the groundhog day project

I gotta watch Sing Street this week for a podcast, and Fran's outburst here in Strictly Ballroom that was yesterday's (and today's) title reminds me of Raphina's line there: "You can never do anything by half." A basic enough message. You want something, you gotta go for it. What you'd expect from a romantic comedy. Or drama... I mean, movies inherently involve some protagonist going after some goal, some dream, some love, some whatever. Messages aren't going to run deep, and sometimes they're obvious, but that doesn't make them lesser. Like, I've written in this blog a few times about About Time and have a currently running podcast about that film and some of the negative reviews about it complain about its central message--to slow down and appreciate the things around you. And, yeah, that's a basic message, but if more of us followed that advice we wouldn't hear that message so much. Like this movie: don't ...

Let us start with the cynical take: love is a fantasy. But, that is exactly why the romance in Romancing the Stone works. The premise itself is Joan Wilder's life echoing her romance novels, fantastic adventure, treasure hunting, a mysterious stranger, relentless villains. If we buy into the premise, it is very easy to buy into the romance, because the one fantasy is nested quite comfortably within the other. Damon Suede, possibly a pseudonym, writing for Romance University , says: Romance authors love Romancing the Stone because it simultaneously ribs and respects the genre. [Screenwriter Diane] Thomas got romance at a visceral level, and for all the winking send ups of romantic cliché, she embraces them shamelessly... no small feat. It has remains a touchstone in Hollywood and within the Romance community for a simple reason: Romancing the Stone remains one of the only blockbuster hits in pure romance. Suede goes on to explain how classic romance films are generally melodr...

What's the point of Kiss Me Goodbye ? I mean, sure, it's entertaining. Sure, it deals (quite shallowly) in themes of love and loss and moving on-- The first thing we hear in the film is the song "But It's a Nice Dream" which includes the following lyrics: We'll go away Make love all day You'll never stay But it's a nice dream Just me for you Our whole life through It won't come true But it's a nice dream And... I'm sorry that it went so fast Our future has become our past Too good we couldn't last And our first images of Jolly are flashbacks and his painting, which is him from behind, looking over his shoulder. And, something I never got as a kid is that Jolly it just there to help Kay move on. As a kid, I always thought he showed up simply because she moved back into their townhouse, and the timing with her upcoming wedding was a coincidence. I probably figured out otherwise somewhere since, but I remember the film being more ...

First of all, to my sister Brooke, yes they do have sex. I was thinking of the bit by the campfire when she's wrapped in the blanket and no, they have done nothing untoward just yet. But, after the camera pans up and away, Jim and Jessica act all awkward when next we see them. So, yeah, unlike Matilda and Spur, Jim and Jessica do consummate their relationship. Of course, it's all not only offscreen but presumably quite chaste. Which, it might have been better if there had been more passion to it. As Roger Ebert says of the two stars, There is... Real chemistry between Burlinson and Thornton, as the young lovers. But it's handled so innocently we never really feel their passion. I'm not asking for torrid love scenes-- Coming off of An Officer and a Gentleman , I must interrupt Roger and say, some torrid love scenes would have gone over quite well with these two. Burlinson and Thornton are both fairly attractive and it would have made an otherwise wholesome film quite...

I figure most people reading this (unless of course you found it while scouring the Internet for reference to The Pirate Movie ) have never seen The Pirate Movie , probably haven't even heard of it. Generic spoof titles get lost in time. But, The Pirate Movie was actually #5 at the box office its opening weekend. I did not, however, see this movie in the theater. I don't rightly recall when I first saw it, but it was probably as soon as it was on video (not sure how fast that happened in 1982). Apparently, quite a few people saw it in the theater. The weekend, by the way: E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial in its 9th week. I definitely saw that on the big screen. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in its 3rd, and I swear, I'm pretty sure I saw that on the big screen. Things Are Tough All Over , opening that weekend, and no, I have never heard of it either. An Officer and a Gentleman , in is 2nd week, and obviously, I saw that one. The Pirate Movie Rocky III , in its 1...

Then again , Sid's sense of ownership is problematic. He's got the girl back home, and fully expects to marry her after OCS. Secure in that expectation, he gets together with Lynette the first week of a 13-week program, and she doesn't turn down his marriage proposal until the 11th week. Lynette kind of has a point after Paula says she'd be "trapping" a guy by getting pregnant... Here's the context. LYNETTE: Would you let yourself get pregnant? PAULA: No way, Lynette. Would you? LYNETTE: Well... I never used to think I'd do something like that. But, I don't know anymore. Nine weeks just ain't long enough for a guy to fall in love with you. PAULA: That doesn't justify trapping him or getting pregnant. I can't believe you'd think that. It's real backward. Here's where Lynette starts to make her point. LYNETTE: It ain't more backward than the way these hotshot assholes use till they've had enough, then ditch us ...

Yesterday , I watched Groundhog Day yet again, but I really didn't say much about the movie itself. To be fair, there isn't much to be said about Groundhog Day that I have not already said in one form or another. Still, it's the 25th anniversary of the film's release coming up, so I feel that I should say something. If you want a good story about me and this blog and the movie, and about the town of Woodstock, where they filmed most of the movie--and where every year around this time, they celebrate with their own Groundhog Days--check Michael Schulman's piece at The Believer , check my specific response to that piece and a personal message I got from screenwriter Danny Rubin, or just start reading with Day 1 and go from there. If you want to understand the holiday, check here or here . This week, The Federalist called the film, "a seemingly light and whimsical" comedy that "has had an interesting life." Author Robert Tracinski goes on t...

I would especially note the kitchen scene late in the film between Dave (Nick Thune) and Annie (Meera Rohit Kumbhani). It goes a little something like this... Keep in mind, Annie has bought into the maze (she is the one who hangs the towel over the exit to keep the Minotaur inside). The apartment has been taken over by the maze. They have just come up with the plan to create the chrysalis at the heart of the maze to give the whole a weak spot. Dave didn't make a weak spot originally because, "then someone could destroy it." Harry and Annie don't come right out and say it, exactly, but they frame failure (or the potential for it) as part of life. No matter how much Dave wanted this maze to last, it is supposed to have a weak spot, because everything has a weak spot. That is life itself. Success really matters because to get there you overcome the potential for failure. Dave says, of the maze, "This is the only thing I've ever started that's worth finishi...

No Jazz Singer tonight. Instead, I took my daughter to see Lady Bird . And, the affection for Sacramento inherent in Gerwig's direction throughout, plus more explicitly regarding the titular character's (Saoirse Ronan) affection for the city, despite her claims to the contrary, stood out. Sister Sarah Joan's (Lois Smith) pronouncement that is today's blog title had me thinking on a couple things: 1) on an obvious level, because that line was about the city, I was thinking about Pasadena, where I grew up. About places I used to go, the mall that no longer exists, movies theaters that have been turned into (I think this is what they are now) a bank, a church (which seems like blasphemy), and a school supply store. Another one was turned from a giant single-screen theater into a multiplex, and is now a gym of some sort. The theater where I worked for a while in my 20s is now a jewelry store. And, it's not all about movie theaters. Three used bookstores I used to f...

                      Today I saw Call Me By Your Name , right now I've got Whose Streets? playing on the television. I'm inclined to write in relation, in response, in my usual twisted sort of echo, to the former rather than the latter. Writing about police violence and Ferguson will get me into a political rant that I am not in the mood for... Which is its own sort of troubling notion, separate from the rant itself. That I get to be tired to such things. That as much as I seek out stuff on social media to argue with, I can turn it off and my life is enough that I don't need to be in the middle of that. When so many people don't have such a choice.           The privilege of my life. I can choose to write about a love story--one trapped behind an 80s anti-homosexual vibe, but--SPOILERS--that ultimately doesn't go the route that one producer apparently wanted by having a villain; instead ...

To counter the cynical side from yesterday , there is one scene that absolutely points to the reality of the whole thing, and the cosmic import of the love story at its center, and that is the opening. Regardless of what follows, that scene is real. And, Elise's arrival as an old woman is real. What makes the scene important when you take the side of it all being real, of it all bearing the import of time itself, of love itself, is that the crowd clears for this old woman. Now, maybe they recognize this old woman as the once famous Elise McKenna, but I doubt it; if they recognize her, so should Richard. (Actually, Richard's later conversation with Miss Roberts suggests that Elise may never have been as famous after 1912 as she was then; she was increasingly reclusive from then until her death.) Rather, I think they do not, but they part because there is something about this woman being in this place, something they can sense, something that has an energy itself, her mere presen...

In retrospect, Somewhere in Time is an odd movie to be familiar with as a kid. And, I think I understood the film better than my review go-to Roger Ebert did at the time (and he was almost as old then as I am now). His review begins: "Somewhere in Time" wants us to share its sweeping romantic idealism, about a love so great that it spanned the decades and violated the sanctity of time itself. But we keep getting distracted by nagging doubts, like, isn't it a little futile to travel 68 years backward into time for a one-night stand? I bought the "sweeping romantic idealism" of it, and saw it as much more than a one-night-stand, even as a kid. And, watching it in the present, I still do. (Note: I watched this film during the first year of this blog (in addition to Groundhog Day that day, of course) because to the circular time travel loop within) and wrote about it . Particularly, I wrote about the bootstrap paradox of the pocket watch in the film, and I...

Last minute change of plans after a long day of gaming--four hours of D&D, a lunch break, then close to six hours of board games--and I finally got my daughter Saer to watch Sing Street . So, damn the current childhood deconstruction, damn The Villain for today, I'm watching Sing Street . By the way, I've already written a lot about this movie in this blog: day 1072 - now that the niceties are out of the way day 1073 - and everything is more real than life day 1074 - everything beautiful's fiction day 1075 - when you don't know someone day 1076 - it’s a video, robert day 1077 - i think i’m back in the dream day 1078 - you can never do anything by half day 1079 - hitch a ride on a dream day 1080 - what tyranny could stand up to that? day 1081 - start up the time machine day 1082 - you're not happy being sad day 1083 - i often wonder what she's thinking about           And then, I'm just enjoying the...

I don't really want to talk about Heaven Can Wait again. If it taught me anything when I was a kid, it was bad things--that one guy can change the world with a few words, that love is magical and comes upon you out of nowhere, and it can conquer all. The film's take on reincarnation and the soul didn't fit with what church and bible class in school were teaching me, and neither take was particularly positive given I was being told regularly that the world was going to end . I mean, who cares if you go to heaven when you die, if your "soul" sits wound waiting for Christ to return and then you get to spend forever in the presence of God, or if you get a brand new body (maybe) after you die, when in a few short years this body you have right now is going to burn in a nuclear holocaust, or if by some slim chance it survives, you're going to die slowly from radiation poisoning, starvation, or some sort of post-apocalyptic factional violence? What points is romanti...