the groundhog day project

Newark, New Jersey, September is a great way to start a movie that is very much not set in Newark, New Jersey, nor in September. By the time the opening credits finish, we're in California. The landscapes along the way, the tiny bit of dialogue voiceover, establishing the car needing a push at the Canyon Portal Motel--there is something weirdly charming and, in retrospect, a little strange, about this montage. We don't just meet Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Lucille (Randee Heller) as new arrivals in California; we get a glimpse of them before the transition, we see the process. We come with them. And, of course, most of the audience is not watching the film in California, so Daniel meeting Ali (Elisabeth Shue) at a beach party in September is strange. And really, that's all exemplary of how The Karate Kid introduces characters through their actions rather than having people tell us who they are. There's a little bit of exposition--like Freddy (Israel Juarbe) asking D...

So then there's little ol' me. I'm two, I'm three, I'm four, I'm five. I'm all the ages since. And, honestly, I am still figuring out what the fuck all of the things around me are for, and I am blessed with the wonder that is cinema. Movies are just one of many stimuli that get injected into the mix. And, Halloween is just one of those movies. But, oh what a movie. And what a great movie to see often growing up, watching the way it is put together, the way it is structured. There's not really any fluff. There's odd choices here and there--Annie could have just driven past rather than stop and talk to her father, for example, then there's no risk of getting caught with that joint. But then, does Brackett tell Loomis about the robbery details? And, do we know just how worried Laurie is at getting caught over this one transgression? Each detail serves the whole. And, some of the details are beautiful. That high pitched music cue when the light g...

I have already written about Halloween in this blog. In fact I wrote about every Halloween film but the Rob Zombie remakes: Halloween - day 427 - he came home Halloween II - day 431 - got angry and started beating her Halloween III: Season of the Witch - day 433 - this whole thing is a big joke Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers - day 443 - maybe nobody knows how to stop him Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers - day 446 - uncle. boogeyman Halloween [6]: The Curse of Michael Myers - day 451 - what's the boogeyman? Halloween H20 - day 453 - no musical sleeping bags, no booze, no drugs, no kidding Halloween: Resurrection - day 455 - every murderous impulse we've ever had I covered slasher films for a month, cited Carol Clover's book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film and Richard Nowell's book Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle , cited numerous published essays, you know, took the genre seriou...

I don't know New York. Never been there, though I would love to sometime. But, Frances Ha feels like it is invoking a very specific time and place. This is when Frances is 27. This is New York City. And, the film offers establishing shots of existing locations and also specific addresses in the same typeface as the title of the film. Like chapter divisions in any other indie film that has chapter divisions. 682 VANDERBILT AVE Brooklyn, NY 11238 That's the first one. By this point, we've seen Frances and Sophie in their apartment. We saw it in the opening montage, but the address oops up as they get home from their night in Chinatown (for a party that may or may not have been near somewhere called Dumpling House). This is where the film settles into the apartment a little more. The inclusion of the zip code amuses me. This isn't just Frances' and Sophie's apartment. This is one particular apartment out of all the apartments, unique in this time and place,...

Remember that time recently when I was talking about obsessing about things? You know, this entry . Well, I’m just getting to the big car chase in today’s viewing and I have yet to write anything because I was trying to finally solve a few location puzzles. Notably, I’m revisiting my attempts to find this location : Bob Hudgins said something about them filming the chase “between Country Club and 120” over in McHenry. Unfortunately, that area is a lot of residential blocks which even if I’ve found the location, would not look at all the same. So, I look for that “pillar” on the left side of the road in that photo. I have not found it… yet. An easier location was this one: The quarry was a specific location—Nimtx Quarry—in Love’s Park, so there were not a lot of streets to work with. Work backward and shrink the images… …and you’ll notice the hill next to the road. Since 1992 when this was, filmed, imagine they have reshaped and repaved the road, removed all the trees and now...

Did anybody else find the name of the park where the groundhog ceremony was held funny? That's the start of a thread on IMDb regarding Groundhog Day 's Gobbler's Knob. Maybe I don't have the mind of a teenage boy but I never took it as anything more than the place's name. In fact, on the IMDb thread, I pointed out that knob is a geographical term and gobbler presumably refers to turkeys... I haven't confirmed the turkey thing as far as why the real Gobbler's Knob is called that, but my guess is once upon a time it has some wild turkeys hanging about. I never considered it as something suggestive because, if nothing else, that's the name of the actual place in Punxsutawney where they hold the groundhog ceremony. Still, people insist on thinking it's suggestive. Recall, my friend Stephanie , watching the movie for the first time--at my urging and on my iPad--suggested the name Gobbler's Knob was a sex reference... actually, she suggested it...

I must admit I had nothing to write about today. So, I asked my daughter Saer to ask me a question about Groundhog Day and I would spend today's blog answering it. She asked what Phil Connor's favorite color is. But, an aside first: I kept busy most of the day, including cutting apart the deleted scenes from Groundhog Day for later use, skipping through Planes, Trains & Automobiles and all three of the Nolan Batman movies (because Bob Hudgins mentioned that the Amstutz Expressway in Waukegan, Illinois--which is where Phil talks to the trooper in the snow--was used in one of those... (I swear he implied it was the latest one, but it was in Batman Begins (and I started with the latest and worked backward) that I found the brief moment in which Batman drives the Tumbler on that highway.) Since I found it and all, here you can see the shape of the overpass (where the Amstutz deadends): Which is the same shape (but I'm fairly sure not the same bridge) as the one ...

I feel like I could keep writing about my weekend in Woodstock for days and weeks on end… but I’m not going to. Seriously though, I could give a narrative account of trekking through the snow to get a few photos of locations that wouldn’t be on the walking tour. Or, I could invent a more interesting end to my interactions with a local unemployed man who reminded me of O’Reilly, or the random woman standing on a street corner a block off the square who I imagined might be my Nancy Taylor if the day repeated. Or, I could just share the last batch of photos and get on to other topics. Hell, I’ve got more of Benesh’s dissertation to pick apart, actors to profile. And, I’ve got more graduate papers to tie into Groundhog Day and I’d surely share them here… Anyway, photos… First, this photo, taken today. That’s the current setup for my Groundhog Day stuff… though I just noticed my signed copy of the screenplay isn’t there. Gotta fix that… Had to make a judgment call between display...