the groundhog day project

Taking a break from seriousness with Summer School . Not that this movie doesn't demonstrate one of the points I've been trying to make--students have reasons beyond their attitudes that get in the way of schoolwork. Or, the usual Hollywood take on teaching, as Shoop (Mark Harmon) just said, "Inside every so-called bad kid is a good kid just waiting for someone to reach on down through the sleaze and the slime, pick him up and hose him off." It's a nice thought, but a teacher's gotta have a really powerful and long reach to get past the personal obstacles--like Rhonda's (Shawnee Smith) pregnancy--economic issues--like Larry's (Ken Olandt) night job--or other outstanding hinderances that have nothing to do with the kid's attitude or, necessarily, the teacher's ability. But, I said this was a break from seriousness. You know what amuses me about this movie lately? I read Roger Ebert's review of the film today and he hated this film. He ca...

Stand and Deliver is distracting me from ignoring it to write about something else. Police in the office investigating a crime as Escalante (Edward James Olmos) shows up for his first day. Even if that's what really happened, it's one of those details that is too on the nose to be believable. (Like John Dillinger taking seventeen people hostage with a wooden gun--changed to only three people to be more believable in Public Enemies per Cracked 's "5 True Stories Cut from Movies for Being Too Unrealistic.") And, movie classes are way too short. The scene starts like it's the beginning of class, but like a minute later the bell is ringing. A little better writing/editing and we could get into class in media res, or, you know, leave the scene before the bell rings. Just because it's a movie set in a classroom doesn't mean we need to be dismissed by the bell. Timeline is a little odd, too. He's been at the school "for a few months" and we...

Daughton (1996) argues that by the time of Groundhog Day , the world no longer supported the "traditional masculine belief system" that Phil Connors represents. She calls it "the masculinity of the 19th century" and "no longer functional for men today" (p. 141). She cites Rapping (1994) in assessing the 'juvenilized' version of American manhood [as] Hollywood's answer to a real political crisis in the meaning of masculinity... We live in a world that has made old-fashioned heroism hard to believe in... (p. 141, quoting Rapping, p. 118-9) Daughton suggests the Groundhog Day answer as follows: "In fact, the rhetorical point of Groundhog Day has more to do with its protagonist coming to appreciate the stereotypically feminine focus on connection with others, than with reinscribing the stereotypically masculine individuation and domination glorified in films.... (p. 141) (And, I believe I've quoted that passage before, but I will ...