the groundhog day project

(Two things before I get going today: 1) it appears that, sometime since I last checked ahead for availability, For Your Eyes Only has become unavailable online as it was before; only way to get it is to buy it, and I don't feel like paying that much right now. 2) I have actually written about For Your Eyes Only in this blog once before, last May when Roger Moore died, so if I don't find it cheaper, maybe I'll just skip past it. There will be at least one more James Bond movie coming up on this deconstruction, anyway.) The Fox and the Hound might actually be built up in my head as a fixture of my childhood more than it ever actually was one. I loved it when I saw it in the theater. At some point, we bought the home video, but I think there might have actually been a few years in between. In the meantime, though, this movie was in my head. Nice cartoon staples right away, with Dinky and Boomer trying to catch Squeeks like it's something they would do every episode ...

There’s a formula John Hughes uses when it comes to making the despicable characters seem not so bad as the story goes—he provides somebody worse. In Dutch , for example, Dutch Dooley was a horrible guy, but at least he wasn’t as arbitrarily uncaring as Doyle’s father. Similarly, in Christmas Vacation , Clark’s (and the movie’s, really) reliance on money and capitalism in defining a good Christmas sits next to those yuppies next door. There’s nothing to like about Todd and Margo, right? The thing is, there’s nothing particularly horrible about them. The movie just assumes we won’t like them so all the bad things that happen to them because of Clark Griswold, deliberately or not, are justified. They’ve got money. They’re too good for Christmas trees. They’ve got fancy entertainment equipment (destroyed by the ice) and fancy workout clothes. And, worst of all, they like each other. No one should like these people. Clark, on the other hand, all around good guy, loving (and faithful) hu...