the groundhog day project

Phil Connors is not a werewolf. Let’s just get that obviousness out of the way. He is, however, quite a bit the adolescent, going through some changes that are, if not physical, quite significant nonetheless. (By the way, the last recap post here was Day 792 - time for the big bachelor auction .) I think I started referring to Phil’s hedonistic ventures in act two of Groundhog Day as his “adolescent” phase after Harold Ramis described it that way in his commentary track . But, it’s more than just good shorthand. (After that last recap, I drifted into horror films for October... like so: Poltergeist - 793 794 795 - and its remake - 796 The Shining - 797 , Room 237 - 798 - then back to The Shining - 799 - and its TV “remake” - 800 The Omen - 801 802 Damien: The Omen II - 803 The Final Conflict aka The Omen III - 804 The Omen (remake) - 805 Re-Animator - 806 Crimson Peak - 807 Hellraiser - 808 809 810 Hellbound: Hellraiser II - 811 812 813 Hellra...

Two things: 1) after getting all serious yesterday with Barthes and punctum , today I'm going with a movie I remember as fairly ridiculous and 2) for a ridiculous movie, this opening music and closeup on Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) all sweaty and about to shoot a free throw is, well, far too serious, and a little full of itself. It has been a good long while since I'e seen this movie but "pretentious" is not at all a term I might be using watching it again. Anyway, Teen Wolf . I'm figuring this is going to be all obvious with the metaphor (like Ginger Snaps )--lycanthropy as puberty. (Or vice versa.) In a DVD extra with (I think) the third Ginger Snaps film-- Menstrual Monsters --Tanya Krzywinska, Reader in Film, Brunel University, references "old myths about transformation into animal form, and [how] a lot of those myths are about what it is to become uncivilized." In terms of the puberty metaphor, it is the hormonal teenager who is uncivilized. ...

For some reason, Ginger Snaps is one horror film I have just never gotten around to. I just noticed on IMDb that is was made in Canada. That might be why I've been avoiding it, either consciously or unconsciously. Canadian horror films generally do not work for me... But, it starts well enough. Suburban neighborhood. Kid finds mutilated dog's foot in his sandbox. Turn to a couple teenage girls--sisters Brigitte (Emily Perkins) and Ginger Fitzgerald (Katharine Isabelle)--who apparently enjoy staging photos of themselves as dead bodies in various fatal circumstances. (That one of the lead characters is named Ginger makes me wary, like the the title is going to be a bit too literal in its figurativeness.) Brigitte and Ginger are the resident goth girls--they wear necklaces with bird skulls on them--in an otherwise (apparently) cleancut--as if that is inherently a contradiction--school. Requisite outcasts. Quick sidenote: I was looking up an image to use and realized why Em...

Clover (1992) argues, Certainly, the novelist's (and filmmaker's) target is not the female body, but the transformation that body prompts in the male psyche. Enmeshed from the outset in Karras's spiritual crisis are issues of intimacy and sexuality. Again, Regan provides the palpable field: she stabs a cross in and out of her vagina, speaks incessantly and crudely of sexual matters, is suspected of desecrating the statue of the Virgin Mary, and so on. ...however, it appears to be Karras's own anxieties that are at stake. The nature of those anxieties is hinted at in an early scene [in Blatty's novel] in which Karras is approached for comfort by a young and lonely priest: Of all the anxieties that Karras encountered among the community, this one had lately become the most prevalent. Cut off from their families as well as from women, many of the Jesuits were also fearful of expressing affection for fellow priests; of forming deep and loving friendships. "Lik...

There is at least the one female Cenobite. So, we could assume there's some civil war kind of split in among the denizens of hell, and Julia serves Leviathan and brings him Channard to be his body, in which case the homicidal joy in the last act of this film is not on Channard as much but on Leviathan. Structurally, Channard does serve as a sort of pseudo-Christ-Figure--and, not I'm not about to get into some Cinematic - Christ - Figuring ; don't need to. The guy willingly sacrifices himself, quite literally gets himself some stigmata, and has a giant penis attach itself to his head... Wait, that last one is not part of the Cinematic Christ - Figure . But, that penis is important to this third discussion of Hellbound: Hellraiser II because-- Actually, I've got to interrupt this entry because Kirsty was just telling Detective Bronson about fairy tales, and rather than thinking she's got no reason to connect the events of the first film to any fairy tale but jus...

Sticking your tongue where it probably shouldn't be. Fantasizing about how much your teacher likes you. Fantasizing about being the savior to everyone around you. Just another day in the life of an adolescent boy. Yesterday was serious. Today—not so much. Unless, of course, it is. A Christmas Story is a coming-of-age story for Ralphie Parker. As mentioned in the commentary track (and as should be obvious to anyone watching the movie) the one throughline of the film is Ralphie's pursuit of the Red Ryder BB Gun. I've written before about the " cowboy " as the "quintessential man's man" and that comes into play here again. Ralphie, on the brink of not being a child anymore fantasizes about being a cowboy (and also about being a spy, given the Little Orphan Annie decoding bit, but maybe that scene isn't to be taken so literally... more on that below). Ralphie seeks a phallic symbol he can use to demonstrate his manliness. There is not even much ...