Dead at 69.

Funny guy. Sad news.

Great comedy writer...

Animal House, Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, Back to School, Groundhog Day, Analyze This, Year One... 4 of those are legendary films.
Also a decent straight guy/deadpan actor.
He'll be missed.

Never heard a bad word about Ramis. Great guy, great talent. RIP

Aside from his writing credits, he was great in Ghostbusters and Stripes. His sly dead pan and witty backdoor ways made him a great counter to the other actors in each film. They would not be the same films without him. He knew that if he could make others shine then everyone would shine a bit better also.

May his ghost haunt the halls of every university in the land.

Stuart Saves His Family and Multiplicity are both quite underrated imo

Really sad.

cracks me up every time

I always liked Ghostbusters because I was 5 when it came out and it's just a fun movie but I never thought of it as being overly funny. Then a couple years ago I watched it start to finish and the humor seemed to click with me more than ever before. I found myself laughing at scenes that I either didn't notice before or just didn't care about. It's got some great lines.

"I've worked in the private sector - they expect results." is a great line. Then there's the stuff about them needing to be discreet at their first job at that fancy ballroom and they assure they'll be discreet then they show up in that obnoxious hurse and after capturing the ghost Bill Murray bashes through the doors into the lobby in grandiose fashion like "we came - we saw - we kicked its ass!" lol. Total lack of discretion or professionalism at all. Other lines, too. Like Ray taking out a 2nd mortgage at 17 or 35% or whatever it was. Just unreal lunacy. Him paying like 7 grand for the Hurse that needs work or whatever it was.

Haha, same here. One of my favorite movies as a kid, then when I was older and watched it again(and again, etc.) found there is some great humor. Venkman investigating Dana's apartment - " If anything happens in here, it's gonna happen to me first!"

I'm going to watch 3 Ramis' movies this weekend: Caddyshack, Stripes, and Vacation.

I just watched Groundhog Day on the 2nd Feb (I try and watch it every 2nd February), and Ghostbusters not long ago, so thught I'd revisit some I haven't watched in a while.

Ramis was a great talent, Groundhog Day is a 10/10 movie. He brought pleasure, unreservedly, to millions.

I watched Groundhog Day for like the 15th time last night, it really is almost perfect.

Another scene I love is Murray's "It just doesn't matter" Meatballs speech. The "because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Mohawk because they got all the money" line is one of my favorite comedic bits ever, and even though Meatballs had multiple writers and Murray was prone to improvisation, it has a Ramis feel so I'm gonna credit him with having a big part of it.

groundhog day is great. i'm thinking of trying to put it on stage, and make a play out of it

That's such an excellent idea, I don't even know where to go with it. A ton of the dialogue is stage-friendly.

Groundhog Day is good. I can't help but desire to re-cast Andy MacDowell and Chris Elliot, though.

I don't get Elliot. I love Elliot but he's known as a quirky funny guy. It was almost distracting having him on screen playing a straight guy. And Andy MacDowell is so wooden. She's got the Southern Belle thing going on and did lend the naivete that Murray trounced on to the film but it sure seems like someone else could have played that part better. And lol @ her being a producer or director or whatever. She was so passive of a personality.

/needless rant about a great fun movie.

Elliot was fine and made the most out of the scenes he could do something with. Andie, what can you say about her? She played the same kind of role in Multiplicity and it worked fine.

Do you think Groundhog Day would have been better with, say Goldie Hawn in the female lead? Animal House, Caddyshack, Meatballs, Stripes, Ghostbusters, etc. were all at least somewhat sexist as written.

I was gonna mention that he also used her in Multiplicity and she was just as wooden. I don't know - maybe it's better to have a wooden female when the film is centered around Bill Murray or 4 Michael Keatons. Someone pretty enough to keep your attention but not distractingly sexy. I mean who the hell am I to say? I would say an unknown would be better (or two unknowns) but I realize they may have wanted a name actress or whatever. I know there are decisions behind the scenes that you have to deal with.

It is funny though to read Andie MacDowell's imdb page. There are like 3 threads talking about how bad an actress she is (or at least lacking of range).

I've always liked her. Thought she had a nice presence. Loved her in sex. lies, and videotape.

Michael Phillips (who basically replaced Siskel as the Tribune critic) openly hates McDowell as an actress but admits she's been the lead in 2 of the GOAT rom-coms ever (Groundhog Day and he also loves Four Weddings and a Funeral, for whatever reason).

I always thought she was *overrated* as a model, but underrated as an actress. Even when she plays herself in The Player, it's more than decent, and then SLV, Groundhog Day, Short Cuts, Multiplicity, Green Card, that's an okay resume.

I love Four Weddings.

You left off the highly under rated Hudson Hawk.

I've never understood why a lot of people hate this movie.

It was promoted as something it wasn't IIRC, I thought it was going to be a semi serious heist movie but it was a ridiculous comedy. It took me until the 2nd viewing before I liked it.

I never thought Andie McDowell was a bad cast in the movies I have seen her in, she has never been off putting to me.

I don't remember Hudson Hawk but I do remember hearing about how big of a bomb it was. IMDB says the budget was $70 million, which back then for that type of movie was gargantuan.

I think Hudson Hawk suffered from the same problem as Last Action Hero. They both went over the cliff of self-awareness.

It's pretty amazing, looking back, because the cliff was so right in front of their faces. It's interesting to track the level of self-consciousness in the wave of action-comedies through the 80s. Like 48 Hrs. had many funny moments, but the action scenes were all played straight. By Lethal Weapon (1986), there were a few more jokes interspersed, but they never ruptured the intensity of the high-stakes scenes. Die Hard (1987) started to tip the scales. For me, Midnight Run (1988) struck the perfect tone balance.

By 1989-91, we were getting completely silly movies like Tango and Cash, Road House, Men at Work, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Miami Blues (which I love), Stone Cold (with Brian Bosworth, needs to be seen to be believed), No Holds Barred (with Hulk Hogan, ditto), etc. Not to mention all the Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, and Beverly Hills Cop sequels kept getting less and less serious and more "winky" with each installment.

You see the cliff, right? And yet, still two huge budget fourth-wall shattering "action-comedies" get greenlit in the early 90s? Kind of astounding, and yet so predictable for Hollywood. It's the kind of phenomenon William Goldman should have written about, except I think he helped doctor Last Action Hero.

Stone Cold is pretty good. Goofy as hell, but pretty good. It's funny the good guy cannot act at all, whilst two of the main villains are amazing actors.

LOL so true regarding the villains. I like Stone Cold enough to watch it when it's on.

I love Stone Cold, and Road House, and No Holds Barred. But they are *sooooo* tongue in cheek, it's hard to believe a studio exec, much less a team of them, said "let's just keep pushing the envelope of self-consciously cheesy and I don't care what it costs".

Though when you consider Tarantino was on the horizon, I guess it makes a little sense.