the groundhog day project

It was only this morning, going into the afternoon, but I cannot recall the exact order. Two things that twisted together into an idea to explain something here in this blog. The first (or second) was someone posting some photo on Facebook and referencing Barthes' punctum . The second (or first) was that I was watching last week's episode of Showtime's The Affair and Noah (Dominic West) is drunk and starts to make out with his publicist and... sure he had an affair throughout the first season (that was the setup for the show, of course), and much of this second season has been about how the various characters circling around the central couple(s) are all imperfect, they make mistakes, and sometimes things turn out okay anyway. But, here--and I've written in this blog before about how I can get attached to characters fairly easily sometimes--I was mad at Noah because this seemed like one mistake too many when he is supposed to be... or maybe I just want him to be a bet...

The thing is, Say Anything , despite what I may have said the last two days , is romantic. In fact, while one could find fault in the immortalization of the boombox scene--because Diane just doesn't respond, so Lloyd's action is a little pointless--but there's a good reason it is taken as an image of romance. While love needs reciprocation, romance doesn't. Romance is like the seeking of reciprocation, but the gesture doesn't lose power simply because the response is limited or absent. (Quick aside: I only just realized that the guy singing at graduation is Joe. But, no reaction shot from Corey? Seems like something's missing.) Lloyd's gesture, standing there with the boombox over his head, aside perhaps from a Mosaic allusion, is powerful because it not only has no guarantee of success but also actually has no success. Lloyd's romantic notions have already lost the fight but he stands there anyway, playing the song. And, whether it works or not...

First a quick recap of the first month of this less structured phase three of the Groundhog Day Project : The previous recap/ Groundhog Day viewing was Day 730 – i stayed here two years ago … two years of daily blogging down, however many more to go. Then, I watched Groundhog Day one more time on Day 731 – i kinda wanna get started to set the new pattern—the 2nd of every month is now Groundhog Day Day. (To be fair, this entry also included some Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation , but really it was about scene filmed but left out of Groundhog Day that led me back to… Well, we’ll get to that below. First, here’s what the last month involved: a lot of teachers and students, teenagers trying to figure themselves out, and the parasocial relationships we make with such characters and with real-world celebrities and filmmakers. Plus a few random movies, new and old. The movies involved: 732 – Dead Poets Society 733 – Dead Poets Society and The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet 7...

Parasocial relationships are not just for fictional characters. For example yesterday Wes Craven died. Numerous individuals online--myself included--posted about him as if they (we) knew him. As if his death matters on a personal level. But, we probably just saw his films over the years. Still, we form an attachment. We look forward to his new films... He hadn't directed a film since SCRE4M four years ago. A couple weeks ago , I got to thinking about Robin Williams dying a year ago. Back when I was still watching Groundhog Day every day instead of just once a month, I wrote three entries in a row ( 207 208 209 ) dealing with the death of Harold Ramis. And, it was personal to me. Groundhog Day was my life for a year, and it lingers still, not just in viewing it once a month but also in conversational references, in lecture references (I use the news clips from Groundhog Day in my public speaking class to talk about delivery), in the way I think about things, about life. Not ...

Let us leave (presumably) the evil high school girls behind. ( Presumably because I haven't seen Struck by Lightning before.) Today, our focus is a high school boy, Carson Phillips (Chris Colfer). (And, admittedly, this movie was recommended by my daughter a good while ago and I have put it off. Which really shouldn't be parenthetical, actually, because I want to take this opportunity to a) write a bit about the movie as it plays and b) out my daughter as a crazy fangirl... except, as you will see, my point below is probably going to be that fangirls are not crazy. Plus it's a bit sexist to separate fangirls from fanboys, anyway.) Carson is rather amusingly sardonic and sarcastic--i.e. the best kind of cinematic high school character. I don't need someone who is you know, nice, and genuine. Less Rita Hanson, more Phil Connors. Just how I like a character... at least a comedy. (So, Saer--my 12-year-old daughter, for those of you who have not been following alo...