the groundhog day project

Edge of Tomorrow , as I pointed out yesterday , is like Groundhog Day but with guns and aliens and a lot more death. In case you don’t trust me: “If you've ever watched the film Groundhog Day , and thought that the only thing that could possibly make it more enjoyable was an alien invasion or some massive explosions, you're in luck.” – Julia Emmanuele, Hollywood.com “It's Groundhog Day for sci-fi nerds…” – Ben Child, The Guardian Film Blog “Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day , Tom Cruise as officer Bill Cage in the upcoming sci-fi movie Edge of Tomorrow is reliving one hell of a day over and over again. Unlike Groundhog Day , this action thriller is a bloody and explosive time loop.” – Brian Anthony Hernandez, Mashable “…he finds himself waking up to face the same fate, much like Bill Murray's experience in ‘Groundhog Day.’” – Greg Gilman, The Wrap “he gets better and better at fighting, braver and braver,and more and more attractive to the imperious Rita. J...

I love that Bill Murray's Frank Cross in Scrooged seems not just misanthropic like Phil Connors, not just unlikable but almost belligerent to the point of being evil. When he watches his promo for Scrooge . And, they've got a phone code for when they fire people because, clearly it happens all the time--Code 9. And Frank times how long it takes for security to get Bobcat Goldthwait's Eliot Loudermilk out of the building. He is not a nice man. He won't even let Grace take her son to the doctor, on Christmas. And, in the alcove off his office where there's an exercise bike, it's got a definition on the wall (twice) for Cross: "A think they nail people to." Keep in mind, Cross is his last name. The name's a bit on-the-nose--Frank Cross. More on the names in a moment. Frank steals an old woman's cab, but does he act like it was accidental--something like how Phil Connors pats his pockets in Groundhog Day as he passed the Old Man the first cou...

Heading off to Utah today—taking a few members of our speech team to a tournament out there—not sure if I will have wi-fi tonight, so I’ve unfortunately got to do a “filler” blog. Since, I only posted a portion of my “Christ-Figure” paper in the fall, I figured I’d share the whole thing. There’s a lot that isn’t about Groundhog Day in here, but also some that is. It’s entitled: From Man of Steel to Groundhog Day : A Proposed Redefinition of the Christ-Figure in Popular Film . The text—longer than many of my blog entries, so feel free to skip ahead to tomorrow (an easier task for someone not reading day to day, I realize)—follows: The Christ-Figure is a common element in modern American film. The Christ-Figure, on the one hand, works as shallow shorthand to suggest depth and meaning to a character that may not be there; on the other hand, it links the modern hero to a long-standing religious tradition, building on that depth. In the Western world, we understand the Christ-Figure ...

Subtitle this one: TV Time Loop Day Part Drei: This Time It’s Less Interesting . Seriously though, after two previous times doing this ( here and here ), the structure is rather obvious. You got your central plot with the protagonist and then various side bits put there just so they can solve other stuff (like Phil’s good deeds but less… important). For example… actually I’m not sure any of these episode involved solving other stuff, but there were things obviously there to prove the loop was happening; in Smallville , for example, Clark knows to whom the flowers are being delivered and tells Chloe to prove it—it’s a girl who works so hard Chloe says she can’t have had a date in years, so Clark isn’t just guessing. It is interesting in these episodes that characters have to deal with the deaths of people close to them, sometimes the deaths of several people, depending on what resumption they’re on. Phil deals with his own death, of course, and O’Reilly’s death, but some of these ep...

A bit of a rough beginning for a paper that's going to involve Groundhog Day : In the latest Superman film, Man of Steel , we see once again deliberate similarities between Superman and Christ. Metaxas (2013) suggests that these similarities are not deliberate this time but rather the “oft-noted parallels between Superman and Christ” are simply not obscured by director Zach Snyder. For example, Superman, in this film is 33, the age of Christ at his death. In 1978’s Superman: The Movie , Superman was 30, the age of Christ when he began his ministry. This is just one of many parallels. For more, we can turn to Kozlovic’s (2002) exploration of Superman as Christ-Figure, in which Kozlovic outlines 20 Superman-Jesus parallels and 8 Christic personality traits shared by Superman. More generally, Kozlovic (2004 and 2009) outlined 25 structural characteristics that all cinematic Christ-Figures share. Kozlovic (2009) points out, “not all of these elements must exist in the one character, o...

Like I did a couple weeks ago and a couple weeks before that , it's impromptu quotation tie-in night. Took the team out to Northridge for the past three days, judged debate rounds Friday and Saturday, judged speeches today, including impromptu. So, once again, I've got my list--21 quotations this time--and I will now proceed to link Groundhog Day to everything on it. "I think Superman and Santa Claus are actually the same guy, and I'll tell you why. Both fly, both wear red, and both have a beard. - Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts While there's the obvious factual inaccuracy--done on purpose, of course, to be funny--I think I could interpret this quotation to suggest that really on some level we are all the same person. We are all fundamentally the same and this is, in fact, one of the lessons Phil Connors learns in Groundhog Day . When he first gets to Punxsutawney, he looks down on the locals, calls them "hicks" and wants nothing more than to get back to...