the groundhog day project

Long day. Oscar nominations at 5:30am. Some teacher stuff I had to do on the computer, while setting up an Oscars page on Facebook. Busy, busy, busy, as a Bokononist might say. Caught up on some TV in the afternoon, then Republican Debate. And that went overtime. Finally, just watched and livetweeted Galaxy Quest in honor of Alan Rickman, whose death was announced this morning. Great actor. Don't think I said enough about him when I blogged about Die Hard ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ) a year ago. I figure I'll get back to Charlie Kaufman soon, maybe tomorrow... or I might watch a few of the Oscar-nominated films I haven't seen yet first. Thoughtful today. But, not feeling too wordy. (Especially after tweeting through the debate and a movie. Go read my tweets if you like.)

So, I did get some work done today, got some stuff ready for the upcoming winter quarter. I also managed to oversleep, go for a walk, and watch... Technically, this-- Go is on right now, because I wanted a classic Christmas film--is my fifth movie in 24 hours. I watched the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated movie--which is nowhere near as good as most of the episode of that show that I have seen. I watched Steve Jobs . I watched Spectre . And, I just finished Brooklyn . The quick rundown before I (probably) get distracted by some tangent and forget all about the specific films in question: I've seen the Clone Wars thing before, as well as a lot of episodes of the series... For whatever reason, I never kept up consistently, but I've had Star Wars on my mind of late, for some weird reason. This theatrical release was a edit of a few episodes with a self-contained story, and it's pretty kid-friendly--baby Hutt nicknamed Stinky--and pretty weird--a Truman Capote-sequel...

"Dragon breath" is racist. That's 1. But then you throw a gong into the soundtrack after? That's 2, and that's 1980s casual racism. Gremlins again . Kieran's watching with me. He just made the connection between this and The Wizard of Oz . "Pointless dialogue." - what Kieran said about the mother's line about her husband's inventions not working. Because, no duh. Also, I realize, I may have been a little rude to Lynn Peltzer (Frances Lee McCain), identifying her just by her relationships to two males. Saer's also here. She just called Billy a goober for telling Gizmo to smile for the camera. Also, she might be drunk (for the record, that's a joke; she's 13). She just asked if I wrote that she called him a "stripper." I just noticed that Chekhov's race car driving is accompanied by a poster for The Road Warrior . I think Gizmo has dreams of grandeur. Kieran recognized Pete (Corey Feldman) from Stand By Me an...

So there I am, watching the trailer for Falling Down and I'm wondering a few things: 1) did every trailer in 1993 have really annoying voiceover? 2) sure, the film has moments that make it a very, very, very, very were people seeing it in the theater expecting an outright comedy about "urban reality"? 3) was this the perfect companion piece for / counterpart to Groundhog Day ? and 4) is this film--or rather the main character of D-FENS (Michael Douglas) just a metaphor for America... 5) I don't mean in an obvious, Americans are angry and fed up with all the bullshit problems in the modern world... 6) hell, I don't even mean that he's a stand-in for Ameri cans at all, but rather 7) he is America itself, and Falling Down can be mapped onto a sort of moral history of America. And, I'm not that impressed with America's morals lately, so this might turn into a rant. (Mal, you can check out now, because the word "patriarchy" might show up.) My...

[EDIT: If anyone is coming to this blog from the Believer article, welcome. To find the daily pieces on Groundhog Day you've got to look at August 2013 to August 2014. And, I will be watching Groundhog Day and writing an entry related to it later today--today being February 2. The piece below was posted late last night for February 1st. For the month of January, I watched 5 action movies from the 1980s. Enjoy.] Let us get the most important item out of the way first off on this last day with Top Gun : There’s a question on Quora — In Top Gun , why was Jester allowed to fly below the “hard deck,” but Maverick and Goose were reprimanded for it? But, I’ve got a better question—if the “hard deck” was 10,000 feet and Maverick gets in trouble for flying below said altitude, what were both jets doing flying so low well before the moment in question? I mean, look at this: Does that look like they are above 10,000 feet? (It’s so low, it reminds me of the opening titles sequ...

Maolsheachlann raises an interesting point as comment to yesterday 's blog entry: "You could be a pacifist and a rugged individualist, though... Radical libertarians tend to be very distrustful of armies and wars." My response (and it leads into today's topic or I would just put it in the comments section): 1) I don't think--and I'm risking a True Scotsman logical fallacy here, but I'm going to go for it anyway--a true pacifist could ever be a rugged individualist. To me, pacifism comes hand in hand with collectivism. There is no point to peace without other people. 2) While I suggested--and still do suggest--that rugged individualism favors the use of force, that force does not have to come from a State's army, nor does it have to come in the form of war. Maolsheachlann continues: My problem with the standard critique of masculinity and femininity in movies is that movies show us ideals. They inevitably (and desirably, in my view) simplify every...

(No, I'm not watching The Terminator .) Three guys dead in the first four minutes, cut to a mysterious guy walking through the woods with a chainsaw. It's like a horror film until we see the comforting sight of Arnold Schwarzenegger's face. Then it gets really scary. I mean, what had he been at this point, anyway? (Strange I-camera bit going on as his daughter sneaks up on him. He should've just turned the axe on her and saved himself a lot of trouble later... Was that callous? I can't tell. The Terminator was just feeding a deer on my screen. Nothing seems real right now. So, who cares about the life of Samantha Micelli?) Hercules in New York --dubbed. The Villain , Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer , in which he can barely say some lines or emote properly, and The Terminator , in which he doesn't have to. Being Conan certainly made him hero material, but coming into this movie, I think I probably was hoping for something like The Terminator , ...

So, I've established a couple times now that John and Holly really shouldn't get (back) together at the end of Die Hard . But, I'll reiterate: he's still a New York cop, and she's probably got an even more important job in LA now that Takagi was killed. Ellis, too. Holly does note that his office was nicer than hers, so he was probably pretty important also. My point is that Holly giving her name as McClane at the end of the film is somewhat arbitrary. (And, a little sexist, but I don't really want to get into sexism on this, the final day of watching Die Hard .) I wonder if the movie would still be as good without it, though. (It didn't come from the book, by the way. The cop in the book was visiting his daughter, not his wife.) There are a couple details to this story that seem arbitrary. Aside from that just mentioned, there is McClane's New Yorker-ness. That is, does it matter that McClane is from out of town? I'll answer this second quest...

John McClane is "a New York Cop." His label makes him who he is. It defines him. It keeps him from moving to California to be with his wife. His wife's label: "Gennaro, Holly." (also, Genn e ro, movie mistake.) Her label paints her as a single woman, available to do business with Nakatomi clients. It also invites--even though he actually knows better--Harry Ellis to hit on her. The reality of her being married is less important to her day-to-day life than the "reality" of who she presents herself as. Goffman's presentation of self or something similar that I've referenced before... Insert that here (as I noted yesterday , I'm away from my binders and working on two devices which limits on-the-spot research.). We are who we say we are, until our actions prove otherwise. Through Die Hard , McClane remains a New York cop. Holly, on the other hand changes, giving her name as McClane at the end of the movie... which is actually rather wro...

From Argyle trying to keep McClane talking--and, seriously, he sits in the front of the limo and expects to be able to stay quiet?--to McClane and Powell getting to know each other over the radio, Die Hard is full of people trying to communicate. Now, I'd love to go hard into some communication theory, but I just can't tonight. I'm in a hotel room in Utah with some speech team folks--had two very good tournament days--and don't have any of my binders here. Plus, watching the movie on the tablet, typing this on my phone, there isn't much room for research on the go. So, let's just work more casually. Ellis hits on Holly when he knows her husband is on the way and it's Christmas Eve and she's got kids at home. At the party, a guy comes up to McClane and kisses him, wishes him "Merry Christmas." Takagi knows who McClane is, though he hasn't met him before. Holly and John have an awkward not-quite-hug, not-quite-kiss thing when they fir...

John McClane was born in 1966 and his name was Joe Leland. He was born in the pages of a novel called The Detective by Roderick Thorp. In 1968 he would be played by Frank Sinatra in a film adpatation. In 1979, Thorp would publish a sequel called Nothing Lasts Forever in which Joe Leland was trapped in a building taken over by terrorists. Supposedly, Sinatra had a clause in his contract for The Detective that made him the mandatory first offer to play the character in a sequel. I'm not sure when that happened, but at some point, Sinatra turned down the role. The script was reworked as a sequel to Commando but Arnold didn't like it... I should mention, since I probably will not have cause to cite specific passages that I am going by information from Ryan Lambie's Den of Geek piece, "The strange history of the Die Hard movies," 24 November 2011; Andrew Barloq's I Choose To Stand blog entry, "Retrospective: Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)," 10 De...

That again. #1 - tangible... yes, John McClane is a real guy in the context of Die Hard . (1/1) #2 - central protagonist... most definitely. (2/2) #3 - outsider... McClane stayed in New York while his wife and kids moved to LA. On a visit for Christmas, he is definitely an outsider. As a cop at the Nakatomi Christmas Party, he is also an outsider. (3/3) #4 - arrives through outside intervention... not exactly, but his presence (and role as an outsider, noted above) certainly operates like outside intervention. But, I am feeling generous. (4/4) #5 - dual identity... this one works a little strangely. Gruber and his crew know who McClane is pretty early on [edit, as the movie continues, and I realize this isn't quite true], but the link between he and his wife with the maiden name thing--that makes this aspect of who he is--offering some leverage--more important. Plus, Powell knows him as Roy. (5/5) #6 - appear mundane but is special... before Powell and Gruber et al know wh...

Having worked in a large office building in Los Angeles--the tallest one, actually--I find it strange that, even on Christmas Eve, the Nakatomi Plaza is empty of people except for that one party. (Nevermind that the guy at the front desk is a bit of a jerk for directing John to the computer rather than just saying, if your wife is here, she's on 30.) I worked for a law firm that had a documents department that worked 24/7 and case closings--with a whole lot paperwork--happened through the night. I once did a temporary shift on a closing that ended at 6am. Big office buildings in, well, any large city--they just are never empty. Hell, Die Hard depends on the big business of the 1980s, from the limo service to the eurotrash "terrorists" to the whole Holly-moves-to-Los Angeles angle. (An aside, I just noticed in the opening credits that the director of photography was Jan de Bont. I'm not surprised. There are more than a few shots in this movie that have an obvious a...

Start with a plane landing, let us know this guy's from out of town. Nice start. Setup him taking his shoes off, so he's a little off kilter later... ( Chekhov's bare feet ?) But, let's talk commonalities. Like Lethal Weapon the year before, it's Christmas (Christmas Eve, actually, if tech guy Theo can be trusted). Got a white cop and a black cop (though a much smaller part for Reginald VelJohnson than Danny Glover). The family here is mostly absent, and definitely "broken." Of course, the marriage is as Hollywood-magically fixed as Martin Riggs' depression. (Actually, that's not fair. I suppose that John McClane has realized that he can kill bad guys in California just as much as he can kill them in New York, so moving out here now to be with his family has become something easier to do. The marriage itself actually seems relatively okay--he and Holly do seem to miss each other before they start arguing about her using her maiden name.) ...

Edge of Tomorrow , as I pointed out yesterday , is like Groundhog Day but with guns and aliens and a lot more death. In case you don’t trust me: “If you've ever watched the film Groundhog Day , and thought that the only thing that could possibly make it more enjoyable was an alien invasion or some massive explosions, you're in luck.” – Julia Emmanuele, Hollywood.com “It's Groundhog Day for sci-fi nerds…” – Ben Child, The Guardian Film Blog “Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day , Tom Cruise as officer Bill Cage in the upcoming sci-fi movie Edge of Tomorrow is reliving one hell of a day over and over again. Unlike Groundhog Day , this action thriller is a bloody and explosive time loop.” – Brian Anthony Hernandez, Mashable “…he finds himself waking up to face the same fate, much like Bill Murray's experience in ‘Groundhog Day.’” – Greg Gilman, The Wrap “he gets better and better at fighting, braver and braver,and more and more attractive to the imperious Rita. J...

This isn't really part two to yesterday's bit about therapy. But, it does follow in its way, and I just had to use the rest of the psychiatrist's line as a title. Having dealt with Daughton and Bacha again yesterday, I wanted to get back to gender. In particular, I'd reference the following from Daughton: Connors must embark on what is traditionally a feminine rather than a masculine quest, journeying inward in order to encounter and submit to the power of the dark goddess, rather than outward in order to master and claim some object in the external world. I don't know about the dark goddess bit--I'll get to more on that in a moment--but I appreciate that, in this instance at least, Daughton calls it "traditionally feminine " instead of simply "feminine." I've said before, dividing the quest into two based on gender seems, in the present, inappropriate. But, looking backward, it makes sense to look at stories in terms of gender-divid...