the groundhog day project

Waiter coded gay. Fritz a condescending ass pretending he's looking out for JC's interests. And that's where the sacrifice conversation begins. At the end of the film, JC insists she still doesn't want to make sacrifices, and yet she has already made most of the sacrifices that Fritz is talking about. She has a kid, has a house to look after, has a growing business. I don't remember if we see them, but she's got to have employees. Is she going to talk like Fritz later with her female employees? Steven doesn't like JC dreaming about a vacation home and sex with him takes seconds and he calls it incredible when she is clearly not at all satisfied. Feminism in the 80s still loves capitalism. JC's problem, Baby Boom would have us believe, is not her work ethic, even though 70-80 work hours a week will not fit with having a child. And JC is not satisfied with Vermont. Hughes rejects JC ostensibly because she has a child (but really because she bro...

Jericho "Action" Jackson is a Cowboy Cop (on TV Tropes ). Captain Armbruster is Da Chief . Except neither of them really are. See the thing is, however poorly Action Jackson is executed, it seems to be trying to be something more interesting than just another rulebreaking-cop movie. He's a loose cannon, but DAMMIT he's the best we have! That's the Cowboy Cop . Furthermore: Sure, our society may be built upon rules and procedures, but they usually make for bad television. Sometimes you have to bend the rules, rough up the suspects, moon your supervisors and shred the Constitution to get stuff done. Jackson very much used to be that. As the two officers in that too-long cold open play him up as a bogeyman for criminals: Kornblau: Yeah, some say he didn't even have a mother. That some researchers created him to be the first man to walk on the moon without a space suit.  Lack: Mm-hmm.  Kornblau: Others says his mother was molested by Bigfoot, and...

I am breaking with the rules today. Instead of a fixture of my childhood as the movies have been for the last "year" of the blog. When I was figuring out where to stop the childhood deconstruction process, drifting out of my actual, you know, childhood, I discovered a few movies I had inadvertently never put on my list (And there are surely others. Still forgotten.) and figured out which of the ones still ahead on the list needed to be gotten to. Put the list together, decided on a whim to jump ahead to the end and work backward, and, depending on how this movie turns out today--it has a 5.5 on IMDb--(un)fortunately, I asked Sarah for suggestions for 80s movies I might've missed. Not that my deconstruction was entirely about the 80s; I mean I began with 1968's Blackbeard's Ghost and worked forward from there (mostly in release order, but mistakes were made) and I made it to 1992/1993's Strictly Ballroom and am working my back to 1985 again to end the...

The setup for Big is simple enough: two sets of twins born in the same small-town hospital are mismatched, years later they're played by Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, each playing two roles. Class differences, a little nature over nurture, some identity confusion, and hilarity ensues. And I must take issue with some of the film's logic right away once we jump to the present. Better Midler is 42 and Lily Tomlin is 48 when this movie comes out. There should be no passing comment about Rose (Tomlin) not being herself today. She is very much herself, Sadie (Midler) just doesn't like it. But then, on the rural side--and about to make things confusing here--Sadie (Midler) seems far better integrated into country life than her rich counterpart... Until, of course, she says "this doesn't strike me as a life" because maybe this movie was made by the same folks who made Funny Farm --it wasn't--and all they know how to do is have character say things inste...

Funny Farm is not even on tonight and I've got a little more to say about that film. Because, it feels recently as I get to the movies in the later 80s, I end up wanting to fix them (like Bloodsport ) or defending them inordinately (like Willow ). And, Funny Farm is just too easy to pick apart. So many scenes just happen for no reason, no connection to other scenes, just to get to a punchline. Characters decide they like the small tow n just because. I mean, imagine that Elizabeth's book inspires Andy to rewrite his and make it better, or reading her fictional version of him inspires him to fix his life, befriend the locals, and figure out how to actually live in Redbud instead of whatever permanent vacation he thinks he's on... But, I digress because Big is on tonight. And, right away Josh has more personality and more motivation than Andy had in the entirety of Funny Farm . And, Tom Hanks' physical comedy is far better than Chevy Chase's. He doesn't ...

A thought occurred to me while watching Bloodsport last night. (It's on again right now, but it has only just started, with the random bits of violence against objects and that one white guy fighting that one black guy and shots of people setting up the competition space.) I'm not sure why my parents enjoyed this movie. I mean, I know the movie is somewhat enjoyable on its face. American's love action films, generally. But, 1) I swear we saw this movie more than once at the second-run Academy Theater and 2) other action films make more sense for, you know, religious folks. I mean, Rambo fights evil Communists, John Matrix fights, um, that guy who's raising his own army for... reasons I don't remember. John McClane fights "terrorists". Etcetera. Frank Dux is just fighting other fighters for... well, for sport, I guess. But, it' snot like my family were fans of wrestling or boxing. They watched baseball, and fairly exclusively baseball. No bas...

Bloodsport opens with a montage of violence, mostly against inanimate objects: blocks of ice, coconuts, punching bags, boards, Cut together with setup for the Kumite. Watching the film for the first time in many years, I'm reminded by the lies behind it. Like Frank Dux--the character played by Jean Claude Van Damme in this supposedly true story--said the following in Martial Arts magazine: My involvement in that tournament was part of a plan, launched in 1975, t infiltrate the criminal organizations that organized the fights. The original idea was to participate in the Kumite tournament and make a few contacts. We initially assumed I would lose, but eventually I became one of the best Kumite fighters to ever participate in the event. A 1980 article about Dux and the Kumite in Black Belt magazine opened with this disclaimer: Although there is no convenient way to verify each and every detail connected with this story, the editors have verified enough of the basic facts...

The HBO description for Running On Empty bothers me. The '60s are past, and the Vietnam War they struggled against is long over, but the Popes have been on the run from the FBI for fifteen years, choosing to live as [sic] family of fugitives rather than be separated. Now 17-year-old musical prodigy Danny Pope must decide whether to accept a scholarship to Julliard or deny his talent to remain with his family, as his mother did for him. Which, nevermind the missing article, this thing SPOILS so different parts of Act Three of the film. But, I didn't want to talk about HBO. I just happened to notice that description as I went to play the film tonight and it bugged me. What I wanted to talk about was the larger sort of message the film suggests to me. The problems of one generation put upon the next. In the case of the film, it's the criminal act of Arthur and Annie put upon their sons Danny and Harry. In the case of, you know, reality, it's systemic racism, cli...

If you've been reading this blog lately-- and you're still reading? --you know I'm maybe a few steps past your average bleeding heart liberal. I side with extremists. I appreciate a violent rebellion. It occurs to me as today's film in my "movie life" list-- having skipped both Summer School and Can't Buy Me Love because I have previously included them in this blog in different contexts. Also, I realized partway into writing what follows that somehow I put today's film a year early on my list, but oh well, it's already on --gets started, this might have been my first brush with the kind of 60s radicals that I would become much more enameled with in college (the second time). The movie, by the way, is Running on Empty . A couple of 60s radicals, responsible for a bombing in '71 that blinded a guy, live their lives on the run, moving and changing names every few months when the Feds get close. Thing is, they've got two kids. Th...

Alternatively, I can imagine today that when I was 11 and watching RoboCop for the first time what really mattered was watching Murphy overcome his RoboCop programming and be his own person. At least inasmuch as he does. He can barely access his memories, and in the end he still has to go be a supercop because the regularly police are on strike. It would be another few years before I openly turned against my religious upbringing but already I'm sure I was having issues with it. I'm entering the 7th grade in the fall. This is the year that I write my infamous essay about how I only believe in God because I've been told to do so my whole life and my Bible Class teacher is not a fan. Or was that 9th grade? I'm losing track. Getting old. But, I've got James Murphy to look up to. Or I did once upon a time a few decades ago. Shiny. Cybernetic. Wants to do what's right.                     And, I want to say something a...

What the hell else was America going to become other than a corporate-run, dehumanizing state that promotes violence against its citizens, incarcerates its citizens to an inordinate degree, and disenfranchises those citizens after so that their voices matter even less than before? The problem with RoboCop version of the "future" is that is assumes we need robotic muscle to put down unrest, to put down violent criminals, to put down regular citizens who dare to have darker skin. We never needed robots to police this country because we've got plenty of fodder willing and able to be police officers, to commit to thuggery and domination in the name of law and order. Body armor. Tanks. Big guns and bigger guns. And, reactionary policies that only get worse over time. After the news reports that begin the film, it's important to note that the first thing that happens is lawyers (or maybe a lawyer and a very hands-on bail bondsman) are forcibly pushed out of the po...

RoboCop is a movie where I'm sure I didn't get all the satirical elements when I first saw it, but it was science fiction, and full of violence, soI loved it... And, I can't even start by reminiscing because, the news report and commercials that start the movie are amazing. The anchors talk about potential nuclear conflagration in Africa with the same cheerful tone as they talk about the President getting accidentally left in zero-g visiting a space station. And, then there's a commercial for branded artificial hearts. And, then they get to the news reports that will actually matter to the plot. Then armored cops, locker room, casually co-ed and before 11-year-old me can even be excited by the casual nudity, it's brought down by talk of strike and removing the name tag of the recently-killed Frederickson. Then we're off to a corporate meeting--but this is the folks running the police and that was a crazy idea to me even if I didn't fully understand its ...

Some final thoughts on Adventures in Babysitting : Chris has the cough syrup for Sara in her pocket simply so she's got an extra thing to do when she freaks out in the car. Mrs. Anderson, who is effectively what Chris will be in the future if Brenda's predictions are correct, has setup Brad's acne, so Chris can slap the chocolate bar out of his hand, and Sara's cough just so Chris can try to get her to drink it. Setting up the details for the freak out is nice screenwriting, except Brad's acne doesn't matter to the film--he's embarrassed and self-conscious enough already around Chris--and Sara is very much over her cough (as she says, "it's been two weeks") and there is no reason Chris needs to freak out right then. She has already gotten to panic at the blowout on the expressway, she has already gotten to flinch at the sight of Handsome Jack, at the gunshot through the window, and at Joe popping up in the driver's seat; there is no reas...

Chris dances and mouths along to "Then He Kissed Me" and she dresses in black and white, which is an easy segue into her later dancing and singing--"Babysitting Blues"--at the Silver Dollar Room. Which, out of all the various messages one could take from this film regarding the "urban" world, is maybe the worst. I say maybe because the car theft ring is a pretty bad thing, but feels more opportunistic and less systemic. Wandering into a blues bar and immediately owning the stage when forced to perform--that's got bigger implications. Again, maybe. Albert Gene Drewery, better known as Albert Collins or the Ice Man, plays himself. He's the guitarist/singer running the stage at the club. Playing more like a nobody in a small club than who he really is (even thought he is credited as self... on IMDb; he is not in the cast list at the end of the film). This same year, he had been the musical guest on Late Night with David Letterman and in 1988 he...

Moving on through 1987, we get to Innerspace . This movie starts like a it thinks it's a drama. Two hours long, it's 11 minutes before they even mention that any "project" exists, more than 15 minutes before we know what the project is. It's like a weird rom com threw up on a science fiction film and this twisted baby burst out of a bubble on its back. And, then they forgot it was a comedy. Or maybe I remember it as more of a comedy than it is. I mean, we've only had a few seconds of Martin Short so far. The physical comedy was brief, though I know there will be more. So, I wait. The thing is, these "movie life" movies were movies I remembered watching a lot when I was young, but not necessarily movies I remembered in great detail now. I mean, I don't think I've seen Innerspace in at least 25 years. Nineteen minutes before we see the needle, and the script hasn't explained what just happened. Which is nice inasmuch as it...

Todd's business idea early in Campus Man is for people to be able to check their shoe size by putting their feet up to their tv screen and then the right size shoes will be mailed to them. Not horrible. But, not good. Worse is that he's walking around in public with his pants tucked into his socks. I mean, I had some pants with Velcro-closing cuffs about this time, and there were parachute pants... about (?) to become briefly popular, so tight around the ankle but somewhat baggy otherwise was a thing. But, Todd approximating it by tucking his pants into his socks is both kinda of awful and very much on the nose for his character--thinks he's got business savvy but fucks up his college tuition and goes to a loan shark when the bank won't front him $12,000 for a calendar. (Which is specifically because it's a "pin-up calendar" not because it invokes men, so how did Todd fund the previous calendar?) Somehow he got, I guess, a different loan for his pre...

I imagine that Morgan Stewart's Coming Home owes its title, if not it very existence to Ferris Bueller's Day Off . And, it is an Alan Smithee film. Only the second one to be feature in this blog, I'm pretty sure. The other was Hellraiser: Bloodline Starts with the titular boarding school kid (Jon Cryer looking like he's about 12) learning that he will not be going home for Thanksgiving... Or Christmas. But then, a revenge prank gets Morgan in trouble and suddenly he is called home. The immediate implication is he's expelled but it turns out his Republican Senator father and equally as conservative mother need him home so they can appear more like a family. Nice little details early on. Morgan has been in boarding school for so many years, he' snot even sure where home is. The butler Ivan is reading Robert G. Allen's book Nothing Down: How to Buy Real Estate with Little or No Money Down like he's trying to move up in the world, but he barely s...