the groundhog day project

There was an asterisk next to a paranthetical "sort of" right at the end of yesterday 's entry, my seventh and last with Halloween II . I had intended to add a footnote, but with the "works cited" bit, a footnote would have looked odd. So, now that footnote: * Not that it is an interesting footnote. I just like to imagine sometimes that there is some reader here that pays close attention to the details and loves to nitpick when I get things wrong. I called Halloween II my final film for 1981, but it turns out, when I was sorting out my 1982 movies the other day, I figured out that the release date I had for today's film was wrong. On Golden Pond was released in December 1981, not January 1982. Or maybe--and I'm writing this on the eve of the Oscar nominations for 2017--it had a limited release in December, a wider release in January. I'm sure Hollywood distributors were playing that game back then, throwing their award-hopeful films right into the...

I want to see something new tonight. It's the 2nd of the month. I'm watching Groundhog Day . Again. In the meantime, I sit here and recite a lot of the lines as they go. Not spending every day with this movie--like I did in Phase One of this blog--my timing is off with some lines, but mostly I've still got it. You know one detail from Groundhog Day: The Musical (which I have yet to see because I can't make it to New York too readily, but I listen to the soundtrack plenty) that I love that differs from the film? When Buster announced that the groundhog said, "I definitely see a shadow" and he proclaims "Six more weeks of winter", in the film, the crowd just boos. The people on stage even have signs to egg them on: BLIZZARD, SLEET, 6 MORE WEEKS OF WINTER. The crowd in the musical has a slightly different take. Sure, they boo, but then, almost immediately, they scream yay, because they're such cheerful folk they can't really be sad about t...

Before Sunrise ends with a montage of shots--locations where Jesse and Celine have been, but now they are not there. It's an empty echo of their story. Before Sunset begins with such an echo, a montage of locations where Jesse and Celine will be. (Just in case you have never seen Before Sunrise , there's also a montage of scenes with Jesse and Celine as he answers questions at his book signing. (His book, This Time is basically the first film. Jesse tells his readers about an idea for a new book, one that will take place within the span of a pop song. He talks about two moments happening simultaneously, and we get one more shot of Celine from the previous film--that moment when Jesse takes her "picture." And, in the present, there is Celine at his book signing. Jesse is supposed to catch a plane in about an hour, but he goes off with Celine anyway. More walking and talking, but this more in real time than the first film. Within minutes, Celine asks if he showed ...