the groundhog day project

The Harold Faltermeyer music gets going and I'm all in when Fletch is on. We can start there. (Even though Hollywood Reporter reviewer Duane Byrge called the "eruption of mechanical drumming and percussive bass lines, appropriate in action and triumph-type movies... Annoying and incongruous here", the music helps define this film for me in a good way.) The titular Fletch (Chevy Chase) and his sardonic, sarcastic, deadpan disdain for everybody sat well with me when I was just turned nine and it sits well with me today. (Sidenote: I know the "Pup 'N' Taco" line could be taken as racist and dismissive, but I think it is just Fletch playing unsophisticated because he doesn't trust Alan Stanwick (Tim Matheson) one bit. Hell, most of Fletch's character, and his unsophisticated, boorish, childish behavior, is deliberate.) Meanwhile, in 2007, Reihan Salam, writing for Slate , calls the film "abominably bad" and I am baffled. Salam doe...

Ottway's father's poem is so simple as to not quite ring true, though it's understandable that a man's man like John Ottway would appreciate it. It's like the epitome of some simplistic, stereotypical version of masculinity... Once more into the fray... Into the last good fight I'll ever know. Live and die on this day... Live and die on this day... In the commentary track, director Carnahan keeps coming back to masculinity, how Hollywood's sense of what it is to be a man has gone wrong. He's never particularly specific, though. Does he think that these men, who are (eventually) able to talk about their feelings and their fears and their love--of course, Ottway never talks about his wife with these men, only his father--are real men? Is he suggesting that the usual macho men of action movies are the wrong version? What kind of men are these men? In an interview with Screen Rant , Liam Neeson talks about men and emotions. He says: I don't think ...

I was going to talk about wolf stew today. That will wait; I'll save it for later in the week when I've run out of things to say about The Grey . Instead religion... (There is a thing about wolf stew in relation to this film, by the way, a behind-the-scenes controversy. But...) Religion... (First, I spent today at Knott's Berry Farm. It started raining while we were there, and we still managed another couple rides. Point being, it has been a long day. But, I'm not particularly tired--it's well after 10pm as The Grey begins. Rather, I'm a little energized from treading old ground on Facebook . See, I used to debate politics on there all the time, long drawn out arguments with people I knew wouldn't be changed by what I said. But, I did it anyway. I like the idea of speaking up when you think something right. I don't do it enough these days... at least, on Facebook . I link to articles without comment, I offer brief posts about topics that matter fa...