the groundhog day project

Under the opening titles, as Patti LaBelle sings "Something Special" we see different women in different outfits, in blocks that never show the whole person. Parts of women, parts of outfits, earrings, eye makeup, and yesterday (because I had completely forgotten the acting class angle of Outrageous Fortune , I thought for a moment this was going to be about women working in fashion. But no. Cut to theatrical fencing class and Lauren is, to put it mildly, overeager. And we learn that her ambition is to play Hamlet. Cut to dance class. A gay guy who asks her out "to do some serious research" and she turns him down. Cut to Lauren and friend talking about not dating actors. They find the flyer for Korzenowski's workshop. Cut to Lauren outside her parents house in need of money. And I find myself confused because she could just do her own production of Hamlet with the $5000 her father gives her. And, Lauren's idea that Sandy can't go into an audition for...

I'm watching The Buddy Holly Story tonight. It's already late when I'm starting because, well, because life is a busy thing and I was feeling like I was getting sick earlier today--ended my argumentation class a bit early, even--and slept a bit this afternoon, had to take my daughter to gymnastics this evening. The Buddy Holly Story is an interesting case because it's actually been a good amount of years since I've watched it last... In fact, I don't really remember the last time I watched it, nor the first. And it's not like there are particular times watching it in between that stand out. But, this is movie that I saw plenty when I was young, and by release date, it came next, after Star Wars . This was my mom's movie, really. She grew up on Buddy Holly music. And, that mean's I grew up on Buddy Holly music. And Pink Floyd, and Journey, and Duran Duran... I had my mom's music, my dad's music, and six older sisters' music. Different in...

Not right, getting that hockey mask in the first two minutes of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later . If someone shows up with knives on his fingers... (Sidenote: Director Steve Miner also directed Friday the 13th Part 2 and III —the one that introduced that hockey mask—and was an associate producer on the original Friday the 13th .) This movie is an interesting animal. It deliberately ignores 4 and 5 and [6]. Ignores III as well, but who doesn’t? Then—and I admit I don’t really know cars—the car Michael’s driving looks a bit like the one he stole from that other Michael in 5 . Personally, I have a problem with the Laurie setup. At first I liked the numerous prescriptions in the medicine cabinet, except if this were Laurie Strode (and not just Jamie Lee Curtis) returning here, Laurie seems to me like the kind of girl who could get past what happened 20 years ago. I mean, she’d never totally get past it, but she was a girl who knew how to relax—with marijuana, with pumpkin carving, ...

Note #1 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation is set according to the titlecard at the beginning May 22, 1996. Depending on how you look at it, it was released either in 1994 (which for how I’ve been watching these films puts it a few days ago, between Jason Goes to Hell and New Nightmare ) or 1997—it had two releases and, if I remember it rightly, barely even got released. Note #2 - At this point, the slasher film is dead. Jason’s dead. Freddy’s dead, briefly meta-revived, then dead again. The two of them are partying it up in Hell planning a crossover film that would take a decade to come to fruition. Michael has, depending on the edit of Curse of Michael Myers either been beaten mostly to death then maybe kinda disappeared and/or killed Dr. Loomis or left Dr. Wynn for dead, finally changed his own look, and walked off into the metaphorical sunset (actually a long hallway that inexplicably has very few doors). Michael’s not dead, but he’s free; the curse may have moved ...

The opening text crawl for Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III insists on the verisimilitude of this being based on real events. The fact that Norman Bates in Psycho was based on the same guy that inspired Leatherface ought to tell you how real this story is. I’ve only seen this movie once before, I’m pretty sure. I don’t actually remember if Viggo Mortensen’s character is part of the Sawyer clan, but I figure if Strider offers you directions someplace, you should listen. It really only occurred to me now, with only two potential victims present in this film, that Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was not really a slasher film. There just weren’t enough victims. (And, from what I remember of chainsaws—a family friend from when I was a kid was pretty much a lumberjack, so he has a few—you start them like you do a lawn mower, a little pull cord, and the engine gets going. The noise that you hear when Leatherface comes at Michelle and Ryan when they’re changing the tire is the no...

The original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was released 1 October 1974, but the crawl at the beginning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 establishes that it happened on 18 August 1973. This one was released 22 August 1986, but is set “14 years” after the original. That isn’t important information, but after yesterday ‘s blog entry, the discrepancy was noticeable for me. What is important to note is that this film doesn’t really seem to be cashing in on the popularity of slasher films. It’s not one of Nowell’s (2011) “carpetbagger cash-ins.” Hell, I’m not sure this film falls within Nowell’s “first teen slasher film cycle” in terms of timing. Looking at the release dates of just the more popular slasher films I’ll be watching this month, I see no real gap from Halloween in ’78 to Halloween H20: 20 Years Later in ’98. That is to say, there’s a 4 year gap between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in ’74 and the original Halloween , and a gap of four years after H20 to Jason X . I think N...

Like Psycho , The Texas Chain Saw Massacre begins with a very specific setting—a date on which this “idyllic summer drive turn[s] into a nightmare.” It’s also got an awesome scroll (with narration) to let us know things are going to go very badly—as if the title did not already imply as much. As Sherman Alexie (1992) says in his poem of the same* name, “even its name brings fear.” * with chainsaw as one word, though, as I tend to think of it as well. Before I get back to Alexie, I gotta mention the old guy sitting in the tire at the cemetery at the beginning of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre . He seems like the predecessor to all the crazy old guys who warn people away in the various Friday the 13th films and other slasher films. There was a point in my twenties, when I was writing fiction almost daily, that I wanted to write a story implying those guys—and I think they have a name genre studiers use, but I can’t think of what it is—were actually all the same person (or supernatura...