the groundhog day project

I've been obsessing over the Groundhog Day musical of late. I often obsess when I get a new musical to listen to, of course; this is not unique to Groundhog Day ; it's just the latest. And, I wanted to talk about it. I have not gotten to see it live yet, of course, because it's just in New York for now and I cannot afford to just fly off to New York whenever. As much as I'd like to. (And, as I was writing this, I just got a notification about Tim Minchin's tweet about the show being nominated for seven Tony Awards.) Thing is, I cannot cover all of it in one entry. Nor would I need to. Nor would I want to. This isn't a blog about stage musicals, after all. But, there are a few details that stand out. First: Nancy. I've written about Nancy many times, of course. I swear I spent an entire entry just on her once but I cannot for the life of me find that one. But, that's almost poetic in itself--that she is just a detail in other entries. That is Nancy...

In the mood for some poetry after judging poetry semifinals at the end of today's tournament day. first poetry movie that came to mind was Slam (I couldn't remember if Total Eclipse really includes much poetry and I swear The Basketball Diaries includes almost none, and I've already watched Dead Poets Society for this blog) so I'm watching Slam , even though I remember liking the move but being underwhelmed by the poetry. (I suppose I could have finally watched Howl but I didn't feel like something new tonight; didn't even get back to the hotel until almost eleven. That's how Nationals goes. Early starts and late ends to the days, three hard days then you're out.) (Separate note: Danny Rubin pointed out that this---Gainesville--is his home town.) The movie is filmed like it's a documentary, and I think it's covering a lot of the same themes as the documentary SlamNation . It's talking about how black Americans ends up disproportion...

(For the record, most of what follows was written prior to today. For my Monday-night class this quarter, we've been having to write drafts. I don't normally like writing drafts. That is why I like the blog format, I think—I just write and what comes out is what is, with only minimal changes as I go. Anyway, there has already been a 500-word assignment setting up the topic, and a 750-word draft that I put together as a sort of teaser, ended on a cliffhanger even. (I've also handwritten the last several lines (probably) of the final piece.) The final version is supposed to be 1200-1500 words. I have been taking word count as a challenge in this class, so I may aim for 1200 even. We'll see. [Note: I finished at 1320, then cut back to 1200, which was not easy.] As I write, because it is once again the 2nd of the month, Groundhog Day will be playing. This blog has been going for 31 months now. I have watched this film about 396 times in that span. That's from start t...

First of all, hello new readers. It's that time of year when people are googling "Groundhog Day." And, well, if you're reading this, that might be you. (If you want to understand the holiday, go to this entry for the basics or this entry for a bit of melatonin science. Otherwise, stick around. Second of all, I'm watching Groundhog Day early. The usual thing for year three is that Groundhog Day falls on the 2nd of every month--and I will watch it tomorrow to be proper--but alas I had a problem. At school from 7am to 10pm, had not really thought about what movie I was watching today until I was on the ride home. I thought about watching The Paper , a little bit of Michael Keaton working at a newspaper as an echo of Spotlight , plus it would tie into the one class I am taking this quarter-- (I believe it is officially called "Constructing LA" and something about narrative. Taught by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. Involves a lot of narrati...

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...

As Anomalisa gets underway again, I reflect on the days that were full of life. And I reflect on today. I think of full days like some speech tournament days--good and bad--or when I met my first girlfriend in Salt Lake City, or my second in Memphis, or my third in Burbank. It is not that many things need to happen. It is just that something needs to happen. I've written before in this blog--so very long, it seems--about the moments worth repeating. But, it could just be about the moments... the mundane moments. Today, for example, I awoke just before my 6:11am alarm. I actually have several alarms set, most of them on my old phone which is now just a glorified alarm clock. The 6:11am is louder and on my iPhone. I was awake early enough that I did not have to rush. I fed the cats and headed out, stopped at Starbucks on the way to work. Taught class at 8:00am and at 9:50am. I got a good impression of both set so students. I've got a good feeling about this quarter. It was the...

Sometimes, I just can't mince words. The Big Short made me angry. Not because it was a bad film. Far from it, in fact. The ensemble is great, Steve Carell giving the best performance probably, Christian Bale a close second (though Brad Pitt has the best moment in the film). The film makes use of clever voiceover--take note, Danny Rubin --and deliberately bazaar (and out of context) celebrity cameos to explain confusing investment terminology. And, it does a great job of mixing some documentary-style montages to offer up context as to the timeline of events. It tells the story of Inside Job in a simpler fashion, and expands Margin Call 's story into a larger setting. If you don't know either of those films, the former is a documentary, the latter a scripted film, and both are about the financial crisis of 2008. The Big Short begins a few years earlier, when Michael Burry (Bale) basically creates the "credit default swap" and banks let him buy a whole lot of them...

(There will be profanity.) About 40 minutes into S.F.W. , Cliff Spab is wandering about inside a record store--this film is, of course, from when those still existed--and a video of him held hostage comes on and he watches. It's one of the interesting moments where you can really see what the film is going for, as Spab sees himself from the outside and see what has people so enamored. In that video, Spab says: Fuck you. What's the point of saying anything? You know how it is, man. The same old fucking shit. So, I'm... I'm stuck in this Fun Stop. So fucking what? So, I'm bored as shit. So fucking what? So, I don't know what the fuck's going on. So fucking what? So, I might die in here... So fucking what? So, I haven't had a decent shower and food in way too fucking... So fucking what? How is this different from anything else that's happened in my life? I mean, God, when I was in high school, fucking up big time, everybody was always giving...

Warning: there will be swearing. I've been meaning to get to this film for a while now. Kept trying to fit it into my week-with-a-movie format in phase two of this blog, never found a place for it. It's got nothing to do with werewolves , by the way, so maybe I still haven't found the place for it. Imagine it as a transition into whatever comes next. (Plus the other day, I started a rant about gun control with this film's title, so to speak. The film's actual title: S.F.W. . What it stands for: So Fucking What? Why have I been trying to get to it for a while, you may ask. Because it was cowritten by none other than Danny Rubin, creator of Groundhog Day . (Based on a novel, apparently--a detail I had completely missed until right now during the opening titles.) If you don't know the movie, the setup is that a terrorist group called Split Image took a convenience store hostage (with five hostages originally) and aired the next 36 days live on TV. The film open...

So, today is Labor Day, and the movie I watched at the theater featured in Groundhog Day (aside from Groundhog Day two mornings in a row) was Labor Day starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, directed by Jason Reitman. It should have been better than it was, given its parts, but still, I scored it higher than a lot of people on IMDb . Oh, I’m also not watching Labor Day right now. Gotta watch Groundhog Day one more time to get through the final revision of the screenplay. Not too many pages to go. This should be ending today. Then, on to other movies tomorrow. Unless I get sidetracked. Or just want to make it an even seven days, to echo what I was doing with so many other movies last year. Or something really controversial comes up that demands a detailed analysis and an intricate study of Ramis’ themes, his writing tendencies, his Buddhism, or the complicated question of which of the flat tire ladies is which... ...which is actually going to be not that complicated, once the s...

Ned Ryerson is going about town on what should basically be a local holiday with his briefcase, as if off to work. I have never found confirmation that schools in Punxsutawney get the day off, or that workers might. Anyway, I figure Ned would carry that thing around whether he had to work that day or not, the way he holds it close when talking; it's like his comfort briefcase. But anyway, the scene in Ned's office--Ned working as Phil's body falls past--didn't make it as far as the final revision; presumably, once the tall building available was posing as the hotel, it just didn't work to also have Ned's office there. But, Ned is present for Phil's suicide. Phil does his swan dive off the Pennsylvanian Hotel tower and ON THE GROUND Somebody screams, and a crowd immediately forms around a spot on the sidewalk. Ned Ryerson pushes through to the front. NED Phil! Phil Connors! I thought that was him! Gee, I wonder if he had life insurance. (p. 90) It...

RITA There’s something so familiar about this. Do you ever have deja vu? PHIL All the time. (p. 71) A moment where, presumably, Bill Murray’s sense of humor overcame Harold Ramis’. Murray’s line is a classic— Didn’t you just ask me that? —whereas All the time is plain, boring, forgettable. Just after that, Larry has a nice moment in the final revision that he doesn’t have in the film. In the film, we see Phil steal the distributor cap from the newsvan, but we don’t get to hear that some horse’s ass bought every distributor cap in this town. That detail was in earlier revisions (as early as the Ramis’ second), but this revision adds one more detail; Larry tells Rita, I’m going down the street to try and steal one. Wish me luck. Page 72, Phil recites the French lyrics, but Rita doesn’t suggest he speaks French. Instead, he immediately follows up the French with: It’s Belgian, not French, of course, but I like it. The lines are, of course, French. The author: Belgian. I read tha...

Notes on the final revision of Groundhog Day screenplay, continued . There’s no reading of Hustler , just going back to his room to have a shower (p. 24). But, the Hustler bit gets lost in the film anyway. Seriously, just watch. Rita starts to get up almost as soon as he starts answering her question. She’s not very nice. Page 34, Phil does the interviewing the groundhog thing. He knows where the groundhog is going to run, so he gets there first. Then Phil talks to Phil: PHIL Since I have you here, I gotta ask—is this shadow thing legit, or did you look at satellite photos like the rest of us? This is only the first resumption, by the way. The script is taking its time a lot more than the film does. Both the pencil breaking (p. 35) and the room demolition (pp. 41-42) happen. There was some confusion a while back over whether or not they filmed the demolition scene at all, recall . In the film, there’s only one “Phil? Like the groundhog, Phil?” joke. But, in Rubin’s original s...

First a quick recap of the first month of this less structured phase three of the Groundhog Day Project : The previous recap/ Groundhog Day viewing was Day 730 – i stayed here two years ago … two years of daily blogging down, however many more to go. Then, I watched Groundhog Day one more time on Day 731 – i kinda wanna get started to set the new pattern—the 2nd of every month is now Groundhog Day Day. (To be fair, this entry also included some Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation , but really it was about scene filmed but left out of Groundhog Day that led me back to… Well, we’ll get to that below. First, here’s what the last month involved: a lot of teachers and students, teenagers trying to figure themselves out, and the parasocial relationships we make with such characters and with real-world celebrities and filmmakers. Plus a few random movies, new and old. The movies involved: 732 – Dead Poets Society 733 – Dead Poets Society and The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet 7...