom, the prison scene, the ending), with the quick but clear establishment of those personalities making dialogue even funnier (Egon has some of the best "left turn" lines in the film -- "That's great, Ray, save some for me" and "I looked at the trap, Ray", for example). The tone created by Reitman is balanced enough to support the fantastic premise and also material like the "Revelations" scene, which is a pretty masterful re-establishment of stakes. If there's an element of the movie that gets overlooked, it's the really incredible craftsmen behind-the-scenes, which gives the movie a uniquely classic look and feel. In particular, production designer John De Cuir, composer Elmer Bernstein, and cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs help give the movie so much personality that the sequel (and the new one, more understandably) can't replicate. That temple set, the matte paintings, the incredible tone-setting music (listen to some of the unused segments and marvel at how tricky the balance is -- many of them get terribly on-the-nose). I vote yes. It has flaws, but the influence is pretty incredible (this isn't completely relevant to the movie itself, but according to a study done in the late 2000s, the Ghostbusters logo is second in worldwide recognition only to the Coca-Cola logo), the craftsmanship is really impressive for a 1980s movie, and its particular alchemy of character comedy and spectacle has only been replicated once in the 30+ years since that I can think of, which is Galaxy Quest. (I agree with the person who said The Blues Brothers is the better film, though.) By the way, the guy outside the concert hall is not necessarily the violinist Dana ends up with. The baby is the violinist's, not Venkman's. The man who played the physical Vigo the Carpathian was the Nazi, but the performance was dubbed by an uncredited Max Von Sydow. http://deadspin.com/the-hateful-life-and-spiteful-death-of-the-man-who-was-1737376537 Finally, a positive story for Ernie Hudson which is probably true: one of Murray's conditions for doing Ghostbusters: The Video Game was supposedly that Ernie Hudson get an equal amount of dialogue.