the groundhog day project

The Ring is not about, but definitely includes a theme about the ubiquity of technology, especially the television and video tape. So much so that I wrote about that topic for 1 2 3 out of the 7 days allotted to that film last week. The Sixth Sense is even less about technology, but the film definitely has something to say about video tape, about recordings (both video and audio) made by technology and about memory. Memory does not work like a video tape,” the British Psychological Society (probably Elizabeth Loftus, Professor of Psychology and Law at University of California, Irvine, but the brief piece cites her indirectly at best.) points out, which is something we know but maybe not something we ever think about. Video tape, the British Psychological Society continues, “is rather constructive and reconstructive.” Memory is altered each time we access it, updated with new thoughts, new feelings. Just like I said yesterday , we are no more the same person each time we ac...

“You can’t poop in this town without everyone knowing what color it is.” – Lou ( Doc Hollywood ) I find myself coming back to Groundhog Day tonight. I just watched Ringu and now The Ring is on and it occurs to me that both of these films (one being a remake of the other, there should be no surprise there) and Groundhog Day involve a sort of romanticization of the small town, or at least the rural, as opposed to the larger urban environment. I had to throw in that “sort of” because the romanticization in Ringu and The Ring (and to a lesser extent in The Ring Two ) is actually a bit negative, a hint of the invasion of the city, the crowding leading to a dangerous environment. It’s interesting that I cited Gerbner et al (1986) yesterday because I’m reminded of Gerbner’s mean world syndrome in which our viewing of (the violence in) television (and movies) leads us to conceive the world around us as more dangerous than it actually is. The cursed tape in Ringu and The Ring cou...

I love that Bill Murray's Frank Cross in Scrooged seems not just misanthropic like Phil Connors, not just unlikable but almost belligerent to the point of being evil. When he watches his promo for Scrooge . And, they've got a phone code for when they fire people because, clearly it happens all the time--Code 9. And Frank times how long it takes for security to get Bobcat Goldthwait's Eliot Loudermilk out of the building. He is not a nice man. He won't even let Grace take her son to the doctor, on Christmas. And, in the alcove off his office where there's an exercise bike, it's got a definition on the wall (twice) for Cross: "A think they nail people to." Keep in mind, Cross is his last name. The name's a bit on-the-nose--Frank Cross. More on the names in a moment. Frank steals an old woman's cab, but does he act like it was accidental--something like how Phil Connors pats his pockets in Groundhog Day as he passed the Old Man the first cou...