the groundhog day project

The past week here tied together around The Magnificent Seven (it's original and it's remake) and A Bug's Life , and I didn't expect it to bring me to the place I am today, to the rant I expect to get into in a moment. See, here's what the last few hours of my life were like. I had A Bug's Life playing while I was working on stone stuff on the computer, figuring on writing a nice casual blog entry later, wondering what I will do tomorrow between Wonder Woman and it being the 2nd, which means I should be watching Groundhog Day . Then, I turned on Trump's speech about pulling out of the Paris Accord (with an introduction by Trump's official MC, Vice President Mike Pence, and followed by today's Trump Cheerleader Scott Pruitt offering up a bunch of rah rah bullshit). Then, I turned on the soundtrack to the Groundhog Day musical and made some tea to improve my mood. The ants (and the grasshoppers) in A Bug's Life were written and performed by ad...

1. The heroes are professionals. The interesting thing, taking A Bug's Life as taking its plot from Seven Samurai or the Magnificent Seven is that Flik (Dave Foley) is both the Old Man/Emma Cullen summoner role but he is also the Kambei/Chris/Sam leader role of what would be the titular group if this were called, say, Nine Circus Bugs . 3. The villains are very strong. The grasshoppers come, of course. Like the bandits in Seven Samurai or the original The Magnificent Seven , or Bogue and his hired guns in the remake. A Bug's Life borrows The Ant and the Grasshopper . Hopper (Kevin Spacey) doesn't kill anyone--this is a family-friendly version of the story--but he does threaten it. 4. The society is ineffective, incapable of defending itself. The best they can do is gather food all over again and send Flik on what they assume is a suicide mission, if he doesn't just give up right away. 7. The heroes form a group for the job. Taken out of order, here, of...

Bernardo (Charles Bronson) makes for an interesting sort of heart to the titular Magnificent Seven . Sure, Chico (Horst Buchholz) is the passionate one, but Bernardo seems to be the one who really feels what's going on. Interestingly, he almost doesn't take the job because he's used to better pay. The prospect of six men (later seven) versus thirty guns causes him to pause in his wood chopping (which he is doing to earn his breakfast when Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen) come for him). "I admire your notion of fair odds, mister," he tells Chris. Against bigger odds before he was paid $600, and $800 for another job. They tell him the offer is $20, then they start to walk away. "Right now, that's a lot," he tells them. And, he goes back to chopping wood. The thing is, he doesn't just need money. He needs something to do. Three village kids come to Bernardo at one point later and he tells them they could be hurt, they rightly point out t...

I never really wrote about the original The Magnificent Seven in this blog. (One of a few times that exhaustion at the end of a long day kept me from really putting in an effort here.) Also, it only just occurred to me, as the men from the Mexican town have come to Chris (Yul Brynner) for help, that aside from one detail--Flik being an outcast from his village rather than a stranger-- A Bug's Life is basically this film, or rather Seven Samurai . And, I'm wondering how I never got that before. It's so obvious. Now, I'm wondering what else I have missed in the movies I've seen, what references went over my head because of particular timing or a lack of familiarity? I have seen Seven Samurai but maybe only once all the way through. It's also the plot of many a D&D module. It's such a simple plot hook--a village is in trouble, and a bunch of men (usually men) have the skills to save it from its attackers. Bring your gunslinging, your knife-throwing...

How The Magnificent Seven is quintessentially American (even when it shares so much with stories from around the world and deliberately apes Japan's Seven Samurai ) is kind of simple. Think politically, socially, and consider these words from Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) in the church at the beginning of the film: This is what you love, what you'd die for. And what your children and your children's children will work on, suffer for, be consumed by. ... Now, I come here for gold. Gold. This country has long equated democracy with capitalism, capitalism with God. So, you're standing not only in the way of progress and capital. You're standing in the way of God! And for what? ... Land. This is no longer land. The moment I put a pin in the map, the day I descended into this godforsaken valley and cast my gaze upon it, it ceased to be land and became... Dust. ... This is your God? And, he pours the dirt onto the floor. First, some history. While Bogue is not entirely wro...

I wrote a bit about The Magnificent Seven a few days ago . Talking about character classes (a la Dungeons & Dragons ) and archetypes, how each character needs to have a different personality trait or skill that makes them distinct from the other characters. What The Encylopedia of Fantasy refers to as the "seven samurai" and TV Tropes calls "the magnificent seven samurai". A reminder: I'm watching the latest incarnation of The Magnificent Seven tonight, so the seven are: Denzel Washington as Sam Chisolm, the leader, a warrant officer Chris Pratt as Josh Faraday, a gambler Ethan Hawke as Goodnight Robicheaux, the veteran sharpshooter Vincent D'Onofrio as Jack Horne, the mountain man, who is also religious Byung-hun Lee as Billy Rocks, the knife thrower (and "a mysterious man of the Orient") Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Vasquez, an outlaw Martin Sensmeier as Red Harvest, a Comanche warrior Plus Haley Bennett as Emma Cullen, the woman who gets ...

Permit a sidetrack. Not that there's a clear throughline driving me this month. I wanted to revive this thing and I did, and I've mostly just been winging it. One day at a time. Life is good that way. Make plans, sure. But, it's each day that matters. Do the useful things, the productive things, but also find time for the fun things. Save Buster from choking and light a woman's cigarette... Not that I want to get into Groundhog Day references right now. King Arthur is today's film. And, what TV Tropes calls "Cast Calculus" (or more specifically, depending on how this goes, "The Five Man Band" or The Magnificent Seven Samurai"), and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy labels simply as "Seven Samurai." Specifically, because lately I think about way too much in terms of Dungeons and Dragons references (because D&D takes up far too much of my spare time), I noticed as I watched King Arthur last night that Arthur and his Knights p...

I like how The Magnificent Seven is so polite about naming it's inspiration--based on the Japanese film The Seven Samurai and all that. I don't particularly like (though I do) how this movie is already behind me because the end of this spring quarter was worth celebrating. Went out for a late dinner after class.