the groundhog day project

There is no Jazz in The Jazz Singer , and Neil Diamond is far too old for this. This up-and-coming musician story should 1) be about someone younger or 2) take a notably different angle on the usual story, because certainly, older musicians can break into the business but that experience has got to be significantly different--either because of the years of struggling in obscurity, or the dropping out of their usual job a la Johnny Baxter or Jerry Maguire to try something new. <-- that is a different story than La Bamba or The Buddy Holly Story or even Straight Outta Compton . The Jazz Singer at least has its own angle with Jess' (Diamond) relationship with his father (Laurence Olivier), his expectations as a Jewish Cantor; these are different concerns than, say, Ritchie Valens' young love in La Bamba , Johnny Cash's drug problems in Walk the Line , race in Straight Outta Compton . The opening sequence of various types of people walking the city streets, Diamond...

The opening shot of The Buddy Holly Story is a neon sign above the Moonlight Rollerway. The sign is, of course, the shape of a crescent moon. Something bright in the night sky, but also something partially hidden from view. It's actually a pretty good way to start this or any biopic. Take the stuff we already know about a particular artist, take some significant moments that maybe we don't know about and try to paste them all together to make a story. I don't dislike The Buddy Holly Story but there isn't much of a story to it. I said yesterday that it feels like more a series of vignettes. This is, in a way, the formula of any biopic, not just this one. Well, musician biopics, at least. And it almost has to be. Filmmakers trying to tackle a musician/celebrity seem to always want to tell--and this distinction matters--a complete story rather than a complete story . Compare any biopic like this-- The Buddy Holly Story , La Bamba , Walk the Line , Ray , even Straight ...

I really wish that the opening line from Roger Ebert's memoir Life Itself were said out loud in the film Life Itself instead of just being text on the screen because I really want to use it as the title for this entry but tradition puts only lines of dialogue (or lyrics) as the title here at the Groundhog Day Project . (And, there should have probably been a comma in that sentence somewhere.) I was born inside the movie of my life. That's the line. I would figure that my life is a movie except, well, my life is not very exciting. If my life is a movie, it's some weirdly slow indie film. I'm trying to remember Julie & Julia . I saw the movie once when it was new, and I've read Julie's book (and a whole lot of Lawrence Dai's blog entries about the film), but I'm barely remembering how Julie's story works as a visual narrative. I remember some shots of Amy Adams failing at cooking, something with lobsters, but it's the Julia Child sequen...