Lady Ghostbusters

When hub and I were looking for something to watch together yesterday afternoon, he suggested “Lady Ghostbusters,” as he is a normal person and not a garbage manbaby. So we watched it, he just wanting to be entertained for 2 hours, me wanting to love it because it spawned so much ugly backlash. Spoiler alert: I didn’t love it. But I did like it, and that made me really happy.

Here’s what I liked about it:

• It solidified my opinion that Paul Fieg is probably the most important comedy director working. The man knows funny and he knows how to coax the funniest performances from the funniest actors working today. I don’t find all his movies equally as funny, but anyone who can make put a rat’s nest on the gorgeous Rose Byrne and make her so spectacularly awful and hilarious in “Spy” clearly has a knack for conjuring up great comedy. His casts are as good as they get and I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do next with them. (Full disclosure: my husband loves “The Heat” because “It’s just 2 hours of Melissa McCarthy saying completely horrible things.” True story.)
• The special effects were gorgeous, as were the sets. The movie just looked great.
• Lady Ghostbusters normalized…”lady Ghostbusters.” I mean, the idea that the 3 scientists are women feels transgressive for all of 10 minutes and then it’s “Oh, they’re the Ghostbusters. Duh!” Women as ghostbusters? Feels positively ho-hum after this. I love it!!!
• I love how the movie flipped the script on the “Producers”-esque dumb receptionist–to have Thor doing this 100% deadpan hunky-moron shtick is ballsy and hilarious and it’s one of the movie’s high points.
• The movie does slap back at the misogyny its mere existence elicited but does so in a mostly-subtle way. I didn’t feel like I was being hit over the head with SJW gospel (even though I am totally cool with SJW gospel).
• The cast was top notch–I honestly think the movie just would have had to have been comically bad for it have failed comedy treasures Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon and Melissa McCarthy. These four women are more goddamn funny than any four folks have a right to be. I love ’em. The movie’s worth the price of admission just watch them having fun.  [/fangirl]

So, yes, see “Ghostbusters.” The ladies made the franchise their own and I’d even go so far to as to say it’s funnier than the original (which has aged very poorly).