the groundhog day project

I gotta watch Sing Street this week for a podcast, and Fran's outburst here in Strictly Ballroom that was yesterday's (and today's) title reminds me of Raphina's line there: "You can never do anything by half." A basic enough message. You want something, you gotta go for it. What you'd expect from a romantic comedy. Or drama... I mean, movies inherently involve some protagonist going after some goal, some dream, some love, some whatever. Messages aren't going to run deep, and sometimes they're obvious, but that doesn't make them lesser. Like, I've written in this blog a few times about About Time and have a currently running podcast about that film and some of the negative reviews about it complain about its central message--to slow down and appreciate the things around you. And, yeah, that's a basic message, but if more of us followed that advice we wouldn't hear that message so much. Like this movie: don't ...

The real stakes of High Road to China are not in the physical adventure, the flying (though that does make for a great metaphor), the fighting (though that, too, makes for a great metaphor), the exotic locales (though that...) The parantheticals are making my point ahead of me. The voyage here is not hat exciting--there are not great stakes and the at the end of the film our heroes have not actually succeeded at what they set out to do (though Evie's father does tell O'Malley that Evie will inherit all of his formulas and patents, if not his company, if he is declared dead, so it's not all bad). Instead, what we have is two people trapped in their own freedom, and they need something else. What I mean is, look at Evie and O'Malley at the start of this story. Evie, a flapper, dances and schmoozed with wild abandon. But she can only maintain this lifestyle because she has money, her father's money. Charlie tells her that she will lose it all if she cannot pr...

With action movies, it's easy. With courtroom dramas. Even with romances. If--and if they had, this movie would have probably been quite forgettable--they had gone ahead and filmed the scenes with Stephanie DeCastro , maybe it would have been easier. But, what makes Phil's situation so hard is there is not clear victory to be had, no simple solution. Chasing after Rita is not dictated by some Fairy Godmother or Magic Mirror. Phil's situation is both entirely his own doing and entirely not. It's simple. It's complex. It's unsolvable. And, eventually, it solves itself. Like life. If you're lucky. If the social and cultural and political and ethnic and racial rolls go in your favor and circumstance doesn't set you as an example for everybody else. The thing is, however silly bullshit American Dream lines feel all too often-- you can accomplish anything if you just put your mind to it , you can be anything you want to be and all the similar lies we tell...

Being the Groundhog Day enthusiast/obsessive/blogger that I am, it is interesting to me that out of all the characters in Dave Made a Maze , the one who never actually enters the maze is the hobo played by Rick Overton, aka Ralph from Groundhog Day . The one guy--who just might be Ralph all these years later--who has been around this kind of relentless, repetitive, lesson-making fantastical venture before, is the one who never participates now. (Not that he, you know, ever really necessarily knew what Phil was going through in that time loop. The closest he might have come to understanding it may only have been on that night that he and Gus were quite drunk. And, of course, they would not remember it the next day, anyway.) Also, in the opening credits, he gets a "with". The hobo is, of course, the person that, by choice or circumstance, exists outside the normal channels of everyday life. Everyone else is eventually caught up in the cardboard labyrinth in some way. Even t...

          My daughter is in the room as I'm watching Groundhog Day --it's the 2nd of the month (and it's also her birthday today). She's reciting lines along with the characters and proclaiming that she hates the movie. Methinks she doth protest too much. Me--I'm reciting some lines, but I'm not thinking much about anything to write. Hoping for something new... And then I notice a tiny new thing; right before the snow shovel hits Phil when he's in the gas station, it hits the phone on the wall. New, sure. But, not substantial...           I'm watching, and waiting. Not in the mood for politics. Didn't see any other movies today. (I did have a stray observation about The Room , though, as I turned it on while I was writing about The Disaster Artist yesterday . The way The Disaster Artist presents the production, it's entirely inept, like they filmed scenes from only one angle, barely managed multiple takes, and in one in...

That bootstrap paradox is vital to Somewhere in Time . In another story, it would be a stranger mystery, or a misguided mistake. Here, it is fundamental to the story being told. The bootstrap paradox has two parts here... First, though, let me define it in case you are not nerdy about time travel stories. The Quantum Tunnel: Exploring Physics Fact in Science Fiction defines the bootstrap paradox as a time travel paradox in which an object or information can exist without ever being created. The object or piece of information is sent back in time where it is retrieved and to become the very object or piece of information that was brought back in the beginning. The name comes from a Heinlein story called "By His Bootstraps" Drawing on the expression about "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps", the story concerns a man who travels back in time to give his younger self a notebook of translations he has made... Except if he gives that notebook to his younger self...

Heaven Can Wait waits again because today I saw Geostorm and I saw Happy Death Day again. Because, I could. Some observations regarding Geostorm : 1) it's not quite as bad as I expected, but the bar was really, really, really low; 2) the visuals are awesome (except for the lightning and the running people freezing); 3) the plot is so very simple and doesn't really offer time to care about the pair of brothers at its center, or the one guy getting home to his daughter; 4) the film, like far too many films, begins and ends with entirely unnecessary voiceover narration that 5) doesn't actually fit the plot, and contradicts the marketing with that "SOME THINGS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE CONTROLLED" poster tagline, as 6) the film is absolutely not about how we shouldn't be controlling the weather, nor is it really digging in on the requisite global warming link into its story; it makes a slight effort toward the latter, but essentially spends its time supporting th...

Heaven Can Wait can wait. Because today was an awesome movie day. I had an unplanned class cancellation, so I made it to a couple movies in the afternoon ( Marshall and then Professor Marston and the Wonder Women ), then in the evening I took my daughter to see Happy Death Day because 1) she wanted to see it and it turned out to be a good horror film and 2) it's always fun to watch a time loop movie a second time. If you are out of the loop... And that wasn't a pun. If you are out of the loop, regarding Happy Death Day , think Scream ( 387 388 389 390 391 393 394 ) crossed with Groundhog Day ( 1 ... 365 + so many other entries)--except don't because Quentin Fottrell over at Market Watch seems to either think that mix is Hollywood out of ideas, because reusing one idea with another, and adding your own bits is bankrupt Hollywood at its finest, or some such bullshit. I mean, I think most remakes are cynical cash grabs from, yeah, a Hollywood out of ideas, or at l...

As I start writing today's entry, I'm not sure if I'm going to watch Ice Castles one more time. I've got a 48-hour rental, so I could watch it a third time, really boil down what it taught me when I was a kid, but it's mostly going to be something simple and cheesy... like It taught me about perseverance and love and the importance of having people around you . Obvious crap like that. One thing it didn't teach me was that being blind is fine because you can get right back up and... skate. Again. I don't skate. Not only was that never my calling, I rarely roller skated, and often did it wrong, and have only ice skated like twice ever. But, that's beside the point. My calling when I was young (not as young as where I still am with this deconstruction thing. Older, able to have dreams about what I wanted to do with my life.) was writing, then filmmaking. I could write without my sight, I suppose. But, filmmaking... And, more importantly, filmwatching--thi...

It isn't all politics, of course. When it's the 2nd of the month and I come back to Groundhog Day again* it's nothing but a delightful time, appreciating the personal, appreciating the will to improve, the impulse to go after the things you want, and the urge to help others when you can. (* in case you're confused because I also watched Groundhog Day yesterday, 1) you must be new, 2) that was the last day of the Groundhog Day Project year, so I went with the titular film and 3) you should have been here for phase one (aka year one) when it was Groundhog Day every day. That kind of commitment lets you know what you're capable of, lets you know what you can handle, lets you know just who you are.) And I've written so many thousands of words about this film, it's a wonder that I can still say anything. But, it's also a wonder that anyone couldn't, you know, because the film is timeless--and I don't mean that as a pun--and universal. Everybod...

Author's Note: Color me a hypocrite, but I don't follow much, if any, of the advice I am about to give. Here's the present: I'm sitting on a pew in a church building someplace in Long Beach, California. My daughter's got rehearsal for a play and we're far enough from home that I just hang out during, work on my blog, watch some tv, read, whatever. Only my third time tonight, so I couldn't say there's a pattern but for writing this blog. I've already seen two movies today-- Wish Upon and War for the Planet of the Apes --but I don't feel like writing about either of those. I'm stuck in a different mode. Stuck in a loop. I was listening to the soundtrack to the Groundhog Day musical on the drive here. Between Phil's being stuck in a pattern he needs to get out of, but not for the reason he thinks; Rita being stuck on imaginary knights in shining armor from childhood fairy tales, but knowing that's unrealistic and not worth waiting f...

The dog gets my favorite line in Beginners . The full subtitle (because, of course, the dog doesn't actually speak) is: "Tell her the darkness is about to drown us unless something drastic happens now." I've been there. Felt that drowning sensation, the darkness, and had drastic things happen. (By the way, I'm not actually watching Beginners tonight. My Netflix was having some issues, so I moved on. #FirstWorldProblems) I've been diagnosed with depression, been offered prescriptions for medication to deal with it. Mostly, I've learned to deal with it on my own. I've gotten good at compartmentalizing different parts of my life, and I've learned to take time to do fun things. For example, today I went to the Renaissance Faire with friends with whom I play D&D. I also (in case some future reader hasn't noticed the jump in dates or some past reader is confused) restarted this blog, ostensibly as if nothing had changed. I picked up the ...