the groundhog day project

One more time: Suburban Sasquatch . If you found your way here because you'd seen it, good for you. You have seen one of the greatest films of all time. If you have not seen it, I am sorry. But, hey, stick around. I will try to take the film quite seriously. Even though Rick (Bill Ushler) doesn't know his lines and thinks he cannot act without also moving constantly. And that makes it hard to take his character seriously. Today's topic: Bigfoot is intersex. See, Bigfoot has notable breasts. And, according to behind-the-scenes footage, the costume choices were quite deliberate and extensive. Bigfoot also has a penis; though you can only barely see it in the film, it is visible in behind-the-scenes footage. Additionally, the coy lack of detail when Talla asks Megan what Bigfoot did to her suggests some sort of sexual violation. When every modern film (unless it is specifically impossible, e.g. some war film where the entire cast is men) eventually hinges on showing man and...

I will be up front about this. I am watching Suburban Sasquatch again rather than get back to High Road to China . It's just so fun. Also, I saw Every Day today's--long time readers of this blog might recognize the name. I wrote about David Levithan's book back when it was still Groundhog Day every day. In particular, I quoted this bit: What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such a small measure of time contains such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in deja by, why people they've lived past lives, because there is no way the years I've spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I'm feeling. The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations--all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secrets arrows were points here, ...

And then I skipped the scheduled film for a day because 1) I can and b) it will line up better with March 2nd being a Groundhog Day day. Instead of watching High Road to China again and try to justify its stakes, I am watching a horrible film that I have never seen in its entirety before. (I have seen parts of it online, particularly because Red Letter Media did an entire "Best of the Worst" episode about it. The film is Suburban Sasquatch . It starts with bad acting and lazy filming, and then the Sasquatch arrives and hilarity ensues. But, not on purpose. The hilarity is these two getting killed. Then insert a badly animated CGI hawk and a (supposedly) Native American woman, Talla (Sue Lynn Sanchez) who is going to do battle. The details are vague. Insert cops, Steve (Juan Fernandez) and John (Dave Bonavita, who also plays the Sasquatch). And a reporter, Rick (Bill Ushler). The cops mention nearby property development and we should know right away there is an environ...

High Road to China makes sure pretty quickly that we understand it's the 1920s. Old cars, men in suits, and flappers. Vincent Canby explains , High Road to China "is set in a sort of mythical 'Roaring 20's,' which can be immediately identified because a young woman is seen doing a mad Charleston in an early scene." Also, some guy gets shot in the opening scene and I have no idea who he was. Eve (Bess Armstrong), the young woman dancing the Charleston, needs to find her father before he dies or his business partners will have him declared dead and take his business. She needs a plane for this and hooks up with O'Malley (Tom Selleck). That's the setup. Simple. She's a "society dame", he's an alcoholic. They head (initially) for Afghanistan (from Istanbul) and, well, basically, this is an adventure plot with a romance sprinkled in. Half an hour in, I gotta agree with Roger Ebert's conclusion : "High Road to China" is ...

I've mentioned before in this blog the sound effect I call Wilhelm's Car Horn. I'm watching This Is Us right now (the episode after the Super Bowl one--I got a little behind on tv with classes starting and then olympics stuff to watch) and they just had a Wilhelm's Car Horn. Randall is learning to drive, almost runs a STOP sign and a delivery truck swerves out of the way while honking. Try that some time. Swerve your car abruptly while honking. Even if you could manage to do both at the same time, you wouldn't. Not in the moment. This sound effect was already on my mind because I was thinking about writing about the movie I saw this morning-- Game Night --and their use of Wilhelm's Car Horn was just one of the little details that annoyed me. That movie isn't bad. The plot moves along nicely, and there are a few good laughs. But... And, here is where an interesting thought struck me. I wrote last week about Black Panther , and I said the movie "is...

So, right away, a complaint: the introduction of the woobie is lazy. Kenny has presumably had the woobie for, like, his whole life. Alex knows not to mess with it, and probably messes with it all the time. But, Caroline warns him not to touch it, as if it's something new... And, this is John Hughes writing, so I'm a little disappointed. Of course, later moments, like the entire Rocky conversation, or the recipe sharing (though something about the scorching butter line feels off to me), or the poker game, make up for that. And, there are little bits all over this movie that are great examples of writing. The "disability" gag with Larry (Christopher Lloyd). (Side note: I feel sorry for Tom Leopold, who plays Stan. He's in scenes with Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, and Jeffrey Tambor, and I'm like, Who's this other guy? .) Jack's growing interest in The Young and the Restless . The 220, 221 exchange. "I'm going to sleep on the fat cou...

Mr. Mom is a progressive film for 1983. Give us the typical American family with husband, wife, two and a half kids. Nice conservative vision to open up--the husband works, the wife stays home. But, then Jack (Michael Keaton) loses his job at the automotive factory and everything falls apart. Now, in addition to this being one of the films we watched a lot when I was a kid, this film has other connections, too. For example, the story went back when this movie came out, that my mother actually heard about an open casting call for the two boys. And she considered taking me to audition. I'm seven months younger than Alex (Frederick Koehler) and a year older than Kenny (Taliesin Jaffe). Now, I'm not saying I was a cute kid but from time to time I might imagine since then that she took me and I was cast and my life went in a completely different direction. Maybe I'd be playing on Critical Role tonight instead of sitting here watching it. Let me explain that fantasy for thos...

And, of course, as I've said with the previous Star Wars films, Return of the Jedi put me on the side of rebellion. The powers that be get a little too authoritarian, you band together and revolt. For the record, I jumped over to watching Return of the Jedi tonight after watching a CNN Town Hall about gun violence and school shootings. [And, throughout much of the film, there was a conversation going on in the next room about a lot of this stuff, too.] Future readers--on Valentine's Day, just one week ago, a 19-year-old expelled high school student returned to his school with a gun and killed 17 students and teachers and wounded 14 others. Surviving students have been rather outspoken, and if you don't know what side of this issue I come down on, you probably have not been following this blog; I do tend to get into political rants from time to time even under the guise of talking about movies because movies are inherently political, even if only to reinforce (or reject...

I like the ewoks. I always liked the ewoks. Let us just get that out right away. I was seven when Return of the Jedi came out, and barring false memories, I even remember going to see it at the theater at the mall in Eagle Rock. I had already seen the prior two films more than a few times. I had behind-the-scenes books, comics, storybooks, activity books... These (among others): And, action figures. Lots of action figures. More from Return of the Jedi than from the previous two films combined, probably. Because, I bought a lot of action figures later at yard sales and flea markets, I am not entirely clear on just how many action figures I had at any given time. I know that I never owned an X-Wing (until just a handful of years ago when I invested in the tabletop game Star Wars: X-Wing , which is awesome, by the way), I didn't have an AT-AT until the mid- to late-80s, and it was missing the side door and the electronic bits. I had Jabba and his throne, and I think I migh...

Shall we talk about Never Say Never Again ? Or shall I ignore Octopussy , playing now, to talk about the four other movies I watched today to finish off this year's Oscar nominated films, with a couple weeks to spare? Because, I totally did that. An extra day off, and this week is speech week in my classes, so I've got nothing to prep, so I ignored the olympics for today, ignored any Dungeons & Dragons planning I might need to make soon, and turned on three documentaries ( Last Men in Aleppo , Icarus , Strong Island ) and one foreign language film ( On Body and Soul ) (all conveniently on Netflix, hence putting them off to the end). But, how about that Never Say Never Again ? Actually, I don't intend to talk about the film itself. I think I only ever saw it all the way through the one time, in the theater. I was seven, mind you, and I knew about the copyright issues that led to there being two different James Bond films in the same year. Never Say Never Again and Oc...

So, Octopussy begins with Bond (Roger Moore, again, and always my baseline for evaluating any Bond) trying to blow up some satellite thingy, failing, and getting away in a plane hidden in a horse trailer (in a sequence that is not nearly as exciting as I remember it being when I was a kid). And, thinking on what's coming in this film--it has been a while since I've watched it--it's occurred to me, because sometimes I can't quite put my finger on what these old movies put into my head all those years ago, that--and maybe this is odd since I was just seven when this film came out--that this is where I first heard of Faberge eggs, and when I was an undergrad history major, I took a few Russia-specific history classes and even did some research into Faberge eggs and how much they cost to own, what makes each one unique, stuff like that. (Now, two things occur to me: 1) that was a really long and convoluted sentence. I apologize. 2) Writing that just now, it occurred to ...

What's the point of Kiss Me Goodbye ? I mean, sure, it's entertaining. Sure, it deals (quite shallowly) in themes of love and loss and moving on-- The first thing we hear in the film is the song "But It's a Nice Dream" which includes the following lyrics: We'll go away Make love all day You'll never stay But it's a nice dream Just me for you Our whole life through It won't come true But it's a nice dream And... I'm sorry that it went so fast Our future has become our past Too good we couldn't last And our first images of Jolly are flashbacks and his painting, which is him from behind, looking over his shoulder. And, something I never got as a kid is that Jolly it just there to help Kay move on. As a kid, I always thought he showed up simply because she moved back into their townhouse, and the timing with her upcoming wedding was a coincidence. I probably figured out otherwise somewhere since, but I remember the film being more ...

Sometimes, I see a new movie and I wish I dealt in something more like reviews. Less of this unstructured discussion. This afternoon I saw Black Panther and I wanted to come home and fashion a brilliant review that celebrated the statement the film makes for Africans and African-Americans, and indicted white folks for, well, all of the shit they've done and do, and for their paranoia regarding Black Panther itself. I saw a post this morning--on Twitter I think... Nevermind the vagueness; I looked it up to check. It was the Twitter handle The Trump Train . They posted this: It's very fitting that the same people who claim to support equality and diversity also glorify a movie that idolizes black supremacy and establishing a black-only ethnostate. There was also a line about liberals and hypocrisy but it's that bit about Black Panther that gets me. Even before I saw the movie, and before I saw replies on Twitter confirming it, I knew that Black Panther is quite explici...

And then we move on to a romantic comedy-- Kiss Me Goodbye --to finish out 1982. Film critic Vincent Canby (who I don't cite nearly often enough) calls Robert Mulligan's direction and Charlie Peter's screenplay both "humorless" but I've always liked it enough... We'll see how it holds up after having not seen if for many years. If you don't know the film, it's pretty simple. Kay (Sally Field) has moved back into the townhouse she shared with her husband Jolly (James Caan) because she's marrying Rupert (Jeff Bridges), and Jolly's ghost shows up to meddle in her affairs for a bit. Gags ensue. (Canby argues, the film has one joke--Jolly "sti[ting] around mak[ing] snide remarks as Mr. Bridges attempts to make love to the distracted Miss Field.") The opening scenes (except for Kay's mother (Claire Trevor) asking if a wall has always been there) doesn't play much for laughs. Kay wanders around the house, we see flashes of the...

I was... am tempted to keep today's entry short, to say something simple and cheesy about love. I told my daughter Saer this and she took my keyboard and wrote the following: Happy Valentines Day to my beautiful readers! I can't find the words to properly express how much I love you all for the support you show by reading this blog. But I guess that's what Valentine's Day is all about--love. And the world needs more of it. I'd hug all my readers if it were possible but it is not, and it's sad so *cyber hugs* LOVE. I was going to go with something shorter. Like love is love . Whether or not you want to believe that Alvie and Boots are gay , there is definitely love between them, and they definitely play well at being domestic, at being parents. And, if you watch this movie and don't feel some empathy and love for both of them and for Savannah, you have no heart. Watching this as a kid--and remember that when this movie came out I was a year younger than ...

So, for future readers, the Winter Olympics are going on this week and next. Among the competitors is Adam Rippon, a male figure skater from the US who is openly gay. On a post (which I cannot find the specific one I saw yesterday) on Facebook by some conservative page I follow, maybe Fox News, maybe the page that used to be called People Against Obama's Liberal Adgenda [sic], about Rippon, some immediate (and expected) comments were all about how his sexuality is irrelevant, just do your sport and leave politics out of it... Which 1) of course they don't care when it's not about them, or doesn't agree with them. Like they--and I will lump them all together under one "they" for the moment, because fuck them--tell celebrities not to talk about politics, just do their acting job, dance like the trained monkeys they are and shut up about anything else, because actors, as we all know, are not people, are not voters with the same rights as everyone else, and of cou...