the groundhog day project

1. The

I watched Best in Show on the plane today. I've been awake (aside from a little dozing on the other plane today) for something like 18 hours, after about 4 hours sleep after being awake for about twenty hours after... You get the idea. Exhausting (in a good way) trip. Home now. Was going to watch Slam one more time, may do so tomorrow. In the meantime, I recommend the likes of Best in Show --I'd seen it before but years ago--some great humor, without going too much into adult humor or crass humor, keeps it pretty family friendly and still manages some great laughs. In fact, I should probably come back to Best in Show another day to actually say some things more specific.

1. Today is the third anniversary of Roger Ebert's death, so I thought I'd share his thoughts on today's film--repeating Slam . 2. Today was the final day of AFA Nationals, it's already after midnight local time, and we're heading for the airport in the morning... Since it is (was) the last day of AFA and the final round I watched was, like yesterday, poetry--an amazing round, six brilliant performances, five of those six on issues about black Americans, so that's why I'm repeating Slam . 3. I'd like to get into some serious political stuff related to, primarily, the argument between Ray (Saul Williams) and Lauren (Sonja Sohn) that comes (oddly) late in the film. (Oddly, because the structure of this film seems a bit off. The jail sequence just goes on a little too long, and structurally comes too early to be the second act, and goes too late to be confined just to the second act. Also, the jail sequence is not split appropriately to be both acts on...

In the mood for some poetry after judging poetry semifinals at the end of today's tournament day. first poetry movie that came to mind was Slam (I couldn't remember if Total Eclipse really includes much poetry and I swear The Basketball Diaries includes almost none, and I've already watched Dead Poets Society for this blog) so I'm watching Slam , even though I remember liking the move but being underwhelmed by the poetry. (I suppose I could have finally watched Howl but I didn't feel like something new tonight; didn't even get back to the hotel until almost eleven. That's how Nationals goes. Early starts and late ends to the days, three hard days then you're out.) (Separate note: Danny Rubin pointed out that this---Gainesville--is his home town.) The movie is filmed like it's a documentary, and I think it's covering a lot of the same themes as the documentary SlamNation . It's talking about how black Americans ends up disproportion...

Groundhog Day is on and I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about how watching this movie in Florida adds one more state to the list of where I've watched it (you can see that list here ). I don't want to talk about how it doesn't get old. I don't want to talk about how it is comforting to know something so well and to have it be there when I need it. I do want to talk about the message I got from Danny Rubin yesterday, but I'm not going to, because that's private. One of the critiques of autoethnography--an approach I'm using and quite readily defending in my master's thesis--is that you can never get consent from everybody involved in some story, some research, and while technically that just isn't true, certainly it might be hard to get consent for everything, from everyone, and some people may refuse. That doesn't mean you don't mean forward. That doesn't mean you leave out--and I'm just going to jump r...

The heart of Swingers is Mike, especially what I've been calling that scene . If you're with this somewhat depressed guy and can make it through that scene--my daughter was in the room the other day when that scene was on, and her "Oh, sweetie, no," was exactly the kind of response we should have--you're rooting for him, rooting for his life to get better. And, that's easy. Mike is not a jerk like Trent or Sue. He's not there to pad the rat pack esque group at the center of this movie, like Charles--though his "this place is dead, anyway" is amazing--or Rob--whose useful advice about life for Mike could have come from Trent and maybe worked a little better dramatically, structurally. Instead of the latter, we're barely offered up much that is positive about Trent. Sure, he's trying to get Mike out of his apartment but it's hard most of the time to really see Trent doing that for Mike, rather he's taking advantage--or so it seems...

(Starting the blog entry a while before the movie today. Sitting in a hotel room in Florida, brought my Fire Stick on the trip to have access on the room's TV to Hulu, Amazon, HBO and Netflix. The modern Western world--am I right? Anyway, long day, with a little sleep on the plane and a bit of a nap here at the hotel before dinner. About to judge some practice rounds with our students, give them some last minute notes for this weekend's competition. In the meantime...) Swingers is all about that scene, the answering machine sequence. Like the Groundhog Day Project is all about sharing and nitpicking and being who you gotta be... No, being who you want to be. Like our speech competitions are all about finding the piece that fits you, and you it, and figuring out how to put it to the audience in the best way you can. And, all that may sound a little generic, a little obvious, but I suppose that's on purpose. As I've stated before , the thesis of this blog, if there...

Flashback to the mid-90s, when big bands and swing music seemed to be making a comeback... They never quite managed, right? (Had swing dancing been a thing beyond Porto-hipster levels, I would have had a head start, actually, because we learned dancing, including swing, at the private school I attended.) But, while they were there, we got a movie like Swingers . Gotta love the answering machine telling Mike (Jon Favreau) to put his life in perspective.           Picture me, sitting on the floor as usual, a few hours early as I'm heading to Florida later, but I'm forgetting what I meant to write about this movie for its day one because it has been a good while since I've watched it and I'm just amused as hell. "I just get, like, this thing where I want to be be a gentleman and I want to show respect." Love that Mike calls that a "thing" like it's not what he's supposed to do. Of course, that is what Trent (Vince Vaughn) is trying to ...

I remember when I was in Woodstock, Illinois two years ago--that's the filming location for most of Groundhog Day , if you must know, this blog's namesake and the film I watched for 365 days in a row and still come back to at least once a month--and I imagined being stuck in that location for a repeating day, and there was a "homeless" guy--really, he was just out of work and had made his way to Woodstock from a nearby town because he knew the crowd would mean he might be able to get more handouts from sympathetic passersby--that is, more people overall, more sympathy just by playing the percentages not that he was as cynical about it as I think I just sounded in describing it--and he was a nice enough guy, but unfortunately, I couldn't give him any cash because I saw him on my third day in Woodstock and I had run out of cash--I did offer to buy him Starbucks, I think, because I had just emerged from Starbucks, which is right by where Phil Connors hugged Ned Ryers...

(For the record, most of what follows was written prior to today. For my Monday-night class this quarter, we've been having to write drafts. I don't normally like writing drafts. That is why I like the blog format, I think—I just write and what comes out is what is, with only minimal changes as I go. Anyway, there has already been a 500-word assignment setting up the topic, and a 750-word draft that I put together as a sort of teaser, ended on a cliffhanger even. (I've also handwritten the last several lines (probably) of the final piece.) The final version is supposed to be 1200-1500 words. I have been taking word count as a challenge in this class, so I may aim for 1200 even. We'll see. [Note: I finished at 1320, then cut back to 1200, which was not easy.] As I write, because it is once again the 2nd of the month, Groundhog Day will be playing. This blog has been going for 31 months now. I have watched this film about 396 times in that span. That's from start t...

I really wish that the opening line from Roger Ebert's memoir Life Itself were said out loud in the film Life Itself instead of just being text on the screen because I really want to use it as the title for this entry but tradition puts only lines of dialogue (or lyrics) as the title here at the Groundhog Day Project . (And, there should have probably been a comma in that sentence somewhere.) I was born inside the movie of my life. That's the line. I would figure that my life is a movie except, well, my life is not very exciting. If my life is a movie, it's some weirdly slow indie film. I'm trying to remember Julie & Julia . I saw the movie once when it was new, and I've read Julie's book (and a whole lot of Lawrence Dai's blog entries about the film), but I'm barely remembering how Julie's story works as a visual narrative. I remember some shots of Amy Adams failing at cooking, something with lobsters, but it's the Julia Child sequen...

The one thing that Poltergeist is, aside from a three-decades-old horror film that holds up pretty damn well despite a few structural flaws-- (For the record, those structural flaws include the late introduction of Steve's boss, and the very late lead in, thereby, to the explanation of what's going on, or rather why. Its is also, arguably, a structural problem that all those potential metaphors I mentioned yesterday pretty much get forgotten after the first act... or get twisted up into the one metaphor I'm going to play through today. The movie hints at things that are not followed up on. Why do Dr. Lesh and Tangina exist as separate characters at all? (I might figure out how to answer that last one below.) And, for the record, there is definitely something going on in this film regarding suburbs and tract homes, but that also gets twisted into today's actual topic. Actually, the potential dangers in domesticity--those kids with the remote control cars that purpos...

Writing on the road, movie on the small screen of my phone beside me. On the way to San Diego for the weekend for a speech tournament. Today is the 2nd of the month so it's Groundhog Day . Like coming home again... Meanwhile, a quick recap of the past month of this blog [and here's the link to the last recap ]: One day with Groundhog Day turned into seven when I got into a newly discovered draft of the script and that opened a lot of old sections of my blogger brain. Groundhog Day - 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 I don't recall how I decided where to start the month, but I went with Say Anything ( 769 770 771 )--one of my favorite movies, and the first movie I watched with my ex-wife. I thought this might get me into an exploration of romance or something schmaltzy, and it almost did. The next movie was Better Off Dead ( 772 773 )-- (And, I still can't believe I didn't have the time in those couple days to get out to the location of the Meyer and Smit...

Another scene that I don’t know if they actually filmed it is the party scene: INT. PHIL’S ROOM - NIGHT There is a very wild party in progress. The revelers include everyone from college kids to bikers to farmers. Bruno the German Shepherd [who Phil called out by name while driving around in his new car just a couple pages earlier] runs into the scene, barking at the activity. Then Bruno runs over to Phil who’s just sitting on the sofa staring at the fake fire. He’s wearing a really loud sportshirt, a number of gold neck chains and rings on every finger. On his lap is a whole chocolate cake which he is absently eating with his fingers. A very trashy looking girl named ANGIE in too tight-jeans and halter top is coming on to him, practically licking his ears. (Ramis, 1992, March 5, p. 64) She’s graduated a little bit. In earlier drafts, she was present at a BIKER BAR first, and she was a slut named ANGIE and she was accompanied by another overweight, not very pretty MADONNA WANNA-...

Notes on the final revision of Groundhog Day screenplay, continued . There’s no reading of Hustler , just going back to his room to have a shower (p. 24). But, the Hustler bit gets lost in the film anyway. Seriously, just watch. Rita starts to get up almost as soon as he starts answering her question. She’s not very nice. Page 34, Phil does the interviewing the groundhog thing. He knows where the groundhog is going to run, so he gets there first. Then Phil talks to Phil: PHIL Since I have you here, I gotta ask—is this shadow thing legit, or did you look at satellite photos like the rest of us? This is only the first resumption, by the way. The script is taking its time a lot more than the film does. Both the pencil breaking (p. 35) and the room demolition (pp. 41-42) happen. There was some confusion a while back over whether or not they filmed the demolition scene at all, recall . In the film, there’s only one “Phil? Like the groundhog, Phil?” joke. But, in Rubin’s original s...