the groundhog day project

Keep in mind, I grew up attending church every Saturday, and I went to a private school owned by the church and was taught stuff from the Bible every day in church. Our church took seriously the notion that the world was ending soon--you can read some more of what that did to me day 534 - what are you expecting? world war iii . Our church (and more specifically out school) made an effort once to fast forward through the line, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch" in a movie night screening of The Princess Bride . But, here I am, however young I was when I first watched Blackbeard's Ghost watching a movie that involves, accurate scrying (read: witchcraft) by Mrs Stowecraft, ghosts trapped in limbo (which ran counter to our church's version of what happened after death), and that ghost is a former pirate, murderer, pillager, probably a rapist, and he's an alcoholic. But, what does the movie do with all these dark things? It all serves a very simple idea--do a...

How The Magnificent Seven is quintessentially American (even when it shares so much with stories from around the world and deliberately apes Japan's Seven Samurai ) is kind of simple. Think politically, socially, and consider these words from Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) in the church at the beginning of the film: This is what you love, what you'd die for. And what your children and your children's children will work on, suffer for, be consumed by. ... Now, I come here for gold. Gold. This country has long equated democracy with capitalism, capitalism with God. So, you're standing not only in the way of progress and capital. You're standing in the way of God! And for what? ... Land. This is no longer land. The moment I put a pin in the map, the day I descended into this godforsaken valley and cast my gaze upon it, it ceased to be land and became... Dust. ... This is your God? And, he pours the dirt onto the floor. First, some history. While Bogue is not entirely wro...

Robin Thede made a point I liked last night on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore ; she said, referring to black people of course, "You can't say in one breath how proud we are when Hale and Mo'Nique and Denzel and all those people win but then when we're not in there say that we don't care." On the one hand, I agree, it's a little two-faced. On the other hand, they should care all the time. And, so should we. So should everybody. As I said yesterday , the racial makeup and the racial prejudices in the Oscar nominations and the Academy membership do matter. Mary McNamara explains it well--and this was why I didn't get into critiquing her yesterday. She writes in the Los Angeles Times : ...a growing chorus wants to know why anyone really cares. With all the troubles in the world, do we really need to worry that a bunch of relatively rich and privileged filmmakers are mad that their movies didn't get an Oscar nomination? So what if the nominees ...