the groundhog day project

Our progress so far in this deconstruction: (All, in theory, of course. Plus, it's basically a chicken or the egg problem; like, did I like movies about rebels and outcasts because I already had the interest, or was it my interest that drew me to such movies? Could I already imagine that monsters were human too, and that's something I liked about Young Frankenstein , or was it this movie that formed that notion within me? Or is it all just coincidence with some of these really early films--i.e. movies made before I was born, and put to VHS in my family's house not by my choice, and not even viewed by me necessarily by my choice; I mean, I took an interest in films before I can remember taking such an interest. If there was a movie to watch, I would watch it. Didn't matter what it was about; I'd give it a shot. And, if my mother didn't already know just how adult the film might be, she might try to cover my eyes (though she usually failed, and always piqued m...

Before I really get into today's film-- Young Frankenstein --I was thinking about the similarities this one shares with the last two. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is visited at work to be told he has inherited property. Johnny Baxter in Snowball Express is visited at work to be told he has inherited property. Steve Walker in Blackbeard's Ghost comes to his new locale because of work, but he too is brought to a new location where the new plot gets going. It's an easy in, really. Like offering up the rookie officer, or the new partner, in a cop movie; it invents a definable beginning for the plot for the audience to come into it. (We're still not to year of my birth, by the way. This is 1974. But, of course, I was not selecting the movies for my family right out of the womb. That would take at least a handful of years.) It's an easy opening for any film, any story. Take westerns, for example--which, if you're new, I explored through the month of June...

But, then there’s that music... However dated some of Snowball Express ' content may feel, it's got a brilliant effortlessness to it. Like the bit with the snow falling from the eaves that leads to a snowball fight. The Baxters seem more like an actual family than four actors working. And some pleasant music plays. (The same pleasant music works as a nice clue for the audience that Baxter won't be seriously injured skiing Nightmare Alley.) That same effortlessness affects the plot in a... Not a negative way, but a horribly, cutely convenient way. The Baxters open up the rundown Grand Imperial. The water heater explodes. So they can't get a rope tow engine. Instead, they get the donkey engine. They can't get any guests, but then Wally inadvertently sets off an avalanche that blocks a passing train, and they've got guests. But then the donkey engine crashes through the hotel and the guests leave. Johnny and Jesse race in the Silver Hill Winter-National and com...

There's an echo--or whatever the opposite of an echo is--of Joe Versus the Volcano in the much briefer opening of Snowball Express . Baxter doesn't have a terminal diagnosis, of course. Rather, his great uncle (who he apparently didn't even know) died, and this is Baxter's new lease on life. Get out of the "smudge pot" of the city, the office, and go run a hotel in Colorado. I just learned this is based on a book called Chateau Bon Vivant --a true story apparently--about newlyweds Frankie and Johnny O'Rear who "arm themselves with a four-hundred-page volume entitled Theories of Hotel Management , two cases of bourbon... and a Vermont beagle" and set about a "twelve-year comedy of errors" running a ski-lodge in Quebec" (Back Cover Description, near as I can tell). Some details have been changed, of course. Frankie is Susan. Johnny is still Johnny but he left the office instead of the navy. Instead of two cases of bourbon, they...

I And then there's Snowball Express . Dean Jones again. Disney again. And this one starts with the subversive element--Baxter (Jones) inherits a hotel in Colorado and immediately quits his office job... I'm not even sure what it is that he does. Ah, he says Indemnity and Casualty --I guess it's insurance. That's certainly not symbolic of anything. Nor is his destructive interactions with the office "computer" or the time clock. He assesses his time at the company for his wife like this: "Yes, eleven years. And in that time I have moved up three rows, from accounts receivable to accounts payable. Honey, I feel like I'm digging myself into a hole. And today, somebody threw me a rope." She responds: "Do you mean you're just going to give up everything and drag your family off into the wilderness?" "Wilderness?" What...? Honey, I am taking over as the owner and the proprietor of the Grand Imperial Hotel. Does that sound li...

George's post-firing rage bit reminds me of Johnny Baxter's in Snowball Express , a little over the top... a lot over the top, but still understandable. And, Snowball Express is a movie that very much ties into my childhood, a movie we had on video and watched often. Life as a House , on the other hand, is a link back to a very specific moment in my life. Movie came out October 26, 2001. The next Wednesday, Halloween, I would meet in person for the first time the woman I would marry the next March. I knew she was coming. I was probably in a good mood. But, I'd spent a good part of my 20s depressed and/or lonely. I don't know really know if this film goes too far into the realm of schmaltz (the bit with the nurse, maybe) or if it offers up a nice even portrayal of damaged people and damaged relationships in the face of grief and death. I just know that it felt genuine when I saw it then, and it feels as genuine when I watch it now. I may have been headed into somethin...