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We put a ghost in a box
As a break from packing, I saw Paul Feig's Ghostbusters (2016) this afternoon with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks, gaudior, sairaali, and M. It was a sold-out matinée. I was seated next to three small girls—nine-to-eleven age range, I think—who frequently cheered. They didn't recognize any of the surviving original cast, but they applauded for Slimer. I approved of the bronze bust of Dr. Egon Spengler at Columbia University. Like everyone else with any appreciation for mad science, of course, I love Kate McKinnon's Holtzmann with her tinted goggles and her utter disregard for normal standards of personal space and workplace safety—why settle for Dr. Frankenstein when you can have Dr. Pretorius? Crossed slightly with Harpo Marx, or at least that's what the flying long coat and fizzing fair hair and cheerful leers reminded me of. Perhaps also the way her presence in any given situation tends it toward explosion. Holtzmann's not a silent character ("I would have used aluminum, but I'm crazy"), but she has the quick-change face for it, and the physical grace. I had never before seen anyone flirt by means of DeBarge's "Rhythm of the Night," two acetylene torches, and a fire extinguisher, but she makes it work; the script gives her the most unambiguously kick-ass action sequence ("You just got Holtzmann'd, baby!") and it is equally believable that she would neglect to mention until it was relevant that she'd effectively installed a pair of nuclear reactors on top of the car in which everyone has been tearing around Manhattan for the last month and change. With a starring cast of four women in this movie, I hoped at least one of them would be weird enough for me and Holtzmann delivers. She not at all phallically licks a gun she built herself. I was also very fond of Leslie Jones' Patty Nolan and her encyclopedic knowledge of New York history, although I couldn't help wondering what would have happened if she'd switched roles with Melissa McCarthy. Chris Hemsworth was very obviously having the time of his life as a man who needs the concept of everything except riding a motorcyle, looking handsome, and eating a sandwich explained to him very slowly in words of one syllable and probably a lot of gestures. He calls a fish tank "a submarine for fish" in a tone of delighted discovery and covers his eyes at loud noises. I could have wished for less action and more character time, but that's how I've felt about all summer blockbusters for the last five or ten years. It was very fun and I think that was what my weekend needed. I don't know the ratio of Boston to New York in the shooting locations, but I was delighted to see the team celebrating their ghostbusting victory at Jacob Wirth's.
We had dinner afterward at Sugidama, where I had a bottle of lychee flavor Ramune. I had never interacted with any flavor of Ramune before. It was totally artificial, but I didn't realize it would come in a Codd-neck bottle; I didn't realize anyone manufactured those anymore. I've taken mine home with me. I'm trying to decide whether to save it for the novelty or smash it for the marble in time-honored nineteenth-century fashion. I kept grinning at it all through dinner.
Back to packing.
rushthatspeaks, gaudior, sairaali, and M. It was a sold-out matinée. I was seated next to three small girls—nine-to-eleven age range, I think—who frequently cheered. They didn't recognize any of the surviving original cast, but they applauded for Slimer. I approved of the bronze bust of Dr. Egon Spengler at Columbia University. Like everyone else with any appreciation for mad science, of course, I love Kate McKinnon's Holtzmann with her tinted goggles and her utter disregard for normal standards of personal space and workplace safety—why settle for Dr. Frankenstein when you can have Dr. Pretorius? Crossed slightly with Harpo Marx, or at least that's what the flying long coat and fizzing fair hair and cheerful leers reminded me of. Perhaps also the way her presence in any given situation tends it toward explosion. Holtzmann's not a silent character ("I would have used aluminum, but I'm crazy"), but she has the quick-change face for it, and the physical grace. I had never before seen anyone flirt by means of DeBarge's "Rhythm of the Night," two acetylene torches, and a fire extinguisher, but she makes it work; the script gives her the most unambiguously kick-ass action sequence ("You just got Holtzmann'd, baby!") and it is equally believable that she would neglect to mention until it was relevant that she'd effectively installed a pair of nuclear reactors on top of the car in which everyone has been tearing around Manhattan for the last month and change. With a starring cast of four women in this movie, I hoped at least one of them would be weird enough for me and Holtzmann delivers. She not at all phallically licks a gun she built herself. I was also very fond of Leslie Jones' Patty Nolan and her encyclopedic knowledge of New York history, although I couldn't help wondering what would have happened if she'd switched roles with Melissa McCarthy. Chris Hemsworth was very obviously having the time of his life as a man who needs the concept of everything except riding a motorcyle, looking handsome, and eating a sandwich explained to him very slowly in words of one syllable and probably a lot of gestures. He calls a fish tank "a submarine for fish" in a tone of delighted discovery and covers his eyes at loud noises. I could have wished for less action and more character time, but that's how I've felt about all summer blockbusters for the last five or ten years. It was very fun and I think that was what my weekend needed. I don't know the ratio of Boston to New York in the shooting locations, but I was delighted to see the team celebrating their ghostbusting victory at Jacob Wirth's.We had dinner afterward at Sugidama, where I had a bottle of lychee flavor Ramune. I had never interacted with any flavor of Ramune before. It was totally artificial, but I didn't realize it would come in a Codd-neck bottle; I didn't realize anyone manufactured those anymore. I've taken mine home with me. I'm trying to decide whether to save it for the novelty or smash it for the marble in time-honored nineteenth-century fashion. I kept grinning at it all through dinner.
Back to packing.
no subject
Thank you! I have been inside Jacob Wirth's, but I have no visual sense of Melbourne. I'm not surprised to hear about the Aldridge Mansion; I am also fairly certain the Chinese restaurant office is located in Boston's Chinatown, composited New York skyline notwithstanding. The look of the adjacent buildings and something about the angle of the street was very familiar.
[edit] Yes. It's the corner of Essex Street and Harrison Avenue. I can't quite get the right angle on Google Maps—if I can get this two-year-old street view to link at all—but I've walked by there many, many times. Now I'm going to be like this about all the exterior shots until I've figured out where they are. (If they're in Melbourne, I'm sunk.)
[edit edit] Essex Street is standing in for Bayard. Here's the turn from Harrison onto Essex—unchanged storefront still visible behind the Ecto-1.
As a native of Philadelphia who grew up pointing "the Ghostbusters building" out to people in its actual location, I'm pleased that New York continues to not play itself in these movies.
Where in Philadelphia is it really?
I didn't realize, but should have, that ramune bottles have a history outside Japan, where the bottles are a beloved artifact kept around precisely for nostalgia.
I'd never seen one in the wild before. I'm familiar with the marbles because they turn up not infrequently on beaches in New England, as they have done since the late nineteenth century, but I'm delighted to know now that some of them are new.
no subject
If the Ramune bottle has the plastic cap, you can pry it off to get the marble out. I recall using hot water to soften it up to make that easier.
no subject
That's actually pretty cool. I'll try to find the article.
The Aldridge House exterior is at BU, and the interior is an actual historic house in the area which was so perfect that they used the interior just about as it was.
I thought it must have been BC or BU! I'd have recognized most suitable-looking exteriors at Harvard and I don't think they could have filmed at Tufts without our hearing about it in Somerville.
If the Ramune bottle has the plastic cap, you can pry it off to get the marble out. I recall using hot water to soften it up to make that easier.
It does have a plastic cap; I tried prying at it with no results, but may try again when I don't have a moving deadline tomorrow. Either that or I'll just keep the bottle as is and not let the cats play with it, because the inaccessible noise will drive them crazy.
no subject
I found the articles in my browser history:
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/go-inside-the-filming-locations-and-set-designs-of-ghostbusters#1
https://www.boston.com/culture/movies/2016/03/09/6-boston-locations-you-might-have-missed-in-the-new-ghostbusters-trailer
no subject
Okay, filming the concert scene at the Wang is hilarious.