the groundhog day project

Heaven Can Wait can wait. Because today was an awesome movie day. I had an unplanned class cancellation, so I made it to a couple movies in the afternoon ( Marshall and then Professor Marston and the Wonder Women ), then in the evening I took my daughter to see Happy Death Day because 1) she wanted to see it and it turned out to be a good horror film and 2) it's always fun to watch a time loop movie a second time. If you are out of the loop... And that wasn't a pun. If you are out of the loop, regarding Happy Death Day , think Scream ( 387 388 389 390 391 393 394 ) crossed with Groundhog Day ( 1 ... 365 + so many other entries)--except don't because Quentin Fottrell over at Market Watch seems to either think that mix is Hollywood out of ideas, because reusing one idea with another, and adding your own bits is bankrupt Hollywood at its finest, or some such bullshit. I mean, I think most remakes are cynical cash grabs from, yeah, a Hollywood out of ideas, or at l...

Really, it is simple to understand part of it. Just because you're a bankable actor, or a proven director (having graduated from music videos to feature films), doesn't mean that your life is guaranteed, that you will always have money. Sometimes, you have to make bad movies, or at least not so great movies, to stay alive, and for your career to stay alive. Michael Caine, for example, quite famously said of Jaws: The Revenge , "I have never seen it... but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific." Not every actor can make $20 million a film, and even if they can, you cannot live on that forever if you plan to stay in the limelight. You gotta keep making movies to be able to keep making movies. And, they can't all be the greatest film ever, they can't all be Oscar-caliber, they can't all be blockbusters. For example, it's hard to find the original source for this (it's quoted all over the Inte...

(Taking a break from talking about feminism, ironically, because I'm watching the very female-centric and female-populated Orphan Black right now rather than another movie for today. The movie I did see was--) It Comes at Night . The kind of movie that refuses to explain itself. And, oh how I love that. No voiceover for the sake of a stupid audience, just get into the action and you can try to figure out what's going on because the script is not going to explain most of what's going on because the characters don't know what's going on. Not big picture anyway. Which brings me right back to yesterday with The Mummy because that is yet another movie that offers up some random text (in this case a supposed Egyptian proverb) and narration. Now, I am not against the use of voiceover. But it has to serve a purpose, like in, say The Opposite of Sex , or a film you've probably heard of-- Memento , but that one actually offers up an onscreen excuse for the voiceover,...