the groundhog day project

(I wish I could title this entry, “don’t you just love every day” but I am not in that great a mood tonight.) I think it is that I like April... or I can relate to her, at least. That feeling that you do not belong, that everything about you is just wrong... well, maybe not everything, but the feeling is just a different level of the same. The feeling that no matter how hard you try, it will not matter anyway. Or, if it would matter, you will just be too timid or too weak-minded to try. My point is, however much this film may be flawed, I think I can relate to the character(s). For example, my family is doing a big Thanksgiving thing this year—just a handful of days from now—and there have been emails going back and forth about who is bringing what, and I have yet to respond because, well, I just have not had time to think about it. Between grad school work and teaching and, you know, life, if not for this blog and the theme I chose for this month, I would not really be thinking abo...

I’m glad that the likes of Roger Ebert agrees with me about Bobby’s plotline in Pieces of April ; he writes: “...here Hedges, the writer-director, half-heartedly tries to do something that doesn’t work and is a little offensive.” Yep. Totally. On the other hand, I must disagree withe Nick Rogers ‘ when he terms the titular April a “Pierced pixie-girl.” Pixie -girls, in cinematic terms are not simply a little eccentric—and April is really only visibly eccentric while she’s a little boring in personality—but cheerful and energetic as well... well, maybe there’s room for something other than the manic pixie , but I do not think April is quite interesting enough to be it. Her plight may be interesting, but she really isn’t. Similarly, while I can appreciate the quiet subtlety of this film, I must disagree with Rogers when he says, “Thankfully, Hedges stages no knockdown, drag-out dinner-table histrionics.” A little more histrionics may have put more life into this film. I mean, yeah, a...

What to do . Write blog entry . ... I can do it, too. ... So, there’s the metaphor. April is the turkey. It’s as simple as that. There’s a couple specific bits in Pieces of April where this makes perfect sense. Not a lot to say today, so I’ll just get into it. First of all, Wayne’s little speech about cooking turkey: It’s a common misconception that you can just stick a turkey in the oven. Turkey needs to be tended to. It needs to be cared for, lovingly. One must pay close attention to poultry... So much can go wrong. Turkey could burn in places, be overcooked, undercooked—which is a health hazard. And, what about basting? One gets the impression that April was neglected as a child, that her mother was always a bit of the bitch she has become with the cancer. One gets the impression that April’s damage has been with her for a very long time. And, she was never “tended to” and never “cared for, lovingly.” No one ever paid close attention to her. That’s why her family has no c...

Roger Ebert tells me Hannah and Her Sisters is the best Thanksgiving film. I have never seen it. I mentioned a while back that I am not the biggest fan of Woody Allen. I’ve seen a few of his films, I can appreciate what he does, but I’m just not all that enamored with it... with them. Similarly—and I think I share this with Ebert—I can appreciate what Peter Hedges is doing in Pieces of April even though I think the final product is flawed. In a way, it might be because that film is inherently flawed that it is also quite endearing. Like family, like Thanksgiving, the twisted heart within the happy occasion is the horribleness possible when family get together in large numbers. None of us is perfect. And, family or not—blood being thicker than water and all that—get us together and insist on hanging out as if our relations have not been strained time and time again by arguments and disagreements, as if some of haven’t disowned others (or wanted to), as if we haven’t had numerous in...

But, here’s what’s great about Pieces of April . Real people are often assholes. Real people are not always so easy to figure out. They’ve got problems, their problems sometimes date back to before you ever knew them, and you might never get the chance to figure them out fully. April doesn’t need to be explained. Her mother doesn’t need to be explained. Her sister Beth might need to be explained, but really she’s a logical extension of the mother’s bitchiness and the mother’s dyingness. Similarly, Timmy’s attachment and possibly inappropriate closeness—these things make sense around what we see of Joy, a woman whose bitterness was eventually answers (not literally, of course) with cancer that made her life and her personality finally make sense. Hell, maybe that’s April’s problem; she hasn’t found the thing that makes her make sense yet. She could use a good time loop... ooh, there’s a thought. If this were a time loop... ...for April, then waking up might go a little better eventua...

Subtitle: observations on watching Pieces of April First, do Bobby and April have those Catholic candles because they’re supposed to be religious or just because they tend to be cheap? They’ve got several of them lined up by the bed. Casual display of (white) female flesh followed by (black) male picking her up and carrying her away to the shower to wake her. There are some potentially dangerous visuals here, with the race thing, but I think the director is deliberately playing on that. Before we get to Alison Pill’s awkward cue award, there’s a brief moment of angst for Katie Holme’s April—keep in mind, this was Katie Holmes on the cusp of becoming a serious actress. She’d had a great, but small part in 1997’s The Ice Storm , had notable roles in Disturbing Behavior , Teaching Mrs. Tingle and Wonder Boys , plus four years of Dawson’s Creek , and Pieces of April was her demonstrating she had real indie cred. Then, Alison Pill’s awkward cue. Oliver Platt, as her father, opens her...

Not long into Pieces of April , a few characters go looking for Joy. To be fair, Joy is a person, a woman who is dying, but still... it’s an on-the-nose metaphor. If you haven’t seen it, and you probably haven’t, picture an independent film circa 2003, a lot of handheld camera and natural lighting. Not a great deal of plot development either. In fact, the titular character’s storyline takes place pretty much in one general location—her apartment building (first her apartment, then neighbors’). ... So, first night with this movie, which I only ever saw once, 11 years ago when it was in theaters. I let it play without writing much. I remember liking it when it came out, and critics liked it. Patricia Clarkson, playing the dying mother in the film, got a lot of award nominations. My daughter Saer wasn’t that impressed. She liked it well enough but wanted more. I agree. The film is good here and there. Even the horrible behavior of April’s family on their roadtrip to her place plays lik...