the groundhog day project

Today is Day 1279, which means that 1278 days ago... No, that's that not true. Day 1000 , I stopped this blog. I had completed (except for a few edits required by faculty later) my master's thesis about blogging and about the presentation of identity on the Internet, and I decided a few days earlier that 1000 was a nice round number and I would finish up this thing and do something else. I tried my hand at YouTube movie reviews for a bit, tried to build a review blog , and eventually made my way back here. So, really, it was 1644 days ago that I sat down to watch Groundhog Day and write about it. Every day. For a year. And, I altered the course of my life. Now, arguably, every little decision does that. One of the points you could take from Groundhog Day . Each little decision has repercussions. I wish the shows around them were better (so I could recommend them), because Joan of Arcadia had a science fair scene and John from Cincinnati had a parking lot barbecue scene th...

Both Brigsby Bear and Dave Made a Maze , about which I have been obsessing a bit of late-- Brigsby Bear Dave Made a Maze day 1229 - dreams and imaginations to help us escape day 1230 - it means something day 1231 - the best version of yourself day 1243 - i wanted to make something day 1244 - it's a little on the nose day 1245 - get the story to come off the page day 1246 - everything we've got to work with day 1247 - people are gonna want to see this shit day 1248 - everyone is assholes --deal in a fundamental need to (1) complete something meaningful (2) with the help of friends (3) in order to move on to some semblance of a normal life. In both cases, (4) the process ends with the destruction of the world... sort of. In Brigsby , in the film within the film, the entire universe has to be reset (reminding me of one of my favorite movies ever, The Fountain ) for Brigsby, and for James, to have a new beginning. In Dave , the labyrinth has to be completed and then d...

I found a clip of Kevin Smith reacting to Brigsby Bear last night. He laughed, he cried. Exclaim called it "awkward as all hell". I thought it was beautiful. But, of course, the Internet is full of outspoken dicks and pickers of nits. Hell, I'm one of them. (By the way, on my original review of Swiss Army Man last year (which has since been transferred from one YouTube channel to another, so the comment is gone), the first comment was a guy pointing out that I looked like I was about to cry near the end of it. No overt criticism, but just pointing it out without extra commentary suggests judgment. Like how dare anyone have an emotional response to a film? Hell, when it comes to how I rate movies on IMDb, an emotional response, regardless of objective quality, usually means I'll at least rate a movie an 8 out of 10. I love an emotional response. I love a movie that makes me think, makes me feel.) I am watching Dave Made a Maze again as I think about this past...

I tend to like weird little movies. A couple of my favorites from last year were The Lobster and Swiss Army Man . A couple of my favorites from this year now would be Brigsby Bear and Dave Made a Maze . I'm gonna watch both of those again tonight because... Well, because I can. The year is coming to an end. It's Oscar season, the Golden Globes are just over a week away, and it's time to start putting it all together, some perspective on 2017 in movies—putting off the perspective of my childhood in movies for a few days from now (but I will get back to that)—and make some recommendations perhaps... First, there's this—when Dave Made a Maze art director Jeff White was asked by Tessa Morrison at Other Worlds , "Knowing everything you learned from this, what would you travel back in time and tell yourself on Day One of fabrication [of the cardboard sets]?": I'm not sure that there was anything I could tell myself at that point that I would have believed. ...

On the other hand , popular culture is a dangerous distraction. This week, they almost elected a racist pedophile to the senate in Alabama. Today, the FCC voted to get rid of net neutrality. Trump's still president... And, regardless of which side you're on in any of those things, it is easy to get distracted binge watching the latest Netflix series, watching the latest movie, updating your social media accounts. Our lives are not as streamlined as James' life is in that underground desert bunker, with just one tv show to watch, just a handful (literally, he names them later and you could count them on one hand) of friends online, and his parents. We've got larger families, more friends, jobs, school, obligations, a larger world to worry about. Bigger politics than a trio of people and one fantasy tv series--the politics of which he cannot control (except inasmuch as his interest might influence the way his father writes the show, but he doesn't know that, so it...

There's a poster on James' (Kyle Mooney) bedroom wall in his... captive home? It says: CURIOSITY IS AN UNNATURAL EMOTION If you could ever actually convince someone of this, you would certainly be able to imprison them and control them... And, yes, that was leaning into a rant about religion or politics, but instead I wanted to concern myself with something closer to the actual text (or at least its subtext) of the film today. James has been held captive since he was a kid, but he thinks his captors his real parents, he thinks the world full of toxic air so they cannot go outside without protection. He only knows the underground bunker in the desert where they have raised him, and the worlds of Brigsby Bear , the TV show his father has produced just for him over the years--25 volumes, 736 episodes. He has these on VHS and has watched them time and time again. They are, in many ways, more real to him than his own monotonous life inside the bunker--his Groundhog Day Effect, i...

Today, I watched Mudbound . Today I watched Columbus . Right now, I'm watching Brigsby Bear for the second time. I avoided doing any teaching work--it's technically finals week, but my classes' final speeches/debates were finished last week. I stayed home, watched some TV, those movies, and had leftover chili for dinner that I made yesterday. It was a mostly relaxing day. There was also talk of the special election in Alabama. I won't get into the details on that. It didn't go how I thought it would go, and that's a good thing. Instead, movies. These three. All of them, ever. Movies. Take Brigsby Bear , for example. It's a really dark concept that twists its way into a surprisingly optimistic, upbeat story. Guy who has been held captive his whole life, who has had one tv show to watch, produced by his abductor father, and out in the real world, all he wants is to have more of that show. Because, the fantasy that was central to the only reality he knows i...

Really, it is simple to understand part of it. Just because you're a bankable actor, or a proven director (having graduated from music videos to feature films), doesn't mean that your life is guaranteed, that you will always have money. Sometimes, you have to make bad movies, or at least not so great movies, to stay alive, and for your career to stay alive. Michael Caine, for example, quite famously said of Jaws: The Revenge , "I have never seen it... but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific." Not every actor can make $20 million a film, and even if they can, you cannot live on that forever if you plan to stay in the limelight. You gotta keep making movies to be able to keep making movies. And, they can't all be the greatest film ever, they can't all be Oscar-caliber, they can't all be blockbusters. For example, it's hard to find the original source for this (it's quoted all over the Inte...