the groundhog day project

Allow me to get the obvious out of the way after last week's Hunger Games marathon : in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 , Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence, in case you're living under a rock) actually does stuff throughout most of the film. Almost all of it is even her idea. The interesting thing, though, is that the story still manages to let Katniss kill almost no one. She kills some Mutts--and not the dog-type like in the first film, but some naked albino 28 Days Later -style zombies instead... In fact, that sequence does a great job of building some real tension and giving weight to an otherwise obvious set of deaths to winnow down the main group in the film--oh, SPOILERS will happen in this entry. If you want to see the film and have not read the book, you probably should not be reading this. My complaint regarding that sequence is that the score suggests action film when the sequence plays more like something out of a horror film. Actually, that sequence is one of severa...

So, I think I’ve figured out what it is that gets the time loop going in Groundhog Day . But, first an aside: Last week’s Childrens Hospital episode “The C-Word” involved a running gag in which one of the characters, Owen Maestro played by Rob Heubel, thought he was stuck in a time loop. See, this season, the cast is working in a hospital on a military base in Japan and this guy’s morning started with the bugle playing reveille and a loudspeaker announcement of the time, and then his fellow doctor, Cat Black played by Lake Bell, comes in from working the night shift, which she calls “brutal.” So, Owen goes outside and sees another doctor, Blake Downs played by Rob Cordry, jogging right into some wet cement and then into a plate of glass two guys are carrying—old timey comic bits. The next morning, reveille again, the announcement, Dr. Black coming in from the brutal night shift, then Dr. Downs jogging, but this time Owen warns him about the wet cement. Then, as Owen wanders off, bel...