the groundhog day project

Less important than making my survey is the reasoning behind it. I've said before that I could write a memoir using movies to tell time, a la Fever Pitch . And, the "thesis" if you will for this whole blog (per Day 579 ) is: Our lives can be measured in movies and movies can be measured in our lives and profound and profane depths can be found in the intersection thereof. That is to say, if I can know your favorite movies, know what it is you look for in a movie, then I can know you. I tweeted (and then retweeted with my personal account over to Facebook) a few posts about what people's favorite movies are--their top five. But, it's more than that. For example, there's a huge difference between how I choose my favorite movies and how I might decide what are the best movies. Hell, I don't really even bother with the latter because movies are so subjective, the experience of watching a movie is subjective, and that version of a movie that is left in each ...

The opening lines (which reappear at the end of the film as well) of Gone Girl are: When I think of my wife... I always think or her head. I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brains, trying to get answers. The primal question of any marriage: "What are you thinking?" "How are you feeling?" "What have we done to each other?" The tone at the beginning is romantic. The cracking open of the skull is love, wanting that thing where you're not sure where one of you ends and the other begins--that's how I described romance once upon a time on the interwebs, on a message board back in the olden days before Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or even Myspace. Well, there might have been Myspace already. The couple who ran the message board--a semi-pretentious place called Cafe des Artistes --both called me a hopeless romantic, or something along those lines. And, I was . I've been rewatching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix lately and I...

Some stray observations: On the HOTEL sign outside Vivian’s building, only the H and O are lit up. This seems both too on-the-nose and over-the-top. Kit’s and Vivian’s motto is “We say who, we say when, we say how much.” Later when Vivian is mad at Edward, she forgets that last part. She says, “I say who. I say when.” And then, she repeats, “I say who.” Despite the opening line of the film, that it is “all about money,” it’s no longer about money. She doesn’t even take the money, though she does demand it, when she leaves then. And, ultimately, after she has been paid and is back home, she gives some—not sure how much—of the money to Kit. I’ve written about the major differences between $3,000 and Pretty Woman before, but not a lot of the details. For example, this was Lawton’s second produced screenplay. It reads, especially early on, like someone’s first time writing a screenplay; there’s bit too much exposition setting the scene. Looking at the script again right now, I thou...

When Harry Met Sally... , Moonstruck , The Mirror Has Two Faces , Pretty Woman —each one involves men and women, regardless of when in the process they have sex, getting to know each other by talking, by exchanging information. I’ve already written about Altman and Taylor’s social penetration theory ... (Sidenote: maybe the stated theme (per yesterday ‘s discussion, is Philip’s line, “You’re gonna get lost in the dark.” Vivian lives in the dark. She wakes up in the evening, works all night, and that’s before we deal with the metaphorical darkness inherent in her job. And, Edward, he works in the darkness of corporate raiding, making a living off the suffering of others. And, I’ve said before, they are both lost before the events of the film.) Anyway, where was I? I think it’s nice that even the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold setup revolves not around the sex but around conversation and other, non-sexual interaction. Edward and Vivian definitely get into Altman and Taylor’s exploratory ...

“You know what they say—it’s all about money.” That’s the opening line of Pretty Woman . And, arguably, the whole point to the existence of this movie—and I don’t mean from the perspective of the writer, the director, the stars, any of the filmmakers, really—is to make money. That’s why we get the unrealistic ending, because that will draw the biggest audience. Yeah, that’s me being cynical again. But, so what? I’m about to be nice to this movie for a change. See, I don’t think the movie itself is telling us that “it’s all about money.” Even though Dyer (2010) suggests “In the first few pages of your screenplay, one of the characters should state the story’s theme out loud.” I think the movie ultimately rejects the idea that it’s all about money. Money loses out to love, even though money is the means to that end. Vivian wouldn’t be there if not for Edward’s $3,000. She wouldn’t have the whole Cinderella thing going on if not for more of his money. She is romanced as much by the clot...

Pretty Woman begins with a magic trick. And, not long after, there’s an amusing bit on the street—tourists taking pictures of a dead body. There is more here than lazy romance. And the movie does paint a picture of a city (or cities, rather) divided on class/money lines... as I’ve already said, but with a more negative tone, the picture presents us a world that creates people like Edward and Vivian. (Sidenote: There are a lot of horses in Edward’s penthouse, statutes, paintings. Combine those with the polo match (not a part of the original script), not to mention Vivian’s dream about a being saved by a knight on horseback, and the running motif seems like it might mean something. But, the most obvious meaning—linking horses to the whole class thing—doesn’t really add anything new to the film.) Both Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are charming here. Hector Elizondo does a great job with very little material, and handful of lines but mostly just a few looks—disapproving at first, th...

Cinderella ‘s kind of a horrible story, too. The idea that love can be found in one dance, that the prince can rescue the girl from a bad situation... except, love can feel like a rescue, I suppose. And, it’s loss can feel like... whatever the opposite is. I saw The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them today and it’s a sad story that invokes the shadow left when love (and romance) are gone. It’s an awesome film, a tragic film with the vaguest sense of hope in the end. Comparatively, Pretty Woman is a slight little thing, hardly worth another thousand negative words... Instead, I offer this. There’s a simple reason that we buy into the “romance” on display in Pretty Woman . Money and the things it can buy are important to us in this country, in the whole of the Western World, to be sure. Where other romantic comedies focus in on the other items on Dowd and Pallotta’s (2000) “norms,” Pretty Woman recognizes that all love is a transaction. Recall my discussion of social penetration ...

I want to like this movie. I mean, I’m not a fan of modern capitalism, and, as I said yesterday it’s almost a critique of a system that creates sharks like Edward and whores like Vivian. (And, that’s too nice to Edward. In $3,000 , Kross asks Edward, “You want me to recommend to the Board that my company be raped by a man like you?” (p. 63). It’s almost a critique. But, instead of jumping into the plotline, it skirts along the top of it into a fairy tale. Vivian is no longer a seasoned prostitute with a crack problem barely looking after the more vulnerable Kit. Instead, she’s new to the oldest profession, and judging by a brief shot of some photos in her apartment at the beginning of the film, she’s doing this because of a guy; I’m guessing her broke up with her since she’s either ripped or scratched his face out of the photos we see. It’s a cheap way of making her a little less dirty. The more expensive way, so to speak, was to cut the opening scene from Lawton’s original in wh...

Now, let’s get out of New York. And, be a little less light and happy. The kind of movie that starts with two prostitutes buying some crack on the streets of Hollywood... unless Disney gets their hands on the script and twists it around and around until not only does the lead female—still a prostitute, mind you—no longer has a drug problem and the rich guy picking her up is just asking for directions, not prowling for a replacement girlfriend for the week. What used to be a rather despicable guy picking up a hooker who lists her likes as “hot baths and white rocks,” becomes a meet-cute instead. It’s a little sad. You’d know the movie as Pretty Woman . The original script by Jonathan Lawton was called $3,000 . $3,000 has a fairly straightforward plot, making a serious effort toward a critique of 1980s American capitalism. Pretty Woman drains so much of the darker... I would say realism, but $3,000 is just slight enough that it’s hard to suggest it has real depth. But, whatever...