the groundhog day project

Davies (1995) tells us that Groundhog Day "ignor[es] considerations of race and gender politics" (p. 215). But, in no uncertain terms, Davies is wrong. Well, somewhat wrong. Well, actually mostly right on the side of race. Gender is a different story. Take a "rom com" of any era and it will tell you something about gender politics at the time it was made. It's harder for the film to have anything to say about race when there are only two people in the cast who are not white and have lines. I argued in a media studies class once that Phil is effectively put in the position of the disenfranchised (as evidenced in his conversation with Ralph and Gus at the bowling alley bar) in that the regular rules of so-called civilized society do not apply to him anymore. Money has no value. His work has no value (though he does continue to work at least most days because Rubin wanted that check-in to sprinkle through the original script). Because this is a mainstream comedy ...

I've got this urge to choose movies this month that will get me political angles, topics that will allow for me to fill these spaces with worry and with anger. (For example, yesterday, I had intended to watch Slam a third time, and briefly while still on the planeride home, I started writing what would have been the blog entry for that third viewing-- Meanwhile, I am instead watching Howl tonight and it just moved into its first bit of animation, it's play at being poetry about poetry. --and there was going to be a thing about minstrel shows, and a reference backward again to that final poetry round at the national speech tournament from which I was returned yesterday. But, I found the writing pushing me into a corner almost immediately. This comparison--or, more appropriately, as it would go, contrast--between black performers telling black stories and white performers in blackface inventing black stories was going to take 1) research and 2) a lot of thought and 3) car...

1. Today is the third anniversary of Roger Ebert's death, so I thought I'd share his thoughts on today's film--repeating Slam . 2. Today was the final day of AFA Nationals, it's already after midnight local time, and we're heading for the airport in the morning... Since it is (was) the last day of AFA and the final round I watched was, like yesterday, poetry--an amazing round, six brilliant performances, five of those six on issues about black Americans, so that's why I'm repeating Slam . 3. I'd like to get into some serious political stuff related to, primarily, the argument between Ray (Saul Williams) and Lauren (Sonja Sohn) that comes (oddly) late in the film. (Oddly, because the structure of this film seems a bit off. The jail sequence just goes on a little too long, and structurally comes too early to be the second act, and goes too late to be confined just to the second act. Also, the jail sequence is not split appropriately to be both acts on...

In the mood for some poetry after judging poetry semifinals at the end of today's tournament day. first poetry movie that came to mind was Slam (I couldn't remember if Total Eclipse really includes much poetry and I swear The Basketball Diaries includes almost none, and I've already watched Dead Poets Society for this blog) so I'm watching Slam , even though I remember liking the move but being underwhelmed by the poetry. (I suppose I could have finally watched Howl but I didn't feel like something new tonight; didn't even get back to the hotel until almost eleven. That's how Nationals goes. Early starts and late ends to the days, three hard days then you're out.) (Separate note: Danny Rubin pointed out that this---Gainesville--is his home town.) The movie is filmed like it's a documentary, and I think it's covering a lot of the same themes as the documentary SlamNation . It's talking about how black Americans ends up disproportion...