the groundhog day project

The last recap post was day 1127 - a long time on a crooked road . I was watching Joe Versus the Volcano that day. My month of “bad” movies was coming to an end. Then, I watched Groundhog Day as I do now every 2nd of the month-- day 1128 - i slept alone, mrs. lancaster . I wrote about the weather, about time, about age, loneliness, days worth repeating, and solving great mysteries (aka, I figured out the nurse’s name). Then began the “month” of movies from my childhood. Not just movies I saw when I was young, for that would be far too many, but movies I watched a lot when I was young, movies my family had on video, that we watched and rewatched. Though much of that rewatching continued well into my teens and through the 20s and 30s to the present, the plan was to focus on films from my first ten years of life… ish. I cut down an initial list of more than 70 movies, trying to piece together a group of movies I could watch one-a-day for a month and be done with this deconstruction of ...

It's not just the desk lamp that foreshadows what's to come, of course. When Joe cleans out his desk, he has a copy of Robinson Crusoe , a copy of Romeo and Juliet and a copy of The Odyssey . Isolation, doomed love, and a life-changing journey. This is Joe Versus the Volcano … and this is life itself. Also, Note the repeated lines of dialogue. Not just Joe's line about having seen DeDe and Patricia before. Waturi's phone conversation, the oft repeated "I'm not arguing that with you." Angelica's "I have no response to that." Neither Waturi or DeDe are prepared to really converse, lest they have too much information, too much insight, too much instigation to change their lives. They don’t want to expand. Don't want to grow. Watusi says, "Nobody feels good. After childhood, it's a fact of life." But… The last recap post was day 1065 - socially acceptable insanity and I should do another. I’ll make it quick. I’ve got things...

If any new readers are still here--while this is officially the entry for 2 February, it will get posted close to midnight on the west coast, so it will already be tomorrow for most anyone reading this right away. And later than tomorrow for anyone reading it... later than tomorrow. But, anyway, Groundhog Day is on again, but I want to get a quick recap going first. The last recap entry was Day 884 - every day was exactly the same . (If you're new, that link should get you to an entry that will link you back and link you back and link you back all the way to the initial entries of phase one of this blog--365 days in a row of Groundhog Day .) This, by the way, is an image I found recently online, a nice behind-the-scenes shot of Bill Murray signing autographs. (Unfortunately, that group of kids was not the group of schoolkids that saw Murray beat the fake groundhog against a fence post, or I might have had to figure out contact information for the photographer and see if they kne...

The last recap post had themes of puberty and werewolves, and transformation of self in general. Ultimately, I think that has been the biggest theme in this blog. Even when a particular entry, or a particular film, has not been about that the writing of this blog has been . For me, I mean. And, I don’t need to quote that in my master’s thesis because that is an idea I’ve already promoted many times. Still, for my own edification or some researcher’s future use, this entry will get a “thesis” tag at the bottom because I try to be thorough. That being said, Groundhog Day is playing because it’s the 2nd, and Phil just met Ned for the second time (not counting when they knew each other in school, of course). I’ve written before about how it can be comforting returning to this film each month. Today, it’s more like background music, a favorite song I’ve listened to many, many times. The winter quarter begins in two days, I’m teaching three classes and taking two, and winter quarter is t...

Phil Connors is not a werewolf. Let’s just get that obviousness out of the way. He is, however, quite a bit the adolescent, going through some changes that are, if not physical, quite significant nonetheless. (By the way, the last recap post here was Day 792 - time for the big bachelor auction .) I think I started referring to Phil’s hedonistic ventures in act two of Groundhog Day as his “adolescent” phase after Harold Ramis described it that way in his commentary track . But, it’s more than just good shorthand. (After that last recap, I drifted into horror films for October... like so: Poltergeist - 793 794 795 - and its remake - 796 The Shining - 797 , Room 237 - 798 - then back to The Shining - 799 - and its TV “remake” - 800 The Omen - 801 802 Damien: The Omen II - 803 The Final Conflict aka The Omen III - 804 The Omen (remake) - 805 Re-Animator - 806 Crimson Peak - 807 Hellraiser - 808 809 810 Hellbound: Hellraiser II - 811 812 813 Hellra...

Writing on the road, movie on the small screen of my phone beside me. On the way to San Diego for the weekend for a speech tournament. Today is the 2nd of the month so it's Groundhog Day . Like coming home again... Meanwhile, a quick recap of the past month of this blog [and here's the link to the last recap ]: One day with Groundhog Day turned into seven when I got into a newly discovered draft of the script and that opened a lot of old sections of my blogger brain. Groundhog Day - 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 I don't recall how I decided where to start the month, but I went with Say Anything ( 769 770 771 )--one of my favorite movies, and the first movie I watched with my ex-wife. I thought this might get me into an exploration of romance or something schmaltzy, and it almost did. The next movie was Better Off Dead ( 772 773 )-- (And, I still can't believe I didn't have the time in those couple days to get out to the location of the Meyer and Smit...

First a quick recap of the first month of this less structured phase three of the Groundhog Day Project : The previous recap/ Groundhog Day viewing was Day 730 – i stayed here two years ago … two years of daily blogging down, however many more to go. Then, I watched Groundhog Day one more time on Day 731 – i kinda wanna get started to set the new pattern—the 2nd of every month is now Groundhog Day Day. (To be fair, this entry also included some Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation , but really it was about scene filmed but left out of Groundhog Day that led me back to… Well, we’ll get to that below. First, here’s what the last month involved: a lot of teachers and students, teenagers trying to figure themselves out, and the parasocial relationships we make with such characters and with real-world celebrities and filmmakers. Plus a few random movies, new and old. The movies involved: 732 – Dead Poets Society 733 – Dead Poets Society and The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet 7...

A weird thought occurs to me. First, a note: most of the following post was written early to make time for game night and a busy day that began with taking my daughter Saer to the airport to go visit her grandparents and aunt and uncle. My other daughter, Hayley, is away visiting relatives and old friends with her mother. My son is in his room watching a show on Netflix . I'm here watching Groundhog Day for (probably) somewhere over the 400th time in the 22 and a half years since it first was in the theater. And, as Larry parked the newsvan in front of the Pennsylvanian Hotel (really, the Woodstock Opera House), I found myself thinking about last year when I made my pilgrimage to Woodstock, and how it felt like home to be in this place I'd seen every day for, at that point in this blog, six months. It was entirely the opposite of how it was for Phil. He got to Woodstock, where he'd been three times before, and to him it was alien, abhorrent. For me, it was a fantastic plac...