the groundhog day project

Dragnet is on one more time. I don't think I have anything specifically regarding this film to say today, but 1) I wanted to watch it at least once on the larger screen that is my tv (I've been on a sort of emergency roadtrip and have been watching the film on my phone that last three days), and 2) I didn't quite want to transition to the next film on my childhood deconstruction (aka movie life) list; rather, I wanted to gather a sort of interlude of thoughts about all the movies so far as it were. The question of what this movie (in particular, but so many other movies from my childhood more generally) did to affect my... Well, my worldview, really--it's an interesting question. Because, for example, I grew up on Star Wars , saw the first one before I can even remember, was already interested in the toys and books and whatever merchandise was out there by the time Empire came out, distinctly remember going to see Return of the Jedi in the theater (the theater...

Today is Day 1096, the last day of the third* full year of this blog. I'm watching Groundhog Day tonight. I saw The Emoji Movie today. I don't think I have a lot to say. Except this: Two important movies in theaters right now... No. Two important movies in theaters right now are Detroit and The Emoji Movie for two very different reasons. I was going to joke about how both involve the use of force to stomp out those who are different from the norm (not white, and not singularly expressive), and I can still say both will induce rage in the discerning viewer. But, I won't go any further with the comparison because it would be 1) disrespectful to what Detroit represents, to what it could and should do for its viewers--and those viewers should be many, and won't be enough-- and it would be 2) pointless when there are better points to be made. For example, Detroit should make you angry because people are racist assholes, because the slave trade and systemic racism ...

Beatriz at Dinner is a deeply flawed film. It uses intense stares and long silences as if they are the height of characterization, offers up caricatures and simplistic dialogue instead of realistic conversation--which for a film with a heavy-handed Guess Who's Coming to Dinner vibe, is the greatest of cinematic sins. You build your film around dialogue, your dialogue better be amazing. You build your film around character interaction (as opposed to plot), then your characters should all feel real, should all be at least a little likable. Now, to be fair, I think the script (and the casting choices of Hayek and Lithgow) deliberately set up the titular Beatriz to be a bit... off, and Doug to be personable, accepting even of criticism (though mostly because experience would demonstrate that he is above it). This is a story about the 1% having dinner with a nobody, a Mexican-born masseuse and healer. Assume SPOILERS. Don't assume that this is purely a review. As I've said m...

Right away in Cartel Land , the Oscar-nominated documentary I've got playing right now, in which a guy says in voiceover, "There's an imaginary line out there between right and wrong, good and evil. I believe what I'm doing is good. I believe what I'm going up against is evil." In the larger context, that's the idea to just about every film, every story. Not always good and evil but drama virtually requires some sort of binary for everything--with us or against us, in or out, right or wrong, black or white. The best drama, I think, is in the gray areas, the nuance. But, story structure ultimately loops back around to the binary. Even something like Tarantino's latest, The Hateful Eight , full of a lot of bad people with different reasons to be bad comes around to offering us reasons to care about a few of them, finding some to be less, well, hateful. Just before I turned on Cartel Land , though, I was watching another Oscar-nominated documentary-- ...