Category: Harold Ramis

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE

By Marc S. Sanders

When you make a new installment in a long-celebrated franchise, going on forty years, you have to reinvent the base material to keep it fresh and new.  I think the Jurassic Park/World movies are fun, but don’t they also feel like carbon copies of each other by this point?  I mean how much can you broaden the adventures that come with dinosaurs? The roar, they run, they eat.  

With the Ghostbusters films, there’s more flexibility in what you can do.  You can replace Saturday Night Live players with a fun, lovable leading man like Paul Rudd and he can team up with some brainy kids to fend off ghosts in the best movie jungle there is, New York City.  However, why drain all of the comedy out of the burger?  

The ongoing teenage troubles of the latest reinvention of the Reitman/Ramis/Aykroyd property hinges on so much teen angst that ghosts and ghouls only appear after we’ve endured one Breakfast Club moment after another.  Sadly, there aren’t many spooky critters roaming around the metro area anymore.  Who you gonna call? Doesn’t feel like we need to call anybody, really.

Here’s the pyramid food chain of Frozen Empire.  1) Sad, frustrated teens 2) Inevitable cameos of the celebrated heroes of the first two movies 3) Ghosts.  This movie needs to reexamine its priorities.  

The main storyline is carried by McKenna Grace as Egon’s granddaughter Phoebe who is grounded by Walter Peck aka Mr. Pecker aka Dickless (William Atherton).  I’m referencing what this guy is remembered as because the movie fails to do so. Phoebe is a minor.  Therefore, she can’t hunt after ghosts and thus builds a relationship with a sixteen-year-old friend named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind) who appears in the form of blue supernatural lighter fluid.  Melody died in a fire.  Sooooooo…much of these two young ladies’ sad sleepover conversations populate the film.

Then there is Dan Aykroyd returning as Ray to enlighten some back story on the main monster we can expect to appear in the third act.  He’s performing like an R.L. Stine adult in a second-rate Nickelodeon kid’s picture though.  Ray Stanz was always the guy who had loony science on his mind, but the comedy of the character shown through with Aykroyd’s boyish naïveté.  Remember how excited Ray was to go down the fire pole or when he thought up the giant marshmallow man?  What about when he talked back to the pink slime in the first sequel? It was downright ridiculous and now Ray is a midlife crisis depressant.  

Bill Murray is collecting a paycheck again.  The character is the same with the comedian’s special sarcasm, but if he’s in this film longer that ten minutes it’s a lot and he utters no more than five lines.  He serves one purpose to Frozen Empire – to be in the advertisements and draw a crowd.  Paul Rudd and Bill Murray have done two Ghostbusters and an Ant-Man movie together and somehow, they still have yet to share a great exchange of dialogue.  For the third time in four years, Rudd and Murray seem to be unaware that they are both members of SAG working on the same project.  If I ever need to deliver the argument that there is a lack of good writers working today, I’ll use these missed opportunities as an example of what I mean. 

Annie Potts wears the nerdy glasses, but I don’t remember a thing she says.  Ernie Hudson as Winston plays the financier of the modern Ghostbusters, but there’s nothing special going on with him.  Even the librarian from that fantastic opening of the 1984 film appears.  He talks to Ray for a moment and that’s it.

Why are these people here?  Just so we can say “Uh!  Look who it is!!!”  C’mon!  Surely, there’s something better to be spun here.

Part of the plot involves the threat that the storage container of all the ghosts ever captured over the years will be breaking down soon and set all of the paranormal prisoners free.  That’s brilliant!!!  Yet, why doesn’t the movie capitalize on that????? We are threatened by this terrible scenario over and over with music of impending doom and glances at a digital monitor.  Can the thing just break already?  

We see the slimer green ghost blob under a pile of candy wrappers in the attic.  Not bad.  Where are the other ghosts we had become familiar with?  Remember the cab driver, or the angelic apparition that seduced Ray in his sleep?  Where are they?  I’d rather see these guys than a boring Dan Aykroyd in a jean jacket.

The best parts of Frozen Empire occur in a turn of the century prologue with frozen characters in a formal dining room.  There’s also a fantastic pursuit following that scene showing all the cool tricks of the updated ECTO mobile as it races through the streets chasing after an eel like monster.  During the sequence a drone trap launches off the roof of the hearse!  That’s awesome.  The last good scene occurs midway when one of the stone lions outside the NYC public library comes alive. Everything else in this sleepy picture is very bland, however.

The original, and even Ghostbusters II and the Paul Feig lady comedienne reinvention worked as comedies like the franchise became known for.  I wasn’t crazy about those two sequels but at least the ghosts were the punchlines.  Now the main ghost needs therapy and so does the lead character.  It’s so dreary.  

Where’s the funny?  There is no longer a silliness or loony tune appeal to these monsters.  As well, there are no more jokes to tell about The Big Apple.  Don’t forget that Ghostbusters showed us that ghouls can pop out of drainpipes, drive cabs, gorge themselves on room service meals and hot dog stands and even cause the ghost hunters to wreck a posh banquet hall all in the service of the greater good.  The well of laughs that stem from New York cannot be all dried up just yet.  There are subways and buses to haunt. Broadway theatres. Cell phones. Parades. Ferrys. Morning News Shows.

I left Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire feeling morose and melancholy.  When I got home, I knew for the first time that Zuul could never be living in my refrigerator and suddenly I was as sad as Melody and Phoebe.  If this movie is depressing, then is it me or is it the Ghostbusters of today?

CADDYSHACK

By Marc S. Sanders

Do you think in 10 years or even 50 years from now, people will remember that Harold Ramis was one of the funniest writers in film history? Animal House, Stripes, Scrooged, Groundhog Day (I hate it, but I won’t deny its legacy every February 2nd), and Ghostbusters. One film that cemented the stage for his success in the 1980s is arguably Caddyshack, which focuses on the snobs vs slobs at a high-end golf country club known as…ahem…Bushwood. It’s okay to laugh. Your mother is not in the room.

Caddyshack is more or less a vehicle for the comedic talents of Saturday Night Live players to put out their best material seemingly made up on the fly. Bill Murray is the demented grounds keeper tasked with getting rid of a damaging gopher. Chevy Chase seems to be the charmer with a delivery of wit in every word he says. He’s more or less good looking here but just as deliberately stupid as everyone else. Rodney Dangerfield goes beyond his stand-up routines, or maybe he doesn’t. He’s just shoved into the film and let loose to anger and harass the head snob, Ted Knight. Knight is unquestionably the best of the bunch here. He’s got such great timing with his outbursts and delivery. I even love how he pronounces the car maker Audi. It’s more like “ottie.”

Ramis has a thin storyline about one caddy (Michael O’Keefe) trying to win a college scholarship. Meh. So what! Caddyshack works best when it’s just playing for skits and raw laughs. There’s gross out comedy like doodie in the swimming pool, compliments of a Baby Ruth candy bar, and vomiting in cars. Dangerfield’s one liners are fast and loose. The judge’s daughter is a sly minx for the dweeby male cast to ogle, and the gopher footage with Murray is straight out of Looney Toons. I do love the irony of the Catholic priest going out to play 9 holes in the middle of an electrical storm; a prophet who will spit in the face of God. “OH RAT FARTS!!!!”

Caddyshack is not my favorite of Ramis’ films, but it’s become a touchstone in comedy quotes and repeat viewings. It’s stupid and coarse and silly and belongs nowhere in the Parthenon of great filmmaking efforts but it’s a favorite of almost anyone’s for how brash it truly is. It’s an R rated interpretation of The Three Stooges. If not for nothing, I’m sure that somewhere there is an esteemed judge of the cloth who was proud to sentence young men to the gas chamber as a means of “owing it to them.”

Harold Ramis with co-writer Brian Doyle Murray (Bill’s brother) conceived of Caddyshack as a push back against that system of order. Well done, men. Tee up!

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE

By Marc S. Sanders

When a film opens with two students walking across a college campus as the classical horn music of proud alumni accompany them, and then one of the students stops to pull up his fly, you know you are probably in for a contrast of ideals.

Animal House set a new standard in comedy featuring a John Belushi whose expressions and improvisations appeared too fast for the camera to catch everything he’s doing. The script never gave him much dialogue because his routines of smashing beer bottles, smashing guitars, smashing beer cans and just getting smashed merited no dialogue. He might have looked like a dirty slob, but he was a craftsman of facial expressions.

Every scene of Animal House plays like an episode of an ongoing sitcom; a raunchy one at that. A dead horse, a pledge ceremony, a toga party, a sabotaged parade, and a food fight. Each topic is the title of a sitcom’s various episodes.

John Landis directed the snobs vs slobs script co-written by Harold Ramis, and 40 years later the material still holds up. Then again, 40 years later, I wonder if this film would even get made. I’d rather not dwell on that.

What I do know is that this movie is still funny. Outrageously funny.

STRIPES

By Marc S. Sanders

A trifecta of talent was widely received when Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman came on the Hollywood scene. With films like Meatballs and Animal House, they were toeing the line of B movie T&A material. Audiences, however, responded to the wisdom in the comedic potential of disregarding the authoritative party. That is especially true in their R rated army romp from 1981, Stripes.

Stripes is arguably not their most memorable film of any of their careers, but for me it is probably my favorite; more than Caddyshack or Ghostbusters. The comedy was spot on, and the timing was perfect. When John Winger and Russell Zisky (Murray & Ramis) decide to enlist in the army on a spur of the moment, their basic training experience is actually believable. It could happen. I could relate. If I was as big a guy as John Candy, playing the lovable “Ox,” and I was running the obstacle course, yeah…I might run off course uncontrollably into the outer woods. All these guys are completely out of shape. There’s no way we were ever gonna see Rambo here.

Bill Murray might be the leader of this rag tag gang of miscreants, but his own material is just very, very funny. Few comedies have such a hilarious opening scene as he does while he escorts a snobby woman to the airport in his cab. He has enough of her, and so everything is put out on the table. The Three Stooges would have smacked a pie in this woman’s face. John Winger decides to terrify her with some action photos while he drives. To date, no one has ever come close to duplicating this scene.

Winger continues with his rebellion against his Drill Sargent played by Warren Oates who is terrific in his own right. Oates convincingly comes off as straight army material amid all of these nitwits. He can give a facial expression that says a thousand words.

John Candy is a huge highlight in perhaps his breakthrough cinematic performance. Ramis and Reitman wrote a great character in Ox. I think it’s hilarious that a fat guy thinks the most ideal way to lose weight is to join the army because it’s free with a six to eight week work program. We all love to see that it eventually occurs to Ox that basic training in the Army is not exactly a weight watchers program. A major highlight is when Winger rushes Ox into a mud wrestling ring at an adult club. Pure slapstick fun. You can’t help but laugh.

I’m surprised to see that many took issue with the film’s second half. I loved it as the platoon has to pursue Winger and Ziskey who have a special puke green colored RV that the army has engineered with more weaponry than a James Bond car. Eventually, this leads to a ridiculous rescue within a Russian occupied Czechoslovakian outpost. It’s a great blend of action and comedy that holds up nearly 40 years later. What’s not to like?

I’ll be honest. I saw Stripes when I was 10 or 11, and it actually gave me an education on the current life of what it’s like to be in the Army. Having never enlisted, I’m nevertheless convinced that Warren Oates was an accurate interpretation of what a hard driven Drill Sargeant was like. Because it seemed so genuine. It seemed only fitting that a great comedy could be drawn from resisting that kind of authority. The material in Stripes didn’t come off silly or Looney Tunes like. It all seemed natural. The jokes just came alive amid the challenges of entering the Army life.

Stripes remains a favorite comedy of mine.

MEATBALLS

By Marc S. Sanders

Director Ivan Reitman with Bill Murray and writer Harold Ramis made a fantastic team. Their summer camp comedy, Meatballs, from 1979 is not one of the all-time greats but it’s still a fun romp through the life of young campers peddled off under the supervision of teen counselors for eight weeks.

Meatballs works as an excuse to allow Bill Murray to break free from his SNL restraints and allow his off the cuff humor to improv its way through. As the head counselor named Tripper, Murray gives hilarious loudspeaker announcements about the cafeteria lunch or daily activities. He also uses his CITs, with names like Spaz, Crockett and Fink to carry Morty (“Hi Mickey!”) the camp manager who’s sleeping in his bunk out into the woods, or the lake or high up in a tree for his morning wake up surprise. This is all Animal House lite.

A touching secondary story involves a lonely teen camper named Rudy (Chris Makepeace) to bond with Tripper. Though I enjoyed my summer camp days, I was much like Rudy, not an athlete. I was a fast runner though, and Tripper with the Bill Murray personality builds Rudy’s confidence during the film leading up to the climactic inter camp big race. It’s not necessarily a well-rounded storyline. It tidies itself up pretty neatly by the end, but it’s a break from the material shenanigans, in between. Look, even a film like Meatballs needs some semblance of story somewhere.

The fun comes in brief skits with Meatballs. There’s sing along songs like “Are You Ready For The Summer?” and the campfire favorite “We’re The North Star CITs!” There’s the hot dog eating contest, Spaz’ spoon water relay and the basketball game against the wealthy, neighboring camp who can’t keep their shorts up.

Meatballs is a movie that would be shot with better quality on an iPhone today, but the dated camp days of the late ‘70s remain cherished here, before we became reliant upon technology. It’s a time where we depended on the outdoors, without mom and dad, and getting into harmless trouble while making new friends and discovering our freedom and ourselves.

The original Meatballs still has some material that’s worth a watch, and it still makes me yearn for my cabin bunk days. It’s nice to reminisce and it’s all just fun.