New Ghost Busters- a theatre of the absurd

By SJ Otto

I really enjoyed the new Ghost Busters (2016). It was hard to follow at times and it moved really fast. The women spew out so much psychobabble that it is often hard to keep up. I just watched it. It was funny. At one point someone described them as some women who read "Eat, Pray, Love and they just ran with it."

It was full of cameos from the last 2  movies. It even had the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man with the evil look on his face until they just almost zapped him. Then his famous evil smile went into a round "oh no" look.

The Ghost Busters are made up of Abby Yates (Mellissa McCarthy), Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), Jullian Holtzmann, (Kate McKinnon) and Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones). They hire Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) as a receptionist because he looks good and no one else has applied for the job. He is terrible at his job, not even able to answer the phone.

It has a kind of theatre of the absurd quality about it. Some of it moves like a Monty Python script. At one point Jullian is standing next to a city official who tells her "you've broke all kinds of laws."

"How many, one?" she said.

"No."

"Two?"

"No."

"One?"

The whole film just moves that way. There is some satire, but mostly is it just funny to watch. It's well worth seeing.