the groundhog day project

Except , Murder by Death isn't even really a mystery. I mean, it's not like it offers up clues for the audience to solve anything, nor does it even show the detective's discovering useful information for their final solutions (plus all of their final solutions are so far out of left field, and wrong (especially Sam Diamond's (Peter Falk) theory that negates him being himself, which is funny, but ridiculous)). At best, the only things in this film that the audience might be able to figure out along the way, or more importantly, that we see the detectives figuring out, is that there are two dining rooms. Everything else is arbitrary. Which, I suppose is the point. I actually wish I had (back when I was a kid, but also now) more experience with the genre this movie is picking apart. Lionel Twain's (Truman Capote) big speech at the end of the film does however take me in a slightly different direction. But first, here's his rant: You've all been so clever fo...

I don't really want to rehash the inherent sexism in a family film made in the 70s--that's just par for the course, another sign of the times that were. At some point, you must take a film on its own terms, let it have its timely biases and its timely treatments of men, of women, of people of color, of varying ethnicities. What then can you take from The Apple Dumpling Gang ? It's an entertaining film. It's funny. It's got heart. It's plot is simple and easy to understand, and Donavan and Dusty ending up a couple is a good ending to the story as offered. That Amos and Theodore ride off with the happy couple and their kids is icing on the cake. But, what really stands out watching The Apple Dumpling Gang after so many years--and I have seen it in the intervening years, probably most recently in the last 10 to 15 years--is just how well put together it's plot is. (Except for one detail.) The Hash Knife Gang--Amos and Theodore--and their antics are barely c...

In no particular order: 1. What matters more--plot or story? Do you want a plot-driven story like an action film or a mystery, or a fairly basic romance? Or does the story matter more? Does each character need to feel like they've got their own story going on? Better yet, how do you define the difference? 2. How important is dialogue in a movie? Do you prefer clever dialogue? Realistic dialogue? How important is the script? What do you think of voiceover? (Side question: does that bullshit-style of voiceover that only exists at the start and end of a film bug the crap out of you as much as it does me? Girls Trip uses that style and opens with flashback moments with the main characters in college and a series of shots of their reunions every few years, and it's all stuff we just don't need. Everything that the opening of the film--especially the voiceover--offers us is something that we'll figure out ourselves later unless we're idiots.) What do you think of char...

My friend Shari mentioned that one of her problems with Rogue One was that lack of character arcs. And, then I went out to see Dunkirk . And, while I'm all for characters getting arcs and getting their own little stories--and I think I've made the point more than a few times in this blog that I can appreciate the arcs of characters beyond what the finite limits of a particular film allow--but sometimes, 1) I think that a certain kind of story doesn't necessarily need characters to really change as such and 2) you really shouldn't look to Star Wars movies for serious character arcs, anyway. (Sure, characters have their plot arcs, but their changes are shallow, more plot-driven than personality-driven.) And, Dunkirk makes fantastic use of its actors, and offers up characters that are easy to follow, relatively easy to care about, and situations that are both simple enough to follow and surprisingly complicated at times, with sequences cut together out of order just as...

A few complaints before I move on from Thelma & Louise : The simple ones I mentioned in brief parenthetically yesterday . When Thelma and Louise need money, Louise needs Jimmy to get some to her. The talking through of their relationship that comes after her call to Jimmy is an interesting scene, and I'm not sure how the film would really play without it. Louise needs to realize both that she has that relationship waiting, that there is a chance for her in the regular world, and that--remember, when she can't tell him what's going on, Jimmy gets angry and breaks a lamp--even this relatively healthy relationship has an obvious problem: Jimmy is still a male, in a world where men can rage with jealousy and it's accepted. She keeps something from him and, generally speaking, we're supposed to see that as wrong. Here, she's actually protecting him from getting into legal trouble. But Jimmy is still of that man's world, and you don't keep information fro...

One thing about Big Hero 6 --the reason the film works well despite whatever flaws it might have--is that its structure is basically textbook feature film. You've got your small catalyst at 10* minutes in--Hiro meets Tadashi. Dyer (2010) specifies that the small catalyst be something that "happens to the protagonist, and not... an action that the protagonist takes. We've already got the setup of the status quo. Now, we're moving into what will change it. Notably, it was not getting arrested that turns Hiro around. It was seeing that there were better things that he could do with his intelligence (just as his brother suggested). Dyer also suggests that a character should state the theme of the film early on, and there are important lines the clearly set up the plot, all from Tadashi. He asks Hiro, "When are you going to do something with that big brain of yours?" He asks Hiro, "What would mom and dad say?" And, after offering Hiro a ride, he tel...

To think, I only managed yesterday to get through the first three paragraphs of Mary McNamara's Los Angeles Times piece--"Oscars 2016: It's time for Hollywood to stop defining great drama as white men battling adversity." And the first paragraph was just one line. Meanwhile, I've got a screener of Spotlight playing right now. Immediately, I notice the music. Spotlight isn't nominated for Original Score. It is nominated for Best Picture, of course, which is why I'm watching it again this week. It's also nominated for Film Editing, Original Screenplay, Director Tom McCarthy, Supporting Actress Rachel McAdams and Supporting Actor Mark Ruffalo. I've seen a few people and at least one of the articles in this stack in front of me (but I'm not seeing which one at the moment) complain that Ruffalo just puts on an accent. I'm more impressed by his performance, I suppose. It feels like much more than just an accent. He's got a different dem...

As a screener of The Big Short plays and I must do my best not to get angry at Wall Street, I really don't want to talk about #OscarsSoWhite today. Spent too much of the last couple days arguing pointlessly about the topic on Facebook and Twitter. A little tired of it... which bothers me, actually. Inevitably it will come up because I have decided to get into the McNamara piece from the Los Angeles Times and that hinges on the race thing. But, I want to talk about McNamara's other angle--plot. See, she starts off with some hyperbole--"The winner of the 2016 Oscar in practically every category is ... white men facing adversity." She's making a point about it being white men, of course, but as she goes she also angles in on the "facing adversity" charge. Her take on the Best Picture nominees: "...with a few notable exceptions, follow a dishearteningly repetitive story line of white men triumphing over enormous odds." Because, of course, triu...

As Anomalisa gets underway again, I reflect on the days that were full of life. And I reflect on today. I think of full days like some speech tournament days--good and bad--or when I met my first girlfriend in Salt Lake City, or my second in Memphis, or my third in Burbank. It is not that many things need to happen. It is just that something needs to happen. I've written before in this blog--so very long, it seems--about the moments worth repeating. But, it could just be about the moments... the mundane moments. Today, for example, I awoke just before my 6:11am alarm. I actually have several alarms set, most of them on my old phone which is now just a glorified alarm clock. The 6:11am is louder and on my iPhone. I was awake early enough that I did not have to rush. I fed the cats and headed out, stopped at Starbucks on the way to work. Taught class at 8:00am and at 9:50am. I got a good impression of both set so students. I've got a good feeling about this quarter. It was the...

“Family is undeniably inescapable. Like a silent shadow, it’s your blood, your roots, and (at times) your ball and chain.” So begins Meredith Alloway’s review of Stories We Tell for The Script Lab . In the terms of these last few blog entries (today is Day 5 with Stories We Tell ), family is those people who are telling a story that keeps weaving in and out of yours. They are the people who have a bigger investment in your story than other people do, and vice versa, you have an investment in theirs. Whether by blood or by circumstance, family is, as Anderst’s piece on the film, suggests the storytellers here are, a chorus of voices, each telling a variation on a motif of the heart of the story. I’m reminded of words outside my own language as ways to conceive of family. One you might know from Lilo & Stitch if you’ve ever seen it— ‘ohana . On that show, they liked to say that ‘ohana means family, ‘ohana means no one gets left behind. (That word might be a relatively recent...

When you are in the middle of a story, it's isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard are powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you're telling it to yourself or to someone else. --Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace With this quotation, Stories We Tell begins, Michael Polley reading it even before his "narration" begins. think of the story we are telling a twisted, amalgamated beast that eventually becomes history a history written by the winners the privileged hooks' "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" perhaps most of us knowing only a small piece of the whole many of us lack the capacity or power to substantially alter our place in the larger story some of us but for the grace of god or gods ...

Let us just get this out of the way on Day One. Buzz Lightyear is a cinematic Christ-Figure. Or Woody is... maybe. Buzz is 1 tangible and 2 central and definitely an 3 outsider . He is not, strictly speaking, 4 divinely sourced , but as the toys' primary life (and there's a whole discussion to be had there ) is with Andy and Buzz was given to him by his mother... well, that is an outside enough source to qualify. 4/4 No 4.5 miraculous birth ... that I know of. But, since Buzz never knew his father, maybe there's something there (but that is outside this particular text--the original Toy Story ). Buzz definitely qualifies for the 5 alter ego and 6 special/normal points because of his amnesia. Hell, he almost gets the special/normal point because of the whole "toy" thing, but even more so because he thinks he's really a Space Ranger. 6/6 Buzz definitely has 7 twelve associates . (Remember, it doesn't have to actually be twelve because most movies...