the groundhog day project

I want to see something new tonight. It's the 2nd of the month. I'm watching Groundhog Day . Again. In the meantime, I sit here and recite a lot of the lines as they go. Not spending every day with this movie--like I did in Phase One of this blog--my timing is off with some lines, but mostly I've still got it. You know one detail from Groundhog Day: The Musical (which I have yet to see because I can't make it to New York too readily, but I listen to the soundtrack plenty) that I love that differs from the film? When Buster announced that the groundhog said, "I definitely see a shadow" and he proclaims "Six more weeks of winter", in the film, the crowd just boos. The people on stage even have signs to egg them on: BLIZZARD, SLEET, 6 MORE WEEKS OF WINTER. The crowd in the musical has a slightly different take. Sure, they boo, but then, almost immediately, they scream yay, because they're such cheerful folk they can't really be sad about t...

"Everyone takes, everyone gives. Life is like that." - Siddhartha (p. 52) Davies (1995) tells us, "Through its small-town setting and its manipulation of time, [ Groundhog Day ] keeps the most discussed ills of nineties America (gang war in California, sex and violence in the movies) at a distance" (p. 226). In fact, those more serious topics don't even make it out of the opening scene, and the first one is just part of Phil's humorous weather report: Out in California, they’re gonna have some warm weather tomorrow… gang wars and some very overpriced real estate. Up in the Pacific Northwest, as you can see, they’re gonna have some very, very tall trees. It will be clear across the Rockies and the Great Plains, mostly. Sex and violence in the movies--that's a topic that has been with us as long as movies have been, and will still be until we turn as hedonistic as the latter days of the Roman Empire. Actually, then we'll probably still talk abo...

Got busy grading exams and watching Caprica episodes today and never got around to reading Lupoff's first sequel to his 12:01 P.M. story. I've also got a syllabus (or something like it) for a college class dealing with Groundhog Day that I've been meaning to read through, but I didn't get to that today either. I am once again a blogger without a plan today. As Phil marches through the snow to talk to the "commander" about the blizzard, I sit here with nothing in particular to say. The thing is, that's okay. Not every blog entry has to be about something, just like not every moment needs to be about something, not every day needs to be about something. Sometimes, life is just life, and a moment is just a moment, and a blog is just a blog... Oh, who am I kidding. I wish I had something prepped, something meaningful because those are the best topics for me. Sure, I like the funny ones and the weird ones, but meaningful--that is what I love. Right now, ...

Today had its moments, good and bad. I had no school today--good. I got caught up on some TV shows--good. I figured out I'd put Book of Mormon on my calendar incorrectly, so our tickets were not good for tonight's show as I thought--bad. I worked on a LEGO project--good. Headed out for dinner with two of my kids--good--but got a flat tire (a nail in it)--bad. Hung out with the kids a bit, played some rounds of Draw Something --good. Watched some good new TV tonight ( Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fargo )--good. And, as soon as the premiere of Fargo is over, I will finally get to Groundhog Day . Tomorrow, flying out of town with six undergrads to Michigan for a national speech tournament, will be there for nearly a whole week. I'll miss my kids--bad. But it should be fun, and productive even if we don't bring home any awards--good. The cool thing, in regards to this blog, right now there is no set agenda. I've got a folder full of articles connected to Groundhog Da...

The second episode of Day Break is called "What If They Run?" The cliffhanger ending, remember, Hopper and Rita were heading out of town, but trucks were waiting. Phil Connors never had to deal with this. Even when he managed to get out of town in the original screenplay--a narrative mistake, I think--there were not men waiting to kill him. (There's a handy intro setting up the repeating day before the second episode, though the opening line is a bit cheesy--"You think you're having a bad day?") Benesh (2011) talks about eating--the digestive metaphor--and makes some good points. I've written before about food (even mentioned Benesh, though at the time I was still avoiding reading her). And, I know these two things don't connect in any obvious way, but it occurs to me Hopper ate nothing in the first episode, just as Phil barely eats anything in Groundhog Day . And, I argued before, of course, that Phil doesn't have to eat, at all. Doesn'...

The next X in my copy of Benesh (2011) is on page 25. But, it's not that exciting; she's just repeating her previous error, attributing the "revelation that there will be 'no consequences' to Phil again, when it came from Gus. Then, she cites Thompson (1999) again--Thompson is a source I haven't even looked for as of yet. Kristin Thompson's book is Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique . Another-- I must interrupt this blog to mention what has just happened. The blu-ray just froze on the alarm clock, Day Two. "It's six a.m. forever," my daughter says behind me on the couch... Something I've not probably mentioned before: I often write this blog while sitting on the floor. I've got my iPad and my wireless keyboard on the coffee table--and currently, I've got Groundhog Day Project Binder #2 open on the table as well. Turned off the blu-ray player, then back on and skipped ahead to where I ...

I had in fact conceived this draft of the screenplay in seven acts. It seemed to me that breaking it up into smaller parts would make it easier to write quickly, and besides, it conformed to the way I was thinking about Phil and his predicament. I knew that Phil’s life would proceed in stages, that there was a natural order to how his life would progress. The stages would be as distinct and definable as those laid out by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her stages of death and dying (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). I have been quoted, by the way, as saying that Phil’s stages were the same as those defined by Kubler-Ross, but that wasn’t my intention. (Rubin, 2012, p. 84) Rubin had Kubler-Ross in his mind, even if he didn't mean to ape them specifically. I think we all assume stuff happens in stages; we probably even did before Kubler-Ross published On Death and Dying more than forty years ago. It's the kind of thing we all know but when someone spells it out for...

Was too tired to do much linking of Groundhog Day to impromptu quotations--as I did here , here and here & here and here & here -- yesterday . So, now for some more: "What we obtain too cheap[ly] we esteem too little. It is dearness only that gives everything its value." - Thomas Paine An obvious one. What Phil Connors gets out of his life pre-loop or the early days of the loop are gains too easily gotten. He has shallow relationships. He steals money and (presumably) spends it absurdly. He Phil Connors Nancy rather than actually try to ask her out properly (which she might have said "yes" to). It is the stuff he gets later in the loop, the stuff he has to put real effort into, that holds "dearness." His ice sculpting, his piano playing, his saving of lives-- (Note: I do not include learning French, though one could argue it belongs on the list... one would be a presumptuous idealist, and maybe a moron, but one could argue it) --this i...

Just noticed and my mind is blown by: opening scene, Phil says he's "gonna go out on a limb" then at the end of the time loop, he saves a kid who has literally gone out on a limb... Ok, my mind wasn't really blown. But, hey, if there are more examples like that, I could certainly make an argument about the mirrored structure. In other news, a mistake--or just evidence that Phil is a fantastic performer: the news footage showing in the newsvan at the beginning of the date night sequence-- --is the same footage shown on Day 1. But, that's not what I want to talk about today. Today's business: Phil Connors may be a Christ-Figure , but that doesn't mean he's nothing else. I've spent plenty of time talking about other things Phil represents of course. Today, I wanted to get started down the road to the Bodhisattva , even though I've got a binder of articles on cinematic Christ-Figures and a paper I could be drafting about that very topic. ...

In "How to Create a Hollywood Christ-Figure: Sacred Storytelling as Applied Theology" Anton Karl Kozlovic (2009) lays out 25 "structural elements of the cinematic Christ-figure." First, he defines the Christ-figure as "the cinematic transfiguration of Jesus Christ from page to projected image." Of the 25 elements, Kozlovic explains: Of course, not all of [them] must exist in the one character, or in the one film, or at any one time to qualify as a legitimate Christ-figure, but the more of them, the stronger the christic [sic] construction, the more profound the holy resonance and the better the sacred storytelling parallels. So, let's keep this simple, run down Kozlovic's list and see how Phil Connors matches up. 1: "Christ-figures are usually tangible, visible, and colourful characters..." Phil is definitely tangible and visible. And, it would be difficult to suggest that he's not colorful as well. His jokes and his antics make h...

I imagine the days where Phil Connors gets contemplative. Maybe it’s before he turns to depression. Maybe it’s after. And, a weird thought occurs to me—he can never fast. I mean, he can go without food for a day, sure. But, that’s it, a day. His digestive system will have food from the day before, so he probably won’t be all that hungry. I mean, yeah, when we’re used to eating regularly, we’ll get hungry after missing a meal. But, that’s not real hunger. There’s an interesting bit in Siddhartha in which Kamaswami asks Siddhartha what he has learned that he can give. Siddhartha’s response: “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.” Kamaswami asks, what good is fasting? He’s a businessman, a merchant who certainly doesn’t value the contemplative moments of life. Siddhartha explains: It is of great value, sir. If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned how to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work t...

This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down. The Tao Te Ching has an interesting take on water (not the answer to the riddle above, by the way). Water is compared to the highest good. The translation I own has this to say about water: The goodness of water is that it benefits the ten thousand creatures [taken as all living things]; yet itself does not scramble, but is content with the places that all men disdain. It is this that makes water so near to the Way. Water doesn’t try to stay on top. It gives in to gravity and, in doing so, is one of the most powerful things around, eroding mountains and forming great canyons. Not to necessarily personify things, but water is patient. Water has nothing but time on its hands. Phil Connors, similarly, has nothing but time on his hands. It becomes his only asset outside his mind. Sure he’s got that nice coat that Haro...