the groundhog day project

Phil is on his way to Punxsutawney again because it is the 2nd of the month. I am in a hotel room on a roadtrip. Unlike that fateful roadtrip made for this blog, June 2015, when I was covering Westerns for a month, this one... I was going to say that it didn't end with a broken down car, but we are not home yet. We did see some movie locations--notably Monument Valley--but nothing to do with the current run of movies from, now, 1988, in my childhood deconstruction. But, today is not even about that deconstruction, because it's Groundhog Day around here. The goal with every re-screening of Groundhog Day now, of course, is to notice something new in the film that I've not seen in the 400+ prior screenings. But, it doesn't matter if I notice something new-- (Though, as I typed that, I actually noticed a new small detail, because that's what my brain does. The old guy in the bright red hat--the one I often called the devil during the first year of this blog-...

...the legend of Arturo, who was a Portuguese fisherman. He met this beautiful girl his first night in town--Catarina. And eventually they fell in love. But the problem was that Catarina's father was the territorial governor. He didn't want his only little girl running around with a lowly fisherman. So he told Arturo that he'd have to ship off. Which he did, but not before he told Catarina he'd be back for her. And when he came back, he'd signal with three long blasts, So she could dive off the rocks and swim to the boat, And they'd be on their way. So, a year later, everything went as planned. But when she was swimming out to the boat, The fog got so thick that she couldn't find the boat. Arturo panicked and he called out, "Catarina! Catarina!" Catarina yelled back, "Arturo!" With that, he just dove right off the boat into the icy waters, And they never found each other, And they both drowned. The legend is, They reu...

It's the little thing, really... And not the obvious stuff like one of the clocks has Harold Lloyd hanging from it like Doc will later. I mean, stuff like the broken clock under the table when the dog food spills. The rundown movie theater is a church. The other movie theater is showing Orgy American Style . On the main square there's a sex shop, a pawn shop, a loan shark, a travel office, a psychic, a seedy motel, a couple closed down businesses, and Mayor Goldie Wilson's reelection campaign headquarters. And how weird is it that the diner became a workout gym and then turns back into a diner by 2015? (If that ain't America in a nutshell...) Marty checks out two woman in leotards and Jennifer barely seems to care--but she does notice. She deserves better than this flighty musician. Graffiti on the school says DANGEROUS BOB and I imagined some crew member was referencing the director with that one. But, really, 'Dangerous' Bob Widin was the as...

So, right away, a complaint: the introduction of the woobie is lazy. Kenny has presumably had the woobie for, like, his whole life. Alex knows not to mess with it, and probably messes with it all the time. But, Caroline warns him not to touch it, as if it's something new... And, this is John Hughes writing, so I'm a little disappointed. Of course, later moments, like the entire Rocky conversation, or the recipe sharing (though something about the scorching butter line feels off to me), or the poker game, make up for that. And, there are little bits all over this movie that are great examples of writing. The "disability" gag with Larry (Christopher Lloyd). (Side note: I feel sorry for Tom Leopold, who plays Stan. He's in scenes with Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, and Jeffrey Tambor, and I'm like, Who's this other guy? .) Jack's growing interest in The Young and the Restless . The 220, 221 exchange. "I'm going to sleep on the fat cou...

Don't read this. Day 989, so close to 1000 entries and after a depressing day punctuated by comedy (watching the end of the final season of Seinfeld ) and obsessing about finding the original version of a particular source for my master's thesis when I could just quote it indirectly, it occurs to me that 1000 is a nice round number and rounds numbers are great ends. Not that everyday me wants to finish doing this. Unless I could justify going back to writing fiction each day, I am lately again of a mind that I need these words each night to get by. It's that kind of day. And Punch-Drunk Love is on, the abrupt car accident just happened followed by the inexplicable dropping off of the... whatever kind of organ that is. Meanwhile, Barry Egan (Adam Sandler, twisting his usual comedy tendencies into a rather disturbed sort of drama) has discovered that he can get a whole lot of frequent flyer miles by buying a bunch of cheap products, and then he's met Lena Leonard (Em...

The heart of Swingers is Mike, especially what I've been calling that scene . If you're with this somewhat depressed guy and can make it through that scene--my daughter was in the room the other day when that scene was on, and her "Oh, sweetie, no," was exactly the kind of response we should have--you're rooting for him, rooting for his life to get better. And, that's easy. Mike is not a jerk like Trent or Sue. He's not there to pad the rat pack esque group at the center of this movie, like Charles--though his "this place is dead, anyway" is amazing--or Rob--whose useful advice about life for Mike could have come from Trent and maybe worked a little better dramatically, structurally. Instead of the latter, we're barely offered up much that is positive about Trent. Sure, he's trying to get Mike out of his apartment but it's hard most of the time to really see Trent doing that for Mike, rather he's taking advantage--or so it seems...

In an interview in Vanity Fair , the interviewer started with, “This is the most romantic film I’ve ever seen with this much fighting.” Star Julie Delpy replied, “The most romantic film about fighting!” Amusingly, a piece in Elite Daily says, “No epic love stories were written about complacency from years of living in the doldrums of lame ass bullshit.” Before Midnight , taken on its own, is not particularly romantic. But, it also is not supposed to be. The Celine and Jesse story has moved beyond romance. That does not mean that it has moved beyond love. The present (and near future) of Celine and Jesse’s relationship actually gets wrapped up in the car conversation; Celine announces that she may take a government job and this exchange happens: JESSE No, you don’t want to work for him. CELINE Why not? JESSE For the government? CELINE This is different. We need laws. That’s the only way this is gonna happen. JESSE That’s not the only way. You guys have been getting a lot of good ...

The one who frowned and the lady. (And, if you get that reference, bully to you.) But, who gives a damn about closure? Every story ends in death if you keep telling it--and, if there is a fourth film in this series, rather than the phrasing-appropriate Before Noon , I hope it's called Afternoon and someone's dead. That would be the appropriate thematic end to this story... Hell, already in this driving and talking sequence, there's talk of death--Celine's Cleopatra kitty story is horrible. But, I don't really want to fabricate a fourth story. I've already written recently about how I don't like people thinking the movie needs to match up to their ideals for it. Wood (1998) would agree with me, I think. He writes--in a piece entitled "Rethinking Romantic Love: "Before Sunrise" by the way: I believe in the possibility of a "definitive" reading of a work only in the sense that is is definitive for myself at a certain stage of my e...

"Can we get back to politics?" - Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton If we do take Mrs. Doubtfire seriously, it stops being cute. Sure, it's still got, as Saer put it yesterday, watching the movie for the first time, "the feelz" but just because Daniel (Robin Williams) is hurting doesn't mean he should get what he wants. In fact, we're shown the troubling version of Daniel in the opening scene. He's doing voices for a cartoon and he's too concerned with "I've got to do what I've got to do" to realize that what he's got to do is his damn job so he can, you know, make money, and help Miranda (Sally Field) out with their kids. That's the real world. Instead, Daniel lives in a world where he feels just fine quitting that job (and note Lydia's (Lisa Jakub) familiarity with the idea of him getting fired) then spending however many hundreds of dollars it costs to rent a mobile petting zoo for his son's birthday party (which ...

"One person is not just one person." -Father Lantom, Daredevil * Right away, in Mrs. Doubtfire , it's pretty clear that this movie wants to tell us something. Daniel (Robin Williams) is a voice actor and he adds lines to comment the presence of smoking in the cartoon he's working on, then walks out when his producer(?) gets mad at him. It's been a long time since I've seen this film and I get the impression from Daniel's preachiness that the movie might get a bit preachy, too. If it can refrain from just sitting back and letting Robin Williams get carried away with jokes and impressions (many ad libbed). (* Because that was most of my day, today--watching the second season of Daredevil . It's spring break and, while I hope to get another section of my thesis written before school is back, I've got to waste a little time, too.) I think the film is going to end up favoring the comedy over the potential drama--like these deleted scenes --and whe...

I wrote this movie. You'll get that later. I saw the trailer for Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! this past weekend. It was in front of 10 Cloverfield Lane (which was awesome), and the trailer kinda of made me less interested in seeing the film. Dazed and Confused was so effortlessly set in the 70s and Everybody Wants Some!! looks like it's trying a little hard to be set in the 80s. (To be fair, I don't remember ever watching the trailer for Dazed and Confused ; maybe it didn't seem so effortless cut down to a couple minutes.) The Squid and the Whale is quite effortlessly set in the 80s. Specifically, 1986. There's no Wedding Singer -style ridiculousness, no definitively 80s soundtrack more reminiscent of a VH1 special than the actual 80s. It's just set in that time, that place (Park Slope, Brooklyn).) A couple scenes in, dinner, the family dynamic is set. Frank (Owen Kline), the younger brother, randomly sticks a cashew up his nose and mo...

Scroll down past the parenthetical if you want to get to the movie. (Author's note: I have not committed to doing this film (and its versions) for the entire month, but I have excluded my original plan for the month because I realized that the next movie ( Blade Runner ) I was going to spend a whole bunch of days on wasn't going to leave as much room for discussion because its versions are just alternate cuts, not deliberately separate versions of the story. The movie ( Brazil ) I was going to end the month with fits a little closer to this, but its variations are all about meddling after the fact, not planning. And, both films have been written about so much I don't know if I could offer much in the way of original insight... Oh, I'd give you something. And, it would, at least at some point, be amazing. But, a lot of it would be repeating other sources' takes on the films in question, especially Blade Runner . (The most original thing I could do there is not act...

Her . Damn, no Rom-Com opening. Just, straight to the bridge. This film is going to just go all dark (while, oddly being entirely lighter and more colourful than Him ). This is The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby . Ooh, no Conor at the hospital at all. This version of the movie is like, you know that bullshit of the other film. Put that behind you. We are moving on. A bit more with Eleanor and Katy as they leave the hospital. Eleanor tells Katy she can say anything she wants. I want her to says, "Velociraptor broccoli." Does that mean I'm weird?) Weird question, maybe: Mary says she closed Eleanor's wifi account. I assumed before that she meant the account at the apartment Eleanor and Conor shared, but that doesn't make sense. As far as Mary knows, Conor is still living there. Which means she has to be referring to some past wifi account in this house. Which mattered, what, a couple years ago at the most recent? So, 1) they have no wifi, which makes Mary a...