Warming Up To GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE

All right. Here we go. Quiet. Good afternoon.

And welcome back to the Big Picture podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of today and yesterday, and put it all into some sort of context. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and variations there upon for joining us on this lovely afternoon. And as always, I am seated with the incomparable Editor-in-Chief of Film Buff online, rich trees. And seated across the microphone from me, fresh from her acting class, where they were apparently working on accents today, is the wonderful Film Buff online contributing Editor Natasha Bogotsky.

Hi guys, I try. How are you doing today? You don't have to get into it. I know earlier.

And I need a little more whiskey to top me off. Oh geez, you finished a bottle, right? Well, okay. There were two fingers left in that bottle.

So yeah, that's nothing for me. I know. That's kind of sad. That's the issue, truth, whatever.

Anyways, yes. It's a beautiful spring day. We're recording a little bit late. We're on Monday late afternoon.

We normally record over the weekend, but that means, because at springtime, you are getting ready for what's becoming an annual tradition for you in the spring. You always have your big Christmas holiday sware. And now it seems like in the spring, you seem to have a themed tea party. Yes.

So themed to a television zero. Yes. Well, actually, there's a reason for that. And it's usually a period television show.

So two years ago was Down Abbey to coincide with the release of Down Abbey in New Era. Last year was supposed to be, although it fell through at the last minute, unfortunately, just things came up for everyone invited. It was supposed to be the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

And now this season, it's about Bridgerton. The Netflix TV show that is now going to be releasing its third season, half and half, first half in May, second half in June. Yes. You do these things to force me to watch whatever TV show it would be.

I do. But next year, please be like Star Trek. No. And may I actually explain this.

I had a very long conversation with our friend Brandon in the car the other day as we go out getting groceries. There are certain things that we watch at certain times of the year. They're themed for seasons. So for example, if you look at pretty much any Nora Efron movie, particularly when Harry Metzali, it's themed for the autumn.

Yes. It's actually considered the number one autumn movie of all time as well as the number one New Year's Eve film. Shane Black movies are generally Christmas time. I look at Lord of the Rings as Christmas or more the Dead Season of Winter because when you come out of it at the end during the coronation, it feels like spring.

It feels like hope and revival and from death. And we've talked about before when we did our Harry Potter 20th anniversary or whatever it was about how those films feel very Christmassy to you. Harry Potter, I consider always an autumn season thing. But there are things that are themed for the summer.

Pride and Prejudice, I think, is a summer film. Marie Antoinette is spring. And it has to do with a lot of times the color palette what people are wearing, the gentleman, Guy Ritchie, I think is autumn. Bridgerton, Downton, and this is Maisel.

I consider to be spring and summer. There's particularly a season of Mrs. Maisel that is pure summer. I would say that season two when they're in the Catskills.

So I always tend to focus on things that are either bringing light and hope. They're fun, they're flirty, maybe slightly the color palette brighter or pastelier. Things that have this rejuvenation of hope. So you're not going to find a lot of dark colors.

And so yeah, Bridgerton and Downton feel very much like that. For me. And it was just funny because there are Christmas episodes of Downton Abbey, but I think it stems from the first season for me. We open on the Titanic sinking, which was April of...

It was like 17th, I can't remember the exact thing there at all. April 14, I believe, of 1912. And because of that, it's very much a, it goes through spring and multiple seasons, really, but it ends, the first season actually ends on a garden party, which unfortunately is the day they announced that they've gone to war with Germany for World War I. But because of that, I do consider it spring.

It even Downton Abbey in New Era takes place over a summer of half in the country, in England, and half of it in the South of France. You can't get any more summer than that. So I do tend to do that. You've been watching Bridgerton, I believe.

Yes. We finally catch up with this so I don't get a complete done set this far. And I need help. And I need help.

Yes. And I'm liking it. I will admit though that you love a lot of different historical drama. I don't mind some of it.

This kind of period where it's everybody's supermannered and they just talk around the issues. They never actually say anything in a direct forward manner, which is good for drama. I know. But it just frustrates me because I just sit in there just like the whole way he couldn't even say, well, I'm just, I made a vow to my dad, you know, because I wanted to spite him on his deathbed that I would not have children in his genetic line would end with me.

And I'm too proud to break that vow. And I'm too mad at him about that. You know, if he had said that so much earlier, well, okay, this series, the first season would be in four episodes instead of eight. But literally as I'm watching it this afternoon and we get halfway through episode seven when he finally says that to her, I was like, thank you.

Because it was just like, oh, because it frustrates me because maybe because I've done stuff like that and I've learned the hard way and I just don't want people to have to go through shit like that themselves. Well, with all due respect, the characters given the time period of this story are not going to live to be the age that you respectively are. Thanks. No, I would say you have the wisdom of your of your years about you.

And because of that, it shows a greater maturity level. The idiots in this show are forced with a lot more responsibility on their heads, I think, often than their maturity level is. And because of that, there is conflicting ideas of how things should be handled. Yes.

How we ever got to this stage in our evolution, I'll never know how we got past it. I'll never know. But thankfully, we did for the most part. But I would say that in terms of the Regency writing of this show, it's unlike literature and unlike some dramas, this is definitely the books are written as a romance novel series.

You go to Barnes and Noble, you're not going to be finding this in fiction, you're going to be finding it in the romance section, which I'm quite impressed about considering that yes, there is romance to it. It's not a romance has taken on a whole new level in the past several years that I've noticed. They're not the bodice rippers of yesteryear. Yes.

I'm sure that genre is probably still exists. It's hard to find it now. Really? Yeah.

I mean, I can remember going into like, use bookstores and going, okay, where's the science fiction section in them? And I have to walk through like three or four bookcases of just unending Harlequin romances and stuff like that, all these different franchises that were out in the 80s and 70s, 80s and 90s really. And I was just like, oh my God, you know, this stuff is just being cranked out. And not even the covers anymore are that way.

If they almost look slightly more stylized, more, I don't want to say cartoony in the lines, but it's a case of you're not judging the book by the cover anymore in terms of how ridiculously over erotic it is with a man with his white, you know, linen shirt open and flowing blonde locks and pecs out to hair. And it's like, pecs with that are bigger than the bosoms of the woman. All that Fabio or one of those knockoff clothes. You can't find that anymore.

Well, that's a shame. No, I mean, it's hard to tell one of those from something that is more high brow in terms of the romance section because they all look the same again, but they're they're more geared towards this style of writing. I don't know how to say this really without sounding condescending almost. Maybe I can draw a parallel to diamond novels and pulp fiction, like detective fiction stuff like that, as compared to something that like James Elroy would write, you know, where there's a bit more literary aspiration to it.

And I don't want to say like, well, no one was writing Harley Quinn romance novels in the 80s with the eye of winning a Pulitzer prize or, you know, a new Barry Award for fiction or whatever. New Barry Awards were for children's literature. Yeah, whatever. But you're saying basically that there's a lot more, I don't even say it call it literates romance because it makes it sound like it was illiterate before.

It's more plot based and you have to work to get to the romance. You have to work to get to the erotic scenes. They don't come until the third act. And sometimes they're very few and far between, and they're only there to catapult the story forward.

So like, you might get a moment where our main characters realize how much they actually do care for each other. Finally, that's your big crescendo moment, which causes them to have to get married, or and then maybe download with a row, you get the wedding, at least with the Bridgerton's. Yes. And tying into the theme, the seasonal theme that we started with here with Bridgerton, it's always the season, which is, I guess, late spring.

Yes. Well, everybody struts around, um, training and like, I'm not paying you trying to find it. Okay, it's, it's actually historical, it's allegorical to or an analog to, um, go into the club and try to find somebody trying to meet somebody in a way, because you're putting on your fine duds, you're out there with some folks, and you're all like walking around and checking out people and flirting a little bit and oh, shall we have this dance or whatever? I mean, it's a rough analogy.

It is, that's very rough. It is, it is the cockle, but in terms of history, this is very much true. Okay, yeah, yeah, the release and that from, you know, actuality, I understand. And so, of course, the season takes place all the way up until, say, August or September, which they shut down and everyone's like, I'm home and if I didn't get married during this time, I guess I'll try again next year.

Yeah, but, and part of it makes it really look like marriage is an obligation or an expectation. It very much is, which again, maybe because, you know, I'm single, I was married, um, and it was for love, it was for, you know, a little bit later than normal, um, didn't work out, obviously. And I feel like, Oh, God, if I was like in a position where I was told in my mid 20s, you need to be married by August. I'd be like, well, here's the difference.

The men to wait as long as they wanted to get married. It was the women who had to get married immediately. I mean, I'm all the way up into, um, just through the first episode of season two. And I think in that, in that episode that you mentioned something about if you're, you know, if you're a woman in your past 26, you're an old maid, and I'm putting very sarcastic air quotes around that, which I was like, really?

Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I mean, I understand that now and I'm glad that as a society, we have come so far away from that. 22, I think somewhere between 20 and 22 was your cutoff. 22 was like the max max.

You weren't married by then. You were screwed for life. And, um, there's a line. It's very much, it's become a famous line.

And it has been adopted by single women, people have been putting it on birthday cakes for the last, for like the last five years is from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie with Karen Knightley, where her friend Charlotte comes to her and says, um, Mr. Collins and I are engaged. And here it looks like goes, but he's ridiculous. And she's like, hush, not all of us can afford to be romantic.

I'm 27 years old. I have no money and no prospects. And I'm already a burden to my family. So don't you dare judge me, Lizzie.

Don't you dare judge me. And I'm like, that is amazing that people have taken that I'm 27. I have no money and no prospects and put it on fucking cakes. And they're proud of it.

Because that shows you how far we have come as a society that by 27, you had to be settled down because you weren't afforded any other living. True. It speaks to the fact that, oh, women can have agency. How about that?

And, you know, I mean, even within granted my very young years, but within my lifetime, women still couldn't have a credit card account in their own names without a merry own. As a four days ago, we as an Asian celebrated the 50th anniversary of women having a credit card. Yeah. Four days ago.

What? Yeah, it seems ridiculous to me. But again, you know, we've, you know, it helps. And this is something you and I have talked about here and off mic about just recognizing the arc of history in your own life and the more you get, more you go through your life, the more you see that you can make those judgments and such.

Speaking of arc of history, really quick, I was watching last night with my steps on the first episode of the first season of True Detective, which half of it takes place on my birthday, January 3rd, 1995. And I went, wait, did they just say what I think they said, turn that back? Oh, fuck, I feel old. I'm just doing some math here.

Um, Titanic, you said went down in 1914? 1912. 1912. Okay.

So in another. Now, because 1914 is, um, I believe when World War II broke out. Okay. Oh, yeah.

In another two years, I will be as far from my birth date as my birth date was from the Titanic sinking. Whoa. Yeah. So I just have my matrix moment.

Yeah. I saw some smoke curl out from under your phone. Yeah. Um, dang, I'll write clip this.

But yeah. So again, it's, you know, people do those kind of math things all the time. When they talk like, well, if slacker was made today, it would be a, you know, it'd be a period piece set in 2007, which is like, what? Well, I've, I've, I've, you and I have talked about this a lot off mic.

We've talked about how we are as far from when Harry Metzali as the movie that when Harry Metzali talks of, uh, and that's Casablanca. So they look at classic film as we look at classic film. And now when Harry Metzali is classic film, uh, for us in the same way that that was for them. And I'm like, whoa, that is, that is the arc of history.

But really quick, I got to ask you before we move on to the main part of our review. Yes. Um, one, are you enjoying this? And two, who's your favorite character?

Well, um, putting aside my frustrations with the societal structures these characters are forced to act within. I am enjoying it. Um, I like Eloise because she's kind of like, you know, she's got to reason through this whole thing with, you know, two middle fingers up to most people about how she's expected to behave and what she's expected to do and things like that. And I'm just like, yeah, you go girl.

I like you. I like to Eloise in the first season. I, I have moments of, but again, I'm barely, yeah, no, no, like 10% in the second season here. So yeah, I will, I will really only talk for a season except for my favorite character.

Um, so first season, Eloise, I really liked, uh, she starts to get on my nerve in season two. So just be prepared for that. Um, and the reason why she gets on your nerves, disappointing to hear, but okay. Well, she becomes sort of hypocritical about how she, she looks at the ton and how she looks at love in a woman's place and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I like Eloise, but I don't think she understands her world as well as she thinks she does because she's not fully exposed herself to all of it. She's kind of been dancing on the outskirts this entire time, thinking that she has an idea of at all. And she really doesn't or of her privilege. That's a thing.

You think that she wants to walk around and give the middle finger to everyone, but in truth, she couldn't fucking live without it. That's true too. She, yeah, she would be totally lost. Yeah.

It reminds me of, um, she has a great disdain for her place and society, but at the exact same time, she doesn't understand how her place and society has afforded her certain liberties. She would not find elsewhere. It reminds me of the old joke about, um, how our libertarians like cats, they think they're fiercely independent, but they're really just entirely dependent on everybody around them. Yes.

Oh, more like house, more house cats. Yeah. Okay. Um, my favorite character in everything that's been put out so far, um, I'm not counting the spinoff because that feels like a one-off in itself.

It's a beautiful story and I highly recommend that you watch. I know I'm going to pick it up then. Um, but in the greater arc of the main storyline, it doesn't really need to be there. It just gives you a little more backstory into some of the main characters.

Um, thoroughly love the character of Kathani Shanna, Kate, she is otherwise known. I know I was spoken to you several times about that. And I couldn't get talking anymore about her because I don't want to spoil anything. Okay.

I'll try to get through some more of it. I promise. But, um, hi, uh, she's my favorite. I do love the character of Lady Danbury.

She's probably my second and then Penelope Featherington. The reason why I love Kate, Lady Danbury, and Penelope is unlike Eloise. They understand the society a little more. And so they've learned how to navigate to best position themselves within it.

Well, I will continue to watch the season unfold as I watch season two as it goes through the summer. Uh, let's, uh, kind of shift gears to another movie that takes place in the summer. Very hot, sweltering New York summer. Is it hot or is it really fucking cold?

Kind of both. We're talking, of course, about Ghostbusters, Frozen Empire, which opened, uh, this past weekend. So you've been waiting for me to do this on like forever. So, um, gosh, best is what do you want?

I love you. You're welcome. That just might become a new ringtone for you. I've been waiting for that to happen.

I'm so tired of that. Anyways, um, so yes, um, we have that open. And as of a couple of days ago, it did okay. It's opening weekend.

Um, very high audience score, critic score. And, um, I think I was kind of in the minority on this. Unfortunately, um, critic score is not great. I know when we came out of the, uh, critic screening last week, um, some of my colleagues were not as up on the film as I was.

Um, you're biased. I may be, you know, I'm a, I may be now 40 year Ghostbusters fan as of this coming summer. I knew this was not going to be that great. Why did you know that?

How did you know that? Because the story's not fucking good. There's three stories in one here. Okay.

And yes, you can say they're all linked. Mm-hmm. Don't try that bullshit argument. They're so separated and they're loosely linked that none of them get their full potential.

This is a packed film. Okay. We've got a lot of characters. And I think we, you and I both agree that a couple of them barely get serviced at all in terms of story or anything, or in terms of characters.

And then they force extra characters and that don't need to be there and give them half or a third of the story. And it, yeah, it sort of pays off in the grand scheme of things, but in truth, cut them out and you can make this so much easier. Okay. Um, we're trying to avoid spoilers, it sounds like, but I'm going to assume you mean the Firemaster.

Okay. Firemaster. Okay. That whole storyline could get lose it fucking lose it.

Yeah, you're right. That's a whole that's a whole thing. And I guess a spoiler is ahead. No, I didn't spoil anything because I didn't say what they do.

I don't say who it is. I don't think I understand. Yeah, you're right. Why they come into it, you know, just to deliver the the spiritual MacGuffin of the movie is fine.

Why that lore is there, but we don't need anything else beyond that. If that character disappeared after that, I think we would have been okay. I mean, it adds a little bit of drama to the end, but at the same time, it takes away from all the other Ghostbusters working together to stop the big icy demon bad. Yeah, you have all of these characters coming together.

And within their first fight, they're all thrown off to the side. And so they don't fight at all. They're just there to stand in a corner because with all their sex, they're a lot older and they cannot get bruised. So we're just going to put ice makeup on them and have them stand in the corner.

That's yeah, again, it's an issue of juggling, you know, I think at one point, we have eight people running around with proton packs in the finale. That's a lot. And the film is not long enough or I would say tight enough to support as many characters as they have, including all the supporting just cameo characters they have showing up like actually the mayor does work. Yeah, who they have come in as the mayor, which that's been in the that's been in the trails in the advertising.

It's William Atherton reprising Walter Peck. And I love, I absolutely love panels. Well, with a deep passion that I don't want babies and I would have his babies. Don't tell my husband, ladies and gentlemen.

But that being said, he did not need to be there for any of that. You think they could have just trimmed him down and just had like an asteroid's character know that lore anyways, all that lore or he has the books downstairs for God's sake, his shop is filled with so much that you're telling me he doesn't have a dusty book somewhere where it's like, Oh, wait, I think I've seen this before. Go downstairs, he opens up maybe a secret door where he keeps a really dangerous shit goes in the back and all of a sudden he's pulling off books and all over them and opening it up and comparing an etch to the thing in his hand. I like the idea that you just wanted an excuse to go back to the goddamn law public library.

No, he could have put his character, you know, elsewhere. He could have worked at the New York Adventure Society, like whatever became of that group of people that we see in the prologue. I mean, he could have worked there and they just go to this brownstone where his office slash library is. I didn't say you wanted to go back there.

I was saying you is in fan service to go back to the New York Public Library because oh, we're getting back to the first Ghostbusters. See, that's I mean, it can be considered fan service. And I see your point. I kind of look at some of this stuff as these are established locations in New York City.

And if we're finally back in New York after an entire movie in Oklahoma, I don't mind revisiting a few like classic locations. It's like, if we're going to do a Star Wars movie, you know, maybe, you know, one or two planets, we're going to need to see more than one, you know, and then in just the one movie, like, oh, we're back in Coruscant again, because that's a capital of, you know, the Republic and then the Empire. So, you know, we're going to have reasons to go back there every now and then. I think by making all those side quests in the main D and D line really fucked with this movie.

Okay. Honest, the most interesting storyline was that of my kind of guys is Phoebe and a ghost that I will not spoil about. But because of that story, and it doesn't pay off because they don't allow it to pay off or otherwise it would not be able to, this film would not be able to be marketed in certain markets. I think that is your emotional core.

And because they can't pay it off, it fizzles like a bowling. I mean, I get what they're going for and it could have been strong. And honestly, I would say if anything is fancy, it's Fin Wolfart and his, you know, constant attempts to trap Slimer, you know, in the ghost, in the firehouse. Slimer ended up having a bit of a plot point there at the end.

But then you could cut that complete ghost as well. Just about. Yeah. Possessor did not need to be there.

No. It's easy. You know how you do possessor? You point a laser pointer at something and then say, do some special effects around the laser pointer.

But, but I think what they could have done is, you know, acts out the, the Slimer's bit, put him with Lucky in the research facility. And that gives him something a little bit more active. And it gives those two characters who were starting a relationship in the last film, it gives them more time to explore that relationship or grow it or what have you. Because the way it stands now, it's like he, you know, when the family goes to the research lab for the first time when they find out about it, you know, she's there working and he's like, oh, I didn't know you were here.

And I felt really weird. I'm like, what is that about? In terms of, and I've said this before, and I am willing to say it on Mike and stand by it. After life was one of the hell with one of, was might actually be the best Ghostbusters movie ever made.

I say it's even better than the original. And the reason why I say it's better than the original is because of an emotional, all right, this is a great comparison that I'm about to make. And I haven't seen it, but I know how people talk about it. Ghostbusters after life is the godfather two of Ghostbusters.

But you need to see Ghostbusters in order to fully appreciate Ghostbusters after life. Okay, I see your, I see your analogy here, and you might not be wrong. However, hold on. I'm still getting the part about this movie.

Ghostbusters for as an empire in comparison to after life is like looking at Ghostbusters to compare to the original. Slightly better than Ghostbusters to only slightly. I mean, for me, you know, the original Ghostbusters, I think finds the right balance of comedy with a dash of horror. I think Ghostbusters after life shows the flexibility of the overall concept, because you can do a much more emotional story about family about forgiveness and about grief, and about not feeling wanted in society about being the outcast.

It's okay to probably maybe you maybe shed a tear or nine as you're watching it at the end. Oh, okay, I've cried every time I've watched Ghostbusters after life. So I, I'm going to share with our listeners the same thing that I shared with you the other day. So as you listeners have known, probably for a while, I lost my dad back in 2019.

I know that you have recently lost your mom a little over a year ago now. And unfortunately, I was going through and deleting probably 30,000 emails. Yes, I let it build up that much shame on me while watching Ghostbusters after life the other night as I was catching up and preparing for frozen empire. And I came across the old bit about a half an hour before the ending of Ghostbusters after life.

And I archived that and I, I squared it away. But then when I got to the ending of Ghostbusters after life, I lost my shit. When she hugs her dad, the ghost of her dad, I was crying. And I remember it slipped out.

I miss you, daddy. And I had to go back the next day because I wasn't fully paying attention to the movie throughout the entirety of it because I was just blah, blah, blah, blah. And I had to rewatch the whole damn thing again. So I put myself through that twice in 40 hours and actually under 24 hours.

But that's the thing. Ghostbusters after life has the ability to reach inside of you and give you a cathartic release on things that, and it doesn't have to be the death of a family member, but you understand. And it might even just be the death of Harold Ramis himself is exactly what triggers him. As a fan, you're just like, Oh my gosh, this is yeah.

You can't help but getting choked up and feeling like this is closure. Watching this movie, all those arcs that they build up fantastically over those couple of hours, they pay off in dividends at the end. And having the original show up for this movie, the best part of having the original show up was Bill Murray walking in and cracking open electrical panel of grabbing a bottle of boozy hit probably back in the 80s. And I will say that I think people who complain about the OGs showing up in right at the end in afterlife, kind of as the point of the whole movie, you know, oh, they only show up at the end.

It's like, yeah, because that's it's not their story as much as it is the family story. And it's family. That's the thing once they find out that once Phoebe has called Dan Arkroyd's character and said, Egon Spangler was my grandfather. That's just right through right now.

It's so hard that you realize that family, again, is not blood. They have fought by each other side. They're soldiers, they're brothers. Yeah, of course they're coming to help you.

I would. And, you know, going to frozen empire now, we've had that healing in a way. We've had that, you know, biological family coming together with the found family of the Spangler's and the Ghostbusters. And so I think, you know, we needed that movie for this movie, obviously.

And unfortunately, this movie, though, doesn't- It doesn't have a strong and emotional core. It doesn't have a strong and emotional core. And it doesn't feel like these characters, they're separated. You have the OG who are very, very strongly knit group.

I mean, there's a fantastic argument on a staircase between Winston Ernie Hudson's character and Dan Arkroyd's race dance. Oh my god, that is so good. It's so powerful. It's so strong.

And then everything just goes, and then you also have the Spangler family's story, which is hanging on this idea of, okay, Paul Rudd's character. Where do I stand in this family? I'm not the dad. Am I the stepdad?

Well, how far do I have to go and discipline these kids? Honestly, and you know, we don't need to get into specifics, but I think you and I have both been in that position. Oh god, yeah, you were a stepdad. I'm a step.

I'm a stepmom. Yeah. So I related to that. I was like, I have had these conversations with the ex about, you know, okay, how much do I step in on punishment and stuff like that?

And thankfully her daughter, my stepdaughter was a great kid. And I think, you know, once out of all that time or together, you know, there was a discipline issue. Yeah, I only had to discipline my kids in the last eight years, only twice, because yeah, I got lucky. I have great kids.

But I will admit that there was an unspoken thing until Darren and I got married of, I'm going to discipline them. But if you want to go and, you know, soothe and be the good cop to his bad cop. Pretty much. Yeah.

That's what I was. I was, I was the fun dad. I was the fun Barrett. And you know, if anything, you know, sometimes like if, you know, look at it gotten in trouble, I would, or a little bit of trouble even.

I'd be like, hey, you know, it's okay. Don't worry about it. It'll blow over. How about some ice cream?

And because you're and because you're the fun one and the more lenient one, when you lose your shit, they fucking listen, like nobody's business and it's amazing. I'm not saying I advocate for that, but it was a weird power trip for you about it. It was an incredible power move, not gonna lie. But they, it definitely becomes a case of, okay, I'm listening to you.

Because if you are saying it, then it must be fucking true. Yeah. And I like what they were going for here. And I like the moment that really causes Paul Rudd to bite Phoebe's head off, which is a fucking burn-o-line that mainly go, Ooh.

Yeah. Phoebe says something to her mom. He's not, it's not a spoiler, but he's not completely not going to say it. Okay.

Which is, if you weren't a spangler, you'd be answering our phones. And I was like, which is, which kind of, I think, is very incisive of Phoebe because it, because I think a lot of Carrie Coon's mom's character is kind of driven by the fact that, and we saw this in the last movie, you know, very definitely, that she doesn't understand her daughter. She can't relate to it. She knows her daughter's way more intelligent than she ever will be about stuff.

And, and she, she just can't relate to that. And, you know, so she feels insecure about that. And that line just kind of like jabs the knife right into that insecurity and wiggles it around a little bit. Of course, considering that Paul Rudd, who is pretty much her mom's just boyfriend at this point, is standing right next to her when it happens.

So what she's saying is, you're, if you weren't a spangler, you'd be answering our phones, but you're not a spangler, but I think you're cool. Yeah. I was like, oh. And then he snaps at her.

She walks out and then they turn and they have a short exchange about, oh, doesn't this suck? It's terrible that you have to be mean to somebody you love, you know, your own children or somebody who you regard as a family member, but you have to do it. And it sucks to be the asshole. And it did in that like one time I had to kind of close ranks with Paul about something.

And I felt bad about the first time I had to do it. But at the exact same time, I was proud because up until that point, I'd always been the good cop. I always went in and sued them when they were crying and when they were upset about something. I was the sympathetic ear who would listen, I'm closer and aged to them than I am to my husband.

And because of that, I think they also kind of looked at me as an older sister. And therefore, I mean, they gave me the respect of a set mom. Don't get me wrong. But there was a case of, I think you'll understand because it wasn't long for you.

You know, in terms of how long it was when I went through the same issues. But the first time I ever had to raise my voice and I yelled an accident on the coast. Well, I was angry at my steps on to do what he was supposed to be doing and not take advantage of his position. I never saw a kid who is 6'3", and I am 5'5", becomes so squeamish and pretty much slink away and got back to doing what he was supposed to do.

And I was shaking, I was making dinner and when Darren came home, I'm like, I need to have a talk with you really quick because I need you to do to me what I often do to the kids. I need to calm me down. Yeah. But yeah, so there's there's very still relatable family moments in these films.

And that's kind of what helps ground the movie, I think, in turn, you know, with all this other supernatural stuff going on, the Hell's Kitchen ice dragon that they chased at the beginning of the movie and things like that. And I think that helps the movie a bit. No, I'm not stating that there aren't good moments in this movie. They're really are.

And you're right, the good moments are really what ground this story. But I had the same problem with this story that a lot of people also had with Oppenheimer was that there's just too many movies happening in one. And because of that, each one of those films within a film is not getting its payoff. Okay.

Like I said, I don't know 20 minutes ago. There's a lot of characters here and there's a lot of characters to be service and podcast kind of gets overlooked and lucky kind of gets overlooked for the most part. And Finn's character Trevor gets overlooked. Yeah.

I mean, he has a little bit of an arc where he's trying. Hey, I'm 18. I want a little bit more respect maybe. And that does get paid off at the end.

Well, funny part is is the original characters get serviced more than the characters that are supposed to matter. And I think that's that's horrible because we have the golden years discussion that we mentioned before between Winston and Rey. And that I think kind of sets gives us some character moments with them. I don't think they have like a real big arc.

Venkman is, you know, Bill Murray is the best part of the OGs in terms of the amount of screen time that was right. Winston has I think the best character. I gotta give yes. My man in there, he is now the leader of the OG.

So if you ever if you guys ever thought that Ernie Hudson got done a disservice in the original movies, he is the king in this one. Just getting to that, you know, because Ernie Hudson signed on based on an early draft of the screenplay, which I've read, and it does have, you know, a lot more for Winston to do. And then there was a rewrite before shooting started. And that rewrite removed a lot of that stuff that he got to do.

And he was unhappy about that. And he mentioned that, you know, you know, a few years later, he did talk about that. Yeah. And I'm glad that this movie gives his character much more to do, not just in terms of screen time, but I think it's important to like the Ghostbusters lore now.

He's the one who was always kind of like, he's the financial heart, you know, he's kind of set things up. He's a boss. He's a boss. Well, yes.

And he's the sex appeal. I thoroughly enjoyed that there were speaking of the lore. A lot of people have said that this pulls from the video games. You and I had had a conversation literally over dinner before seeing this movie about the Ghostbusters three scripts that was scrapped and how they pulled some of that.

Yeah. Well, yeah, that they did this and this. And then like we're sitting there watching the movie, I'm like, okay. Well, you know, I'm, you know, I have no doubt that Jason Wrightman has read those drafts before they started, you know, writing.

I'm sure he was reading that back in 2005 when they were being written. So yeah, he probably just popped by and said, Hey, dad, I was like, Oh, I'm working on this. Oh, you mind if I take a look past the right? Yeah, sure.

I'm gonna use second pair eyes. Yeah, Sony set up a whole box. Yeah. Sony set up a whole little mini production shingle for Ghostbusters.

They're working on an animated series for Netflix as well as maybe another movie either in this or, you know, maybe some other configuration. And I'm sure there is a filing cabinet there, filled with old drafts of stuff. And, and I said this to you famously, you know, Dan Aykroyd's very first vomit draft of Ghostbusters was like, as thick as a phone book, it took place in the future. The Ghostbusters team is just one of many, because it's all part of this giant service, you know, like you would call an ambulance or something like that, you know, where there's out, you know, stations everywhere through the city and stuff like that.

And, you know, Ivan Wrightman took one look at it. There's some interesting ideas here. Let's pare it down a little bit because we could never afford to make this crazy movie that you could afford to make it now. Oh, yeah.

And in fact, one of the issues that we had a discussion about was your, your famous answer, the call girls. That was, that's a little inside joke, but the ladies from Ghostbusters answered the call from 2016. That movie, even when I saw it, because of Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson being in the film, but not playing original, the original Ghostbusters characters playing all new characters, I always looked at that as, this is a parallel universe that is never dealt with Ghostbusters at all. The 80s stuff did not take place.

These, those characters do not exist. Or if they do, they're definitely, they did not take the trajectory of their lives as they were supposed to. It's a parallel universe. I've seen, yeah, I've said that too.

And that's the fact that the comic books have taken in recent years, which are great. I recommend them if you can find them. But I also stated that that was before, I think a lot of the multiverse sections of say the MCU got off the ground and were shown to the public and people are like, what is this new thing called the multiverse? I mean, it's not new in comic books and sci-fi, but if you're not a comic book since sci-fi person and you're just an average just main movie goer who are getting all new ideas exposed to them, Ghostbusters answer the call didn't really kind of delve into that.

No, but I mean, but it could hear. Yes. Say then we've already had. So you're hoping for another like dimensional cross-trip and out jumps.

Yeah, the the Ghostbusters gals, I would be down for that. That'd be fun. Yeah, you really want to irritate certain people, but good. I don't care about there.

It might irritate, but those who are Ghostbusters fans who have watched the old cartoons who may have read the comics, they're going to go, okay, that makes complete sense. And again, the nerds shall inherit the Earth. Yes. They get to be the hipsters who are going, I could have seen this coming.

I read it. You're an idiot for not listening to me in the first place. Well, I mean, we've done, I mean, we've done like parallel worlds and stuff like that in TV or in films, at least as far back as back to the future too. Now granted, that's a movie where they literally have to stop, pull out a chalkboard and explain the concept to more and fly and by extension the audience.

But then just a few years later, we still had to put in a pouch or movie sliding doors, which is sorry. That's that film's easily been more forgotten. Unfortunately, but people who saw it at the time probably have that. Oh, yeah, that's a thing.

Isn't it? In the back of their head. And I want to say there was a way, I don't know if you're something like that, that also dealt with. We don't talk about him.

Okay. I know we don't generally talk about him, but I'm just saying it's been out there a little bit, at least in the mainstream until, but it wasn't until like Marvel started doing it. Then the CW was doing it a bit with their DC TV shows. And now it is very much a concept that more people commonly understand.

Here, I think it would be really cool because we've already been building, hey, we've introduced this new family of Ghostbusters. We're related to Egon Spendler, which opens up to bring back the cast members from the original. Yes. Now you really want to connect it instead of this one movie that some people love and some people hate.

It's like a nice 50 50, you know, mix. How about we say instead of just, Oh, that's a thing we don't talk about anymore. How about we include it? You want a big bad that you need to pull out all the stops for you're not going to find it in Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, but they have, I think, the possibility to do it down the road if they're willing to really go and say, Hey, we're going to accept this one as well.

We're going to make it a full life. Yeah. And I would like that. I mean, okay, the Paul Feigy movie from 2016, I think operates on a different style of humor than like the original two Ghostbusters films.

And I think that's partially why people were resistant to it because humor changes over time, even just go back and like listen to something or watch something from the 30s or 40s. I love the Marx Brothers, but for some people now, they're a little impenetrable in the way that their their word play works or that they do certain things. And I get that, I understand that. And even stuff from like the 50s or 60s, you kind of look at it and go, I don't know, man, I'm not sure I'm getting all of this on, you know, certain types of comedy.

So I can see where even from like 84 to 2016, you know, 32 years is still kind of a big gap in terms of how comedy evolves, even if some of your actors are coming out of Saturday Night Live in both instances. Yes, well, that's the thing. It is a Saturday Night Live cast, originally, that passed it on to a Saturday Night Live cast. How do you not cross them over now?

Wouldn't it be hilarious to play with those ideas of how comedy has evolved by having, say, Kristen Wiig or Melissa McCarthy make a joke and Bill Murray just shakes his head and all of a sudden Paul Rudd dad laughs at it like, yeah, I understood that. And then it looks over at Bill Murray and is just like, sorry, sorry. Like, come on. In a brief bit of comic synchronicity, right now, you know, the movie that Jason Wrightman is shooting?

No. It's called SNL 1975. It's going to be told in real time that 90 minutes leading up to the broadcast of the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. I'm not for that.

Yeah. And who do they have in the cast? I can't remember who they have really in the cast, but I'm like, okay, this is going to be interesting because that period between dress, rehearsal, and the live show was famously very chaotic. They're rewriting stuff.

They're like, oh my god, we go live in 20 minutes or whatever. The variety aspect of the show for about the first 13 weeks was much bigger. So they would have like, they had a comic who was going to be on the show. And that comic was a little guy from Brooklyn that nobody heard of by the name of Billy Crystal.

He got cut after dress and basically he hopped the train and went home to watch the show. And I don't know if he actually watched the show or not that night. So you'll have things like that. You have George Carlin running around.

You have what's going on backstage with the writers. You have your band trying to figure out everything. You have the Muppets because they had these special Muppets that they created for Saturday Night Live that were only around for the first 13 episodes. And because of some weird writing, writer's guild thing, the Muppet performers couldn't write their own stuff.

And nobody in the writer's room at Saturday Night Live where you got people like Michael O'Donnell, Frankin, the cast, etcetera, Rosie Schuster, a whole bunch of great comedy writers. Nobody wants to write for the Muppets. As O'Donnell who said, I don't write for Felt. And so it sounds like it's going to be a great movie just, well, it has the potential to be a great movie just based on what is, you know, what it's covering in that 90 minutes.

And of course, you know, obviously the last line of the movie is going to be the end of the cold open, which, you know, very famous, the Wolverines between Michael O'Donnell and John Belushi. They fall over. Chevy Chase comes on looking like a floor manager in terms to the camera. I'm sorry, yeah, because I don't know any of this.

Anyone to watch listening? Well, maybe a couple of you might know, but not everyone here is going to know. We're going to sit down and we're going to watch some first season Saturday Night Live and you're going to be like, what is this show compared to what it's like now? There's some interesting and weird differences.

Well, I've sat and I watched some of the stuff from, say, 25 years ago, and I'm looking at it going, oh, yeah, I mean, there's always phases of the show and we could do a whole three-hour podcast about it. I mean, you got Tina Fey and Seth Meyers in the weekend update alone. And still, a lot of it is like, yeah, there's, there's the show where it's good. And sometimes it's just, you know, it's kind of coasting and then you have complete overhauls of the cast and it takes them two years to gel.

And then suddenly they're like, Oh, these guys are amazing. Why were they sucking so bad last year? You know, it's, it's crazy. Saturday Night Live is a whole crazy thing.

And I've been kind of like deep diving it for like the last couple of years. And I still feel like some days I've only scratched the surface because, you know, 49 years to look at. Well, you're still scratching more than most people have. So give yourself a pat on the back for that.

Okay. Can you reach that far? Yes, I can. Oh, okay.

Anyways, um, so so you were, I was, I had fun with Ghostbusters. I thought the action stuff was fine. I think if you're, if you're looking for just a cheap pop and yes, I say cheap popcorn movie that you can take kids to take your friends to turn off your brain. Uh, yeah, I guess you could do this, but some things are going to hurt you.

It really isn't the greatest amount of eye candy in it. So if you're paying for that, you can be sorely disappointed. Um, your ghost, Ghostbusters was never a big about a big special effect sequences. I wasn't talking eye candy and special effects.

Um, I don't know. Kerry Coons. Oh, believe me. I would jump on Kerry Coon.

I jumped on Kerry Coon before Paul Rudd. I can't believe I'm saying that, but I would. Yeah. But that's not going to do it for most people.

The chemistry that two have is a lot of fun. Yeah. Um, you know, she's constantly pulling faces at each other, you know, behind other characters backs. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, uh, if you're looking for stuff like that, it's no bullet train where everyone's hot and you get the action sequences and the comedy.

Um, it is fun. It will hark back. It will tug at a couple of heartstrings, particularly seeing Mel in uniform, by the way, using, uh, a similar, uh, what you call it, uh, blaster kind of blaster gauntlet that is close to the one that Melissa McCarthy was using is like a punch in answer the call, uh, which can we hear it for some of the new, uh, equipment, like the drone ghost trap. Speaking of, I said, I mentioned this before, you got the ghost trap popcorn holder behind the Regal cinemas, because there's two different ones out there.

AMC has one and that has kind of like a plastic thing, a plastic thing with, um, that you can put more popcorn in. This only holds like a medium popcorn. Um, it's the whole popcorn shut up. And, uh, it has a little light that comes on when it pops open and I know you went to a Halloween store and got the ghost detector to put next to it.

Yeah. I've had the ghost detector for a couple of years. I know. I'm the one who told you, you see, even you know the name of it.

The EPK, you were, you were enabling my nerd, um, so you bear partial responsibility for this. All I said is that they had it. You're the one who went out of your way to drive all the way out there to buy it. I was like, Oh, look, this is really cool.

You know, if you're, you know, a kid or a teen or someone doing a Halloween thing and you're dressing up as a ghost investor, this is really fucking cool. And you're like, no, I just want that to sit on my shelf behind me. Yep. And that's what it's doing right now.

I think it could be put to work somewhere else, actually doing its job. I know. Instead of gathering dust, like the one that's not under Egon Spendler's dead body chair. Well, the next time I think the house is haunted here, I'll break it out and take a reading.

All right. Okay. Might as well do that. Somebody's going to be your ghost of the text.

Probably sooner than later. You want to know what it would be like to be a ghost. Yeah, let's, um, just going down that line of discussion does kind of get a little spoilery on something from the movie. But anyways, I think that does wrap us up though for this week.

Ghostbuster's Frozen Empire is currently in theaters. Now, remember, if you like what you're hearing, go to BigPicturePole.com and we are available on iTunes and Google Play. So leave a positive review if you like what you're listening to. And we hope to see you again here on the Big Picture Podcast.