the groundhog day project

A thought: I spend so much time in this blog on older movies... It used to be for practical reasons; if I had previously seen the film (and prior to this recent deconstruction, I didn't have to have seen the film numerous times) it made it easier to write about it while the movie was playing. Saved a lot of time that way. More recently, the premise has been films I have seen multiple times, especially when I was young. So, aside from the occasional new film that really offers something to add in the context of this blog, I don't say much about new films. But, I like talking about movies, old and new. I liked doing my YouTube reviews while I was doing them (and I have described before how the frustration with getting views timed badly with me getting better at editing the clips together). And, I'd like to do something like that again. I'd prefer a slightly different format (or maybe a bit of both), discussion with another person, but I never made an effort to find some...

Klinton Spilsbury is not actually that bad; the adult version of his character barely has to emote for the story as presented to work. And, the dubbing over of his voice was done quite well; even knowing it was dubbed, I could only really tell in a few spots. Michael Horse is fine, though his characters role is both expanding upon older versions and reducing it, so it is hard to gauge just how much he matters to the plot, if not the legend. Christopher Lloyd is good as Cavendish. Jason Robards is fantastic as Grant (though I'll get back to Grant below). Everyone else is so minimally affective to the story that their performances don't matter much as measure of the film. The structure is fine as long as you don't have expectations of Lone Ranger action. An origin story, if it is going to be an origin story, should take some time, set up its pieces. The stuntwork is awesome, especially for 1981. As is the pyrotechnics. Merle Haggard's "balladeer" narration i...

Got an old VHS playing tonight. The Legend of the Lone Ranger . Cheap opening, but not an uncommon thing. Assume the audience will care about a family getting slaughtered, a kid crying. Then, off to the Comanche village. And the spoken-word song narration gets going over a montage. Seems far too early for a montage. As a kid, of course, I did not care one bit whether there should be a montage already. Natives throwing spears... Ugh, then, big brother Dan shows up and the lead is crying again. I don't think we even know his name yet. And we get lots of quick cuts but it's not really another montage, exactly. I see the name of the star and I swear that's not anyone's real name. Klinton Spilsbury. And, apparently, all of his lines were dubbed over by James Keach. So, I guess he wasn't very good. CUT TO: I guess this is our lead as an adult--that whole opening could have been skipped or showed up as a flashback later--on a stagecoach ride. The spoken-word theme...

1) Back to the childhood deconstruction. It's 1981. I turn five at the end of January. For whatever reason, the first film from 1981 that made my list didn't come out until May... According to IMDb. However Wikipedia says the film was not out in Australia until December of '81 but came out in the US in 1980. Roger Ebert's review is dated 1 January 1981, but he also mentions Raiders of the Lost Ark , and IMDb says the explosion of hte compound was filmed 22 July 1981, so who knows? I'll have better dates for the rest of the films from 1981 because they weren't imports. 2) This is a bit of a cheat. This is supposed to be a deconstruction of my childhood in terms of the films I watched time and time again when I was young. I did not have The Road Warrior on video until I was a teenager, but I know I watched it more than a couple times on TV. And, I think I saw it in the theater. I am not sure about that. But, as I have said before, the memory is often more impor...