the groundhog day project

Something I didn't know about Tremors was that the filmmakers made an effort to let the audience think a person was doing the killing early on. The graboid POV shots when Rhonda gets in her truck and Old Fred's death scene were added later when the studio decided to advertise the film specifically as a monster movie. In a way, if the studio hadn't jumped in, this could play like a slasher film almost. Except that most of the cast are adults, and most of them are quite capable. I also hadn't really noticed (and learned from IMDb trivia) that aside from two interiors--Walter's store and the Gummers' basement (and inside a couple pickups)--every scene takes place outside, which fits with our leads. They sleep outside, even though they clearly have a trailer; we see them exit it after the septic tank mishap, freshly showered and heading out of town. Whether monster movie or slasher film, or whatever other subgenre of horror you want to call it, this is a not...

I go into this viewing of Tremors assuming there will be little to say because it has no flaws. But, then again, I think Back to the Future is one of the best screenplays ever written and I wrote about that thing for like a week. Even starting off with what feels like an obvious matte painting watching it today, and one of our lead characters taking a piss off a cliff. It's a remarkably apt opening shot for the film to come. That cliff will come into play later. And, Val not only being out in the middle of nowhere first thing in the morning (though the light reads more like afternoon) but also taking a piss out in the open tells us a lot about him as a character. Plus the cowboy hat, of course. Earl is introduced asleep in the back of the pickup. And they argue about breakfast, then talk about their schedule in the truck (Earl keeps track, Val wants things easy). Rhonda is introduced as an immediate punchline to what Val wants the new grad student to be--"long b...

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage – Lucius Annaeus Seneca And, sometimes it’s just going through the motions. As I write this particular entry, I’m a couple weeks away from the fall quarter starting, a couple weeks away from being really busy. Some days—today, for example—this blog is the only commitment I’ve got. I went to a movie screening last night, might go to one tonight… alone. At least my only option isn’t Heidi II . The thing is, I’ve been thinking about the passage of time, how we reference the past or the future, how we put some things off for later even when we’ve got nothing to do. I’m reminded of a line from Tremors : Yeah. See, we plan ahead, that way we don't do anything right now. Earl explained it to me. I look at a group of post-it notes with ideas scribbled on them and instead I start writing about something else. The post-it notes are like a safety net for when I’ve got nothing to say. The weird thing is, I want to complain about something that i...