the groundhog day project

The working title for this movie was simply Summer Camp . Jim McLarty, who plays the Camp Mohawk camper Horse, told his family he was in a movie called Summer Camp . So, a movie called Summer Camp opens at a drive-in in Burlington, Ontario, where he lives. His brother and sister go to see it and, well, it's a softcore porn film. "McLarty tells Vanity Fair , And it had a character named Horse! This really confused them. I'd told them my character in the movie was named Horse, so they're watching this flick and a guy called Horse shows up and he's clearly not me. They were really peeved at me. As for the final title, in that same Vanity Fair piece, producer Daniel Goldberg explains: We were going with the name Summer Camp for a long time. I don't remember when we changed it to Meatballs , or why. I know there's a scene where Fink called Spaz a meatball, but that's not why we changed the title. This is just this past summer, 2017. But, director ...

Tonight--not that this was ever a part of my childhood--I've got the commentary track playing on Meatballs . Director Ivan Reitman and writer/producer Daniel Goldberg. They might not say anything interesting. I'm going in blind. Opening scene was a pickup. I've already read about the stuff in Tripper's cabin, and Tripper's announcements were done after most of the production. Sidenote, as I maybe figure out what they're rambling about regarding casting Bill Murray: the "sombrero" Tripper gives Rudy later is visible on the wall early in the film. And, it's got me thinking about props. But, not hat props. I've had a problem recently with photograph props. For example, I saw The Snowman today--it's not awful, but it is quite lazily and haphazardly edited--and noticed that Harry's (Michael Fassbender) counter has this picture frame with five photos, him and his ex and her son. And, the photos look like they were all taken at the same e...

Rudy Gerner (Chris Makepeace) may have a self-esteem problem, but he's got a great view on what he wants out of life... or at least what he doesn't want. Plus, you've got Tripper's whole rallying cry about it not mattering if you win or lose. And, I think some of what this movie instilled in little kid me is obvious. Outside of fiction--i.e. when I'm playing a game or writing a story--I have no interest in doing... well, evil. Doing bad things. Hurting people. That doesn't mean, in any exclusive way, that I don't do bad things. I'm not sure anyone really wants to do bad things. Some people just lack the empathy and understanding to realize the consequences of their actions. Some people, given power--and its corrupting influence--inevitably take advantage. And even the best person, in a moment of weakness, can do the wrong thing. But, there are no mustache-twirling villains in the real world. There are bullies, there are manipulators and power-hungry ba...

Out of nowhere today, it occurred to me what was " missing " in Marshall . Well, not out of nowhere; I was leaving the theater--I saw The Foreigner today before heading off to class, and there was a poster for Marshall in the lobby. And, I realized that Marshall has the same sort of subconsciously racist problem that Birth of the Dragon had this summer, and that numerous other movies have all the time. See, Birth of the Dragon is ostensibly a story about Bruce Lee (Philip Ng), but the main character is the white guy (Billy Magnussen). Marshall is ostensibly about Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) but the filmmakers didn't choose a case he won on his own, they chose the case where he brought in the white guy (Josh Gad). Now, these white character's stories are interesting in their own right, sure. But, it's problematic when you tell the story of the famous person of color and you have to bring in a white character to tell the story... Meatballs doesn...

I don't expect a lot of words today. Meatballs is a film I've seen dozens of times at least. And, if it was ever on cable in the past, I would likely stick around for a bit. It wasn't one of those few films that demanded I watch until the end even if it was late and I was about to go to bed--and, yes, those exist--but it's such a classic comedy, and something I know way too many lines from... (So many lines from this one have found themselves into my everyday life, and sometimes it makes me sad when people don't recognize those lines. They 're not exactly known for their taste, though, so fuck 'em.) It has its flaws. I don't know if it is, for lack of a better term, cinematically great. But, it works for what is is. An early version of what would probably peak with Porky's --an innocent sex comedy. With heart. An interesting detail: my DVD of Meatballs had never actually been opened. I bought it just a year or two ago, for potential use in this ...

I've mentioned Dead Poets Society in this blog before (I'm pretty sure). Despite some arguments to the contrary--I will get to one in particular in just a moment--I think John Keating is a great teacher. Somewhere between the way he teaches and the way Tripper in Meatballs ... counsels? is how I want to be when I teach. I want to inspire students to want to know more. I want to offer them more than is on the syllabus or in the textbook. For context, I'm watching the movie in a classroom tonight. Asked to sub a class in which a movie I love was already on the schedule--that was a no-brainer. A short lecture about the four organizational frames--structural, human resource, political and symbolic--and we're into the film. Ostensibly, we're going to discuss the organizations within the film afterward in light of the four frames, but since I'm here, typing away at the back of the room in the meantime, I'm interested in how different people see certain films dif...

I'm watching Meatballs again before Groundhog Day tonight. And, while I had a title in mind for today's blog, I come to the writing of it without a plan. In fact, given that I'm watching Meatballs first, I probably won't even be posting this entry until after midnight, so my prediction will be wrong. Since I'm in a pessimistic mood, I will suggest that I'm wrong about a lot of things like all the time. I thought about writing some generic stuff about spring, but that just seems wrong since Groundhog Day is all about winter. And Meatballs is set in the summer. My seasons are all confuzzled today. Timing. That's the issue. All I really want to say, in line with the title above, is this: March 21st will come just as any other day will. Time will go on. We may make new friends or lose old ones but life goes on. So anyway, Benesh (2011) says, At a given point in development, less conforming and more assertive agentic persons may cultivate a latent a...

Just watched Meatballs . Tripper Harrison is like my idol. Jumping right from Meatballs to Groundhog Day is interesting because the latter is some 14 years later and the style of comedy, not to mention the levels of Bill Murray's performance, is so very different. And, I like that Murray's character in the former is almost seeking attachment as much as his character in the latter is trying to avoid it. Of course, his romantic approach is not too different between the two. He starts out overbearing and eventually calms down enough to earn some actual attention and affection. But we are not gathered here today to talk about Meatballs , even if it does star Bill Murray and was co-written by Harold Ramis. Dearly beloved, we gather here today to pay our, well, probably disrespects to Julie Ellen Benesh. I should probably be more polite; I mean, she only wrote the dissertation a few years ago and I should email her or something. We could team up on something. I should also call ...

There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. All you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking. Let things happen and be... the ball... Find your center. Hear nothing. Feel nothing. That's Chevy Chase as Ty Webb in Caddyshack . I get the impression from quotations in articles or interview clips that Harold Ramis was a bit zen like Webb. He didn't "want to be the Buddha," though, he told Perry Garfinkel of Shambhala Sun . "I just want to admire him." Brett Martin, writing for GQ in 2009, calls Ramis a "sympathetic, though nonpracticing, Buddhist." With that one character in Caddyshack , with his own understated performance as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters , and most obviously with the entirety of his cinematic masterpiece Groundhog Day , Ramis infused his films with a relaxed sort of zaniness that makes them hold up quite well long after the fact of their releases. Despite his success, he didn't particularly buy in...