the groundhog day project

It's strange how some movies can be entirely familiar after decades, and some that were familiar once have slinked away out of my head. A few movies ago, I realized that somehow I had conflated Big Business and Outrageous Fortune as one big movie involving, I guess, two pairs of mismatched twins who also share a man and get involved with some sort of organized crime (I still can't quite recall what happens later in this film) and end up in the Mexican desert. Instead there's a genius acting instructor--Stanislav Korzenowski--and just two women (only one of them played by Bette Midler) who both audition for his workshop. And, I'm reminded of when I went to a Meisner workshop a couple years ago with my friend Christi from D&D, and it was fun but I had issues. For one, how the teacher described the way one plays as a child, becoming the thing you are playing at being, was exactly what I meant when I used the word "pretend" which was a semantic argumen...

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...