the groundhog day project

No Jazz Singer tonight. Instead, I took my daughter to see Lady Bird . And, the affection for Sacramento inherent in Gerwig's direction throughout, plus more explicitly regarding the titular character's (Saoirse Ronan) affection for the city, despite her claims to the contrary, stood out. Sister Sarah Joan's (Lois Smith) pronouncement that is today's blog title had me thinking on a couple things: 1) on an obvious level, because that line was about the city, I was thinking about Pasadena, where I grew up. About places I used to go, the mall that no longer exists, movies theaters that have been turned into (I think this is what they are now) a bank, a church (which seems like blasphemy), and a school supply store. Another one was turned from a giant single-screen theater into a multiplex, and is now a gym of some sort. The theater where I worked for a while in my 20s is now a jewelry store. And, it's not all about movie theaters. Three used bookstores I used to f...

I was going to watch The Empire Strikes Back again today and write about how different people use it, how they put it into their corner, make themselves the rebels, the freedom fighters, or point out how the rebels are not necessarily good, even if they are the heroes. Instead, I'm catching up on some TV shows on the DVR tonight. And, this morning I saw Lady Bird . I won't review it here but to say, it's good; Greta Gerwig makes for a fairly confident director and writer (only her second time doing the former, and her writing credits on IMDb are... I'm not sure exactly what she's written, or how much of particular things she's written), though I hope she continues acting as well; Saoirse Ronan is great in it, as is Laurie Metcalf as her mother, and the film makes for a very thoughtful, if occasionally contrived bit of cinema. During the film I was noting certain lines of dialogue to use for the title for this entry, and an early contender was i wish i could ...

France's Ha is not feminist. It just happens to be centered around a woman, France's (Greta Gerwig). A woman of 27 who isn't quite managing to, in the modern parlance, adult.           And, I've never seen it before (though I have liked other Baumbach films, I never got around to this one), and I think I'm rather enjoying it. Its description on Netflix is odd: Determined to make it as a modern dancer in New York, a young woman pursues her unlikely goal with more enthusiasm than natural talent. Now, to be fair, the film is not quite over as I'm writing this. But, 1) France's definitely does not do anything with notable enthusiasm. She explicitly has trouble leaving places, getting up, getting out of her apartment. She wants to be a dancer, sure, and hell, maybe she's got more enthusiasm than talent there, but 2) the film is just not about that. That's just one tiny aspect of Frances' life. More of the film deals with her increasingly d...