the groundhog day project

Flash forward a decade and a half. It's 1993. It's February. I'm watching Groundhog Day on the big screen--75% sure it was at the Mann 3 in Hastings Ranch, Pasadena, California. It's opening weekend and I'm seeing a film that, well, I have no idea how important it will be for me a couple decades later. But, that's how it is for any movie, isn't it. You might have an idea of what you'll think of it before you head into the theater, or rent that video tape (or DVD... or whatever file format movies are on things like Amazon Prime nowadays), but when the lights go down and you're in that movie for that hour and a half (or longer), something changes in you. Or many things change in you. Groundhog Day that first time was not one of those films where I could divide my life easily into all the days before and all the days after, like I emerged from the darkness of the theater a completely different person. I was 17, I would graduate from high school in a ...

(637) (That's the number for this blog entry. It will be consistent neither with the personal numbers or any film references below.) I don't remember what day I "met" my wife, or "met" either of the girlfriends before her. Since I met them online, they were just names on a screen for a while before they became someone important to me. I know Katie mattered to me sometime in July, Miranda in June, Sarah in August. That last one--who I would later marry and from which I will soon be divorced--August 15th, 2001, what I would later call "Arrow Day." (And, not for some cheesy, Cupid-related reason, and that only even occurred to me now because I saw Avengers: Age of Ultron tonight and watched the latest episode of Arrow earlier today and the bow-and-arrow thing was in my head... No, Arrow Day took its name from a particular message board post of mine that got us talking. I posted an arrow pointing to the link to my website after mention of writing...

You want to know what's really amazing? I've been waiting for you every day for ten thousand years. I dream of you every night of my life. You've been my constant weapon against total despair, and just knowing you exist has kept me alive... (Ramis, 1992, 12 January, p. 115) That's Phil Connors near the end of the second revision of Groundhog Day . I bring it up today because just this morning, Cracked posted a link on Facebook to an old article from 2011: "7 Hotly Debated Movie Questions that Totally Have Answers." One of those questions: Why Did Bill Murray Get Stuck in a Time Loop? In their answer, they cite the second revision to bring up Stephanie Decastro and to mention that Phil was in the loop for ten thousand years. Now, let us engage our critiquing, nitpicking masks. First of all, Bill Murray was never stuck in any time loop, as far as I know. Phil Connors was. Second of all, looking at that quotation above, I gotta say, I don't think Phi...

I must admit an ulterior motive for what follows; despite arguments I have made against the explicit link between Groundhog Day and Christianity (and more along the lines of my two day exploration of Phil Connors as Christ-figure), I might be writing a paper soon exploring the cinematic Christ-figure with Groundhog Day as one of my central texts if not my only text. So, today, I aim to fashion a response to my day count from Day 3 of this blog. The official onscreen day count here at The Groundhog Day Project was 33, later amended to be 34... actually, I have been thinking about that backward. I had it at 34 then amended it down to 33. And, 33 is already related to Christ, since that's how old he was when he died. But, I'm going to go ahead with today's entry anyway, because it just might be fun. Today's goal is to justify expanding the day count to 40 to get another biblical aspect to the film to go along with Phil's 22/25 score as a cinematic Christ-figure. ...

I had a weird thought watching Groundhog Day last night... Which could really be any night, I suppose. I imagine Phil on the last day of the time loop--he's got a list in his head of all the "errands" he has to run, and he's been driven so mad by all the repeated February 2nds that every item on his list is just as important as the next. So, Buster choking is just as important as that woman's inability to light her cigarette. And, those old ladies' tire--that's just as important as the broken leg of that boy in the tree. And, a Phil who is that far gone would probably be better off inside the time loop. Or, at least, the world outside the loop-- (Assuming the world beyond the loop even exists.) --might be better off with him locked safely away in Punxsutawney. And, really, if he was in the time loop as long as some people say-- Wolf Gnards says 8.7 years Simon Gallagher says 33 years, 350 days Harold Ramis counters with 30 to 40 years in the ori...

Subtitle: notes on the original (and I’ll still probably just harp on the voiceover today), because I didn’t finish doing it yesterday. So, I left off with the original version of the “god” scene, in which Phil ultimately tells Rita, “if tomorrow would ever come, you would fall in love with me.” In voiceover, he adds, “Even as I spoke the words, I knew they were true. And I knew that as sure as tomorrow never comes, Rita would forget them all over again.” Then, Phil gets on his god kick. Convinced he must be a god, he decides he has “to act more godly.” Faced with the unnamed guy he’s been punching every time he sees him (i.e. Ned), Phil tells us in voiceover: “One thing I know—a god wouldn’t use violence.” Apparently, he hasn’t read The Bible or the The Quran or, well, any religious text or ancient myth. That’s gods’ shtick—use violence… or trickery. Hell, by not hitting Ned, Phil has just proven he is not a god. Anyway, he explains (and sets up the Ned punchline): It had be...

Subtitle: notes on the original (and mostly I’ll probably just harp on the voiceover), because I never really did that yet. I can’t tell you when it began, other than to say “on groundhog day.” And I can’t tell you why it happened to me, other than to say I deserved a break in my career, and this was certainly it. So begins Phil’s forgotten voiceover. The time loop is already in effect, he’s already been mouthing the DJ dialogue and answering Mrs. Lancaster’s questions before she’s quite asked them. And, here you also see a bit of how Phil was different in the original, i.e. before they cast Bill Murray; Phil was young. While that “break in my career” becomes a break from his career in the time loop, what Phil is getting at is this is his first time in the field, not Rita’s. Though Rita is “about Phil’s age,” she’s a much more seasoned producer than he is a reporter in this version. The voiceover continues: How do I know these things before they happen? You may call it cheating,...

So, let’s get this out of the way early on. The big question on everybody's lips—on their chapped lips—just how long is Phil stuck in Punxsutawney? This question has been posed and asked before—and director Harold Ramis even weighed in at least once. Back in 2009, Wolf Gnards put the total estimate at 3176 days, calculating that to 8 years, 8 months, 16 days. In 2011, Simon Gallagher over at whatculture puts the total at 12,395 days, that is 33 years, 350 days. Ramis suggested, in response to Wolf Gnards—and I really hope that is an actual guy’s name, because, hey, that would make the world more interesting—that “it had to be more like 30 or 40 years.” But, let’s get our own figure going. To start, how many days (February 2 only) do we see on screen? Gallagher puts the total (erroneously, I’d say) at 38 days, while Gnards says 36. I’d break it down as follows: Day 1 – the original Groundhog Day. Day 2 – the first repeat, ending with the pencil breaking. Day 3 – the day Phil ...

It’s day two. If I were Phil Connors, I’d be confused, and I’d probably be trying to review Groundhog Day again, and getting a little carried away with myself—did I really say I’d help my readers get a better grasp on the human condition? I might as well be calling myself “the talent.” As Larry would say in response: “prima donnas.” I guess I am one. But, I digress. As I was watching the movie again—the second time in two days, the third in the past week, as I went to an outdoor screening last Saturday in Old Town Pasadena—I wanted to write a review from scratch, pretend I hadn’t tried that yesterday. I thought that would be clever. But, I don’t need to be clever just yet. I don’t need any more of a gimmick than watching the movie every day. A few things did occur to me while watching the movie, this time. I already was thinking more about specific scenes, trying to figure out nuances I might not have seen before—the newsvan drives past the Alpine Theater where Heidi II is playin...