the groundhog day project

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 ...

Just watched Meatballs . Tripper Harrison is like my idol. Jumping right from Meatballs to Groundhog Day is interesting because the latter is some 14 years later and the style of comedy, not to mention the levels of Bill Murray's performance, is so very different. And, I like that Murray's character in the former is almost seeking attachment as much as his character in the latter is trying to avoid it. Of course, his romantic approach is not too different between the two. He starts out overbearing and eventually calms down enough to earn some actual attention and affection. But we are not gathered here today to talk about Meatballs , even if it does star Bill Murray and was co-written by Harold Ramis. Dearly beloved, we gather here today to pay our, well, probably disrespects to Julie Ellen Benesh. I should probably be more polite; I mean, she only wrote the dissertation a few years ago and I should email her or something. We could team up on something. I should also call ...