the groundhog day project

          My daughter is in the room as I'm watching Groundhog Day --it's the 2nd of the month (and it's also her birthday today). She's reciting lines along with the characters and proclaiming that she hates the movie. Methinks she doth protest too much. Me--I'm reciting some lines, but I'm not thinking much about anything to write. Hoping for something new... And then I notice a tiny new thing; right before the snow shovel hits Phil when he's in the gas station, it hits the phone on the wall. New, sure. But, not substantial...           I'm watching, and waiting. Not in the mood for politics. Didn't see any other movies today. (I did have a stray observation about The Room , though, as I turned it on while I was writing about The Disaster Artist yesterday . The way The Disaster Artist presents the production, it's entirely inept, like they filmed scenes from only one angle, barely managed multiple takes, and in one in...

The Room is a must-see for fans of film. Mostly for reasons that are not good ones. I've watched it and written about it numerous times for this blog... day 609 - people are very strange these days day 610 - Men and women use and abuse each other all the time day 611 - you’re tearing me apart, lisa day 1086 - i’m doing what i want to do day 1087 - women change their minds all the time day 1088 - god, i’m so tired day 1089 - anyway, how is your sex life? day 1090 - denny, don’t ask a question like that day 1091 - what kind of movie are we going to see? day 1092 - i’m just sitting up here thinkin’, you know In that last one there, I wrote: We can all laugh at how bad The Room is, sure. And it is bad. But, those actors put themselves out there, and made something . If more people did creative things, nevermind just how good or bad the results would be, we'd be better off. And being in their audience, especially together, we would be better off. Today, I fin...

The question is, what do you want from a movie? Must it challenge your mind, make you contemplate your place in the universe? Must it simply entertain? For that matter, does it have to make sense? And have good acting and a script that sounds like someone actually read it at least once before filming? A bad movie can do all of these things. The problem, really, is when the bad movie makes you hate the people who made it, makes you hate the world for creating a place for it, makes you hate yourself for watching it. Well, a bad bad movie does that. A good bad movie can fail at so much that makes movies watchable--like Margo Prey not bothering to act at all as the mother in Troll 2 , just, you know, saying things, or Connie McFarland as the sister yelling like she forgot microphones exist--but still be so watchable in spite of the flaws. Some of what makes a movie like Troll 2 bad can easily be credited to the filmmaker; the director Claudio Fragasso (credited as Drake Floyd because ...

I wanted to continue the "survey" today, throw out far too many questions-- (For example, under the banner of Action Films, I has broken the genre down into Adventure, Disaster, Superhero, and Heist movies, and there was a question about your preference between Cars or Parkour?) --but I don't want to. I also thought I'd be watching The Room again tonight, but I am unexpectedly cut down to just the one screen for the next couple hours, and I have time to write. I did see a movie today. Of course. Atomic Blonde . I liked it more than my friend Jared--with whom I saw it--did, but I thought it felt a little long and had that first Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible problem of actively trying to be overcomplicated just for the sake of being overcomplicated. Still, I was entertained, and I rather liked the way most of the violence played out, more brutal and real than most action movies, as if the characters were really getting hurt. For a film that introduces its lead na...

In no particular order: 1. What matters more--plot or story? Do you want a plot-driven story like an action film or a mystery, or a fairly basic romance? Or does the story matter more? Does each character need to feel like they've got their own story going on? Better yet, how do you define the difference? 2. How important is dialogue in a movie? Do you prefer clever dialogue? Realistic dialogue? How important is the script? What do you think of voiceover? (Side question: does that bullshit-style of voiceover that only exists at the start and end of a film bug the crap out of you as much as it does me? Girls Trip uses that style and opens with flashback moments with the main characters in college and a series of shots of their reunions every few years, and it's all stuff we just don't need. Everything that the opening of the film--especially the voiceover--offers us is something that we'll figure out ourselves later unless we're idiots.) What do you think of char...

Less important than making my survey is the reasoning behind it. I've said before that I could write a memoir using movies to tell time, a la Fever Pitch . And, the "thesis" if you will for this whole blog (per Day 579 ) is: Our lives can be measured in movies and movies can be measured in our lives and profound and profane depths can be found in the intersection thereof. That is to say, if I can know your favorite movies, know what it is you look for in a movie, then I can know you. I tweeted (and then retweeted with my personal account over to Facebook) a few posts about what people's favorite movies are--their top five. But, it's more than that. For example, there's a huge difference between how I choose my favorite movies and how I might decide what are the best movies. Hell, I don't really even bother with the latter because movies are so subjective, the experience of watching a movie is subjective, and that version of a movie that is left in each ...

The Room isn't even playing yet. I saw Girls Trip today--it was pretty good and very funny. But, right now, I've actually got the Critical Role panel from Comicon playing on Twitch. But, Pages is open and I'm typing because, you know, who cares what order things happen anyway? The point is not that things are organized but that things are tragic. You find a woman and you stay together for seven years, live together, and she'll betray you with your best friend. You find a man and you stay together for seven years, he will bore the shit out of you even though he's fundamentally a good guy, and you will cheat on him and he will kill himself. No matter what you do, someone will betray someone, someone will die, life will suck... except for when it doesn't. It's those moments when it doesn't suck that matter. When he brings you a new dress, or she has already ordered the pizza. As I write this I hear some lyrics from the Groundhog Day musical in my head-...

Time for some Christ-Figuring. (If you're new, check Days 93 and 94 ) regarding Phil Connors or the inaugural Kozlovic-Black Scale--when I Christ-Figured Rambo . You're welcome.) Now, I can barely imagine Tommy Wiseau being clever enough to deliberately make Johnny a Christ-Figure, but so much of it is deliberate that it had to at least be a subconscious thing... Or rather, sacrificial characters, betrayed within their circle of friends is such a trope that it's the sheer amount of fitting details that separate our the wheat from the chaff, as it were. As I've said before, the scale is scored out of 25 but there are more than 25 items on the list. It's a thing. 1 tangible This is always the easy one. (1/1) 2 central Tommy Wiseau makes himself (or rather, his character) central to everything he makes, so yeah. (2/2) In fact , Johnny is so central here, and his and Lisa's apartment such the hub of activity for their circle of friends, he fails to get the...

Honestly, though, we need more people to just go ahead and make movies regardless of how good they are. I mean, sure, movies with scripts that are good are better, and movies with budgets for sets with doors that stayed closed when you close them. are better, and movies that can actually afford to film on real rooftops are better. But, The Room is entertaining, is amusing, and is strangely captivating. Some bad movies are boring, or offensively bad. This one just works. It certainly doesn't work, you know, well. But, it's dealing with serious topics. Love, loyalty, the patriarchy, suicide. Plus, Johnny has the best take on life: "You can love someone deep inside your heart, and there is nothing wrong with it.. If a lot of people loved each other, the world would be a better place to live." I've been avoiding turning to politics this month, but if you want to solve the problems of partisan politics, you just gotta listen to Johnny... (There's also Peter'...

I've written before about The Room --Days 609 610 611 --but I wanted the movie version of comfort food tonight. I considered a bad horror film, but the one I picked just happens to be about the only movie unavailable on my various means of watching movies. Anyway, The Room starts out nicely enough, establishing shots of San Francisco (bought on the cheap, I'm sure) and it feels like a good indie drama. But then Tommy Wiseau has to get the first line of dialogue--"Hi, babe"--and the bad acting gets going. Then, the various "actors" compete to see who can be the worst. And, something I always liked when I was watching Groundhog Day day after day was when a new detail would jump out. Tonight, watching The Room , I got stuck on a line from the song during the first sex scene, you know the one that comes in the first five minutes of the film when we've barely had any way to get to know these characters and certainly have no reason to care about them or...

I want to love North just to be a contrarian. (I did see it when it was new (on video, not in the theater) but I don't remember it.) This is the movie about which Roger Ebert quite famously wrote: I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience but it's belief that anyone would be entertained by it. Oh, and this, regarding the sequences with North's potential new parents: They are all seen as broad, desperate comic caricatures. They are not funny. They are not touching. There is no truth in them. They don't even work as parodies. There is an idiocy here that seems almost intentional, as if the filmmakers plotted to leave anything of interest or entertainment value out of these episodes. Personally, so far, twelve minutes in, North (Elijah Wood) having just talked for the fi...

I'd like to talk about something else--and I will try tomorrow--but I am stuck. Deliberately stuck, but stuck nonetheless. I could write about Room again; I didn't really say much about it before, not specifically. I could make a good comparison between the "room" section of the film to Groundhog Day , take this blog back to year one. All Groundhog Day , all the time. (If I were coding this entry for my thesis, that would be code 6--reference to another film besides today's film.)           (There should be a code for neglecting to write while I watch the movie.) I feel like there is something more about the Oscars and specifically #OscarsSoWhite that I need to say. (Tomorrow, I hope to have something done outside of this blog related to all that.) Like people who say that black actors (because people on both sides of this issue keep neglecting other people of colour) should get better roles and, you know, act better if they want to be nominated. Nev...

It's 11pm as I start writing this entry. I've got an episode of That '70s Show on in the background. The house is quiet otherwise--kids are in South Carolina for a week visiting relatives. Earlier this evening, I had a nice dinner alone and then I watched Room . I'm not sure that I have much to say about the film. Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are fantastic, and the film has several moments that are painful to watch. In case you don't know the film, the premise is that Ma (Larson) was kidnapped seven years ago, and has been living in a locked shed every since--the titular room. Five years ago, she had her son Jack (Tremblay) and now that he's five she finally explains to him that there's a world outside the room. And, they escape--that isn't really a SPOILER, the revelation of why they're in this room is plot point one and the escape is at the half way mark, and really, them learning to live outside the room is the point. The film has a great sense...

Denny first enters the apartment and says "Oh, hey guys" as if he didn't expect Johnny and Lisa to be there. A moment later, they head upstairs, ostensibly to have an awkward pillow fight and then one of the "numerous and lengthy love scenes set to the swankiest music imaginable" ( Lannaman , 2009, August 13). And, creepy little Denny not only follows but kicks off his shoes to join in the pillow fight and tells them he likes to watch them. It's the perfect setup for an ending in which Denny loses his mind and he 's the one to kill Johnny... oh, SPOILERS. As if it really matters. Instead, Johnny kills himself and Lisa will probably inherit all his banker money, and I'm sure she'll get a nice insurance payout. And, Mark will wish he hadn't turned her down. And, Denny will wish... well, the same thing he already wishes if not for his love for the absent (and only mentioned once) Elizabeth-- (By the way, it's probably not a coincidence tha...