the groundhog day project

It's remarkable sometimes how the silliest of films can work just as well as the best of them to bring me back to long ago, you know, happier times, when I was a cute little kid without a care in the world except for, well, the second coming of Jesus, Armageddon, the apocalypse, and everything* that I've ever cared about ceasing to be. (* except for my loved ones, of course, but damn it, what about my toys? What about these movies I loved? What about books? Games? The important stuff in life.) No cares but the biggest. And, Top Secret! , in particular, plays on some of that biggest stuff. Late in the Cold War... And then I got to wondering about exactly when this film takes place. I mean, Nick's music is very Elvis. So, I paused on the Billboard Top 40. Nick Rivers has #1 #2, & #4, with "Skeet Surfin'", "Skeetin' USA" and "Skeet City", respectively. He also has #3 in a duet with Tammy Wynette on "You're Skeetin' He...

Now, we let that madness go and return to childhood. I'm eight years old when Top Secret! arrives in theaters. It's absurdist visuals work for me very well. It's utter ridiculousness still holds up, unlike some other , similar comedies. I did write about Top Secret! in this blog before. But, no return to my childhood, and all the movies that were on regular repeat would be complete without this one. (In other news, I saw Rampage in the theater today. Not much to say about it but if you want to see it, you will probably enjoy at least some of it. Of note for this blog, though, as I'm sitting through the end credits, a name jumps out. Rick LeFevour. Actually, it turns out it, double checking on IMDb when I got home, to be Rick LeFevour, Jr. (Also a Matt LeFevour listed under stunts for Rampage , but while all three work for Midwest Stunts, I have not confirmed that Matt is related to the Ricks.) Anyway, Rick LeFevour was the stuntman who jumped off the top of the Pe...

Today, I came to appreciate the sound design of Big Hero 6 while thinking of the next step in reifying my social justice warrior interactions with film. See, I had the movie on in the kitchen while making dinner, had my wireless earphones in, and while I could see the screen if I turned my head, mostly I was just hearing it. The sound in the opening bot fight, for example, was amazing. And, for the record, I like this movie. A lot. I gave it a 9 on IMDb. (You should know how my IMDb scoring works, I suppose, to be sure what that means. For example, while The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction get 10s from me, so does La La Land , which I think is a fundamentally flawed film, and Toy Story and The Big Lebowski and Zootopia and Sling Blade , Jaws and Deadpool . Now, as much as there was talk last year about Deadpool being nominated for Best Picture, I don't think it should have even been considered for that. Best Picture is a different sort of ideal. While Get Out earn...

Watching Scary Movie to get the whole spoof genre out of the way. (And, to prove correct, Roger Ebert's notion that you just can't review these kind of movies properly.) Leave Zucker Abrahams Zucker behind, insert the Wayans, who enjoy a bit more crude humor, with some homophobia and violence against women thrown in. "Run, bitch, run!" "Oh my God, we hit a boot!" About the only bits that made me laugh so far, coming up on the 20-minute mark. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Rick Ducommun (Gus from Groundhog Day ) has a small part in this--Cindy's father. Buffy Gilmore's (Shannon Elizabeth) death scene is pretty good. "Please don't. I'm just a day player." Funny. ... I think the problem with spoof films as time goes on is that jokes take the place of character... or maybe it's just personal nostalgia. I've seen Airplane! so many times over the years, I think my expectation of the punchlines is funnier th...

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! adds a writer--Pat Proft--who wasn't with the Zucker Abrahams Zucker team before. He had worked on Police Squad! with them, but as far as movies go, he'd worked on five Police Academy films and Real Genius , among others. Pretty early on, it's already clear that this movie has far fewer non sequitur gags. And pretty much no puns. Four years from Airplane! to Top Secret! , another four from Top Secret! to The Naked Gun , and the difference between the latter two seems far larger than the difference between the former two. If I wanted to break down in a horribly detailed fashion the changes in joke delivery in film over the course of the 1980s, the changes here might mean something, but I think whatever it is is escaping me for now. Like, were the non sequitur gags and asides something we needed as a response to, say, some late-term Cold War societal pressures, and by 1988 those pressures were dying down? I don't kno...

The Zucker brothers and Abrahams again, this time Top Secret! I was surprised to learn--primarily because this movie was such a fixture of my childhood, my family having it on VHS and all--just now on Box Office Mojo that this movie apparently wasn't even in the top 13 movies its opening weekend (June 8-10, 1984). Though it would eventually make double its budget at the box office, there was some serious box office going on that weekend. #1 was Ghostbusters , making $13.5 million it's opening weekend. Gremlins , also in its opening weekend, was #2 with $12.5 million. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was #3 in its third weekend with $12 million... I wonder sometimes when I see a box office weekend like this--and I know how many of these movies we saw in the theater--how often my family went to the movie theater. Anyway... #4, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock I didn't see in the theater, but it made $9.6 million in its second weekend. #5 was Beat Street ... and ...

As far as deja vu jokes go, Top Secret! --which has absolutely nothing else to do with Groundhog Day , except I just watched the former after not having seen it in many years and am now watching the latter--has a good one. Du Quois introduces the Resistance members. The first group is "Chevalier, Montage, Detente, Avant Garde, and Deja Vu." That last one looks at our lead, Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer) and says, "Have we not met before, Monsieur?" Actually, I thought I found another link between Top Secret! and Groundhog Day when I saw that IMDb lists Top Secret! 's release date as June 8, 1984, the same day Ghostbusters , starring Bill Murray and directed by Harold Ramis, came out. Except, on closer inspection, i.e. Box Office Mojo , I confirmed that Top Secret! actually came out 2 weeks later, the same day as Rhinestone , which I am sure Rita Hanson just loved. But Ghostbusters was still number one at the box office. And, since I've reminisced recently ...