the groundhog day project

A week with Groundhog Day . Seven days in a row of this one film. Who would have thunk that I could survive it? I mean, the repetitive nature of the film itself should have made repeated viewing unbearable. But no. Remarkably, it was quite readily repeatable, this film about repetition. And, watching it these last seven days has been rather comforting, like coming home to an old friend. But, I am not done with that friend. I’m not even done with the final revision of the script for that friend. But, I will be soon. I said that there were nine tabs left, so let us just be systematic about this... Beware, six days ago, I said this: “Now, let us just do this systematically. I will try not to mention every little tab or highlight.” Today, I will mention every little tab... of the ones that are left. #10 ... because I skipped this one on the previous page of my printout - the girl who comes out of Mary’s house, i.e. the piano student Phil gets thrown out into the cold out of selfishn...

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...

A few things: I am considering something permanent to celebrate a year of Groundhog Day . A tattoo. This would be my second. I have one small one already. I finally got these videos in a format I could use. When my kids were out of town a month ago, my son sent me these. The first is my daughter Saer (who recently wrote most of an entry for this blog) reciting a certain bit of poetry from the film… The second is my son Kieran and my daughters Saer and Hayley paraphrasing a bit of god day … My screening of Groundhog Day for today is nearly done—he’s hugging Ned right now. I spent a good portion of the day working on an unrelated short film project and a card game—making Groundhog Day The Board Game and buying the blank cards I used for it (and a good many extra because they came in a box of 500), not to mention my obsession this summer with tabletop games, got me in the mood for making games. I won’t say much because a) it’s nothing to do with Groundhog Day and b) I don’t w...

Daughton (1996) argues that by the time of Groundhog Day , the world no longer supported the "traditional masculine belief system" that Phil Connors represents. She calls it "the masculinity of the 19th century" and "no longer functional for men today" (p. 141). She cites Rapping (1994) in assessing the 'juvenilized' version of American manhood [as] Hollywood's answer to a real political crisis in the meaning of masculinity... We live in a world that has made old-fashioned heroism hard to believe in... (p. 141, quoting Rapping, p. 118-9) Daughton suggests the Groundhog Day answer as follows: "In fact, the rhetorical point of Groundhog Day has more to do with its protagonist coming to appreciate the stereotypically feminine focus on connection with others, than with reinscribing the stereotypically masculine individuation and domination glorified in films.... (p. 141) (And, I believe I've quoted that passage before, but I will ...