the groundhog day project

Pretty Woman begins with a magic trick. And, not long after, there’s an amusing bit on the street—tourists taking pictures of a dead body. There is more here than lazy romance. And the movie does paint a picture of a city (or cities, rather) divided on class/money lines... as I’ve already said, but with a more negative tone, the picture presents us a world that creates people like Edward and Vivian. (Sidenote: There are a lot of horses in Edward’s penthouse, statutes, paintings. Combine those with the polo match (not a part of the original script), not to mention Vivian’s dream about a being saved by a knight on horseback, and the running motif seems like it might mean something. But, the most obvious meaning—linking horses to the whole class thing—doesn’t really add anything new to the film.) Both Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are charming here. Hector Elizondo does a great job with very little material, and handful of lines but mostly just a few looks—disapproving at first, th...

Now, let’s get out of New York. And, be a little less light and happy. The kind of movie that starts with two prostitutes buying some crack on the streets of Hollywood... unless Disney gets their hands on the script and twists it around and around until not only does the lead female—still a prostitute, mind you—no longer has a drug problem and the rich guy picking her up is just asking for directions, not prowling for a replacement girlfriend for the week. What used to be a rather despicable guy picking up a hooker who lists her likes as “hot baths and white rocks,” becomes a meet-cute instead. It’s a little sad. You’d know the movie as Pretty Woman . The original script by Jonathan Lawton was called $3,000 . $3,000 has a fairly straightforward plot, making a serious effort toward a critique of 1980s American capitalism. Pretty Woman drains so much of the darker... I would say realism, but $3,000 is just slight enough that it’s hard to suggest it has real depth. But, whatever...