the groundhog day project

Sometimes Roger Ebert was just wrong. I still enjoy his reviews, and he is often worth citing, but that doesn't mean he is infallible. Regarding Footloose , he writes : "Footloose" is a seriously confused movie that tries to do three things, and does all of them badly. It wants to tell the story of a conflict Ina. Town, it wants to introduce some flashy teenage characters, and part of the time it wants to be a music video. Also, Roger writes: I seriously doubt a town like this exists anywhere outside of standard movie clichés. The town of Henryetta, Oklahoma, has a law--dating back to 1979 but still on the books as of last year --restricting where public dances can happen, and apparently the law "watered down an earlier ruling that banned all public dancing regardless of location." The ordinance forbade "dance halls" from being located within 500 feet of any church or school. And, the film was supposedly inspired by Elmore City, also in Oklahoma...

I wrote about Footloose --my first film for 1984 in this childhood deconstruction--once before in this blog. I used it to begin my Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon -inspired month back in February 2016. And, speaking of tying things together--the title of that entry, taking its title from a line from the film, was " all of our lives are ties up with each other "--the film begins with random pairs of feet dancing to the titular Kenny Loggins tune. No characters, no faces. It's deliberately universalizing in its fun. Those feet could be anybody, any of us. And then, there's the preaching, and then high school girls being bad (and doing dangerous things; at least Ariel (Lori Singer) risk serious injury, anyway). I wrote before several attempts to link the characters to The Tempest through the name Ariel. I didn't write much about religion, but religion is all over this film. From Reverend Moore's (John Lithgow) opening sermon to the oppressive atmosphere all over the...

One of my family's videotapes when I was a kid, often watched and rewatched, had Footloose , Romancing the Stone and Splash . But, it's been a while. There was a serious paragraph about religion I had going already before I pushed play on Footloose and then the song started and there's close ups on feet dancing and I just don't feel like ranting. Then, Reverend Moore (John Lithgow) starts talking and I'm tempted to rant all over again. Except he's a pretty good preacher. He gets into it. Hits the podium and everything. And, I really like that the film starts with him before we get to really meet Ren (Kevin Bacon) or Ariel (Lori Singer). We even get dialogue from Vi Moore (Dianne Wiest, who we just saw in Snecdoche, New York recently) before Ren's mother (Frances Lee McCain) or Ren get to speak. (The role of Vi Moore, by the way, is played in the recent remake by none other than Groundhog Day 's Andie MacDowell.) Then, we go off with Ariel and he...