the groundhog day project

The Presidio begins a little oddly--like the filmmakers didn't know how to do a cold open. Some obligatory San Francisco skyline shots, the Golden Gate Bridge, a military march past a stage (with Sean Connery up there because we need to be reminded he's in this movie like we didn't see the trailer and choose to see this in the theater... Or maybe we didn't watch this one until it was on home video; I can't remember. I know we saw Big Business in the theater and that was this same weekend. Given that we went to the second-run Academy Theater a lot in the late 80s, maybe we saw it there. But, my point is, until it's on cable much later, no one is turning this movie on and not knowing that Connery is in it. So, the film would be better served pulling a cold open with the dark foggy night, the MP coming upon a robbery and getting shot, the car chase, instead of wasting time on) basically a bunch of pointless establishing shots instead of getting to some action...

It's 1995. The internet is still mostly a fantasy. A scary fantasy. We had Lawnmower Man a few years ago. Later this year we'll have Virtuosity and Hackers . Right now, it's July and we've got The Net . When we meet Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock, and that name means Blessed Angel; we'll get to that below), she's playing Wolfenstein. Killing a computer virus. She's got a friend who collects them. I had a friend like that in high school. She orders a pizza online--state-of-the-art stuff right there--and "A Whiter Shade of Pale" plays and that's a love song, right? Her and the pizza? Back up. The movie begins with a politician killing himself at Hains Point in DC. The camera pans up and over The Awakening-- --and I'm wondering if the choice is deliberate, a metaphor for... For the Internet struggling to dig it's way out of the earth into regular use? Humanity (like Angela) struggling to live life while being buried by an increasingl...