the groundhog day project

"One person is not just one person." -Father Lantom, Daredevil * Right away, in Mrs. Doubtfire , it's pretty clear that this movie wants to tell us something. Daniel (Robin Williams) is a voice actor and he adds lines to comment the presence of smoking in the cartoon he's working on, then walks out when his producer(?) gets mad at him. It's been a long time since I've seen this film and I get the impression from Daniel's preachiness that the movie might get a bit preachy, too. If it can refrain from just sitting back and letting Robin Williams get carried away with jokes and impressions (many ad libbed). (* Because that was most of my day, today--watching the second season of Daredevil . It's spring break and, while I hope to get another section of my thesis written before school is back, I've got to waste a little time, too.) I think the film is going to end up favoring the comedy over the potential drama--like these deleted scenes --and whe...

Roger Ebert called The Fisher King a "disorganized, rambling and eccentric movie that contains some moments of truth, some moments of humor, and many moments of digression." That sounds like he meant it as a bad thing. But, really, that's just life. Just because we like our movies to be more straightforward, more organized , less rambling, more focused, doesn't mean they have to be. More from Ebert: "The Fisher King" is so charming it's hard to say when we notice it has no clothes. Individual sequences are bittersweet and moving, some [only some?] of [Robin] William's inventions are funny, there is no denying the originality and force of the [Mercedes] Ruehl performance [which won her an Oscar]--and yet there comes a time when we cannot sustain one more manic outburst, one more flight of fancy, one more arbitrary twist of plot, one more revelation that the movie tricked us into caring about subjects it eventually throws away. Where to start? ...

(Options for today: 1. watch Dangerous Minds to continue the teacher film theme (and because I indicated (though without specificity) I would be watching another true story today) and because today is the 20th anniversary of its release. 2. watch Good Will Hunting which I was going to throw in whenever I finish with the teacher movies because today is was the one-year anniversary of Robin Williams' suicide. So, I'm wary of the latter because it will be depressing, but I also don't want my themes to run too consistently or they might be expected; Phase Three of this blog is supposed to be mostly just winging it, whatever movie comes up comes up. I decided to go with neither, but also the second cause. I'm watching The Fisher King , a Robin Williams movie that is zany and fun, and horribly depressing on its own, without even talking about his death. I'm a glutton for punishment. Also, I've been wanting to talk about mental health at least on a personal, some...

Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. – Gene Fowler Fowler was a journalist, someone who wrote on a regular basis. I don’t know if he considered his output to be art or simply work. Personally, I feel that everything I write, even the most mundane academic piece, is still art. In Art & Fear , Bayles and Orland (1993) begin simply with the following: Making art is difficult. We leave drawings unfinished and stories unwritten. We do work that does not feel like our own. We repeat ourselves. We stop before we have mastered our materials, or continue on long after their potential is exhausted. (p. 1) On the first statement, I wholeheartedly agree. Though writing is easy, making art is difficult, though the two things are often (or, I suppose I implied above, always) one and the same. On the second statement, yes, I have left behind many unfinished drawings, many unfinished stories. I have detailed notes...