the groundhog day project

I want to say coincidence, but I'm guessing there's something more involved than just chance. But, anyway, weird coincidence that Dirty Dancing came out just a month after Adventures in Babysitting and they both* begin with The Ronettes' "Be My Baby". (* This isn’t true but for whatever reason “Be My Baby” sounded just like “ Then He Kissed Me ” in my head and then even as I realized the mistake I was already writing.) Which at least distracted me momentarily-- trying to see if there was a producer or someone in the music department that worked on both these films --from the voiceover narration that lasts all of three sentences. The worst kind of narration, the useless opener because someone involved, probably the director, couldn't think how to establish place and time succinctly. That was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me "Baby" and it didn't occur to me to mind. That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatle...

There's a thin line between the romantic pressuring we see in romantic comedy and stalker behavior. Riding that line is the premise of a lot of stories, from shows like Netflix's You , which pushes right over the line in its opening scene and keeps pushing, to simple moments like when Charlie says please after Harriet turns down his proposal in So I Married an Axe Murderer . The romantic comedy way is simple: if at first she says no, keep pushing, invade her space, make her realize she can't live without you by defying her to take out a restraining order. Pressed up against the baseball plot here, the romantic comedy plotline between Jake and Lynn can be taken as an extension of the main idea. Their relationship failed a few years back. The Indians' relationship with Cleveland (at least the way Mrs. Phelps sees it) also failed... well, more than a few years back. The problem is that we can see the Indians' players improving (maybe not why they're improving ...

I gotta watch Sing Street this week for a podcast, and Fran's outburst here in Strictly Ballroom that was yesterday's (and today's) title reminds me of Raphina's line there: "You can never do anything by half." A basic enough message. You want something, you gotta go for it. What you'd expect from a romantic comedy. Or drama... I mean, movies inherently involve some protagonist going after some goal, some dream, some love, some whatever. Messages aren't going to run deep, and sometimes they're obvious, but that doesn't make them lesser. Like, I've written in this blog a few times about About Time and have a currently running podcast about that film and some of the negative reviews about it complain about its central message--to slow down and appreciate the things around you. And, yeah, that's a basic message, but if more of us followed that advice we wouldn't hear that message so much. Like this movie: don't ...

And, I have decided to go backward for the remaining/additional movie life list movies. So, let us jump forward to 1992... -ish. Really, since we saw this movie at the second-run theater with a movie released in April 1993, we're jumping forward to 1993. And, I'm a senior in high school In the theaters, we saw Strictly Ballroom alongside Benny & Joon , but, while Strictly Ballroom made it into our home and got watched a bunch more times by us and by visiting friends, Benny & Joon did not. At least not as much. And, maybe I'm delusional about the whole thing because Strictly Ballroom is not even on our family "movie list" last updated by me 8 June 1999. So, who knows? Either way, I'm watching Strictly Ballroom today as I work my way backward through a few other fixture movies to, you know, encapsulate my childhood, or something. Baz Luhrmann's first film. Some nobody from Australia. A romance about ballroom dancing. But, we loved it. ...

The music to Hoosiers sounds like something else to me, like a bit from a song... Or maybe I've just heard this soundtrack so many times that I recognize it easily. Like the music from The Man from Snowy River ( 1288 1289 1290 ) or... So many others, actually. Friday night was the sabbath growing up, and that often meant some music playing and a card game, or older sisters would come over with their husbands and kids, once they had husbands and kids. Later when I had a wife and kids, we'd drop by my parents' house on a Friday night sometimes, too. A tradition left behind now. Waiting for a new generation, maybe. But... Hoosiers . I have complaints, and I will get to them. One of my complaints I am inclined not to bother much about because it turns out the Myra Fleener/Norman Dale relationship got short shrift in the editing process when the film got streamlined from a much longer first cut. As it is in the end product, Myra plays a vital but entirely manipulativ...

Let us start with the cynical take: love is a fantasy. But, that is exactly why the romance in Romancing the Stone works. The premise itself is Joan Wilder's life echoing her romance novels, fantastic adventure, treasure hunting, a mysterious stranger, relentless villains. If we buy into the premise, it is very easy to buy into the romance, because the one fantasy is nested quite comfortably within the other. Damon Suede, possibly a pseudonym, writing for Romance University , says: Romance authors love Romancing the Stone because it simultaneously ribs and respects the genre. [Screenwriter Diane] Thomas got romance at a visceral level, and for all the winking send ups of romantic cliché, she embraces them shamelessly... no small feat. It has remains a touchstone in Hollywood and within the Romance community for a simple reason: Romancing the Stone remains one of the only blockbuster hits in pure romance. Suede goes on to explain how classic romance films are generally melodr...

Joan Wilder's life isn't normally like her books. Great romance. Adventure. Life and death. Revenge. She lives alone with her cat (named Romeo), drinks alcohol from the little bottles you might have gotten on a plane back in '84. Romancing the Stone begins as she finishes writing her latest romance novel. And the premise of the film, in case you're some unfortunate millennial who has never heard of it, is simple--Joan's brother in law is murdered in Colombia, but not before getting a treasure map in the mail for Joan (Kathleen Turner). Then Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor), Joan's sister is abducted and Joan heads for Colombia, hooks up with Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), who coincidentally resembles the shadowy Jesse from her novels--think cowboy with a modern twist. The film is basically Joan's fantasy coming true. And, for the audience, it's a nice adventure fantasy as well. And, I only just learned that this was screenwriter Diane Thomas' only fini...

Freddie (John Candy) is a pervert, even as a child. Allen (Tom Hanks) is more of a romantic, even as a child. As a kid, Freddie drops change on the floor to look up ladies' skirts. Allen jumps off a ferry to swim, briefly, with a mermaid girl. As adults, Allen runs Bauer Produce, Freddie... Well, Freddie is proud to have gotten a letter in Penthouse magazine. Broad strokes quickly painted, and we know these characters pretty well inside the first ten minutes of Splash . If you're unfamiliar, think The Shape of Water with the genders swapped, a less dangerous (and less stereotypical) antagonist, and... Dare I say it? More believable romance. Don't get me wrong; I liked The Shape of Water a lot. I had a problem with one particular aspect of its conclusion, but I didn't mind how it seemed to spend more time on heist details than fleshing out its central romance. Guillermo Del Toro's film has a couple clear advantages over Ron Howard's film. The obvious one is...

Another soundtrack that played a lot in our house when I was a kid: The Man from Snowy River . Bruce Rowland's score is iconic to me, more so than some of the great film scores out there that I know are great but just didn't get repeat play in the house I grew up in. And, then the credits end with Directed by George Miller and I am 1) shocked because I never knew George Miller directed this, even after all the times I've seen it (far more times than I have ever seen The Road Warrior , a film I prefer), and 2) disappointed because apparently Australia's film industry rules allow two different directors called George Miller. I mean, that Mad Max George Miller also made Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet , so that guy could direct pretty much anything, and horse stampedes and cheesy close ups of angry horse eyes actually seemed right up his alley. But no, this George Miller directed Andre and A Mom for Christmas , which an ex of mine was rather cheekily obsessed wi...

          I often get lost as these old movies from my childhood play, but I didn't expect to get lost in The Pirate Movie as soon as it got started. But, "Victory" starts playing over pirate ship battle footage and I'm in. And then the main plot gets going pretty quick and Ninjas attack the pirate ship and it's on. This was what really got me when I was a kid, the action and the romance. I talked about the military side of An Officer and a Gentleman was just as much rooted in fantasy as the love story yesterday --but the actual action in something like this is an easy in for a kid. Pirate adventure, plus ninjas, and later cops, plus the romance and songs.           I had yet to see a production of The Pirates of Penzance when I first saw this film, though I would see it later, so I didn't know a lot of the basic specifics being spoofed. But, unlike some more recent spoof films, this one keeps a main plot that makes sense...

Then again , Sid's sense of ownership is problematic. He's got the girl back home, and fully expects to marry her after OCS. Secure in that expectation, he gets together with Lynette the first week of a 13-week program, and she doesn't turn down his marriage proposal until the 11th week. Lynette kind of has a point after Paula says she'd be "trapping" a guy by getting pregnant... Here's the context. LYNETTE: Would you let yourself get pregnant? PAULA: No way, Lynette. Would you? LYNETTE: Well... I never used to think I'd do something like that. But, I don't know anymore. Nine weeks just ain't long enough for a guy to fall in love with you. PAULA: That doesn't justify trapping him or getting pregnant. I can't believe you'd think that. It's real backward. Here's where Lynette starts to make her point. LYNETTE: It ain't more backward than the way these hotshot assholes use till they've had enough, then ditch us ...

To counter the cynical side from yesterday , there is one scene that absolutely points to the reality of the whole thing, and the cosmic import of the love story at its center, and that is the opening. Regardless of what follows, that scene is real. And, Elise's arrival as an old woman is real. What makes the scene important when you take the side of it all being real, of it all bearing the import of time itself, of love itself, is that the crowd clears for this old woman. Now, maybe they recognize this old woman as the once famous Elise McKenna, but I doubt it; if they recognize her, so should Richard. (Actually, Richard's later conversation with Miss Roberts suggests that Elise may never have been as famous after 1912 as she was then; she was increasingly reclusive from then until her death.) Rather, I think they do not, but they part because there is something about this woman being in this place, something they can sense, something that has an energy itself, her mere presen...

In retrospect, Somewhere in Time is an odd movie to be familiar with as a kid. And, I think I understood the film better than my review go-to Roger Ebert did at the time (and he was almost as old then as I am now). His review begins: "Somewhere in Time" wants us to share its sweeping romantic idealism, about a love so great that it spanned the decades and violated the sanctity of time itself. But we keep getting distracted by nagging doubts, like, isn't it a little futile to travel 68 years backward into time for a one-night stand? I bought the "sweeping romantic idealism" of it, and saw it as much more than a one-night-stand, even as a kid. And, watching it in the present, I still do. (Note: I watched this film during the first year of this blog (in addition to Groundhog Day that day, of course) because to the circular time travel loop within) and wrote about it . Particularly, I wrote about the bootstrap paradox of the pocket watch in the film, and I...

It's actually earlier in 1978, now. I neglected to get all of these movies in exact release order. Apologies. Anyway, the movie is Heaven Can Wait , a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan , and not a remake of the previous film called Heaven Can Wait . Warren Beatty reportedly wanted to cast Mohammad Ali and do a straighter remake--the protagonist who comes back was a boxer--but Ali wasn't willing, Beatty stepped in himself, the protagonist became a football player, and well, Heaven Can Wait happened. Now, I saw this a lot as a kid, but I don't remember liking it much until I was a a bit older. I found it kind of boring when I was really young. I think the guy's death just a few minutes in amused me, though. Riding his bike through a mountain tunnel, and some van with surfboards on the roof is trying to overtake a truck with a camper, so both lanes from the other end of the tunnel are occupied--CUT TO BLACK. At the weigh station in the clouds--which of course, has a Conc...

Asked by Tasha Robinson at The Verge , in regards to the end of Sing Street : It's clear the scene in the gym [i.e. the band's performance of "Drive It Like You Stole It"] is a fantasy, because it's got that bright candy color, and things happen that are so obviously unreal. But in the boat crossing [i.e. Conor and Raphina running away to England at the end of the film], you spend a lot of time establishing the physical danger of what they're doing. It seems like if it was just a romantic fantasy, you would have just had them sail off together. But there was a point where it looked like it was going to end with them both dying in the Irish Sea. director John Carney responds: I wish they had, in a way. I'm sorry! But there is a side of me that wishes they had. Given the difficulty of people who are making journeys, and end up dying... I don't think it's supposed to be a fully real sequence. I think they're supposed to be quite brave, setti...