the groundhog day project

Backtrack a few years. Give us the setup--sixteenth birthday, parents forgot about it--then a montage of high school scenes under the opening titles. Pretty basic. Samantha (Molly Ringwald) talking to herself is a bit too "voiceover" without being a voiceover. I'm not sure I approve.                   And then there were few words. But, I just gotta say, the chemistry between Ringwald and Michael Anthony Hall in the half car is awesome. And, Samantha is my kind of character... that is, a character like me. Obsesses about a crush that shouldn't amount to anything, practices what she's going to say to him ahead of time, then fails to say anything. Been there. The Geek (Hall), on the other hand, has a bizarre level of confidence for being a geek. Much more than Hall's character in The Breakfast Club . Much more than I ever had at that age. Hell, more than I've usually got to this day. But, getting back to performances, the scene wi...

Let's work backward. Start with another 30th anniversary screening tonight--made it to the sold out 7:30 show this time and it was nice watching this movie with a crowd. Run back through the past week of viewings, seven times in seven days, keep going back three decades, a viewing now and then, not as many times as I've seen some movies but more than others. Back to 1985, February 15--the day The Breakfast Club was released into theaters. Keep on going to March 24, 1984, the Saturday on which Andrew Clark, Claire Standish, John Bender, Allison Reynolds and Brian Johnson sat down as strangers in Shermer High School's library and left as friends... perhaps to become strangers all over again come Monday. Go back further to... Actually, the screenplay draft I found has no date on it. It's not the shooting script. It still has Robin Robertson in it-- (March 25, 2015, Karen Leigh Hopkins tells The Hollywood Reporter about how she was cast as a gym teacher (character, ...

Pale Rider (which I may watch in my upcoming month of westerns) in its opening weekend is #1. Cocoon in its 2nd weekend is #2. Rambo: First Blood Part II (which I already covered back in January in this blog) in its 6th weekend is #3. And, Andie MacDowell--Rita Hanson herself--is in this movie... Oh, I'm not watching The Breakfast Club just yet. Started the blog a little early. I'm watching St. Elmo's Fire first. Wanted to explore the whole "brat pack" thing a little bit before my week with The Breakfast Club is through. St. Elmo's Fire --which stars (among others) Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez as college graduates the very same year they starred as high school students in The Breakfast Club --is #4. Goonies in its 4th weekend is #5. Fletch in its 5th weekend is #6... and then you get into movies I didn't see in the theater. Lifeforce at #7. Prizzi's Honor at #8... actually, I may have seen that in the theater and just didn...

The movie begins with the song "(Don't You) Forget About Me" over the opening titles. Then a black screen and lines from David Bowie's "Changes" (recommended to Hughes by Ally Sheedy, by the way): "...And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through..." Or think they're aware, anyway. It's a hopeful thought for teenagers--children--that they are "immune" to the actions or words of folks like Assistant Principal Richard Vernon (or Principal Edward Rooney) or teachers or mothers and fathers, or each other for that matter. Those who spit upon them, those who would tell them what to do and how to do it, who to be and how to be it--unfortunately, we are never entirely immune. Each of these characters is trapped in a role he/she didn't really choose. Whether smothered or ignored by parents, pushes around by the admi...

Shrek: For your information, there's a lot more to ogres than people think. Donkey: Example? Shrek: Example... uh... ogres are like onions! Donkey: They stink? Shrek: Yes... No! Donkey: Oh, they make you cry? Shrek: No! Donkey: Oh, you leave them out in the sun, they get all brown, start sprouting little white hairs... Shrek: No! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers... You get it? We both have layers. Donkey: Oh, you both have layers . Oh. You know, not everybody like onions. Cake ! Everybody loves cake! Cakes have layers! Shrek: I don't care what everyone likes! Ogres are not like cakes. Donkey: You know what else everybody likes? Parfaits! Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's get some parfait," they say, "Hell no, I don't like no parfait."? Parfaits are delicious! Shrek: No! You dense, irritating, miniature beast of burden! Ogres are like onions! End of story! Bye-bye! See ya later. Donkey: Parfait's gotta be the mo...

7:30 show of The Breakfast Club was sold out, which kind of made me wish even more I'd been there. But, we--my son and I--made it to the second show. I had gone with the high school movies this month because I knew this film would be in theaters, so I'm glad we didn't miss it. 10:30 show wasn't as crowded, but at least it wasn't empty. The "event" began with some slide beforehand with trivia (facts, not questions) about the movie and its stars. Some examples: Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall dated for a while after filming The Breakfast Club . Not that exciting, that one. Judd Nelson was a philosophy major at Haverford College. On the one hand, definitely more interesting. And, it gets even more interesting when you consider the phrasing. It doesn't say that he got a degree, just that he was a "philosophy major." He could have taken like one philosophy class, for all we know. Hughes' business partner's son attended ...

Shermer High School. I would not want to be a student there. Principal Edward Rooney, Assistant Principal Richard Vernon. It's got to be a police state. On a good day. There are certainly some interesting people there. Jeannie Bueller. John Bender. Sloane Peterson. Cameron Frye. Claire Standish. Ferris Bueller. Andrew Clark. Allison Reynolds. Brian Johnson. Garth Volbeck. Simone Adamley. And so many more. Hell, even Rooney and Vernon, and Carl Reed, Grace (whatever her last name is), Florence Sparrow, that boring English teacher, that boring Economics teacher... Everybody is worth some time sometime.