The Conservative Cave
Current Events => General Discussion => Topic started by: Zathras on February 15, 2022, 09:57:37 PM
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Ivan Reitman, director of ‘Ghostbusters,’ dies at 75
He also produced 'Animal House’ and made the Bill Murray comedies ‘Meatballs’ and ‘Stripes’
Ivan Reitman, a director and producer who made some of the most beloved movie comedies of the 1970s and ′80s, turning “toga” into a byword for frat-party excess with “National Lampoon’s Animal House” and introducing viewers to the slimy work of “supernatural elimination” in “Ghostbusters,” died Feb. 12 at his home in Montecito, Calif. He was 75.
His family announced the death in a statement to the Associated Press, which did not give a cause. Publicists for two of his children — filmmaker Jason Reitman and actress, producer and writer Catherine Reitman — did not share additional details.
Mr. Reitman was one of the most successful comic filmmakers of his time, known for channeling an irreverent, anti-establishment sensibility in movies that harnessed the talent of “Saturday Night Live” stars such as John Belushi, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. His movies rarely drew critical acclaim, but they made more than $2 billion at the box office and inspired filmmakers such as Todd Phillips, whose comedies “Road Trip” (2000) and “Old School” (2003) were among the more than 70 movies and TV shows that Mr. Reitman produced.
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“He has a great feeling for the pulse of an audience,” Aykroyd told the Canadian magazine Maclean’s in 1986. “He knows how to build those points of reaction, the peaks and valleys that make a movie work.”
Ivan Reitman was the master of the buddy comedy
Mr. Reitman directed nearly 20 films, often involving rebellious goofballs in outlandish situations. The end of his U.S. Army comedy “Stripes” (1981) saw Murray, Harold Ramis and other soldiers accidentally invade Czechoslovakia, while the climax of “Ghostbusters” (1984) showcased the demonic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, a corporate mascot who lumbers through the streets of New York, wreaking havoc.
“This movie is an exception to the general rule that big special effects can wreck a comedy,” film critic Roger Ebert wrote in a review of “Ghostbusters,” which starred Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis as a trio of ghost-catching New Yorkers. The film earned some $230 million in the United States and spawned books, comics, television shows, a remake and two sequels, including “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021), which was produced by Mr. Reitman and directed by his son.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/02/14/ivan-reitman-ghostbusters-director-dead/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/02/14/ivan-reitman-ghostbusters-director-dead/)