the groundhog day project

I don't know why The Great Outdoors starts with "Yakety Yak", but it does. And it reminds me of my recent watching of Stand By Me . A far better film, but they are so different that it's hardly worth comparing. But, comparisons are inevitable when movies come and movies go time and time again. Like, John Candy was was in--what?--two of these childhood fixture movies of mine: Vacation and Splash . He was also in Planes, Trains & Automobiles , which I spent a week on in this blog back in November 2014, except that movies was not a fixture with my family. I'm not even sure we saw it on the big screen. If any Thanksgiving movie made the list, it would be Dutch , which came out in '91 so might be early enough to qualify, or Home for the Holidays , but that didn't come out until '95, far too late for the list, thought we did watch it probably every year for a while there. ( Dutch and Home for the Holidays also each got a week in that November of T...

John Hughes is involved, you know it’s going to be good on some level. Still, my obligatory ruining... or rather a quick quote from Hal Hinson, Washington Post , 27 June 1988: The gags that spring out of this situation were dreamed up by John Hughes, who wrote the script and acts as the film's executive producer, and they're all lame variations on the theme of nightmare vacations. It's hard to imagine how this theme could have been executed with less invention. Really, the main weakness of the film is not the gags--they're basic but executed well--but the disconnected structure. The raccoons, really. It feels like something tacked on when the script was too short. And then there's teen romance that never matters to the rest of the film; it just is. It's cute, but it's separate. Anyway, unlike my usual habit of writing this blog during the film, the film is over as I write now around a few scattered notes. Like this early conversation that is...

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...

There is a detail I love in Josh's carnival ride tragedy: though he is distraught at being too short to ride, Cynthia, the girl he has a crush on (who is there with another boy... who drives ), immediately says the height rule is stupid. She stand s up for Josh even as he is already too stuck in his own short - person head to notice. He Charlie Brown walks through the carnival and finds himself in front of that fateful Zoltar machine. And our setup is complete. He is a kid with chores, and a crush on a girl, and when he dares something scary -- and I went on a ride like the loop one he tries at a carnival once, and it was pretty frightening -- and gets close to that crush in line, everything falls apart. Hi s whole world comes apart, really. And, then gets twisted by magic into something else entirely. And, at the other end of the film, the trick is that it is not rejection that pushes him to change back, but something like the opposite. Billy brings him the location of the...

Funny Farm is not even on tonight and I've got a little more to say about that film. Because, it feels recently as I get to the movies in the later 80s, I end up wanting to fix them (like Bloodsport ) or defending them inordinately (like Willow ). And, Funny Farm is just too easy to pick apart. So many scenes just happen for no reason, no connection to other scenes, just to get to a punchline. Characters decide they like the small tow n just because. I mean, imagine that Elizabeth's book inspires Andy to rewrite his and make it better, or reading her fictional version of him inspires him to fix his life, befriend the locals, and figure out how to actually live in Redbud instead of whatever permanent vacation he thinks he's on... But, I digress because Big is on tonight. And, right away Josh has more personality and more motivation than Andy had in the entirety of Funny Farm . And, Tom Hanks' physical comedy is far better than Chevy Chase's. He doesn't ...

Backing away from the serious angle, I must admit, I don't really understand Reverend Whirley's plan. Teaming up with the pornographer so they can keep their dispute constant and both profit off of it is actually an interesting plan. Except, that is not the Reverend's plan. That is what it seems like his plan is, and what the pornographer thinks the plan is, but then, no the police commissioner is in on whatever it going on as well, and they're going to kill the pornographer because... reasons. Seriously, what does killing Jerry Caesar get the reverend? Bait Magazine will likely still continue. It's been around for 25 years, so it's most definitely a corporate entity far bigger than Caesar. And, there are other, similar magazines out there; will the reverend kill each one of those magazines' owners as well? Is this going to be an overt, and even publicly acknowledged, war on smut, as it were? And, if so... What is the purpose of the P.A.G.A.N situatio...

I have something to say about Campus Man still, but not so much that I will be watching it again today. As Dragent begins, I will say this: Aside from the novelty of male bodies, something Campus Man has going for it is that while it could lean into exploitation, instead it aims for something more personal. The relationship between Todd and Brett is at the heart of the film, and it is fairly easy to believe they are actually friends and that Brett would sign that Image contract to protect Todd’s life, and would also later threaten to kill Todd and it is believable. The movie is a little tedious, but still fairly easy to watch, and that their friendship feels genuine is something that helps a lot in that regard. Dragnet offers up a bunch of shots of Los Angeles like The Secret of My Success offers shots of New York, but this feels (maybe because of the deadpan narration from Dan Aykroyd as Friday) like a more genuine sense of the city, and a sort of spirit that will matter a...

I imagine that Morgan Stewart's Coming Home owes its title, if not it very existence to Ferris Bueller's Day Off . And, it is an Alan Smithee film. Only the second one to be feature in this blog, I'm pretty sure. The other was Hellraiser: Bloodline Starts with the titular boarding school kid (Jon Cryer looking like he's about 12) learning that he will not be going home for Thanksgiving... Or Christmas. But then, a revenge prank gets Morgan in trouble and suddenly he is called home. The immediate implication is he's expelled but it turns out his Republican Senator father and equally as conservative mother need him home so they can appear more like a family. Nice little details early on. Morgan has been in boarding school for so many years, he' snot even sure where home is. The butler Ivan is reading Robert G. Allen's book Nothing Down: How to Buy Real Estate with Little or No Money Down like he's trying to move up in the world, but he barely s...

I don't think I even like(d) today's movie, and I am only watching it because it's free on Netflix. I barely remember the beats of the story, but I feel like we must have watched it a lot because one scene in particular I know I saw a lot when I was young. And, I don't mean like certain "adult" scenes might've gotten extra watches from me when no one else was home. I mean, we just must have watched The Money Pit many times. Even though we had a much better Tom Hanks movie-- Splash at hand. So, the movie starts and already I'm like what am I watching. Some old guy marrying the princess from Gymkata and I guess he's Hanks' father or something. Confirmed on the cut to new scene. Hanks and Long voiceover as we focus on mail. This movie is weird. I know they're going to... Buy? Inherit? A house that turns out to be crap. And, I think Shelley Long is going to have an affair with the blonde dancer-looking dude from Die Hard , and I t...

The best part of Fletch is not the humor, not the one-liners, or Fletch's deliberate obnoxiousness. The best part is that the plot works, and works well. And, like many a "detective" story-- like Jonny Gossamer novels in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang , "the plots, they all have this thing, this formula that was so cool... two cases that were seemingly unrelated. One's normal, and the other' some wild shit... Then you' defined out that they're connected. That it's all one case." --the two cases/stories that Fletch is working end up more connected than just the coincidence of him hanging out at the beach to look like a junkie and Stanwyk picking him because he seems aimless and disposable. And, the connections don't feel arbitrary. SPOILERS. But really, if you haven't already seen Fletch , you should just go watch it now, come back later. Stanwyk's connection the drug trade is a pretty good reason for him to fake his death and make a run ...

Now, we let that madness go and return to childhood. I'm eight years old when Top Secret! arrives in theaters. It's absurdist visuals work for me very well. It's utter ridiculousness still holds up, unlike some other , similar comedies. I did write about Top Secret! in this blog before. But, no return to my childhood, and all the movies that were on regular repeat would be complete without this one. (In other news, I saw Rampage in the theater today. Not much to say about it but if you want to see it, you will probably enjoy at least some of it. Of note for this blog, though, as I'm sitting through the end credits, a name jumps out. Rick LeFevour. Actually, it turns out it, double checking on IMDb when I got home, to be Rick LeFevour, Jr. (Also a Matt LeFevour listed under stunts for Rampage , but while all three work for Midwest Stunts, I have not confirmed that Matt is related to the Ricks.) Anyway, Rick LeFevour was the stuntman who jumped off the top of the Pe...

Opening crawl*: On March 4th of this year... ...newly elected Mayor Mary Sue Beal announced that she was changing the hiring practices of this city's police force. No longer would height, weight, sex, education, or physically strength be used to keep new recruits out of the Metropolitan Police Academy. Hundreds of people who never dreams of becoming police officers signed up immediately. Naturally, the police completely freaked. * it doesn't really crawl but that's the whole reading bit to open the movie and set up information (and, in this case, a nice punchline) we will learn later anyway. Plus, here, this text appears over a background of the cityscape, drenched in pouring rain. I also think naming the mayor Mary Sue is deliberate--and only just learned that the use of Mary Sue to suggest a wish fulfillment character in fan fiction dated back to 1973. I thought it was more recent. In this case, though, the Mary Sue is ironic. Like, the liberals want everyone to g...

Trading Places begins with music from "The Marriage of Figaro" played over scenes from around Philadelphia. Eventually, we get to Louis' townhouse, Coleman bringing him breakfast in bed on a silver tray. It's ten minutes before we meet Billy Ray, and then only briefly. The film gives us a whole city, then positions us squarely in the high-class part of it. Billy Ray's outburst, grabbing Mortimer's legs feels (deliberately) out of place in the film we've got so far. When we are with him again a couple scenes later, he's over the top and it becomes clear that this film is going to play one of these things off the other. Even if we didn't know what the movie was going to be about, we'd know that the juxtaposition is deliberate. The film offers brilliant details like Louis bragging about his Rochefoucauld watch--that it tells the time in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome, and Gstaad. Except, through a screenwriting mistake or, I su...

Mr. Mom is a progressive film for 1983. Give us the typical American family with husband, wife, two and a half kids. Nice conservative vision to open up--the husband works, the wife stays home. But, then Jack (Michael Keaton) loses his job at the automotive factory and everything falls apart. Now, in addition to this being one of the films we watched a lot when I was a kid, this film has other connections, too. For example, the story went back when this movie came out, that my mother actually heard about an open casting call for the two boys. And she considered taking me to audition. I'm seven months younger than Alex (Frederick Koehler) and a year older than Kenny (Taliesin Jaffe). Now, I'm not saying I was a cute kid but from time to time I might imagine since then that she took me and I was cast and my life went in a completely different direction. Maybe I'd be playing on Critical Role tonight instead of sitting here watching it. Let me explain that fantasy for thos...

Why is The Jerk funny? I mean, is absurdity enough? It holds up as something funny, so perhaps absurdity can be timeless. Roger Ebert makes a distinction in his review between what he calls Funny Hat and Funny Logic approaches. For example, it is funny that Navin grew up with a black family in Mississippi and thinks he is black. When he learns that he was left on their doorstep, and he sets out on the road, he wears a bomber's helmet with goggles. He looks ridiculous. But, there is no reason that he grew up black (except for a little racial/cultural appropriation in the satire to come, maybe), and no reason he wears that helmet, except that the imagery is, on a very simplistic level, funny. (Like the visual of Navin's birthday dinner: tuna on white bread with mayonnaise, a Tab, and two twinkles.) This is Roger's Funny Hat humor. The hat is funny because it looks funny. The humor does not come from the reason Navin wear's the hat, it just comes from the visual. Sim...

I don't expect a lot of words today. Meatballs is a film I've seen dozens of times at least. And, if it was ever on cable in the past, I would likely stick around for a bit. It wasn't one of those few films that demanded I watch until the end even if it was late and I was about to go to bed--and, yes, those exist--but it's such a classic comedy, and something I know way too many lines from... (So many lines from this one have found themselves into my everyday life, and sometimes it makes me sad when people don't recognize those lines. They 're not exactly known for their taste, though, so fuck 'em.) It has its flaws. I don't know if it is, for lack of a better term, cinematically great. But, it works for what is is. An early version of what would probably peak with Porky's --an innocent sex comedy. With heart. An interesting detail: my DVD of Meatballs had never actually been opened. I bought it just a year or two ago, for potential use in this ...