the groundhog day project

Commando begins with an execution in a suburban neighborhood. Cooke--AKA the black guy--and... the other guy gun down (presumably Lawson) from Matrix's old unit. Before we cut away, the dialogue from the car dealership scene starts. The dealer says today's title. He's talking about the car, but the timing suggests otherwise. Another thing this movie shows us, but only so very briefly, as far as American workmanship goes, is home video pornography. Now, if you've seen the movie only once long ago, you might be wondering what I'm talking about. Picture it. Sunspot Motel. Matrix and Cindy are looking through Sully's stuff when Cooke arrives. Matrix tells Cindy to mess up the bed, which she immediately does even though he offers no explanation. He disappears momentarily to turn on the shower then returns to rip open Cindy's blouse. Not too sexist there, using her as a pawn to open the door. Then, Cooke comes in and fighting ensues. A little way into the fight,...

"The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetic topic in the world." - Edgar Allan Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition" To understand why we like horror, we have to understand a couple other things: 1) gothic horror led to modern horror, particularly the slasher film, and the slasher film led us to so-called torture porn and, 2) there's a thin line between horror and pornography (hence the nickname for that last subgenre there). After all, as Clover (1987) puts it, "horror and pornography are the only two genres specifically devoted to the arousal of bodily sensation. They exist solely to horrify and stimulate, not always respectively, and their ability to do so is the sole measure of their success" (p. 189). A good horror film is a scary horror film, generally speaking. And, a good porn film is an arousing porn film. The writing, the directing, the acting--these are secondary to the scare/arousal. Too on-the-nose? (Watching S...