the groundhog day project

[EDIT: If anyone is coming to this blog from the Believer article, welcome. To find the daily pieces on Groundhog Day you've got to look at August 2013 to August 2014. And, I will be watching Groundhog Day and writing an entry related to it later today--today being February 2. The piece below was posted late last night for February 1st. For the month of January, I watched 5 action movies from the 1980s. Enjoy.] Let us get the most important item out of the way first off on this last day with Top Gun : There’s a question on Quora — In Top Gun , why was Jester allowed to fly below the “hard deck,” but Maverick and Goose were reprimanded for it? But, I’ve got a better question—if the “hard deck” was 10,000 feet and Maverick gets in trouble for flying below said altitude, what were both jets doing flying so low well before the moment in question? I mean, look at this: Does that look like they are above 10,000 feet? (It’s so low, it reminds me of the opening titles sequ...

The opening shot of Top Gun —after that somewhat superfluous text—is the deck of the USS Enterprise. (Seen in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home later the same year). There’s fog, or I guess it’s exhaust, blowing across the deck. We see men, but not in detail. We see fighter jets, but also not in detail. The music is low energy, and when it transitions into “Danger Zone” the light comes up a little; the planes are a little more visible, the men a little more visible. Then, we’re introduced to the leads as they come up, inexplicably, against two MiG 28s. This—in the Indian Ocean, where everything should be fine and dandy. An exchange of fire and this would be like Tonkin all over again. But, this time for real. And, involving planes instead of boats. The reference is important because, like the other movies this past month, Vietnam hangs like a shadow over the whole thing. It’s not as obvious as Rambo or Commando or even Lethal Weapon . It’s not as deliberately left behind as Die Hard —r...

Current Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox has a connection to Top Gun ; she was the inspiration for Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood. At the time, she had been dispatched to TOPGUN as a civilian employee of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). Her call sign was "Legs." Like her big screen counterpart, Legs does frequent the Officer's Club. Unlike her big screen counterpart, she does not get involved with aviators. Commander Harry Hunter, who worked in the same office she did, is quoted, "She's so professional that her looks don't become a point of interest. When she walks in you say 'wow,' but 30 seconds later you're talking business" (Richman, 1985). When she goes to the Officer's Club and has a conversation with an aviator, it's generally about business. Lieutenant Linda Speed, an administrative officer at TOPGUN at the time, theorizes, "These guys compartmentalize their lives... Flying is in one box...

Let's talk about war. Let's talk about America. As if those were two different topics. I don't know if Rambo had an effect on military recruitment, but Top Gun definitely did. Enlistment spiked after Top Gun was released--BLANK estimates BLAH BLAH--and recruitment tables were even set up outside movie theaters to answer inquiries from young men who had just seen a feature-length, blockbuster commercial for the Navy. The Washington Post reports: During production, the Pentagon worked hand-in-hand with the filmmakers, reportedly charging Paramount Pictures just $1.8 million for the use of its warplanes and aircraft carriers. But that taxpayer-subsidized discount came at a price--the filmmakers were required to submit their script to Pentagon brass for meticulous line edits aimed at casing the military in the most positive light. (Sirota, 2011, August 26) Salon --same author, actually--quotes "public relations expert" Nancy Snow: "Propaganda is most ef...

I don't know how accurate this is, but my Media Theory teacher told us last week (a fellow grad student talked about this movie for his presentation) that Top Gun was the first movie to really play entire songs like this opening bit with "Danger Zone" and the aircraft carrier montage. Seems not quite right, since the song trails off just like many a movie song. They do keep coming back to it, though. Yes, to cap off the 80s action movie month, I'm going to enjoy me some Top Gun . Simpson and Bruckheimer before they got too big. It's day one, so I'll let the movie just play for a bit. Haven't watched this movie in a long time. One immediate response: it's remarkable how little the film is explaining about what's going on. We're just there in the air with these pilots with their lingo (though the film, apparently, misuses "bogey") and their call signs. Since it's day one, I'm also looking at the box office, figuring out w...