the groundhog day project

Matt Melis, writing for Consequence of Sound says, regarding Bernard Malamud's novel's ending—had it made it to the big screen intact: Malamud's ending undoubtedly stands as the more compelling conclusion (and more true to experience); however, I cannot imagine people lining up at the box office to see Roy Hobbs strike out and the movie end with Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley), Red Blow (Richard Farnsworth), and Bobby Savoy [George Wilkosz] huddled in tears in the dugout. Yep, the novel The Natural ends with a downer. And, it does so deliberately. (Hollywood ruins it.) And I am distracted as the movie gets going because, do you realize that 48-year-old Redford is supposed to be just 19 years old during the first act of this movie? Couldn't be bothered to cast a younger version of himself to carry the first half hour, so he just plays 19. INSERT, me sighing. In his introduction to Malamud's novel, Kevin Baker calls it an "anti heroic tale about a baseball pl...

(Note: this starts negative but gets better.) Is it any surprise that so many of us are damaged? John Zerzan (2002), Running on Emptiness : Lovely new indicators of how it is panning out include increasing self-mutilation among the young and murder of children by their own parents[, unarmed suspects, especially black youths, murdered by the police, young men manipulated around a draft by patriotism to travel to the other side of the world to kill people that are different than us, self-medication, increased prescribed-medication... and I’ll let Zerzan continue]. Somehow a society that is steadily more impersonal, cynical, de-skilled, boring, artificial, depressing, suicide-prompting, used up, drug-ridden, ugly, anxiety-causing and futureless brings a questioning as to why it has come to this/what’s it all about. (p. 161) Jack laments to Pinocchio, “You ever get the feeling sometimes, you’re being punished for your sins?” In my most cynical, pessimistic (and least practical) mome...

Roger Ebert called The Fisher King a "disorganized, rambling and eccentric movie that contains some moments of truth, some moments of humor, and many moments of digression." That sounds like he meant it as a bad thing. But, really, that's just life. Just because we like our movies to be more straightforward, more organized , less rambling, more focused, doesn't mean they have to be. More from Ebert: "The Fisher King" is so charming it's hard to say when we notice it has no clothes. Individual sequences are bittersweet and moving, some [only some?] of [Robin] William's inventions are funny, there is no denying the originality and force of the [Mercedes] Ruehl performance [which won her an Oscar]--and yet there comes a time when we cannot sustain one more manic outburst, one more flight of fancy, one more arbitrary twist of plot, one more revelation that the movie tricked us into caring about subjects it eventually throws away. Where to start? ...

(Options for today: 1. watch Dangerous Minds to continue the teacher film theme (and because I indicated (though without specificity) I would be watching another true story today) and because today is the 20th anniversary of its release. 2. watch Good Will Hunting which I was going to throw in whenever I finish with the teacher movies because today is was the one-year anniversary of Robin Williams' suicide. So, I'm wary of the latter because it will be depressing, but I also don't want my themes to run too consistently or they might be expected; Phase Three of this blog is supposed to be mostly just winging it, whatever movie comes up comes up. I decided to go with neither, but also the second cause. I'm watching The Fisher King , a Robin Williams movie that is zany and fun, and horribly depressing on its own, without even talking about his death. I'm a glutton for punishment. Also, I've been wanting to talk about mental health at least on a personal, some...