the groundhog day project

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...

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 ...

The question then: why does something like Highlander II happen? The explanations have been offered of course, stuff like economic collapse in Argentina just as production was underway there, for example. But, that is just an explanation for or why some of the awfulness exists. Obviously, there was some initial script, before there were money problems or investors taking over problems, and that script included aliens from the planet Zeist, and that script ignored a great deal of the original. What kind of cynical Hollywood puts this kind of thing together and ever thinks it's a good idea? Or does it think it's a good idea, at all? Is it just after money? Is it simply Hollywood banking on the familiarity of a name? Regarding that last question, I got curious. For anyone to think you could bank on the Highlander name (for anything beyond a syndicated late night tv series, as Highlander would have a year after the awful sequel), science fiction and fantasy had to be doing part...

I have only one thing further to say about Cutthroat Island . Except, it's not really about the movie itself; rather, it's about Roger Ebert's review . See, he doens't praise it, but he also doesn't seem to find it as boring and distasteful as I do. And, I am surprised by that. "'Cutthroat Island' does not disappoint," he writes. "It touches all [its] bases like clockwork..." Those bases, the tropes of any "decent pirate pictures" according to Roger: (1) an escape from a hostile port; (2) a battle at sea, preferably with broadsides fired and pirates boarding each other's ships; (3) one featured swordfight, (4) a storm at sea, with the survivors washed ashore, and (5) discovery of the treasure and a final confrontation. And, you know what I like about that list? At first blush, my personal favorite pirate movie-- The Pirate Movie --has but one of those, a featured swordfight. Now, at second blush, it's got a storm at...

Stephanie Abraham explains (specifically coming back to Wonder Woman but the same applies for any film labeled as "feminist") in blog at Ms. : Now that the female superhero has finally made it to the big screen, critics and audiences are asking whether Wonder Woman is a feminist film. But the question itself is problematic. For one, it makes "feminist" a subjective adjective. Also, it suggests there's a monolithic Feminism, when really [the] feminist movement encompasses numerous feminisms in motion. The more inciting questions are: How does this film represent Wonder Woman? What's missing from this representation? And, what does it say about this particular moment in time? I especially love that last question. It's why every film can be taken as political. Every film is of its time, regardless of its subject matter, regardless of its setting. Every film can tell you something about the particular moment in time in which is was made, in which is was...

If you're reading this, you've probably got a slinky somewhere in your house, or you have had one in the past. Maybe it was just some cheap plastic knockoff, the kind you get for a few tickets at Chuck E. Cheese, but still. Is a slinky useful? Barely. Does it do what its advertised to do? Maybe that one time you got it just right at the right distance from the top step in your house and you got so excited that it was still going after four steps that you jumped for joy and shook the step just enough as to send that fancy little coil off course and it settled into itself on the next step. But, just that one time. Otherwise, it goes a step, maybe two and then fails to go further. I bring up the slinky for two reasons. First, they mentioned the choice to run with the obituary for the guy who invented the slinky* in Obit. , which I saw in the theater today. You run that obituary because that there is that ubiquitous connection to so many people in the readership. You want the name...

I've got a theory, one minor part of my master's thesis, that among other things I do in this blog, I reference my knowledge of and experience with other films in order to 1) yeah, increase my credibility when talking about film, 2) obviously, to make my points using basic comparison and contrast, but maybe most importantly, 3) to manipulate the reader into thinking I know what I'm talking about, whether or not I actually do. Admittedly, that's just another way of saying #1, but the thing is, there's a certain clout to just having this blog, maintaining it for hundreds of days, watching movies day in and day out, that suggests to the casual reader that I must know something. #3 is supposed to be a negative version of #1. Like, yeah, I've got plenty of film knowledge, I've seen thousands of films, gotta brag about that from time to time, but I'm still just some blogger, a bit too full of myself sometimes, desperate for attention yet often actively avoidin...

I was going to watch Howl one more time, give myself another opportunity to rant about the state of the world or to wax poetic, or some combination of their two. But, we mustn't dwell. No, not today. We can't. Not on Rex Manning Day. That is to say, today is the day that Rex Manning (Maxwell Caulfield) visited Empire Records back in 1995. And, since Empire Records is old enough to drink, I've got myself a drink, and since it's Rex Manning Day, well, I'm watching Empire Records . I also saw Deadpool a second time today and watched and livetweeted a sweet little creepy doll horror film called Robert because I just couldn't pass that up. And then, Lucas (Rory Cochrane) just had to drive past Trump Plaza... twice, because he wants me, twenty one years in the future, to rant about politics. But, I'm going to resist. Because it is 1995 right now, there's a lot of good, and definitely evocative, mid-90s music going on, and mid-90s, I was not that into...

For a Christmas movie, Gremlins starts with some seriously shady goings on. With the voiceover from the Rand Peltzer (Hoyt Axton)--which I had totally forgotten was a thing--it's like some film noir detective story, except with a whole lot of red thrown into the color scheme. Then he pulls out his "bathroom buddy" invention and things get silly. Then the Mogwai shows up, with some adorable singing, and we drift into some white privilege territory with Rand thinking he can just automatically buy anything he wants to buy just... because. Kidding. I mean, yeah, I'm totally right about that, and it may mean that the entire Gremlins incident may just be a warning about what happens when we do not check our privilege. But, I was specifically looking to not get into politics or social commentary today... Which, when I think about it now, is pretty stupid. As I have argued many times about movies in this blog, every movie can tell us a lot about the time and place where...

The opening of Falling Down reminds me of two very different things. (And, no, neither one is Fellini's 8 1/2 because, for some reason, that film has slipped through the cracks of my moviewatching experience... Which seems wrong, now that I think about it. I'm sure both Joel Schumacher and Jake Scott had the opening to 8 1/2 in mind, but I just cannot speak to Fellini's film... yet.) The first thing is the music video to REM's "Everybody Hurts" (directed by the parenthetically aforementioned Jake Scott)--which I just had to doublecheck was out around the same time this film was. All those people stuck in traffic, all the different, sometimes vague, ways that they are hurting. Until they separate themselves from the monotony of that unfortunate part of everyday life in Los Angeles (and Chicago when it's funny), Like D-FENS (Michael Douglas) does in Falling Down . The other thing is the "We'll Follow the Sun" episode of Married... Wit...

The Zucker brothers and Abrahams again, this time Top Secret! I was surprised to learn--primarily because this movie was such a fixture of my childhood, my family having it on VHS and all--just now on Box Office Mojo that this movie apparently wasn't even in the top 13 movies its opening weekend (June 8-10, 1984). Though it would eventually make double its budget at the box office, there was some serious box office going on that weekend. #1 was Ghostbusters , making $13.5 million it's opening weekend. Gremlins , also in its opening weekend, was #2 with $12.5 million. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was #3 in its third weekend with $12 million... I wonder sometimes when I see a box office weekend like this--and I know how many of these movies we saw in the theater--how often my family went to the movie theater. Anyway... #4, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock I didn't see in the theater, but it made $9.6 million in its second weekend. #5 was Beat Street ... and ...

Return to teachers. Get a little Roger Ebert in at the top for the transition back to the sort-of-ongoing theme... "Dangerous Minds" tells another one of those uplifting parables in which the dedicated teacher takes on a schoolroom full of rebellious malcontents, and wins them over with an unorthodox approach. Movies like this are inevitably "based on a real story." Maybe they tell you that because otherwise you'd think they were pure fantasy. He calls "this version" of the story "less than compelling." I mostly remember this movie in pieces. I worked at a movie theater in 1995 when it came out (20 years and 3 days ago). The movie opened #1 at the box office. If I remember right (and I probably do), our theater also had Something to Talk About (#4), The Net (#6), Casper (#13), Batman Forever , and Braveheart at the time. (Saw a lot of movies in the six months I worked there because in addition to being able to see our own theater'...

The weekend that Everything Is Illuminated was released was apparently in the midst of a dry spell for movie viewing for me. Serenity would be out two weeks later, Good Night, and Good Luck the week after that. The Constant Gardener was two weeks earlier. Everything Is Illuminated was #45 at the box office its opening weekend but, to be fair, it was only on 6 screens. And, I didn't even see it in the theater. I watched it on DVD months later. The 40-Year-Old-Virgin was #4 in its 5th weekend. I would see it on DVD. The Constant Gardener was #7. I had seen it a couple weekends earlier. Red Eye was #8. Saw that one its opening weekend, four weeks earlier. Wedding Crashers was #9. I would see that on DVD. Same with March of the Penguins at #10, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at #16, The Skeleton Key at #18 (hated that movie), and Broken Flowers at #19. Batman Begins was #25 in its 14th weekend. Saw that one opening weekend. More that I wouldn't see until DVD: Fant...

I spent 365 days (plus today is the 10th follow-up viewing) explaining and exploring why I chose (or, in retrospect, needed to choose) Groundhog Day for this blog. (And, I didn’t set up a recap for the past month—and those entries take more time than a single viewing—so I will recap two months next month... maybe.) If you want a good idea of what that was all about, start with Day 365 - so this will be the last time we do the groundhog together and work backward. There are some good highlights in that entry alone, with some links to past entries. Or, if you want to be able to see all of the topics ever covered, start with Day 363 - and you’d be an expert and work backward from there instead. Yesterday I argued that my discussion of films in this blog serves as a deliberate counterpart to discussion of life. I also do it because it’s fun. Officially, I’m going into my upcoming (starting in the next week or two) reread of all of my entries without a specific goal in mind. I’...

(This month is a little different than usual. Instead of four movies for a week each, I've got 10 movies recommended by other people--family, friends, regular readers--three days each.) This movie is like a live action cartoon. Which makes sense, considering it's a live action film based on a cartoon. By the way, it's Speed Racer . And, I have seen so many episodes of the show--not that the individual episodes were all that unique; the closeups and the blurred lines for a background--that is very much my memory of the show. I didn't see this movie in the theater. It was #3 its opening weekend. #1 was Iron Man starting its second week. I saw that one opening weekend. I'm trying to remember what I was doing spring 2008 that I wasn't seen a lot of movies. Seriously, out of the top 20 movies that weekend, I only saw 3 of them in the theater (the aforementioned Iron Man , The Visitor and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hear's a Who . I'd eventually watch on cable ...

“Here is one of the most innocent movies in a long time, a sweet, warm-hearted comedy about a teenager who skips school so he can help his best friend win some self-respect.” ( Ebert, 1986, June 11 ) “But that the film doesn’t live up to our anticipation of a rollicking good time is only part of its disappointment.” ( Siskel, 1986, June 11 ) “That was awesome.” (Me, probably... circa June 15 (the Sunday after Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came out)) I say “probably” because, obviously I did not record my response to the film and I certainly wasn’t blogging back then. But, hell if this movie didn’t live up to my anticipation. I say “circa” because, I am not actually sure when that weekend we saw the film, but it was most likely Sunday afternoon... Also in theaters that weekend: #1 for the weekend was Back to School but I wouldn’t see that until sometime later at the Academy second run theater. Ferris Bueller was #2. Top Gun (click 1 2 3 4 5 6 for more on that film) was stil...