Monday, August 24, 2009

Nobody steps on a church in my town!

Just watched "Ghostbusters" - 25 years old this year, but my first viewing - the film we're screening Thursday night as part of first year orientation (chosen by the seminar fellows). It's a romp (though it has the sluggish deadpan of a certain kind of American comedy), and affords lots of spectacular New York views. Behold Columbus Circle once upon a time, and Lincoln Center before all the high rises rose up around it (in the foreground 55 Central Park West, enhanced for the film to be the kind of ziggurat many Art Deco skyscrapers aspire to be). In a way it's a good fit for a New School orientation too since the Ghostbusters also were at Columbia University before setting up their own enterprise! And it contains the wonderful line, "Nobody steps on a church in my town!" when the giant marshmallow man crushes Trinity Lutheran Church.