{"id":8837,"date":"2010-06-29T07:14:15","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T12:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=8837"},"modified":"2018-11-09T13:45:30","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T18:45:30","slug":"cinematic-swipe-dave-the-ghostbuster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/29\/cinematic-swipe-dave-the-ghostbuster\/","title":{"rendered":"Cinematic Swipe: DAVE The GHOSTBUSTER"},"content":{"rendered":"

Be it coincidence or homage or the outright hope that they don\u2019t get caught aping someone else\u2019s movie, filmmakers have been replicating the work of those who have gone before them for some time now. Every now and then we like to stop and point out one of those instances.<\/em><\/p>\n

Can a director swipe from themselves? Sure, they do it all the time and it is usually passed off as \u201cdirectorial style\u201d or as a trademark of some sort. But sometimes a director can copy something they did in an early film for a later one, and it has a deeper meaning within both. Such is the case with Ivan Reitman and scenes from his comedies Ghostbusters<\/strong> and Dave<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Through the 1980s and early 90s, Reitman was one of Hollywood\u2019s kings of comedy both as a director and producer with Stripes<\/strong>, Twins<\/strong>, Kindergarten Cop<\/strong>, Dave<\/strong> and Ghostbusters<\/strong> to his credit. There was little that he could do wrong. (Though some would argue the point with Ghostbusters II<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

If one could find a theme to his films, it would be that of the loveable underdog rising up to make or inspire changes in the world around them. In Ghostbusters<\/strong>, it\u2019s a trio of dog-eared and discredited academics starting a business and saving the world. In Dave<\/strong>, an average joe whose idealism in the United States hasn\u2019t been soured by participation in the political process is called upon to impersonate the President and manages to avoid being manipulated by the real President\u2019s staff long enough to get the ball rolling on legislation that would help numerous unemployed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Interestingly, Reitman chose to stage the scenes where both films\u2019 heroes take their first steps of their journey \u2013 announced by Bill Murray\u2019s \u201cAnybody seen a ghost?\u201d and Kevin Klien\u2019s spontaneous \u201cGod bless you! God bless America!\u201d \u2013 at almost the exact same real world location, the entrance lobby to the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Like Reitman, the Biltmore had a pretty good film career in the 80s, appearing in films like\u00a0 Rocky III<\/strong>, The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai: Across The Eighth Dimension<\/strong>, Beverly Hills Cop<\/strong>, Splash<\/strong> and Pretty In Pink<\/strong>. Built in 1923, its use as a film location goes as far back as Hitchcock\u2019s 1958 thriller Vertigo<\/strong> and extends all the way to 2009\u2019s The Soloist<\/strong>. For Ghostbusters<\/strong> it was the swanky fictional Manhattan \u201cSedgwick Hotel.\u201d For Dave<\/strong>, it magically transports itself to Washington DC to appear as \u201cThe Monaco.\u201d As you can see from the views of each scene, it appears that either they dressed the location a little differently for Dave<\/strong> or the hotel had gone through some renovations in the intervening time. However, in the wide shot (above) of Klein walking towards the door before turning back to the face the camera zooming in on him (below), you can definitely see some of the same architectural detail visible<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think that Reitman\u2019s use of the location in both films was to draw a parallel between the two. On the Ghostbusters<\/strong> DVD commentary track he mentions that he liked filming there for Ghostbusters<\/strong> that he went back for Dave<\/strong>. At best, if there is any connection beyond that, it has its origins in Reitman\u2019s subconscious. But that doesn\u2019t make it any less of a swipe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Be it coincidence or homage or the outright hope that they don\u2019t get caught aping someone else\u2019s movie, filmmakers have been replicating the work of those who have gone before them for some time now. [click for more]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1695],"tags":[539,7888,2909,536,557,2910],"series":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"tag-bill-murray","9":"tag-cinematic-swipe","10":"tag-dave","11":"tag-ghostbusters","12":"tag-ivan-reitman","13":"tag-kevin-klien"},"aioseo_notices":[],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[2],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":false,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8837"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=8837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}