the groundhog day project

Opening music: "Hoochie Coochie Man" by Muddy Waters. Minus a point right off the bat. Mark spent the previous night drinking, and wakes in bed with a woman he does not remember. Not a race problem, but still an immediate negative. This guy should not be going to Harvard. (That woman in his bed is Missy from Bill & Ted and Kim from Summer School . Amy Stoch as girl who doesn't even get a name here.) He also has a bucket of tennis balls to turn off two separate alarms (set for noon). He's a Ferris Bueller-wannabe asshole, is what he is. Minor thing in Mark's favor later: as a lawyer he may be able to sue his father over spending money from what his father specifically calls his "tuition account" on a timeshare in a condo in Barbados. Calling it a "tuition account" sounds like at the least an oral agreement, and based on how banks deal with things like that today, the account itself might have been labeled per its purpose and prob...

Maybe it is because I am old, or because this apartment is often quite noisy, or just because, but I like having subtitles turned on when I watch movies, especially when I'm writing this blog. The Private Eyes ' DVD has no subtitles. And, tonight, I've got a commentary track playing--costar and cowriter Tim Conway and director Lang Elliott--and can barely hear the dialogue from the movie. Fortunately, I have seen this movie so many times that I know the dialogue anyway. Lots of talk about the Biltmore House to start. Then, some talk about the car--I'm fairly sure Conway is kidding, but he implies that they didn't tell the car's owner they intended to crash it into the water. A bunch of things right away that are in the IMDb trivia section--stunt guy nearly drowned when that car was stuck in the mud, a valuable book went missing from the library and the FBI got involved. Perhaps once we're past the opening credits, there will be more interesting insights. C...

On the one hand, I feel like I neglected the commentary track because I got to rambling about my own experience at summer camp--well, one particular detail of it, anyway; I could probably ramble about more, actually. Now, this isn't so bad, because if there is any point to this current sub-project of the Groundhog Day Project , this childhood deconstruction thing, ties right into it. I mean, what matters is what these movies taught me, sure. What they instilled in me when I watched them over and over again when I was young. But also, what came later? What memories get twisted into these movies? What do they make me think about? The Star Wars trilogy, for example, reminds me of one particular day when I was home sick from school and I rested on the couch and watched all three in a row. And, by the time Return of the Jedi was on, I was feeling a little better, so I was playing with my AT-AT and my action figures and that AT-AT was far more dexterous than any in the movies, standing...

Tonight--not that this was ever a part of my childhood--I've got the commentary track playing on Meatballs . Director Ivan Reitman and writer/producer Daniel Goldberg. They might not say anything interesting. I'm going in blind. Opening scene was a pickup. I've already read about the stuff in Tripper's cabin, and Tripper's announcements were done after most of the production. Sidenote, as I maybe figure out what they're rambling about regarding casting Bill Murray: the "sombrero" Tripper gives Rudy later is visible on the wall early in the film. And, it's got me thinking about props. But, not hat props. I've had a problem recently with photograph props. For example, I saw The Snowman today--it's not awful, but it is quite lazily and haphazardly edited--and noticed that Harry's (Michael Fassbender) counter has this picture frame with five photos, him and his ex and her son. And, the photos look like they were all taken at the same e...

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang again, this time with commentary--Robert Downey, Jr, Val Kilmer and Shane Black. Also, I did see The Hateful Eight today. And, I've got a love/hate relationship with its Tarantino. Not love it or hate it, but more like both at the same time. I mean, take Super Panavision 70mm, use it beautifully for a some landscape shots and a bit of the first act Stagecoach ... homage? ripoff? Then, you set most of the film in an enclosed space where the wide shot really doesn't matter that much. Take the requisite A [insert director's name] Film and turn it into the pretentious the 8th film by Quentin Tarantino and then give us chapter headings as well? Tarantino has these tics that bug the crap out of me. And he's arrogant. (Don't get me started on his tiff with the Cinerama Dome, because, yeah, they want to take Star Wars out after a week.) But, the guy can make a film. I mean, sure, The Hateful Eight hits a lot of beats we've seen before, and Ku...

For a Christmas movie, Gremlins starts with some seriously shady goings on. With the voiceover from the Rand Peltzer (Hoyt Axton)--which I had totally forgotten was a thing--it's like some film noir detective story, except with a whole lot of red thrown into the color scheme. Then he pulls out his "bathroom buddy" invention and things get silly. Then the Mogwai shows up, with some adorable singing, and we drift into some white privilege territory with Rand thinking he can just automatically buy anything he wants to buy just... because. Kidding. I mean, yeah, I'm totally right about that, and it may mean that the entire Gremlins incident may just be a warning about what happens when we do not check our privilege. But, I was specifically looking to not get into politics or social commentary today... Which, when I think about it now, is pretty stupid. As I have argued many times about movies in this blog, every movie can tell us a lot about the time and place where...

Howard Deutch starts his commentary track for Pretty in Pink by talking about his director of photography Tak Fujimoto. Then he talks about the importance of the father/daughter relationship in the film and he talks about the film being like his "first girlfriend." Meaning: he remembers specific details about the making of that he doesn't about other movies he would make later. Like the fact that the intro shot of Duckie walking down the hall was left out of the first edit and he had to tell the editor to put it in there. Deutch thought James Spader was an obnoxious creep, but didn't immediately realize that would make him perfect for the part of Steff. John Hughes got him to cast Spader. Improv note: Annie Potts as Iona, saying "It's so... modern." Deutch says, "Jon Cryer, in this part, transcends acting." He's "channeling" this person. (Except, not quite because Deutch and he had a system called a "boner meter" for...

Commentary track--director Joe Carnahan with editors Roger Barton and Jason Hellmann. They're drinking scotch--"watching The Grey the way it should be." Me too. Referencing Anne Openshaw who plays Ottway's wife (and who only says three words in the film), Carnahan says it's a lesson for filmmakers, tell your actors to shut the fuck up. Because with only three words she has a big presence in the story. First wolf, the one Ottway shoots on the job, is CGI first then a practical effect, with a bellows for its lungs, with a guy blowing into a tube up its ass. Carnahan likes his swear words about as much as the characters in the film. Joe Anderson, who plays Flannery, thought that Carnahan hated him and would fire him after his first day. Carnahan says Anderson is not the actor that he hated. The not so subtle implication being that he did hate one of the actors. Obvious stuff, but worth mentioning: they like James Badge Dale for what he gave the film with such ...

The commentary track includes director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman. It starts amusingly. Gondry describes the action on screen as Joel gets out of bed and Kaufman wonders if he's just going to narrate the whole thing. As I listen to them discuss when they thought they might film in Canada, I find myself also looking at the book, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The shooting Script . Gondry writes the introduction, and he's got some outlandish ideas that... well I'll let him tell you. It all started at a Brussels restaurant when my friend and artist Pierre Bismuth challenged me with this concept: "What if in your mail you find a kind of official card stipulating: 'We are acknowledging, Monsieur Gondry Michel, that Lisa Brook had you erased from her memory. Please don't try to reach her.' ... They point out how Clementine invades Joel's personal space on the train. Gondry suspects it was Jim Carrey and not Joel Barish who didn't...

There’s commentary playing. Moonstruck ‘s commentary, unfortunately, is three people (Cher, writer John Patrick Shanley and director Norman Jewison) recorded separately. It’s not a nice back-and-forth, though already, just a minute or so in, it seems like Jewison at least is responding specifically to what’s said in Shanley’s track. The Grand Ticino, a real restaurant, didn’t want to stop serving customers for filming. So the interior was a construct. Cher was nervous about being Italian, holding the accent for the entire film. Jewison guesses that Shanley writes quickly and doesn’t like rewrites. I get that. I write quickly and I hate rewriting things. Rewriting feels dishonest to me... Early title: The Bride and the Wolf . Shanley points out the practical nature of Loretta’s decision to marry a man she doesn’t love—Johnny. But, he says, life isn’t practical. It’s “a project” in which you end up dead. So, there’s no reason to live by common sense but rather something more visc...

The old couples are not real, but their stories are. Director Rob Reiner on the commentary mentions having filmed the real couples but they were not as “compelling” as their stories were. Writer Nora Ephron recounts the beginnings of the film—Reiner had the idea, divorced from Penny Marshall, and handed it over to Ephron to write it. He would end up meeting his next wife during the making of When Harry Met Sally —director of photography Barry Sonnenfeld would introduce them. Ephron wanted Sally’s (Meg Ryan’s) hair to get younger as she got older. Spitting at the window then saying he’ll roll it down—that came from and old bit involving Billy Crystal’s grandfather teaching him how to drive. Ephron orders food like Sally does—she did so at the lunches at which she and Reiner discussed relationships in putting together this story and she says it’s getting worse. Ordering coffee, in a very specific but polite way, from a stewardess once, Ephron was asked if she ever saw When Harry Me...

Original title: Scary Movie , Scream was never a comedy. Keeping it (relatively) simple today. Listening to the commentary track with Wes Craven (director) and Kevin Williamson (writer). Right away, Williamson brings up the self-referential nature of the movie, which is obviously a key feature of the film; in the reality of the film horror movies exist, slasher films exist. What works especially well in Scream , of course, is that the self-referential nature, even when funny, even when clever and cute about it, never really drops into self-parody. The movie is played straight. Tidbit: Craven got Barrymore to cry by reminding her of a news story she told him about regarding someone burning a dog. Tidbit: MPAA censored the amount, I guess (since the intestines are still there) of what we see of Casey’s boyfriend’s intestines hanging out. And, Casey’s intestines. I mentioned yesterday how Casey takes refuge behind the television. Craven doesn’t reference that but he does say the t...

Before Phil's first line, Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) pops up from the bottom of the screen to tell us that in France, Groundhog Day was called Day Without End and in Brazil, it was called Black Hole of Love . Then he does an awkward Ned dance and disappears. This is how the "Needle Nose Ned Picture-in-Picture Track" bonus feature gets going. That's right, I'm on the blu-ray again finally after my previous blu-ray copy got laser-burned. (I actually sampled the beginning of this commentary once just to see what it was, but I have neglected to get back to it until now.) That first pop-up was torso only. Ned pops up full bodied for his next bit of info, pointing out the hilltop road that was the only bit in the film shot near the actual Punxsutawney. I hope this track is not just rehashing stuff from Ramis' commentary track. The next one is torso again, just before the transition to Day One. Ned asks a trivia question, an easy one--the name of the TV s...