the groundhog day project

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...

Clearly, Toy Story is built around the whole "buddy picture" sort of structure, but that's close enough to the romance genre, specifically romantic comedy, that I figured it's time to share this: For the record, I did not draw that. It was drawn by a deviantart user who seems to be named May Pong, lives in Brunei. And, if seeing Buzz and Woody kissing like that bothers you, you really shouldn't read the rather brilliantly titled "And Beyond" by Kass , a fanfic in which Woody realizes he has fallen in love with Buzz and Buzz overhears him breaking up with Bo Peep and one thing leads to another until eventually, Buzz plays with Woody's pull string and Woody pushes Buzz's buttons. Seriously though, I think there's more to it than some playful imagining or adolescent fantasy. (And, I'm not suggesting that Toy Story is feeding into homosexual references like, say, Planes, Trains & Automobiles , even though Woody is clearly jealous b...

For the record, I would have rather had more research and depth for yesterday 's entry. Given the short time frame I've got to research stuff for this blog, I just couldn't find a good source about queer coding in cinema. Found a few sources talking about how certain characters in, say, 1950s' films can be understood as gay even though their films could not really have them be, given the Hays Code. But, they just didn't get into details about what aspects of a character demonstrated coded homosexuality. Unfortunately, the topic proved more complicated than I had hoped. But, life--and this blog--goes on. The starting point today is a bit from Ebert's (1981) review of the film. He tells us that "the film doesn't like women [and so] its sex scenes all create fear and hostility." I got into this a bit the last two days , and I must at once both agree and disagree with Ebert's sentiment. On the one hand, I do not believe the hostility and fear t...

A couple questions linger as I complete my week with West Side Story . The first: why did Saul Bass give us such a static opening image? Sure it changes color, but as far as movement goes, it's got nothing on Anatomy of a Murder , The Man with the Golden Gun , Psycho , Spartacus , Vertigo , North by Northwest ... and more. Bass usually goes for something more... interesting. I read that he was also responsible for the aerial shots that take us from that overview of Manhattan into the smaller zones, until we get to the West Side and the playground and the Jets. But, that slow movement doesn't make up for the static image of Manhattan. His end credits are nice, putting the credits onto walls and signs. Between that and the aerial shots, he certainly evokes a specific time and place. But, I can't help but feel a little disappointed that the initial shot is so static but for the color. The second: Why are there rows of doors around the neighborhood? Here, strewn in a...