Director Ivan Reitman turns 67 today, and while his filmography hasn’t grown a whole lot in recent years he will always be the director of Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters is, arguably, the best comedy of all-time. The comedy is a touchstone of comedy nerds everywhere and features one of Bill Murray’s most iconic performances in Dr. Peter Venkman. Ghostbusters is blockbuster film making at its best, great action, plenty of comedy and characters we can root for. If you were a child of the 80’s like myself then Ghostbusters probably even snuck into your Saturday morning cartoons and play life as I had every toy under the Sun. Before Ghostbusters, Reitman found comedy success with Murray on Meatballs and Stripes and they worked together one last time on the Ghostbusters sequel.
Reitman found another interesting star in Arnold Schwarzenegger and they produced the beloved high concept comedy Kindergarten Cop. The duo also did Twins and Junior with Danny DeVito, but Kindergarten Cop has become iconic with its plethora of Schwarzenegger one liners. “It’s not a tumor!” “I’m the party pooper.” “Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina.” Well, that last one wasn’t Schwarzenegger, but you get the point. The concept was a great spin on Schwarzenegger’s persona and this VHS found its way into many a VCR through the years.
His other most notable film is Dave, which might be my favorite Presidential movie to date. Another high concept comedy (seeing a trend) sees the White House struggle to replace an incapacitated President with a look alike and Kevin Kline somehow makes the ridiculous story work. The film is rather formulaic, but it has a great cast playing wonderfully off each other and does a good job of capturing, what feels like, an accurate look at the monotony of being President. Hell, I even fell for the romance between Kline and Sigourney Weaver (a Ghostbusters alum).
Reitman is probably second most famous for being the father of Jason Reitman, director of films such as Thank You For Smoking, Young Adult and Juno, and even Produced his way to his only Oscar nomination on Jason’s Up In the Air.
Reitman has been, and remains, a big name in Hollywood since the 70’s and while Ivan’s days of great directorial work is most likely behind him he will always be a part of film history for being behind the classic Ghostbusters.
