the groundhog day project

"You have come of your own free will," Lord Summerisle tells Sergeant Howie. But, did he? The lies and manipulation--from an entire town, no less--required to get him on that beach just in time to see Rowan and run with her into the cave... that's one of the more complicated plans. The folks at Consumer Recreation Services would be envious. The full sentence from Lord Summerisle is, of course, "You have come of your own free will to the appointed place." Sounds like a contradiction of terms to me. Lord Summerisle also explains--SPOILERS, of course--"You came here to find Rowan Morrison, but it is we who have found you and brought you hear and controlled your every thought and action since you arrived." I think Lord Summerisle needs to get himself a dictionary and check again what free will means. (I cannot find the article, but I read the other day someone making the explicit comparison between Sergeant Howie and the insect that Daisy has tied to a n...

Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. – Gene Fowler Fowler was a journalist, someone who wrote on a regular basis. I don’t know if he considered his output to be art or simply work. Personally, I feel that everything I write, even the most mundane academic piece, is still art. In Art & Fear , Bayles and Orland (1993) begin simply with the following: Making art is difficult. We leave drawings unfinished and stories unwritten. We do work that does not feel like our own. We repeat ourselves. We stop before we have mastered our materials, or continue on long after their potential is exhausted. (p. 1) On the first statement, I wholeheartedly agree. Though writing is easy, making art is difficult, though the two things are often (or, I suppose I implied above, always) one and the same. On the second statement, yes, I have left behind many unfinished drawings, many unfinished stories. I have detailed notes...

The ordinary becomes extraordinary, even scary, in The Ring . Not just the videotape (and by extension the VCR), but the telephone and its ring. That opening sequence, with Katie's back-and-forth as to whether or not there is a tape, whether or not she watched it, whether or not she's dying--it turns serious when the phone rings (only to have yet another double back since it's just her mother calling). Similarly, in the opening sequence of The Ring Two , Jake is horrified by the ring of the phone and so are we, on some level, even though we know better--Samara does not call you when she's about to kill you. She calls once, right after you watch the tape. The ordinary becoming a danger--that's anxiety over technological ubiquity turned into a horror film. Well, technological in terms of the VCR and the telephone, and ultimately the television itself. But also the ladder. But, I don't even want to write about today. I will forego that topic by simply pointing ...

The yurodivy is a kind of "holy fool" - the person who sees what's really going on in society and has the audacity to say it, but only in a kind of code. If there's a crooked government, the holy fool will maybe perform a weird pantomime or tell a story, one that gets everyone to laugh at first; sooner or later, the more perceptive members of the yurodivy 's audience will also recognize in the fool's antics a hidden message. – ( Saint Paul Sunday ) The… article quoted above goes on to use Gogol’s Dead Souls as an example, and I loved that book (though I admit I probably didn’t get all of the nuance of its satire). Groundhog Day isn’t satire, though. Still, it comments so readily on the human condition in the modern world, repetition and inanity hitting us from all side. Yesterday, I suggested a) that Ralph and Gus were Phil’s holy fools and b) that Phil was ours. Phil’s sarcasm, his dry wit, his sardonic humor—this is all him commenting on the world, sure...

Von Franz (1980) states that redemption in fairy tales should not be viewed as having "religious" connotations, but has to do with becoming "restored" after having been cursed" (p. 7). Such fairy tales do not dwell on the problem, but on the redemption process, making them relevant in therapy and healing (p. 8). The process is reminiscent of Phil Connors' situation, which is never overtly explained, his story focusing on his process of recovering his humanness and fellow-feeling which appears to lead his "curse" being lifted. (Benesh, 2011, p. 33) This is why I put a pink tab labeled "self-cursed"--just in case you're paying attention, I think I said the tab was on page 34, so I'll explain: I printed Benesh's dissertation two pages per sheet. I mean, the things 131 pages long. If I could cut the paper count in half, I would. Similarly, the second revision of the screenplay is printed two pages per sheet... I mention this no...

A note before I get down to business for today, though part of this deserves its own entry later: First, an explanation. I still haven't purchased a blu-ray copy of Groundhog Day but I went ahead and replaced the copy I've got on my iPad with the HD version available on iTunes. Proceeded to watch the movie in an entirely appropriate non-linear fashion tonight. Had the DVD playing on the TV and on the iPad I started about 10 minutes ahead but was pausing and grabbing screencaps (not my usual method but my desktop computer hadn't loaded the HD version yet), occasionally backing up to get something I'd missed, and pausing to make sure I'd catch certain lines a second time as the DVD copy caught up. By the end, I'd paused so many times--over 150 screencaps--the DVD copy actually finished about 10 or 15 minutes before the iPad copy. But, anyway, I've got a whole lot of good screencaps now to deal with a piece about extras I've been meaning to get to, that ...

On the latest episode of New Girl , "a Groundhog Day situation" was used to describe something I'm not sure Phil had a problem with... erectile dysfunction. More a reference to the holiday then the movie--Zooey Deschanel's Jess made a joke about there being six more weeks of winter--it still seemed worth mentioning. Even though it has nothing to do with the following. I mentioned before about the cards we see when Phil and Rita are hanging out at the end of "god" day. I claimed it "probably means nothing" that day, but I wasn't "in the mood for meaning" that day and today I am. So, I must point out that out of all the playing cards we see when Rita's attempting to learn to throw them into a hat, there are only four cards face up. In the hat, there's the Queen and the Seven of Hearts (the Queen on top). The corresponding cards in the Tarot would be the Queen and Seven of Cups. And, outside the hat: on the left, half visibl...

Sometimes, it’s the little things that grab your attention—especially when the big things are repeated day after day after day. You start to notice things, like how Rita and Nancy harmonize when they say “hi” to each other, or how there are three volunteers for the bachelor auction before Doris volunteers Phil—so, what happened to them? Were they even worse picks than Larry, considering he’s able to get up on stage after Phil? Or maybe those three guys weren’t volunteering, they were heading out some back exit because they didn’t want to be auctioned off like chattel. You can see them, here: But, let’s backtrack to earlier in the film… For example, Rita is amused by Phil making fun of her in the newsvan, or at least Andie MacDowell’s grinning like she’s amused. She should be offended, but she isn’t. Even when he says the line about the pelvic tilt outside the Pennsylvanian Hotel, she is still amused. She’s totally into him already; I’m not sure why hooking up with her is so diffic...

I imagine the days where Phil Connors gets contemplative. Maybe it’s before he turns to depression. Maybe it’s after. And, a weird thought occurs to me—he can never fast. I mean, he can go without food for a day, sure. But, that’s it, a day. His digestive system will have food from the day before, so he probably won’t be all that hungry. I mean, yeah, when we’re used to eating regularly, we’ll get hungry after missing a meal. But, that’s not real hunger. There’s an interesting bit in Siddhartha in which Kamaswami asks Siddhartha what he has learned that he can give. Siddhartha’s response: “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.” Kamaswami asks, what good is fasting? He’s a businessman, a merchant who certainly doesn’t value the contemplative moments of life. Siddhartha explains: It is of great value, sir. If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned how to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work t...