the groundhog day project

It occurred to me watching The Jerk that "jerk" didn't necessarily mean the same thing in 1979 that it does today. Words change, connotation changes. Today, Merriam-Webster defines "jerk" as a: "an annoyingly stupid or foolish person" and b: "an unlivable person; especially : one who is cruel, rude, or small-minded." Anecdotally, I can say most people I know (including movie characters) tend to use "jerk" to indicate that "b" definition. Specifically, I use "jerk" to describe someone who is deliberately or impulsively hurtful. But the Online Etymology Dictionary points out that in 1935, coming from "American English carnival slang, of uncertain origin", "jerk" referred to a "tedious and ineffectual person." This feels more accurate to describing Navin Johnson in The Jerk . He's far from cruel. In fact, he's almost obnoxiously pleasant, like when he gets that first ride hit...

(A note before I get going: I finished yesterday 's entry before the film was over and even before Craig was kicked out of Malkovich after months of living inside him. I mentioned the piece of wood Craig uses but thought it just some random piece of wood. It is not. I noticed it was the edge of a frame when he held it up alongside that New Jersey Turnpike last night and I just confirmed what frame it was tonight as the earlier scene came again. The board is not some random piece of wood. It is the right side of the door frame outside the portal. It comes off the frame when Craig pulls away the board that has presumably been nailed in place over the whole door and frame to hide them. The first thing Craig does when he finds the portal is break it. I don't know if that means anything, but I find it interesting.) I'm reading Dan Hobart's metaphilm review of Being John Malkovich and it's the usual stuff--the film is about "living your life vicariously through...

Silent Night, Deadly Night is awesome and it amuses me that the main character is named Billy considering how the killer in Black Christmas calls himself Billy*. Silent Night, Deadly Night falls right in the middle of a big wave of slasher films and is full of blood and breasts and stuff actually happens... unlike Black Christmas . While Nowell’s (2010) argument that Black Christmas was a pioneer film for what would become the slasher genre it almost is not a horror film at all. Instead it’s something more of a drama, with hints of melodrama and interruptions of horror. It’s strange amalgamated structure is on purpose, of course. As Nowell describes it, “It was Canadian and it was the product of a complex network of transnational indutrial shifts that had been unfolding in the late 1960s and early 1970s involving the Canadian government, the Hollywood majors, America’s theater-going youths, and independent filmmakers from around the world” (p. 61). Nowell argues that Black Christma...

Opening credits that scream 3D and music that seems more suited to the 70s than 1982—that’s the beginning of Friday the 13th Part III . And, this couple at the store remind me—not in their behavior but in there sort of unnecessaryness—of the old couple at the beginning of Halloween II . I guess these movies borrow from each other, back-and-forth. Lame 3D bits make this movie quite silly; guy has a wood pole, so what does he have to do for a moment? Point it at the camera. There’s a snake so of course it has to come at the camera. I kinda wanted Harold to get killed there after checking behind like 9 curtains and doors before finally, there was Jason with a cleaver. 3D warning: rat has to crawl toward the camera. 3D warning: baseball bat that has absolutely nothing to do with anything also has to be sticking out toward the camera. This is the kind of gimmicky crap that makes 3D look pointless. 3D warning: offer the audience a joint. I really don’t like the makers of this film ri...

Maxim Gorky once said of Anton Chekhov, “Beautifully simple himself, he loved everything simple, real, and sincere.” Schmidt (1997) expands on this, saying, “Simplicity was his touchstone for art. He hated pretentiousness and fuss” (p. 2). I’d wager Chekhov, like Harold Ramis, was a beloved writer who the theatergoing masses loved. Schmidt, again, tells us, All Chekhov’s plays are based on the traditional themes of middle-class melodrama: hopeless love, money, marriage, and who owns the house. In that sense, he was a playwright of his time, trying to write the kind of plays audiences wanted. It’s important to remember that in his lifetime his most popular plays, and the ones that made money, were the one-act comic “sketches” he wrote over a period of five years. These he wrote easily and quickly, because the comic sketch was the genre with which he began as a writer. (p. 3) This is not the Chekhov Phil Connors speaks of, one who “saw the bleak winter [and] saw a winter bleak and dar...

Today's entry will contain very few words. That doesn't mean it didn't take some effort (and a lot of computer time). See, today, I cut two different versions of Groundhog Day . Nothing too fancy, just used Windows Live Movie Maker . The longer version (actually 6 minutes shorter than the real version) is not online yet, but the shorter one, which I call Rita's Groundhog Day is online. Recall my entry about Rita's perspective and why she would have any interest in Phil. Or, if you missed that one, go have a read. It was one of the more fun entries to write. Anyway, this short version of Groundhog Day cuts out the time loop entirely and ignores stuff Rita is not there for-- (Except for Larry hitting on Nancy, though I probably could have cut that as well. I think I may have a second go at this particular version of the film, cutting out the Larry and Nancy bit, which means a more complicated cut from the establishing shot of the exterior of the Pennsylvanian to ...

So, 2 out of 3 acts down, 6 out of 8 sequences, 4 out of 5 key moments. The screenplay breakdown of Groundhog Day continues. Where were we? Phil was changed by the second act. I mean, that thing broke him down, killed him... a few times, and then there was god day. Dyer doesn't break down the third act much. It's all "buildup to resolution" for him. More specifically, the protagonist "should now be so changed by everything that he has gone through that he can no longer be satisfied living the way he did before." I get that. This past summer, living in my tiny apartment alone, there were a lot of quiet, empty moments that demanded change. From an outward perspective, I maybe didn't change too much, either. Change doesn't need to be big to be drastic. I still watch a bit too much television sometimes. I still watch movies when I can--honestly, though, watching this one particular movie every day has put a slight damper on my spare movie time of late...

The thing about Phil Connor’s use of Chekhov is, well, who knows if it’s appropriate… and really, who cares? It sounds good, right? In Rubin’s original, we get even less than we get in the film. We just get Rita telling Phil he “did a really nice job today. Really nice… That was great what you did there with Chekhov and the long winter.” (That “really nice” sounds more like movie Larry than Rita, but remember, in Rubin’s original, Phil is the young and inexperienced one, Rita the older producer who’s been around for a while.) What we get in the film is more substantial: When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter. From Punxsutawney, it's Phil Connors. So long. Rubin tells us in his book that he ha...

Groundhog Day is about life. Your life. My life. Life. Except, in one draft of the script, there was a reason for Phil’s plight. It wasn’t just the human condition. It involves a woman named Stephanie who Phil’s dated a few times and a book entitled 101 Curses, Spells and Enchantments You Can Do at Home . But, more on that for another day (after I’ve had a chance to read that “second revision” of the screenplay in more detail). In the version we see on screen, there is no first cause , just a situation out of control. It’s like an atheist's dream, the inherent meaningless of life in the face of a universe we cannot control. But, we do what we can. If all of this is just happening , then Phil Connors’ escape from the repetition has no logic to it. It’s like the hair dryer in that early episode of Quantum Leap ; Ziggy did some calculations but it’s all math that is far beyond any of us. So, the question is, given the way we take the film—put simply, Phil gets out because he learns...