The Mount Greenwood Chronicles will resume post-Spring Break. The following article, I felt, must be written and printed within The Xavierite.
On February 24, 2014 comedy filmmaker and Chicago resident Harold Ramis died. I imagine many of you reading may not know the name Harold Ramis or be able to associate that name with any particular films.
True, Ramis’s name may not carry the cache of a Woody Allen or even a John Hughes, but it certainly should. Ramis created some of the most culturally important films of all time.
There’s not a time in my life where I can remember not having knowledge (and a deep love) for a film called Ghostbusters. Ramis was the genius, along with fellow comedic geniuses Dan Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman, who created the team of rag-tag paranormal investigators.
I have fond memories of running around my Grandma Donna’s basement with my brother, pretending we were the Ghostbusters and acting out scenes from the movie.
As I got older, I discovered more of Ramis’s work. There’s not a day I go golfing with my dad or brother where lines from Caddyshack (both written and directed by Ramis) aren’t liberally thrown out, even when they don’t apply to a given situation on the course.
Even on days when my mom has fallen into routine, you might ask her “How’d your day go mom?” and she’ll respond, “My life is like Groundhog Day. I just did the same old stuff.”
Some of the greatest comedies from the 1980s and 1990s have Ramis’s touch.
A few of most notable include: National Lampoon’s Animal House, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Ghostbusters II, Groundhog Day and Analyze This.
I am a film fanatic and Ghostbusters is one of the first movies that I remember having a strong liking for. For the longest time I probably would’ve called it my favorite movie.
I rewatched the film on Saturday of last week and you know what? It’s still one of my favorite movies.
Then that got me thinking back to another Ramis film – Groundhog Day: one of the most original films ever made.
In the picture, Bill Murray plays a Pittsburgh weatherman sentenced by some unknown power to relive the most recent Groundhog Day over and over and over again, until he learns the error of his ways.
It’s a sweet film in which Bill Murray gives one of his best performances and perhaps one of the best performances in a comedy/fantasy film.
But at the film’s core is the razor sharp writing of Ramis and the pleasantly witty direction he employed with every film he made.
Where many film publications and scholars rank the movies of Harold Ramis, I am not sure.
What I am sure of, however, is that Ramis was a filmmaker who touched my life and I know the lives of countless others who fell in love over and over and over again with Groundhog Day, who can’t step on a golf course without shouting “IT’S IN THE HOLE!” or who learned through Ghostbusters that there truly is not a sight more terrifying/hilarious than a seven-story marshmallow man.
I never knew Harold Ramis personally, yet his films touched me in a very personal way.
In fact, I’d dare say they touched me in the way that is most personal: they made me laugh.
Anyone who uses their talent and resources to make people’s lives a little better by making them laugh is OK in my book.
So, by that standard, Ramis is great in my book for making me and millions of others, laugh countless times.
Brian Laughran
Senior Viewpoints Editor