the groundhog day project

Today, I am watching multiples movies. Not aiming to write about them. Just to enjoy them. The movies: The Cloverfield Paradox , I don't feel at home in this world anymore , Creep ... and maybe Creep 2 if Creep turns out to be good. And, you know what I want?

Hell is sexy. And fun. And, it doesn't matter how much you use people or manipulate people, you're going to make it on Broadway (or wherever) and everything will be fine. These are the lessons of Staying Alive for seven-year-old me. The obvious reaction some might have is that Jackie shouldn't take Tony back... Except for two things: 1) they aren't really together in the beginning of the film and he is quite honest--at first, anyway--about not being exclusive; in fact, he indicates to... Unnamed girl early on that he thinks they are in a relationship and she counters (IMDb quotes wrongly attributes this line to Laura): "Guys like you aren't relationships; you're exercise"; 2) she also hooks up with Carl. As Laura says... well, check today's title above. Tony and Jackie use each other so they don't have to feel alone in between their flings with other people. Tony and Jackie use each other for support when they get rejected after auditions. ...

Distracted today. Aside from a game of a risk and a debate about the earth being flat tonight, I saw two new movies today. Watching The Post , I was reminded of other newspaper films, the recent Spotlight , All the President's Men (which, alas, I missed out on seeing on the big screen back when I was at USC because I was sick), and especially The Paper because that movie not only worked for me as a movie but made me want to be a journalist. This got me thinking about other movies that make me want... Like Sideways made we want to drink a lot of wine. Also to like pay attention to it and be like a connoisseur or whatever. But, also to drink a lot of wine. Into the Wild made me want to fuck off from society. Dead Poets Society made we want to write poetry (as did Paterson ), to speak up, speak out. And maybe subtly to be a teacher... Really, while I compare my teaching to Mr. Keating, I don't think he is the reason I became a teacher. Just too many years between the two--m...

It's the first half of Ishtar that is the problem. If you can just work your way through that, it gets better. The whole torture of that first hour, the awfulness of Rogers and Clarke's songs, their absolute lack of upward career trajectory--it even gets paid off when Clarke breaks down in the desert and asks, "What have I done with my life, Lyle?" And Ebert calls the desert sequence pointless. The desert sequence is the point. It's the answer to the question of the first half... Specifically, look at where the movie begins and ends. The same song in both places. Telling the truth can be dangerous business; Honest and popular don't go hand in hand. If you admit that you play the accordion, No one will hire you in a rock 'n' roll band. But we can sing our hearts out. And, if we're lucky, then no neighbors complain. Because life is the way we audition for God. Let us pray that we all get the job. It's trite. It's simplistic. But, it'...

"When a narcissist's sense of control is challenged, he feels threatened, and responds as if his survival is at stake," writes Kristina Nelson in Narcissism in High Fidelity (2004, p. 19). This is Rob Gordon's existential crisis--his girlfriend has just left him and he turns inward because, basically, who is he without his conquest, without his companion, without his distraction... depending on his mood, of course? He looks back at his top five all-time breakups like they are the building blocks of his being. Well, them and all the music he's got catalogued in his head, in his record shop, and on the shelves that crowd his apartment. And, he's not wrong. There's a realism in the horribleness of Rob Gordon. His obsession with music, his obsession with his sexual (and non-) partners, his obsession with himself--there is familiarity and believability there. His excessive voiceover is our ticket to something that rings true and may even ring biographically. I...

The thing is, we like assholes. In film, I mean. (I considered Liz's (Joan Cusack) great line as the title for this entry, but "Fucking asshole!" as a title seemed like it might get the wrong sort of attention.) (Rob's (John Cusack) "I am a fucking asshole." would have worked, too.) Rob Gordon is an asshole. Han Solo is an asshole. Peter Venkman is an asshole. Katniss Everdeen is an asshole. Phil Connors is an asshole. Pretty much every action hero ever, any cad from any romantic comedy... Anyone whose story is worth telling on film is probably an asshole in some way. They have to be. That is who gets things done. At least in any form that can be covered in like an hour and a half. Take the new movie Sleight for example--Bo (Jacob Latimore) deals drugs for the sake of getting by, mutilates his body for the sake of magic, and is willed to violence a little too easily long before the climax of the film-- (This not being a review, I won't bother with...