the groundhog day project

Woman: Libby, this is Natalie Standish. Natalie is Reed’s... Oh, is it alright to...? Natalie: Say that Reed got me pregnant when I was a barhop at your country club, married me to avoid scandal, spent the next ten years sucking the life out of me, got bored with me, dumped me, and screwed me in court? Sure, go ahead. Woman: Uh... Natalie is Reed’s ex-wife. In the modern parlance, a screenwriting fail . But, nevermind that. I just had to rewind a couple times to check a mistake. So, a dozen minutes or so into the movie, Dutch is preparing food while he and Natalie discuss what to do about Doyle. Dutch cuts chicken with a knife at first then resorts to a cleaver, then puts the mangled chicken along with some potatoes and vegetables in a pan... and CUT TO timer, CUT TO those same ingredients in a nice dish. Natalie comments, “Smells good.” But, they’re sitting in a restaurant. They were in a house kitchen a moment ago, and then a restaurant. It’s not an editing error but something b...

Dutch is not an awful movie. I may have oversold its horribleness. Longtime follower of this blog, Maolsheachlann replied to yesterday ‘s blog: “This movie sounds truly awful, and looks awful, and even the title is awful!!” No, no, it’s just very much a movie of a specific time, a specific mindset. It deliberately offers us the character of Reed Standish (Christopher McDonald) just so the worst actions of Dutch Dooley (Ed O’Neill) don’t seem so bad. I mean, really, the whole kidnapping thing, the pellet gun shooting, the abandonment on the side of the road—Dutch means well. Plus, Doyle (Ethan Embry (nee Randall)) is a little jerk who in terms of what’s spiritually a 1980s film, deserves it. Doyle is the kind of kid who would grow up to be the villain in a whole bunch of 80s movies, the upper-class douche who thinks he’s better than everybody else. Dutch, whatever his style, is there to give Doyle some comeuppance. It’s notable that Dutch has only a 14% from critics on Rotten Tomato...

Ed O’Neill’s Dutch Dooley is a strange character. He used to drive a cement truck—Reed refers to him as a “truck driver”—but now he owns a construction company. That is not the strange part. He can cook a pretty good meal—I don’t know what it is he’s making early in the film, but it seems to be deliberately complicated and fancy just to let us know that he can cook, he’s better than the working-class schmo he seems to be. Later he’ll take Doyle to a greasy diner and even later proudly announce, “nothing burps better than bacon.” See, beyond the fancy cooking and the cigar smoking—which in ‘91 was more of a rich guy thing, right?—he is also prone to vulgarity and violence. He’s not above introducing a kid to pornography and he’s not above abandoning a kid on the side of the road in the snow. He’s also quick to offer a job to a guy in need. He’s kind when it fits the plot and rude when it fits, too. Stephen Hunter, in his Baltimore Sun review, says it well: But almost nothing is worked...

John Hughes didn’t direct Dutch , but he did write and produce it, so it’s not that surprising that this Thanksgiving road/buddy picture has a lot in common with Planes, Trains & Automobiles . There’s a rental car being pretty much destroyed. There’s an out of control fire (that results from a controlled fire). There’s robbery (and the discovery of said robbery while in a diner). There’s inadvertent intimacy. There’s animosity. There’s an emotional homecoming. And that’s just major story beats. Dutch doesn’t have the awesome characterization of Steve Martin or John Candy, but it does have Ed O’Neill. There’s a different kind of charm to Dutch than Planes, Trains & Automobiles , but the plot is basically the same. Just shuffle a few of the parts around, switch out the strangers for “father”* and son. * If you’ve not seen the film, the premise is that Ed O’Neill’s titular character is transporting his girlfriend’s son home for Thanksgiving. Kid doesn’t like him, gett...