the groundhog day project

Less important than making my survey is the reasoning behind it. I've said before that I could write a memoir using movies to tell time, a la Fever Pitch . And, the "thesis" if you will for this whole blog (per Day 579 ) is: Our lives can be measured in movies and movies can be measured in our lives and profound and profane depths can be found in the intersection thereof. That is to say, if I can know your favorite movies, know what it is you look for in a movie, then I can know you. I tweeted (and then retweeted with my personal account over to Facebook) a few posts about what people's favorite movies are--their top five. But, it's more than that. For example, there's a huge difference between how I choose my favorite movies and how I might decide what are the best movies. Hell, I don't really even bother with the latter because movies are so subjective, the experience of watching a movie is subjective, and that version of a movie that is left in each ...

At one point in High Fidelity , Rob says "that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like." On the one hand, I think it's both. On the other hand, yeah, I regularly measure people based on what they like. Do they like the same movies as me? (So many.) Do they watch the same TV shows as me? (Again, so many. The highbrow HBO or Netflix originals and the nerd-friendly CW shows. And, I totally understand if you don't like Banshee because a) you haven't even heard of it or, b) you can't handle the brutality of the violence.) Listen to the same music? (Actually, music isn't such a big deal for me. I'm not a one-type-of-music person, though I do obsess about one type at any given time, for sure. I don't need someone else to like what I like, though if you've got a thing for musicals and the occasional heavy metal, the occasional folk rock, we might get along.) Read the same books? (Again, not the most important thing. I mea...

Joel tells Clementine when they first meet--because she takes singing "Oh My Darling, Clementine" as a joke about her name--that one of his favorite things when he was a kid was his Huckleberry Hound doll. "I think your name is magical," he says. It's a sweet moment at the end of their story and the beginning of it. A sort of cheery song about loss, and it draws a strange connection between their two meetings and his own childhood long before her--in the bathing scene, Joel as a baby, his mother sings that song. And, that moment is deleted, even though it has nothing to do with Clem. In fact, the damage already was done, I suppose. That Huckleberry Hound doll, one of his favorite things as a kid, would have indirectly been erased by the Lacuna procedure. He tells Clem when they meet (for the second time) that he doesn't know what Huckleberry Hound is. Not just his past two years with Clem but a favorite part of his childhood has been removed. And, I wond...

So, SPOILERS right off. How weird would it be to wake up in pajamas you don't even remember owning? On the one hand, I don't know why Joel would have bought new pajamas knowing he was about to have his memory erased. On the other hand, he should have been seriously freaking out when he woke up. I would have been. The only time I ever had too much to drink and did not actually remember going to bed, just waking up in bed normally the next morning freaked me out. Had I also been wearing brand new pajamas... Let us get into Day 1 with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with the personal bit right out of the way. This is one of my favorite movies. Depending on my mood when asked, I might list this as my favorite movie. If pressed anyway. I don't usually go for favorite s. I realize right away watching it this time that I probably can relate a bit too much to Joel. His line about falling in love with any woman who gives him the least bit of attention--I get that. Not being...