the groundhog day project

Tonight--not that this was ever a part of my childhood--I've got the commentary track playing on Meatballs . Director Ivan Reitman and writer/producer Daniel Goldberg. They might not say anything interesting. I'm going in blind. Opening scene was a pickup. I've already read about the stuff in Tripper's cabin, and Tripper's announcements were done after most of the production. Sidenote, as I maybe figure out what they're rambling about regarding casting Bill Murray: the "sombrero" Tripper gives Rudy later is visible on the wall early in the film. And, it's got me thinking about props. But, not hat props. I've had a problem recently with photograph props. For example, I saw The Snowman today--it's not awful, but it is quite lazily and haphazardly edited--and noticed that Harry's (Michael Fassbender) counter has this picture frame with five photos, him and his ex and her son. And, the photos look like they were all taken at the same e...

Out of nowhere today, it occurred to me what was " missing " in Marshall . Well, not out of nowhere; I was leaving the theater--I saw The Foreigner today before heading off to class, and there was a poster for Marshall in the lobby. And, I realized that Marshall has the same sort of subconsciously racist problem that Birth of the Dragon had this summer, and that numerous other movies have all the time. See, Birth of the Dragon is ostensibly a story about Bruce Lee (Philip Ng), but the main character is the white guy (Billy Magnussen). Marshall is ostensibly about Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) but the filmmakers didn't choose a case he won on his own, they chose the case where he brought in the white guy (Josh Gad). Now, these white character's stories are interesting in their own right, sure. But, it's problematic when you tell the story of the famous person of color and you have to bring in a white character to tell the story... Meatballs doesn...