I guess I'm going to promote a bunch of hollywood stuff, but I feel like though I don't like promoting proprietary films, there's some other good stuff going here, so I'm going to blather anyway.

So, Morgan and I saw the new Ghostbusters movie last night. It's a "reboot movie", and I'm not normally a huge fan of that, but I have to say, that's the most fun I've had in some time. It's a great movie that does a stellar job of giving a nod to the original series while taking things in a new direction. And while the original was a comedy, this one is even more of a comedy. (It's also a bit more action heavy than the original in some parts.)

I'd also argue that this is probably the most gender-progressive scifi-ish (it's not hard science fiction, obviously) film around, or at least that I've seen. It does a good job of having a team of all women heroes who hold their own and do their own things. It passes the Bechdel test by a lot, for sure. But it's more than that... you don't see women in these roles. And I like the way it was handled: it wasn't just a "replace the male roles with women and we're done"; much of the humor was in the style of recent prominent women comedians (similar stuff to in the movie Spy, if you've seen that), while not losing track of its main focus.

The main villain is also pretty much a "Men's Rights Activist" type character. There's a nice scene (minor spoiler) where he's complaining, "you don't understand, I was bullied and nobody liked me" and the heroines are like "yeah but... we were too, we do understand" and the villain just shuts them down with "nope, you can't" and ends that conversation. In some ways, the recent Star Wars film was claimed to have a similar villain, and in some ways yes, but I think it's more direct here. But again, it doesn't become so focused on it that it loses track of what's happening in the film.

There's one way in which the film falls short on social progressiveness: the black woman in the film is like "You all are scientists, but I'm street smart", and much has been said already (correctly) on, why play that trope? Why can't the black woman be a scientist too? It's a fair criticism; while the film received a gender reversal from the original film, the racial problems from the original film returned. Though! I do think the film is a little bit better than the original (though you wouldn't guess it by watching the trailer), because in the original film the person of color shows up at the end of the film as basically muscle and has no chance to play any formative role (or develop any serious character), whereas here that character manages to play a pivotal role in developing the team and has much more character development than in the original (and joins the team by her own agency, not just because "it's just a job").

Here are two final anecdotes about watching the film (and not the film itself). We were sitting in some reclining chairs, and there was an kid next to me who must have been about eight or nine. He clearly had seen all the ghostbusters films and was so excited at one point that he reclined his shair so he could lay in reverse, propping his head up at the end of the foot part of his chair, and he was calling out excitedly all the nods they made to the originals, and getting excited about all the action. That kid wasn't upset about the new film "destroying his childhood"... he was in his childhood, and the other films had already played a role, but he seemed excited to have this experience as well. There's a lot of angry people on the internet saying "they ruined the tradition" by including a bunch of women in the roles of the Ghostbusters, but that doesn't make a lick of sense... the original Ghostbusters movie had already "ruined the tradition", if you consider the prior movie of Ghost Busters (though it's unclear how much inspiration it played) as its predecessor. And Morgan said it well: "I feel like this movie was for me. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a Ghostbuster, but felt like I wasn't allowed to be." So, while some might be claiming it ruined their childhood for pretty silly reasons, there's good reasons for it to be a nice improvement on the experiences of someone else's.

Anyway, it's "just a movie", but if you're looking for some low-brain-activity entertainment, I'd recommend it.