the groundhog day project

So anyway, last night I was so tired that I'm surprised I made it through the entirety of Speed Racer ; aside from a couple musicals, it's the longest movie I've watched for this blog. Though I did not fall asleep--unlike, say, when I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street --it played like a weird dream... which is appropriate since the Wachowski's constructed the film visually like a technicolor dream of sorts, a live action cartoon. It's not just the color, either. Though the palette of the film is far broader and brighter than many a movie of late--seriously, just today, I saw a video in which someone brightened up Man of Steel because, well, Superman should not be dark, but that's the way of movies lately, most everything's a little dark and dreary, and far too many movies have that teal and orange thing going on. This movie plays like something not only outside our normal reality but very much outside the movie reality. For example, Royalton and Speed ...

(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 ...

Rubin and Melnick (2007) argue: " West Side Story turned to Puerto Ricans as the newest 'problem' group that needed to be incorporated into a national narrative of reconciliation" (p. 100). Romeo and Juliet , the blueprint for West Side Story , deals in a generational conflict between families, not a matter of race. West Side Story makes color a vital difference between one side and another. That opening 4 minute color-shifting aerial drawing of New York City is not just a simple poster-style visual but a vital transition of stage to screen. I don't know how colorful the stage version was, but this film version is all about color, and not just of skin. The gangs have their colors--Sharks a lot of purples and reds, and a bit of green, the Jets some muted yellows and blues and browns. There are a few exceptions (one Jet that wears a red shirt, for example). But, color separates not just people but locations. For example, "Jet Song" is starting right now...

I must admit I had nothing to write about today. So, I asked my daughter Saer to ask me a question about Groundhog Day and I would spend today's blog answering it. She asked what Phil Connor's favorite color is. But, an aside first: I kept busy most of the day, including cutting apart the deleted scenes from Groundhog Day for later use, skipping through Planes, Trains & Automobiles and all three of the Nolan Batman movies (because Bob Hudgins mentioned that the Amstutz Expressway in Waukegan, Illinois--which is where Phil talks to the trooper in the snow--was used in one of those... (I swear he implied it was the latest one, but it was in Batman Begins (and I started with the latest and worked backward) that I found the brief moment in which Batman drives the Tumbler on that highway.) Since I found it and all, here you can see the shape of the overpass (where the Amstutz deadends): Which is the same shape (but I'm fairly sure not the same bridge) as the one ...

I found it amusing, reading Benesh (2011), that she only watched the (entire) film 8 times over the course of 2 months (p. 65). In describing how she collected images and symbols within the film, she also suggests that "even after multiple viewings, it is impossible to list every image and object and less so to analyze such" (ibid). If nothing else, the purpose of The Groundhog Day Project is to prove that statement false. For example, Benesh does list the snowman, though she deals with it in terms of the color white and spheres--I've already suggested that "snowmen and snowballs" are "perfectly reasonable objects to have in a story set in midwinter." Same for the color white. The color blue, in which Benesh also sees significance-- obviously I think there's something going on there. But, with white? I don't think so. As for the snowman (or snowmen, really, since we see two of them... sort of), I think there's a better line of symbolism...

In their essay, “Terminators, Monkeys and Mass Culture," Dimitrakaki and Tsiantis give us a slightly different take on Phil’s experience than Daughton’s (1996) notion that “Phil’s situation… parallels that of the economically disenfranchised, the Other”; Dimitrakaki and Tsiantis tell us “what comes under attack” in the film “is a particular manifestation of cyclical temporality that actually exists in capitalist societies.” One essay’s take on the “cyclical temporality” implicit in Ralph’s line, “That about sums it up for me” matches up with another’s take on Phil’s trap linking to him the disenfranchised, which arguably includes Ralph. That “arguably” of mine is a key point where many might disagree, though. Usually, we would only use “economically disenfranchised” to describe people living, say, below the poverty line, people without many options in their lives, people stuck… well, see, I’m already blurring the definition just enough to be sure I can include the likes of Ralph,...

Subtitle: thoughts while watching Groundhog Day at the laundromat. First, of all, a new thought about Rita’s introduction in front of the blue screen: Rita is the oncoming storm. Phil, being a weatherman, has to figure her out and win her over to get out of the loop because that’s his job. Rita’s clothes deserve an entry all their own, I think. She changes at weird times (in the middle of experiment day for example) from one outfit to another, and wears more layers possibly than anyone in the film. Thought the quilt on Phil’s bed might be a wedding ring pattern and wondered if there was something worth obsessing about there in a later entry… checked online and that is not a wedding ring pattern, not enough interlocking circles. I always thought the DJ voices were Harold Ramis and Brian Doyle-Murray. But, no. They are apparently some actual DJs from Chicago, Richard Henzel and Rob Riley. Personal sidenote, supposedly if I had been twins, I would have been named not just Robert bu...

It starts with blue sky—sure there are clouds moving, movie shorthand for the passage of time… Ryan Gilbey, author of the BFI Modern Classics critical study of Groundhog Day , calls this “only slightly less clichéd than the peeling leaves of a calendar.” But, then there’s the bluescreen. Where does Phil point to when he says where he would like to be if he could be anywhere in the world? He says, Elko, Nevada. But, he is gesturing at the blue emptiness. And, he soon warns about “one of these big blue things” coming for Pennsylvania. The next notable blue is Rita. Not Rita herself, obviously; she’s not Smurfette. She’s wearing her blue coat and she’s playing like a child in front of that same blue screen. Fun, but not Phil’s kind of fun. Too innocent, maybe. Minor blue: Kenny’s shirt. Kenny is, presumably, Phil’s assistant. He’s played by Willie Garson. (And Larry’s blue jeans, but I’m not sure if counting blue jeans is fair. Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself, like Rubin’s original scr...