the groundhog day project

Thelma & Louise is one of those obvious titles, when you try to come up with feminist films. I was actually surprised watching the film today after many years since I last watched it, just how much of the film is virtually unrelated to the feminist core. It's that incidental feminism, or whatever you want to call it. Like if the leads were male instead, the plot wouldn't be that different. It would still be a road picture, there could still be the incidental violent act that sends the leads on the run. And, I take a moment to think of a male-centric example of the same and the first film that came to mind is The Legend of Billie Jean , which is entirely a feminist film. I know Bonnie and Clyde makes for a good comparison but it's been a while since I've watched that one, too. My mind turns to Kalifornia or Wisdom , though that isn't really a "road picture." To Hell or High Water , Natural Born Killers ... So much crime, deliberate and incidental. Th...

It was only this morning, going into the afternoon, but I cannot recall the exact order. Two things that twisted together into an idea to explain something here in this blog. The first (or second) was someone posting some photo on Facebook and referencing Barthes' punctum . The second (or first) was that I was watching last week's episode of Showtime's The Affair and Noah (Dominic West) is drunk and starts to make out with his publicist and... sure he had an affair throughout the first season (that was the setup for the show, of course), and much of this second season has been about how the various characters circling around the central couple(s) are all imperfect, they make mistakes, and sometimes things turn out okay anyway. But, here--and I've written in this blog before about how I can get attached to characters fairly easily sometimes--I was mad at Noah because this seemed like one mistake too many when he is supposed to be... or maybe I just want him to be a bet...

Screw this movie. I say that because I saw it back in 1986 and I know how it ends none of this is even going to happen... Must I warn you of SPOILERS for a film that is nearly 3 decades old? ...because the end of this movie lets us know that none of the movie happens. Movie starts with John (Emilio Estevez) in the tub and ends with John still in the tub, imagined the whole thing. More narration as the "fantasy" (i.e. the plot) gets going. Oh, the movie is Wisdom . Came out at the end of the year, tied for #1 at the box office with Witchboard (which I would later see on video. Movies I'd seen in the theater in the top 15: Platoon , #5 in its 3rd week; Little Shop of Horrors , #7 in its 3rd week; Lady and the Tramp (reissue) (maybe; I'd seen it on video for sure, may have seen it when it was reissued), #8 in its 3rd week; Heartbreak Ridge , #12 in its 5th week (and which was the first movie I saw at the then new United Artists Marketplace in Old Town Pasadena, whic...