Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy = new Ghostbusters

OTM. It's pretty gross to attribute McCarthy's comedy to her size above all else.

Aykroyd was good in Terence Davies' "House of Mirth," iirc.

Doesn't or didn't McCarthy star in some sitcom about an overweight couple? And I saw some preview for some POS last year that starred her as some fast food robber, with ample fat jokes in the trailer. She's not exactly proceeding as if her weight were not a factor, however understandable her choices may be. Certainly if Hollywood is going to offer Meryl Streep four witch roles over the course of a couple of years (which they reportedly did), then they're going to give McCarthy movies that hinge at least in part on her physicality.

BTW, I forget where it was, but I once read a really scary explanation for Hollywood's obsession with weight, particularly their female leads. It revealed (or underscored) that any time an actress shows up even a hair overweight (or I suppose underweight), then they have to redo a whole ton of wardrobe to fit, which of course means word of the weight change spreads instantly and exponentially, and usually follows you to your next gig as well. It's a fucking shame, really, but that's that silly business for you.

McCarthy said she wanted her bridesmaids character to look like guy fieri but fieg pulled her back -she clearly would like to go further down the "superficially grotesque person who just don't give a fuuuck" road and you can't say weight doesn't play a part in America's enthusiasm for her. And while I enjoy her at her best, its not unfair if someone wishes the highest profile actress of her size wasn't someone who'd thrill to roll around in dogshit, even if she's a pro when it comes to that.

i haven't watched Mike & Molly since the first season, so it may have gone way off the rails, but it started out as a pretty earnest love story about two people who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting and the other characters may occasionally crack wise about their weight/eating but it seemed like a pretty human and sympathetic handling of the subject matter for a CBS laughtrack comedy.

"Mike and Molly" started with a billion fat jokes/second but recent episodes I've seen have capitalized on McCarthy's skyrocket into fame and have made the show much more about her doing extended comedy bits while the rest of the cast orbits around her.

Yeah I'm not saying gross out is all she does - assuming her st Vincent performance is pretty grounded - but it's dubious to claim her enthusiasm for gross out didn't play a part in her quick rise to fame

It's like ken jeong - I think he's a great comedian, but when someone grumbles about his relative success in terms of cultural representation, I'm not gonna deny he's shrill naked dude swearing in a foreign tongue to a large portion of America

yeah i dunno. it's a fine line. marginalized groups are often fighting to be both a) represented in popular culture and b) not be the butt of jokes. but when someone from a marginalized group becomes a comedy star, how are they supposed to do A/B at the same time? obviously there's some humor that is very clearly, undeniably stereotype-driven. but there's a lot more stuff that is more ambiguous, or can be argued as a satire/rebuttal to stereotypes.

like, there's a ton of stuff Will Ferrell does that is funny as is, but if an imaginary female or black or 400-pound Will Ferrell did it, the dialogue would completely shift to "it's funny because he/she's _____."

Rebel Wilson seems to be swooping in as America's fat sweetheart. She's as funny as McCarthy (from what I've seen), but she's both much younger and has a much younger fan base. Plus, she seems to be owning the fat thing, at least for now. The way they deal with her weight in "Pitch Perfect" allowed her to remain the butt of jokes, as needed, but not exclusively, or at least no more so than her co-stars, pretty and skinny or no.

Like this exchange:

Aubrey: What's your name?
Fat Amy: Fat Amy.
Aubrey: You call yourself Fat Amy?
Fat Amy: Yeah, so twig bitches like you don't do it behind my back.

Anyway, per the thread, as long as they don't have her panting and sweating in the back of the line, or shoving Twinkies in her face as she fights ghosts, it's likely weight won't be an issue. Everyone looks fat in a Ghostbusters jumpsuit. BTW, anyone see Zach G. lately?

http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/streams/2015/January/150126/2D274907703614-today-zach-galifianakis-150126-01.blocks_desktop_large.jpg

whoa

I would have agreed with you before super fun night tanked - compared to McCarthy Wilson has proven pretty one-note. When riffing in pitch perfect she just calls out who has red hair, etc

Xpost

sad thing is, she wasn't like that in Super Fun Night at all!

like, there's a ton of stuff Will Ferrell does that is funny as is, but if an imaginary female or black or 400-pound Will Ferrell did it, the dialogue would completely shift to "it's funny because he/she's _____."

the thing is, it wouldn't just be people considering representation making the complaint the humor is ____-based, there would also be people laughing harder because of _____. there were racist bugs bunny cartoons they redrew with elmer fudd in place of a lazy black child - it's not that the humor is necessarily drawn from race/size/etc, but who america enjoys seeing play the clown.

i really feel bad for comedians who're asked to think about this shit. playing the clown is fun, and god knows will ferrell will never have to sweat this stuff.

I'm just gonna thank the lord Will Ferrell is not in this new Ghostbusters.

Well, they haven't cast Slimer yet.

jack black's ears are burning...

I'm feeling Miley Cyrus for that.

So are they going to have a male Janine Melnitz?

if they haven't already cast Billy Eichner I'll be shocked

Is there going to be a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Woman?

gozer gonna be a naked dude all covered in bubbles.

Erin Gabler and Abby Bergman are the first two leads, and as the film begins, they are former colleagues. They co-wrote a book about the paranormal together, then went in different directions. Erin works for Columbia, and she's getting close to tenure, while Abby is more involved in the pursuit of ghosts, with a new partner named Jillian. In a world where there are thirty different "Ghost Hunters" style TV shows out there, the set-up makes sense, and it sets up a tension between serious academic motives and mainstream pop parapsychology.

If I was guessing, I'd bet Wiig is Erin, Jones is Abby, and McKinnon is Jillian. That's because I'm almost positive Patty, an MTA subway ticket employee who stumbles across the main ghost in the film, is going to be McCarthy. Seems like a perfect fit for her, and I can see how all four of them will fit together as a team.

There are some other major roles to cast, and based on conversations at Sony, it seems like they'e got some people in mind already. I'm curious to see if they land Peter Dinklage as the main bad guy, a creepy mechanical genius, but there's another role that, if they cast who they want, is going to be the most interesting part of the film. Like I said, these aren't direct one-to-one corollaries, but there is a character named Martin Heiss who is a professional supernatural debunker. When our new Ghostbusters post some videos of what they're doing online, Heiss becomes determined to prove that they are fakes, and he ends up at odds with the team for the whole film.

And who do they want to step into William Atherton's shoes?

Bill Murray, of course.

But isn't at least part of the reason they went with a reboot rather than a sequel that they couldn't get Murray onboard? Or did he just not want to play Venkman again?

they're obviously not getting Murray

Aykroyd would be better for that part anyway.

get Murray to do a voice-only ghost/monster character, if he can go into a vocal booth and be Garfield he can do that.

tbh i don't really care if anyone from the original has anything to do with this though? if it's good it'll be because the new people stepped up.

Oh, wait, Murray probably didn't want to be involved due to his falling out with Ramis. Problem solved, I guess?

i don't have anything to add to this other than that i saw Tammy and it is one of the worst movies i've ever seen

who are they going to get to reboot the theme song

Bruno Mars

Huey Lewis

Haim

Katy Perry

^ all of them

katy perry definitely seems like the one who'd start posting instagrams about how badly she wants to

Can't wait for the video where Don Draper goes "Ghostbusters!" right after Owen Wilson says "Ghostbusters!"

Ben Stiller already figuring out how to make the most of his three seconds

http://www.theraffon.net/~spookcentral/media/gb2_music_onourown_vid11.jpg

I was looking at the file title and forgetting what thread I was on and thinking "what does Patti LaBelle have to do with Ben Stiller"

Can't wait for the video where Don Draper goes "Ghostbusters!" right after Owen Wilson says "Ghostbusters!"

― pplains, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 11:52 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ irl lol

http://screencrush.com/ghostbusters-music-video/

George Wendt:
"I was shooting with Jerry Schatzberg and Demi Moore, it was a Columbia picture, 'No Small Affair' at what used to be the Burbank studios -- it was Columbia and Warner Bros. And Ivan Reitman stopped over at the stage and asked if I could stop over at his office at lunch. So, at lunch I went over to his office and I sat there and they played the track. And I said 'Ghostbusters,' and that was pretty much it. The weird thing was I think we all got in trouble with the Screen Actors Guild after the fact, after it came out. You know, it sounded like a giggle, it sounded like fun, so I just did it. It took less than five minutes. But, I guess it was such a big hit as a music video, I guess SAG decided that would be a good project to maybe try to take a stand against to organize music videos. I can't blame SAG for trying to make a stand to organize music videos, which was a relatively new format back then. Not much came of it, we just got letters saying that's not cool, don't do that again and if you do that again you'll be on secret double probation. But, I get it. I'm a union man. I'm OK with it. It just never occurred to me that it would be a problem."

get Murray to do a voice-only ghost/monster character, if he can go into a vocal booth and be Garfield he can do that.

tbf, Murray only did Garfield because he thought it was a Coen Brothers movie:

Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that. I had these agents at the time, and I said, "What do they give you to do one of these things?" And they said, "Oh, they give you $50,000." So I said, "Okay, well, I don't even leave the fuckin' driveway for that kind of money."

...

Finally, I went out to L.A. to record my lines. And usually when you're looping a movie, if it takes two days, that's a lot. I don't know if I should even tell this story, because it's kind of mean. [beat] What the hell? It's interesting. So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the fuck was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.

omg

the script for A Tail Of Two Kitties was also credited to Joel Cohen. Can't believe bill fell for it a second time.

For future reference: who's cameo in the "ghostbusters" video do you enjoy most?

wait that link is fucked up - where's the entire interview?

A Cohen Bros. Garfield movie sounds incredible

It is barely a cameo.

I thought it was more interested in being a horror movie than the film in the title, but it's also unavoidably a prostate-tickling exercise for anti-fans of that film "you called Leslie Jones some unprintable names, here's your reward"

Can confirm that Afterlife is pretty poor, at least from the mini-pufts onwards (although the two main kids are good).

It is barely a cameo.

Still more substantial than Weaver's appearances in either of the reboots.

I bet a lot of people missed her mid-credits appearance and Netflix forces you to try and get back to the credits if you want to see Winston's (I failed to press buttons in time so didn't bother).