the groundhog day project

Dragnet is on one more time. I don't think I have anything specifically regarding this film to say today, but 1) I wanted to watch it at least once on the larger screen that is my tv (I've been on a sort of emergency roadtrip and have been watching the film on my phone that last three days), and 2) I didn't quite want to transition to the next film on my childhood deconstruction (aka movie life) list; rather, I wanted to gather a sort of interlude of thoughts about all the movies so far as it were. The question of what this movie (in particular, but so many other movies from my childhood more generally) did to affect my... Well, my worldview, really--it's an interesting question. Because, for example, I grew up on Star Wars , saw the first one before I can even remember, was already interested in the toys and books and whatever merchandise was out there by the time Empire came out, distinctly remember going to see Return of the Jedi in the theater (the theater...

Let us get the silly out of the way up front. The setup in Egypt is silly-- and the set builders did not to a great job (except for the fact that they, of course, did not want this set to be taken seriously) as there is some weird thing on the wall that looks more like a... Had to double check, but it's a harpy on the wall between Emmy and the next mummy. And, who wrapped Emmy up like that, anyway? And, what was the point of it? Was she just going to stay in the tomb forever? And, how is it so well lit? And, why do the cracks all look horribly fake? Why are the hieroglyphs scattered instead of spaced uniformly spaced?Why are there some weird repeating shapes even with the tops of the alcoves that look like a deformed pharoah's head with an erection, and why are they not evenly spaced? You had one fucking job, set decorator, art director, production designed, whoever the fuck messed this up. Nevermind the Staff of Aesculapius-looking decorations at the sides of the mummy alcov...

1987 will be a far more fun year than 1986 was in this childhood deconstruction-- which, let's be honest, has lately been me complaining about movies that I didn't know enough not to like when I was young, and might get worse with the string of comedies in '87-- and it might also get more serious in the dismantling of 80s cinematic tropes. The casual racism and sexism, homophobia, reliance on stereotypes and simplistic characterization--it ought to be interesting. Beginning with Mannequin . The opening of this film ought to be offensive to anyone from ancient Egypt. At least they didn't play "Walk Like an Egyptian" over the animated titles. Roxie should have been Julia Louis-Dreyfus, coming off of Soul Man , but it looks like Louis-Dreyfus was looking into tv work in '87. She was in the Family Ties spinoff attempt, The Art of Being Nick in August, then an episode of Family Ties (as a different character) in '88 before being a regular on...

The real stakes of High Road to China are not in the physical adventure, the flying (though that does make for a great metaphor), the fighting (though that, too, makes for a great metaphor), the exotic locales (though that...) The parantheticals are making my point ahead of me. The voyage here is not hat exciting--there are not great stakes and the at the end of the film our heroes have not actually succeeded at what they set out to do (though Evie's father does tell O'Malley that Evie will inherit all of his formulas and patents, if not his company, if he is declared dead, so it's not all bad). Instead, what we have is two people trapped in their own freedom, and they need something else. What I mean is, look at Evie and O'Malley at the start of this story. Evie, a flapper, dances and schmoozed with wild abandon. But she can only maintain this lifestyle because she has money, her father's money. Charlie tells her that she will lose it all if she cannot pr...

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...

Let's get a couple things out of the way: 1) the gambling at the end of Across the Great Divide , unless we are supposed to assume Zachariah is cheating, is bullshit. It's cheap and convenient stacking of cards so both have good cars and Zachariah wins. It's the kind of thing a lot of movies do, actually. Nevermind the way poker actually works, the way players actually bet, the way you're not going to be betting horses after like one hand; 2) the song that plays as the men try to kill Zachariah at the beginning of the film is awful; so are many of the obviously-written-for-the-film songs that play and; 3) even worse, there is a moment when they've been at the native camp for a bit where the kids run in slow motion with some cougars and that same stupid running-with-animals music from Adventures of the Wilderness Family plays and for a moment, it's like one movie is the other, and not in a good way, because I think this movie is actually better. Some moments a...

Our progress so far in this deconstruction: (All, in theory, of course. Plus, it's basically a chicken or the egg problem; like, did I like movies about rebels and outcasts because I already had the interest, or was it my interest that drew me to such movies? Could I already imagine that monsters were human too, and that's something I liked about Young Frankenstein , or was it this movie that formed that notion within me? Or is it all just coincidence with some of these really early films--i.e. movies made before I was born, and put to VHS in my family's house not by my choice, and not even viewed by me necessarily by my choice; I mean, I took an interest in films before I can remember taking such an interest. If there was a movie to watch, I would watch it. Didn't matter what it was about; I'd give it a shot. And, if my mother didn't already know just how adult the film might be, she might try to cover my eyes (though she usually failed, and always piqued m...

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...

Asked by Tasha Robinson at The Verge , in regards to the end of Sing Street : It's clear the scene in the gym [i.e. the band's performance of "Drive It Like You Stole It"] is a fantasy, because it's got that bright candy color, and things happen that are so obviously unreal. But in the boat crossing [i.e. Conor and Raphina running away to England at the end of the film], you spend a lot of time establishing the physical danger of what they're doing. It seems like if it was just a romantic fantasy, you would have just had them sail off together. But there was a point where it looked like it was going to end with them both dying in the Irish Sea. director John Carney responds: I wish they had, in a way. I'm sorry! But there is a side of me that wishes they had. Given the difficulty of people who are making journeys, and end up dying... I don't think it's supposed to be a fully real sequence. I think they're supposed to be quite brave, setti...

(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,...

Stephanie Abraham explains (specifically coming back to Wonder Woman but the same applies for any film labeled as "feminist") in blog at Ms. : Now that the female superhero has finally made it to the big screen, critics and audiences are asking whether Wonder Woman is a feminist film. But the question itself is problematic. For one, it makes "feminist" a subjective adjective. Also, it suggests there's a monolithic Feminism, when really [the] feminist movement encompasses numerous feminisms in motion. The more inciting questions are: How does this film represent Wonder Woman? What's missing from this representation? And, what does it say about this particular moment in time? I especially love that last question. It's why every film can be taken as political. Every film is of its time, regardless of its subject matter, regardless of its setting. Every film can tell you something about the particular moment in time in which is was made, in which is was...

Speaking of different cultures and different viewpoints, according to Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku , before Big Hero 6 even came out, some South Koreans were upset over "alleged Rising Sun imagery" in the film. One movie, one story, many interpretations and interpolations. For example, Sharon H Chang, whose blog I cited yesterday, goes beyond just the racial makeup of Hiro and Tadashi (and the Japanese imagery throughout San Fransokyo). She writes: The film also plays sardonically with racial stereotypes in a manner much appreciated. Of course Hiro is Asian and super smart, but he's also hip, trendy and the hero . Fred, the not so sharp science groupie who just hangs around turns out to be extraordinarily and inexplicably rich; hilarious fun-poking at unearned white privilege/wealth. Meanwhile, Wasabi, cautious, smart and orderly, is thankfully far from typical depictions of large Black men as 'dangerous' and 'threatening.' (Admittedly the female characte...

I was reading recently about folklorists having a problem with Joseph Campbell and his whole monomyth The Hero with a Thousand Faces thing. The hero's journey and all that generic crap that gets recycled again and again in modern stories, especially film, especially action or fantasy. Sara Cleto argues, in the above linked article: Campbell's approach tends to direct the read [sic] back to themselves and their own culture. By saying, "hey, it's really just the same story over and over, we are all basically the same, and it [sic] great!" He ends up erasing the differences, and it has a flattening effect on the stories. Nevermind my own contention that all movies are all other movies, and every story is the same story, let's side with the folklorists for the moment. Besides, my arguments regarding identity and the self suggest that the differences are what matter anyway. Sure, there may be a backbone, or several different backbones, on which all stories ...

If you're reading this, you've probably got a slinky somewhere in your house, or you have had one in the past. Maybe it was just some cheap plastic knockoff, the kind you get for a few tickets at Chuck E. Cheese, but still. Is a slinky useful? Barely. Does it do what its advertised to do? Maybe that one time you got it just right at the right distance from the top step in your house and you got so excited that it was still going after four steps that you jumped for joy and shook the step just enough as to send that fancy little coil off course and it settled into itself on the next step. But, just that one time. Otherwise, it goes a step, maybe two and then fails to go further. I bring up the slinky for two reasons. First, they mentioned the choice to run with the obituary for the guy who invented the slinky* in Obit. , which I saw in the theater today. You run that obituary because that there is that ubiquitous connection to so many people in the readership. You want the name...

Speaking of remakes and reboots and sequels, in theaters today is King Arthur: Legend of the Sword . Take a bunch of fantasy clichés, at least one biblical one, throw in some first act anachronistic organized crime (think: they cast Charlie Hunnam because they were fans of Sons of Anarchy and only then realized they were making a pre-medieval film), a whole lot of Robin Hood-style/freedom fighter stuff, and mostly none of the actual tropes of King Arthur stories. Which is kind of weird given that Guy Ritchie is from England. But, also exactly what one should expect given Ritchie's short-attention-span style of directing. There are some great visuals here, of course. Ritchie can do those. The opening sequence's oversized elephants, for example--if we had reason by then to care about any of the characters being slaughtered, would be fairly frightening. We don't, of course. Have reason to care about any of the characters. In fact, we'll hardly have reason to care about...