the groundhog day project

May 1984, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom comes to theaters with Mola Rom (Amrish Puri) pulling a guy's beating heart out of his chest. Also some guy's getting eaten by alligators, a guy getting crushed by a big stone wheel, the stewed monkey brains, but it's not like we see anyone's face melting. June 1984, Gremlins arrives in theaters with at least one Gremlin getting killed in a blender, one exploding in a microwave overnight, one getting shot at close range in the head, at least one melting/boiling into nothing. These two films are generally credited with the birth of the PG-13 rating. Director Stephen Spielberg helped birth the new rating--he told Vanity Fair in 2008, I had come under criticism, personal criticism, for both Temple of Doom [which he directed] and, you know, Gremlins [which he executive produced], in the same year. I remember calling Jack Valenti [then the president of the Motion Picture Association] and suggesting to him that we need a ra...

Let's think about the biology of a mogwai. It can't get wet, yet it's got blood. Blood--human blood, anyway--is like half water. Technically, it's like 55% plasma and plasma is 90% water. And, Gizmo's blood seems to be similar to human blood--it's red, it's translucent. Gremlin blood is a bit different, thicker and a dark green. Still liquid, though. In terms of evolutionary biology, the idea that a species would evolve that did not involve water in a major way... (All Stripe needed to do when all of his kids got blown up was run around in the snow for a bit. That would get him plenty wet.) Of course, just because the old Chinese shopkeeper (or rather, his grandson) says you shouldn't get the mogwai wet, doesn't mean that getting it wet is a bad thing. In fact, in Chinese tradition, the mogui mating season coincides with rain because rain signifies, you know, growth and whatnot. Water is life. Chinese tradition? Glad you asked. Just like "g...

"Dragon breath" is racist. That's 1. But then you throw a gong into the soundtrack after? That's 2, and that's 1980s casual racism. Gremlins again . Kieran's watching with me. He just made the connection between this and The Wizard of Oz . "Pointless dialogue." - what Kieran said about the mother's line about her husband's inventions not working. Because, no duh. Also, I realize, I may have been a little rude to Lynn Peltzer (Frances Lee McCain), identifying her just by her relationships to two males. Saer's also here. She just called Billy a goober for telling Gizmo to smile for the camera. Also, she might be drunk (for the record, that's a joke; she's 13). She just asked if I wrote that she called him a "stripper." I just noticed that Chekhov's race car driving is accompanied by a poster for The Road Warrior . I think Gizmo has dreams of grandeur. Kieran recognized Pete (Corey Feldman) from Stand By Me an...

For a Christmas movie, Gremlins starts with some seriously shady goings on. With the voiceover from the Rand Peltzer (Hoyt Axton)--which I had totally forgotten was a thing--it's like some film noir detective story, except with a whole lot of red thrown into the color scheme. Then he pulls out his "bathroom buddy" invention and things get silly. Then the Mogwai shows up, with some adorable singing, and we drift into some white privilege territory with Rand thinking he can just automatically buy anything he wants to buy just... because. Kidding. I mean, yeah, I'm totally right about that, and it may mean that the entire Gremlins incident may just be a warning about what happens when we do not check our privilege. But, I was specifically looking to not get into politics or social commentary today... Which, when I think about it now, is pretty stupid. As I have argued many times about movies in this blog, every movie can tell us a lot about the time and place where...

Many people thought I would run out of things to say about Groundhog Day long before Day 365 (another 2 weeks away). This evening, as I sit down to watch the film and write something about or inspired by it, I have an inkling not that they are right, but that I had too much other stuff to do today. Work on my card game, work on my short film, a trip to the science center with my daughter. And, I didn’t even get to revising my paper to be published or prepping lesson plans for my speech class for the fall, or even going over a lesson plan for the speech practice this Wednesday. Made dinner, got Saer to Improv class, and now here I am… sitting… with nothing particular to say. I got out my Chekhov book so I would remember to read one of his plays. I’ve got 2 outings of a sort in the next couple weeks (before the Day 365 party) for this blog, but I cannot do either of those at 10:00 P.M. on a Friday. As for topics at hand, my folder of unused Groundhog Day -related articles has a handfu...