the groundhog day project

Willow starts a little basic--a bit of onscreen text (that is entirely superfluous) about a prophecy involving a baby that will grow up to bring down Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh). (The plot is a little like The Lord of the Rings except it's a baby instead of a ring, and Gandalf is an old woman who was cursed into the shape of a possum.) Nurse gets the baby out of the dungeon (though the mother is killed) and manages to get the baby as far as a river, where she pulls a a Moses allusion sending the baby on her way. The nurse, like the baby's mother, is also killed. The baby is Elora Danan and it occurred to me just an hour or so before turning the film on tonight that this story has a lot of female energy to its cast, despite its leads being Warwick Davis as the titular Willow and Val Kilmer as Madmartigan. In the opening scene, we've already passed the Bechdel test, and we probably don't realize it just yet but we have also passed the Mako Mori test. The main ...

From the opening slasher moment I mentioned yesterday , Jack's Back cuts to a cheap knockoff of Peter Gabriel's "Red Rain"--and they purportedly wanted "Red Rain" but couldn't get it. And, it's obvious that 1) this movie is taking itself seriously, which will be good later, and 2) this movie is going to feel fairly generic if you've seen enough movies, and will be even more generic if you watch it a few decades later and write about it. And then the movie goes from the knockoff song to jumping to the day of the final copycat murder, which is a waste of a far more interesting plot, but I will get to that below. Roger has a great Line about the plot of this film: All of this sounds contrived. Of course it is contrived. A movie like this is nothing without contrivance, and one of its pleasures is to watch the plot gimmicks as they twist inward upon themselves, revealing one level of surprise after another. Roger may have bought Jack a...

I remember two things about Jack's Back even though years ago I watched it many times. The premise and the twist. If I spoil the twist I will warn you. Opening scene is a little too slasher, and the first scene after the rather plain titles sets up the premise--someone is copying the Jack the Ripper murders 100 years after the fact--too explicitly and also we're already at the night of the last murder? What is this movie even about? Spader is a med student, or maybe a doctor already, and he helps administer aid to homeless people, and stops by a free clinic (he may work there) and I have no memory of any of this but for his Cubs hat.           Oh no, his boss' speech reads like every police captain in every 80s movie. John (Spader) talks himself out of getting fired and then he's on a news report talking about the homeless situation in LA and I am intrigued, because plotwise this is a thriller, but I suppose a little social commentary is not o...

All that being said, I don't have much of a problem with violence in film. Violence can work really well (if done well) in film. But, I do think that Bloodsport has a cheap structure in building the story around its violence. From the stereotyping in the opening montage of fighters to Chong Li being the villain in the third act because he beat Jackson. It's simple. In fact, as the film is starting, I should mention because 1) I think it is rather silly that everyone turns away from Chong Li when he kills another competitor on the runway, that 2) the first thing we hear about the Kumite (when Jackson is approached while hitting a punching bag) is that you could get killed there. Later, Janice says she heard the Kumite was "unnecessarily brutal" and she compares it to a cockfight. It is silly, by the way, because the only rules we are ever told for the Kumite is how to win--knock out your opponent (unconscious, and dead should certainly qualify), knock your oppo...

A thought occurred to me while watching Bloodsport last night. (It's on again right now, but it has only just started, with the random bits of violence against objects and that one white guy fighting that one black guy and shots of people setting up the competition space.) I'm not sure why my parents enjoyed this movie. I mean, I know the movie is somewhat enjoyable on its face. American's love action films, generally. But, 1) I swear we saw this movie more than once at the second-run Academy Theater and 2) other action films make more sense for, you know, religious folks. I mean, Rambo fights evil Communists, John Matrix fights, um, that guy who's raising his own army for... reasons I don't remember. John McClane fights "terrorists". Etcetera. Frank Dux is just fighting other fighters for... well, for sport, I guess. But, it' snot like my family were fans of wrestling or boxing. They watched baseball, and fairly exclusively baseball. No bas...

Bloodsport opens with a montage of violence, mostly against inanimate objects: blocks of ice, coconuts, punching bags, boards, Cut together with setup for the Kumite. Watching the film for the first time in many years, I'm reminded by the lies behind it. Like Frank Dux--the character played by Jean Claude Van Damme in this supposedly true story--said the following in Martial Arts magazine: My involvement in that tournament was part of a plan, launched in 1975, t infiltrate the criminal organizations that organized the fights. The original idea was to participate in the Kumite tournament and make a few contacts. We initially assumed I would lose, but eventually I became one of the best Kumite fighters to ever participate in the event. A 1980 article about Dux and the Kumite in Black Belt magazine opened with this disclaimer: Although there is no convenient way to verify each and every detail connected with this story, the editors have verified enough of the basic facts...

...the legend of Arturo, who was a Portuguese fisherman. He met this beautiful girl his first night in town--Catarina. And eventually they fell in love. But the problem was that Catarina's father was the territorial governor. He didn't want his only little girl running around with a lowly fisherman. So he told Arturo that he'd have to ship off. Which he did, but not before he told Catarina he'd be back for her. And when he came back, he'd signal with three long blasts, So she could dive off the rocks and swim to the boat, And they'd be on their way. So, a year later, everything went as planned. But when she was swimming out to the boat, The fog got so thick that she couldn't find the boat. Arturo panicked and he called out, "Catarina! Catarina!" Catarina yelled back, "Arturo!" With that, he just dove right off the boat into the icy waters, And they never found each other, And they both drowned. The legend is, They reu...

I think I forgot that Dean (Kurt Russell) makes art with chainsaws. That's how we are introduced to his character before he heads off to work on the yacht Immaculata . Later, there's some artistic stuff going on with the miniature gold course, but the artwork there comes from Joanna (Goldie Hawn); he handles the technical aspect and the building. Which his work in Joanna's closet at the start of the film sets up his engineering ability fairly well. His "objects de art" kinda gets lost. Looking back at Overboard with a modern lens, the plot is problematic, but the classist leanings outweigh the sexist leanings to create something more positive than the plot implies. Especially in the hands of director Garry Marshall. Still, even in '87, not everyone cared for the film. Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times , 18 December 1987: Unfortunately, Joanna eventually turns goody-two-shoes herself. All those layers of snobbery peel off to expose a bouncy, bubbly...

An odd note up front: 33 years after I first saw Suspect , and maybe a couple decades since I last saw it, I only just noticed that the murder victim, Elizabeth Rose Quinn, is the woman in the opening scene talking to the Supreme Court Justice who kills himself thereafter. I don't think I ever realized that before--mostly because we barely see her face later but also because the film wants us focused on the guy who kills himself. And my inability to notice--or the film not making a point of drawing my attention to--her face might connect in a way with what I wanted to write about the film today. The film paints an interesting picture of Washington DC. In the early establishing shots of the city, we see traffic, we see homeless, and after we are introduced to Kathleen Riley (Cher) in her car, three young men smash her windshield, yank open her doors, steal her necklace, and make a run for it. The film wants us to see DC as an urban environment with too many people and rampant ...

I remember only a few specifics about Suspect even though I have seen it many times. One of the things I remember is who actually committed the crime, and who plays him, so I am going in with SPOILERS (which I will not share here, now). This was the first time I knew who Liam Neeson was, even though I had seen him previously in Krull and Excalibur , of course (and that's directed by Peter Yates, who also directed Suspect . Also of note, Cher would star in Moonstruck just two months later, but I will be skipping that film in this movie life list because I have already written about it. Still, it's interesting that aside from some passing knowledge of Sonny & Cher, there was a one-two punch here of Cher as defense attorney and then romantic lead [Which given the co-star I forgot--mentioned below--I guess she kinda is here, as well].           By the way, I forgot Dennis Quaid was even in this film. And, since I ended up having very little to ...

I don't know how soon it was after The Princess Bride came out that I saw it, but I did see it in the theater. My sister Bobbie had already seen it. More than once, I believe. And, years later, I was surprised to learn (and somewhat wrongly) that the film wasn't a big hit when it came out. It opened on only 9 screens, and went wide (but nowhere near today's standards, at only 622 screens) 2 weeks later. At that point, it was #3 at the box office. It stayed there for a couple weeks and then slipped down from week to week. It made $30 million which definitely made it profitable. And many people I knew saw it, or saw it on video at least. And, in high school, we even showed it as a fundraiser movie night (and some fool tried to fast forward through Inigo's "son of a bitch" line, and poorly).           I don't imagine that I have much to say about The Princess Bride in passing like this. I love the film, could watch it most anytime, but I feel l...

The HBO description for Running On Empty bothers me. The '60s are past, and the Vietnam War they struggled against is long over, but the Popes have been on the run from the FBI for fifteen years, choosing to live as [sic] family of fugitives rather than be separated. Now 17-year-old musical prodigy Danny Pope must decide whether to accept a scholarship to Julliard or deny his talent to remain with his family, as his mother did for him. Which, nevermind the missing article, this thing SPOILS so different parts of Act Three of the film. But, I didn't want to talk about HBO. I just happened to notice that description as I went to play the film tonight and it bugged me. What I wanted to talk about was the larger sort of message the film suggests to me. The problems of one generation put upon the next. In the case of the film, it's the criminal act of Arthur and Annie put upon their sons Danny and Harry. In the case of, you know, reality, it's systemic racism, cli...

If you've been reading this blog lately-- and you're still reading? --you know I'm maybe a few steps past your average bleeding heart liberal. I side with extremists. I appreciate a violent rebellion. It occurs to me as today's film in my "movie life" list-- having skipped both Summer School and Can't Buy Me Love because I have previously included them in this blog in different contexts. Also, I realized partway into writing what follows that somehow I put today's film a year early on my list, but oh well, it's already on --gets started, this might have been my first brush with the kind of 60s radicals that I would become much more enameled with in college (the second time). The movie, by the way, is Running on Empty . A couple of 60s radicals, responsible for a bombing in '71 that blinded a guy, live their lives on the run, moving and changing names every few months when the Feds get close. Thing is, they've got two kids. Th...

Alternatively, I can imagine today that when I was 11 and watching RoboCop for the first time what really mattered was watching Murphy overcome his RoboCop programming and be his own person. At least inasmuch as he does. He can barely access his memories, and in the end he still has to go be a supercop because the regularly police are on strike. It would be another few years before I openly turned against my religious upbringing but already I'm sure I was having issues with it. I'm entering the 7th grade in the fall. This is the year that I write my infamous essay about how I only believe in God because I've been told to do so my whole life and my Bible Class teacher is not a fan. Or was that 9th grade? I'm losing track. Getting old. But, I've got James Murphy to look up to. Or I did once upon a time a few decades ago. Shiny. Cybernetic. Wants to do what's right.                     And, I want to say something a...

What the hell else was America going to become other than a corporate-run, dehumanizing state that promotes violence against its citizens, incarcerates its citizens to an inordinate degree, and disenfranchises those citizens after so that their voices matter even less than before? The problem with RoboCop version of the "future" is that is assumes we need robotic muscle to put down unrest, to put down violent criminals, to put down regular citizens who dare to have darker skin. We never needed robots to police this country because we've got plenty of fodder willing and able to be police officers, to commit to thuggery and domination in the name of law and order. Body armor. Tanks. Big guns and bigger guns. And, reactionary policies that only get worse over time. After the news reports that begin the film, it's important to note that the first thing that happens is lawyers (or maybe a lawyer and a very hands-on bail bondsman) are forcibly pushed out of the po...