the groundhog day project

In 2000, Fievel Mousekewitz was named an official icon for UNICEF for "promoting worldwide understanding and friendship among children." However much Roger might have dismissed the movie for being too depressing— he wrote, among other complaints, "The movie has such vague ethnic grounds... that only a few children will understand or care that the Mousekewitzes are Jewish. And few of those are likely to be entertained by such a tragic, gloomy story. —the film not only performed well—it was #2 behind Crocodile Dundee its opening weekend and #18 at the box office for all of 1986 (and it didn't come out until November)—but has also endured. A few sequels, a couple video games, a comic book, and some nice retrospective articles years after release. Regarding the latter, for example, Dave Trumbore, who credits An American Tail as the first film he saw in a theater, writes for Collider , 21 November 2016: What I once regarded as a darkly serious and sometimes sil...

At the emotional climax of the film, Caldwell gets drunk (off very little alcohol) and sits with Maclure on the roof of Maclure's building, and he has a poorly-written but fairly well-executed monologue as part of his conversation with Maclure: Maclure: Sometimes I think it was easier winning that medal than wearing it. Think any of those people over there give a shit about us? Caldwell: Do we give a shit about them? That's what matters. You know what I think? I think America is like a big fancy house. And we're the Doberman Pinschers.  Maclure: Doberman Pinschers?  Caldwell: A guy hears a noise downstairs, he's really happy to have his big ugly dog. But, the next day when he's got his friends coming around, he locks up the dog. Why? 'Cause he's embarrassed. But at night, sure as shit, he unlocks the dog to protect his big fancy house. If some guy comes in and the dog doesn't bite his ass, he's gonna take a rolled-up newspaper and smack h...

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...

Davies (1995) tells us that Groundhog Day "ignor[es] considerations of race and gender politics" (p. 215). But, in no uncertain terms, Davies is wrong. Well, somewhat wrong. Well, actually mostly right on the side of race. Gender is a different story. Take a "rom com" of any era and it will tell you something about gender politics at the time it was made. It's harder for the film to have anything to say about race when there are only two people in the cast who are not white and have lines. I argued in a media studies class once that Phil is effectively put in the position of the disenfranchised (as evidenced in his conversation with Ralph and Gus at the bowling alley bar) in that the regular rules of so-called civilized society do not apply to him anymore. Money has no value. His work has no value (though he does continue to work at least most days because Rubin wanted that check-in to sprinkle through the original script). Because this is a mainstream comedy ...

I find it interesting that Space Ramblings calls Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark "a tough as nails equal to Indiana Jones" when her abduction and presumed death, and her need to be rescued (even if she almost manages to outdrink Belloq and escape) is central to that film. And, Matthew Rozsa at Salon calls Marion "a proactively adventurous female counterpart worthy of Indiana Jones" even though she was (offscreen, anyway) a child when she was involved with Indiana and is tied up more than once in the film--to be fair, Indy doesn't fare very well himself. Still, Marion feels like a more solid character than Willie Scott. That might be because Stephen Spielberg and Amy Irving's relationship wasn't the most solid (and he would end up getting together with Kate Capshaw, who plays Willie Scott, later) and George Lucas was going through a divorce (he admitted at one point, purportedly, that he was "not in a good mood" because of the di...

May 1984, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom comes to theaters with Mola Rom (Amrish Puri) pulling a guy's beating heart out of his chest. Also some guy's getting eaten by alligators, a guy getting crushed by a big stone wheel, the stewed monkey brains, but it's not like we see anyone's face melting. June 1984, Gremlins arrives in theaters with at least one Gremlin getting killed in a blender, one exploding in a microwave overnight, one getting shot at close range in the head, at least one melting/boiling into nothing. These two films are generally credited with the birth of the PG-13 rating. Director Stephen Spielberg helped birth the new rating--he told Vanity Fair in 2008, I had come under criticism, personal criticism, for both Temple of Doom [which he directed] and, you know, Gremlins [which he executive produced], in the same year. I remember calling Jack Valenti [then the president of the Motion Picture Association] and suggesting to him that we need a ra...

I made the mistake--and, in this case, it was a mistake [it made hating this thing even easier]--of reading Roger Ebert's review of The Natural before I pressed play on the film tonight. I remember this film as a weird sort of film noir that somehow involves a baseball player. And, it opens now with Robert Redford (who we will find out later is playing a character called Roy Hobbs) waiting for and then getting on a train, not useful dialogue, not characterization effort, just Redford. CUT TO: flashback montage, Roy as a boy learns to play baseball while his father says some lines that someone thought were philosophical when they wrote them... A storm. Montage of sports pennants in the flash of the lightning. Then the tree out back gets struck, Roy carves a bat out of its trunk and I get something Roger says. Roger explains: As for the baseball, the movie isn't even subtle. When a team is losing, it makes Little League errors. When it's winning, the hits are so accurat...

Another soundtrack that played a lot in our house when I was a kid: The Man from Snowy River . Bruce Rowland's score is iconic to me, more so than some of the great film scores out there that I know are great but just didn't get repeat play in the house I grew up in. And, then the credits end with Directed by George Miller and I am 1) shocked because I never knew George Miller directed this, even after all the times I've seen it (far more times than I have ever seen The Road Warrior , a film I prefer), and 2) disappointed because apparently Australia's film industry rules allow two different directors called George Miller. I mean, that Mad Max George Miller also made Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet , so that guy could direct pretty much anything, and horse stampedes and cheesy close ups of angry horse eyes actually seemed right up his alley. But no, this George Miller directed Andre and A Mom for Christmas , which an ex of mine was rather cheekily obsessed wi...

Escape from New York didn't teach me anything about "white flight", of course . Its premise builds on the concept but the plot doesn't really play with it. Notably in how we never see what life is like for those outside the prison. In 1968, the Kerner Report warned, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal" and "cities will have Negro majorities by 1985 and the suburbs ringing them will remain largely all white unless there are major changes in Negro fertility rates, in migration settlement patterns or public policy" and argued, "The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society." This entry will not all be so dense and full of historical quotes, but it will, as feels inevitable when spending time with Escape from New York , be political. I mean, of course someone like The Duke would rise up ...

It comes down to this: is it funny that Phyllis' little monologue about her see-through nightgown disarms Winship and Tart? Yes. In fact, as Tim Conway points out in the commentary track (which I listened to yesterday ), if you watch Don Knotts' face through that scene, his reaction is so hilariously nuanced and complex, while Conway's is simple shock. These two detectives, already proven to be inept in just a handful of scenes, are taken aback, frozen, and that moment is emblematic of so much more. I've said before (and I will say again) that any movie is a window into the time it was made—a time capsule of the technology in play in making the film, a time capsule of the talent (or lack thereof) behind the film, a time capsule of the social and cultural structures in place at the time and in the place where the film was made, and a measure of the larger society around it. From the 60s into the 70s, Hollywood wasn't afraid to deal in sex or sexual innuendo. Phylli...

Popeye, especially Robin William's take in Robert Altman's film, is a strange character. Loving but prone to violence. Kind but prone to insult. He speaks without thinking and, while he's fairly accepting of the people around him (seriously, Popeye and Sweethaven here are like Phil Connors and Punxsutawney reversed), he still has his standards and, when it comes to gambling at least, he's quite expressive about them. Doesn't matter how it might actually help the baby he himself has taking to caring for (and by mere cinematic whimsy, with Swee'pea there, they cannot lose); whatever moral code Popeye's got--his "moralikies"--he sticks to it. Meanwhile, in the real world, you've got Republicans supporting a child molester because he would support their politics, Democrats calling out sexual abusers and harassers all over the place but then when it's one of theirs, do they scream as loudly? And, if they do, what happens when their senator resi...

Keep in mind, I grew up attending church every Saturday, and I went to a private school owned by the church and was taught stuff from the Bible every day in church. Our church took seriously the notion that the world was ending soon--you can read some more of what that did to me day 534 - what are you expecting? world war iii . Our church (and more specifically out school) made an effort once to fast forward through the line, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch" in a movie night screening of The Princess Bride . But, here I am, however young I was when I first watched Blackbeard's Ghost watching a movie that involves, accurate scrying (read: witchcraft) by Mrs Stowecraft, ghosts trapped in limbo (which ran counter to our church's version of what happened after death), and that ghost is a former pirate, murderer, pillager, probably a rapist, and he's an alcoholic. But, what does the movie do with all these dark things? It all serves a very simple idea--do a...

Sometimes, stuff just doesn't get into the blog, even when I have it bookmarked. For example, Disneyland is changing the Pirates of the Caribbean ride again, this time to change the auction so they're no longer selling women but stolen goods. I had two articles bookmarked, one in favor of the change, one against. I was going to come down solidly in the middle someplace. Solidly. Instead, I'm watching Idiocracy because it's a new month and I need a new direction. I figured a documentary about present day America to, you know, prime the pump.                     I imagine Trump's rallies start with some music and lights and smoke and "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!" And, pretty soon his super long time is going to be replaced with a red, white, and blue sleeveless vest. And Red, white, and blue pants. Except, Trump's promises aren't nearly as good as President Camacho's.

So a few pet peeves. One about something that happens in movies. One about how people react to movies. And one about life. I'll be as brief as I can. One, and this one occurred to me watching 9 to 5 , is when a conversation is split over two scenes. The example in 9 to 5 isn't even the most egregious example--Judy waits until she is at the store with Violet to ask about Doralee, when realistically she would have asked, you know, on the way there. Some movies, though, it's like midsentence, or between question and response, and that is not how people talk. It's a cheap manipulation of the medium. (To be fair, it can be used well, to suggest a conversation that happens again and again. Because one character just can't let something go, for example. But, too often it's just cheap.) Two, and this one occurred to me watching The Mummy , is about how people measure a film too much by what they wanted it to be. In this case, so many reviews referencing the 1999 The ...