the groundhog day project

Watching Sing Street again, mostly because I really need a break. From politics. From the world. I want to spend more time out and about with my kids or with friends. I have an inkling to try dating. Or something. (Details I don't feel like putting out into the world in a blog entry... For a change.) Also, I love this movie. It's structure so simply, like a romantic comedy built on a musical foundation, Once  but with teenagers, and set smack dab in the middle of the 1980s (though it gets the timing of some of its historical references off a bit), and it's sweet and simple and entertaining. It has it bittersweet moments and it has its happy bits, too. And, like Once , it makes a good case for the idea of how varied people can come into your life, have some significant, life-changing effect, then maybe they just go away, disappear, and you're stuck by yourself for a time, or with new people, other people, other influences and life-changing effects, and the tiniest cha...

Following on what I was talking about yesterday , and with inadvertently appropriate timing, I saw the stage version of Once tonight. It may end on a bittersweet note, but it’s the perfect example of a storyline about what I was talking about, people coming into one’s life and having a significant, life-changing effect. Saer asked me afterward why I made her watch that—you know, “bad” ending and whatnot—but I think of Once as almost the perfect love story because the main characters don’t end up together. Love doesn’t have to last to be powerful. Similarly, while Phil’s love for Rita might last, I’m not sure if it is necessarily powerful. While the banquet scene is nice and Rita buying Phil (and their night together afterward) is a Hollywood-appropriate ending, I actually think a more poetic ending—between Phil and Rita—would have been that moment when he asked for a “rain check” on getting a coffee, so he could go run errands. He may have pursued Rita before, he might even love ...