the groundhog day project

I want to see something new tonight. It's the 2nd of the month. I'm watching Groundhog Day . Again. In the meantime, I sit here and recite a lot of the lines as they go. Not spending every day with this movie--like I did in Phase One of this blog--my timing is off with some lines, but mostly I've still got it. You know one detail from Groundhog Day: The Musical (which I have yet to see because I can't make it to New York too readily, but I listen to the soundtrack plenty) that I love that differs from the film? When Buster announced that the groundhog said, "I definitely see a shadow" and he proclaims "Six more weeks of winter", in the film, the crowd just boos. The people on stage even have signs to egg them on: BLIZZARD, SLEET, 6 MORE WEEKS OF WINTER. The crowd in the musical has a slightly different take. Sure, they boo, but then, almost immediately, they scream yay, because they're such cheerful folk they can't really be sad about t...

It isn't all politics, of course. When it's the 2nd of the month and I come back to Groundhog Day again* it's nothing but a delightful time, appreciating the personal, appreciating the will to improve, the impulse to go after the things you want, and the urge to help others when you can. (* in case you're confused because I also watched Groundhog Day yesterday, 1) you must be new, 2) that was the last day of the Groundhog Day Project year, so I went with the titular film and 3) you should have been here for phase one (aka year one) when it was Groundhog Day every day. That kind of commitment lets you know what you're capable of, lets you know what you can handle, lets you know just who you are.) And I've written so many thousands of words about this film, it's a wonder that I can still say anything. But, it's also a wonder that anyone couldn't, you know, because the film is timeless--and I don't mean that as a pun--and universal. Everybod...

Author's Note: Color me a hypocrite, but I don't follow much, if any, of the advice I am about to give. Here's the present: I'm sitting on a pew in a church building someplace in Long Beach, California. My daughter's got rehearsal for a play and we're far enough from home that I just hang out during, work on my blog, watch some tv, read, whatever. Only my third time tonight, so I couldn't say there's a pattern but for writing this blog. I've already seen two movies today-- Wish Upon and War for the Planet of the Apes --but I don't feel like writing about either of those. I'm stuck in a different mode. Stuck in a loop. I was listening to the soundtrack to the Groundhog Day musical on the drive here. Between Phil's being stuck in a pattern he needs to get out of, but not for the reason he thinks; Rita being stuck on imaginary knights in shining armor from childhood fairy tales, but knowing that's unrealistic and not worth waiting f...

So, I did get some work done today, got some stuff ready for the upcoming winter quarter. I also managed to oversleep, go for a walk, and watch... Technically, this-- Go is on right now, because I wanted a classic Christmas film--is my fifth movie in 24 hours. I watched the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated movie--which is nowhere near as good as most of the episode of that show that I have seen. I watched Steve Jobs . I watched Spectre . And, I just finished Brooklyn . The quick rundown before I (probably) get distracted by some tangent and forget all about the specific films in question: I've seen the Clone Wars thing before, as well as a lot of episodes of the series... For whatever reason, I never kept up consistently, but I've had Star Wars on my mind of late, for some weird reason. This theatrical release was a edit of a few episodes with a self-contained story, and it's pretty kid-friendly--baby Hutt nicknamed Stinky--and pretty weird--a Truman Capote-sequel...

I must interrupt my reading of Benesh for something brief, for two reasons: I haven't had the chance today to read any more of Benesh's dissertation. Today was the first day of winter quarter, not a very busy day, but I also made some dinner, some food for my lunch tomorrow, and went to the mall to get a coat and some gloves (for my upcoming speech team trip to Salt Lake City as well as my Groundhog Day Project trip to Woodstock) and some LEGO minifigures (for my voluminous collection of LEGO blocks). Tomorrow there's a bit of a gap between a couple of my classes so I will have time on campus to not only watch Groundhog Day but read a bit of Benesh, this time from the beginning. The article I am about to reference was shown to me by Victor, president of the speech team for which I coach. If someone points out a Groundhog Day reference and the article is about something else in which I have interest, I just gotta use it. So, Anthony Lane over at The New Yorker , 11 ...

I saw About Time again today, and I was reading over my entry here about that film, and I noticed an error. POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD… Taking the protagonist’s do-each-day-twice methodology and twisting it together with Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, I suggested the following: 1) live each day as if it were the specific day you had time traveled to, as if it's the most important day you have and 2) do with that day only things you would be willing to do again and again and again. I'm certainly not suggesting that eternal recurrence is real, but it's a great way to look at the present. If something isn't worth doing again, why do it once? And, no, that’s not the mistake. I still like the idea of that now, about five weeks later. And, considering this blog (and Groundhog Day is so often about the passage of time, it’s remarkable how recent that blog entry seems to me. But, anyway, I do think the day can be so much better if you both relax into it and make the effort...

Today, I finally saw About Time , which at least one IMDb user called a combination of The Butterfly Effect and Groundhog Day . Billed as being from the creator of Love Actually , Notting Hill , and Four Weddings and a Funeral , the description on IMDb goes like this: At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think. Actually--and SPOILERS minor and major may be coming, so if you've an urge to see the film, go see it before reading any further--"getting" the girlfriend is fairly easy, but there is a lot more going on afterward, which is what pushes About Time , in my opinion far above many a romantic comedy. Hell, like Four Weddings and a Funeral (which stars Andie MacDowell, coincidentally), About Time has some quiet somber moments and a couple rather painful decisions on the part of it...

At his darkest, Phil Connors certainly paints a gloomy picture: “I’ll give you a winter prediction,” he says. “It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be gray, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.” But, I’m not sure he ever has it as bad as Evan Treborn in The Butterfly Effect . Of course, Evan’s plight is not a time loop, per se. Instead, it’s a regular rewriting of his own history (damaging his brain as he goes) to set things “right.” It’s like Quantum Leap if Sam Beckett had a really fucked up childhood and was leaping into himself in every episode, not just “The Leap Home.” SPOILERS ahead, obviously. Ashton Kutcher’s Evan deals with murderous adolescents, pedophile fathers, baby-killing explosives, burning dogs, and in the original ending (now available with the Director’s Cut), he eventually strangles himself with his umbilical cord in the womb. So, it’s not really a light-hearted film, and certainly not a comedy like Groundhog Day . Still, there’s a certain similarity in t...