the groundhog day project

Something I didn't know about Tremors was that the filmmakers made an effort to let the audience think a person was doing the killing early on. The graboid POV shots when Rhonda gets in her truck and Old Fred's death scene were added later when the studio decided to advertise the film specifically as a monster movie. In a way, if the studio hadn't jumped in, this could play like a slasher film almost. Except that most of the cast are adults, and most of them are quite capable. I also hadn't really noticed (and learned from IMDb trivia) that aside from two interiors--Walter's store and the Gummers' basement (and inside a couple pickups)--every scene takes place outside, which fits with our leads. They sleep outside, even though they clearly have a trailer; we see them exit it after the septic tank mishap, freshly showered and heading out of town. Whether monster movie or slasher film, or whatever other subgenre of horror you want to call it, this is a not...

Ned Ryerson is going about town on what should basically be a local holiday with his briefcase, as if off to work. I have never found confirmation that schools in Punxsutawney get the day off, or that workers might. Anyway, I figure Ned would carry that thing around whether he had to work that day or not, the way he holds it close when talking; it's like his comfort briefcase. But anyway, the scene in Ned's office--Ned working as Phil's body falls past--didn't make it as far as the final revision; presumably, once the tall building available was posing as the hotel, it just didn't work to also have Ned's office there. But, Ned is present for Phil's suicide. Phil does his swan dive off the Pennsylvanian Hotel tower and ON THE GROUND Somebody screams, and a crowd immediately forms around a spot on the sidewalk. Ned Ryerson pushes through to the front. NED Phil! Phil Connors! I thought that was him! Gee, I wonder if he had life insurance. (p. 90) It...

I put out a request in the Day 365 party invite page on Facebook today. I want people to share their thoughts on Groundhog Day or the Groundhog Day Project and email them to me before that last day, so I can share them in the final entry. Here, I would like to invite strangers (or those I have met through this blog but that for geographic or whatever reason were not invited to the party) to share as well. So, email them to robertegblack@hotmail.com , and I will compile them and share on Day 365. My daughter, Saer, 11 1/2, immediately wanted to write something, and then the thing she was typing got rather lengthy, so I told her I would share it as its own thing. Saer, just now, as she was typing: "I can't believe you do this on a daily basis." Anyway, here is what she wrote: Being the daughter of the person who started “The Groundhog Day Project” I have seen the movie way too many times. I will admit, though, this is one of my favorite movies. I just don’t think I’...

Two months since Luc was killed. Jack just saved a kid from getting hit by a truck--and didn't get thanked. Oh, watching the season two premiere of Tru Calling - "Perfect Storm." (In other news, I got my LEGO version of Gobbler's Knob started and I think I figured out all the mechanics for the Groundhog Day board game.) I'm wondering, as this episode goes, how Jack is as good at what he does as he is. Conversation between Jack and Tru's father implied that the good/bad pairing used to be Tru's mother/Tru's father, and now it is Tru/Jack. There wasn't some interim good rewinder between the time of Tru's mother's death and Tru's first rewind. So, prior to Jack arriving on the scene a few episodes before the end of the first season, he wasn't acting against anyone, so he shouldn't be as good at this as he is. Less important nitpick: Jack was not there when Tru got information on the boating emergency so he shouldn't h...

Watching another episode of Tru Calling (episode 12 - "Valentine") and it's shaping up to be the most like Groundhog Day yet; a blocked road, an isolated location (even no cell service--which was not an issue for Phil in the movie but was an issue in Ramis' drafts; Phil drove up in his own car and had a car phone which cuts out at one point.). But, it's Tru Calling so there's a murder. (For the record, I called which guest star was the murderer, but then he showed up dead... but with what looked like scratches on his neck like maybe he tried to kill again and got scratched. I'm not ruling out the possibility that I am wrong.) Something occurred to me while watching Groundhog Day today. Ned is not interested in getting reacquainted with Phil. At least not in the film version. In Ramis' drafts, Ned is excited just to be recognized by Phil. But, in the final product, Ned is just trying to take advantage of their past relationship to make a sale. C...

Two things: I just watched a short film Pablo (speech team member) posted to me on Facebook a couple days ago. And, I've been prompted with another sort of oddball topic from my daughter Saer. First, the short film-- The Other Side of Yesterday is a fairly simple thing, less than 10 minutes long, only two actors wandering around LACMA and talking. See, the woman, Iris--and I'll try not to be too SPOILERY--is stuck in yesterday, a trip to the museum she was supposed to take with her family but they were killed. Keller, who seems like he's her subconscious (or possibly some Adjustment Bureau-type agent if we take the film literally), convinces her that living in the past isn't a good idea. Simple enough idea, so-so acting, some great visuals but those mostly come from the art and architecture in the museum. The dialogue's a bit cheesy, but sometimes that works just fine like this bit from the end: One truth remains constant: what's to come tomorrow, what's...

Before Phil's first line, Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) pops up from the bottom of the screen to tell us that in France, Groundhog Day was called Day Without End and in Brazil, it was called Black Hole of Love . Then he does an awkward Ned dance and disappears. This is how the "Needle Nose Ned Picture-in-Picture Track" bonus feature gets going. That's right, I'm on the blu-ray again finally after my previous blu-ray copy got laser-burned. (I actually sampled the beginning of this commentary once just to see what it was, but I have neglected to get back to it until now.) That first pop-up was torso only. Ned pops up full bodied for his next bit of info, pointing out the hilltop road that was the only bit in the film shot near the actual Punxsutawney. I hope this track is not just rehashing stuff from Ramis' commentary track. The next one is torso again, just before the transition to Day One. Ned asks a trivia question, an easy one--the name of the TV s...

Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times , 2 February 2013, opens with an interesting tidbit about Stephen Tobolowsky and Groundhog Day ; when he first read the script, he thought it "just another comedy, nothing special." He says it changed into "one of the greatest comedies ever created" as they were filming it. On the one hand, I do agree that it became that. But, I wonder when and where it became that. Tobolowsky told Macdonald that Ramis shot the scene in which Phil Connors "shaves his head into a mohawk, takes spray paint and paints graffiti all over the inside of his room, then he takes a chain saw and starts sawing the room in half." It was an expensive scene, and Ramis, after consideration, quickly cut it. He replaced it with a much quieter, simpler moment: [Connors], going to bed terrified, breaks a pencil in half and puts it on his radio. When he said, the audience gasped at that moment, "We expect a crazy Bill Murray movie... and [Ramis] repl...