the groundhog day project

I've mentioned before in this blog the sound effect I call Wilhelm's Car Horn. I'm watching This Is Us right now (the episode after the Super Bowl one--I got a little behind on tv with classes starting and then olympics stuff to watch) and they just had a Wilhelm's Car Horn. Randall is learning to drive, almost runs a STOP sign and a delivery truck swerves out of the way while honking. Try that some time. Swerve your car abruptly while honking. Even if you could manage to do both at the same time, you wouldn't. Not in the moment. This sound effect was already on my mind because I was thinking about writing about the movie I saw this morning-- Game Night --and their use of Wilhelm's Car Horn was just one of the little details that annoyed me. That movie isn't bad. The plot moves along nicely, and there are a few good laughs. But... And, here is where an interesting thought struck me. I wrote last week about Black Panther , and I said the movie "is...

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...

Mr. Mom is a progressive film for 1983. Give us the typical American family with husband, wife, two and a half kids. Nice conservative vision to open up--the husband works, the wife stays home. But, then Jack (Michael Keaton) loses his job at the automotive factory and everything falls apart. Now, in addition to this being one of the films we watched a lot when I was a kid, this film has other connections, too. For example, the story went back when this movie came out, that my mother actually heard about an open casting call for the two boys. And she considered taking me to audition. I'm seven months younger than Alex (Frederick Koehler) and a year older than Kenny (Taliesin Jaffe). Now, I'm not saying I was a cute kid but from time to time I might imagine since then that she took me and I was cast and my life went in a completely different direction. Maybe I'd be playing on Critical Role tonight instead of sitting here watching it. Let me explain that fantasy for thos...

Watching Midnight Special in the theater today, yesterday 's theme came back to me. First of all, great movie, takes a potentially huge narrative and squeezes it into a very small scale; writer/director Jeff Nichols set out specifically to explore the strength of a father/son relationship, what it means to be a parent. And, I'm watching this movie and thinking, there it is again ; we're embedded with Roy (Michael Shannon) so we understand that he loves his son (Jaeden Lieberher), so when he pulls a gun on a cop, or his friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton) shoots that cop, we are sympathizing already even before we understand what's going on with the boy, and where this story is going. Watching Mrs. Doubtfire one more time, I gotta reiterate, the whole birthday party scenario plays the way it does so we sympathize with Daniel (Robin Williams). Miranda (Sally Field) tells him, "Don't make me out to be the monster, here," but the movie has already done that. In mo...