the groundhog day project

Sometimes, I see a new movie and I wish I dealt in something more like reviews. Less of this unstructured discussion. This afternoon I saw Black Panther and I wanted to come home and fashion a brilliant review that celebrated the statement the film makes for Africans and African-Americans, and indicted white folks for, well, all of the shit they've done and do, and for their paranoia regarding Black Panther itself. I saw a post this morning--on Twitter I think... Nevermind the vagueness; I looked it up to check. It was the Twitter handle The Trump Train . They posted this: It's very fitting that the same people who claim to support equality and diversity also glorify a movie that idolizes black supremacy and establishing a black-only ethnostate. There was also a line about liberals and hypocrisy but it's that bit about Black Panther that gets me. Even before I saw the movie, and before I saw replies on Twitter confirming it, I knew that Black Panther is quite explici...

Popeye, especially Robin William's take in Robert Altman's film, is a strange character. Loving but prone to violence. Kind but prone to insult. He speaks without thinking and, while he's fairly accepting of the people around him (seriously, Popeye and Sweethaven here are like Phil Connors and Punxsutawney reversed), he still has his standards and, when it comes to gambling at least, he's quite expressive about them. Doesn't matter how it might actually help the baby he himself has taking to caring for (and by mere cinematic whimsy, with Swee'pea there, they cannot lose); whatever moral code Popeye's got--his "moralikies"--he sticks to it. Meanwhile, in the real world, you've got Republicans supporting a child molester because he would support their politics, Democrats calling out sexual abusers and harassers all over the place but then when it's one of theirs, do they scream as loudly? And, if they do, what happens when their senator resi...

Filmmakers steal ideas all the time. Even if not on purpose. Every storyteller does. George Lucas wanted to make a Flash Gordon film before he couldn't get the rights and went ahead with his own story-- Star Wars . It shouldn't be much of a surprise that his story, a space fantasy designed like an old serial would bear some resemblance to Flash Gordon (even if this film ended up taking long to get made, remember, characters in Flash Gordon. Which is another reason I'm still sad that Prince Thun was just a black guy with a big hat instead of a furry lion man. I mean, if Lucas could have Chewbacca, Hodges should have been able to have a more visually interesting Prince Thun. And, a Prince Thun with a bigger part of the story. And maybe he could be applauded at the end of the story, and Chewbacca could get a medal along with Luke and Han (or maybe every pilot who survived that assault on the Death Star should have gotten an award, not just the MVP(s)). We've got moons her...

Perhaps the lesson of The Idolmaker is that whether you're the one being used or the one doing the using, there's hope for you in the end. But, with new accusations of sexual harassment and abuse from men in power virtually every day lately, I figure those men get to the back of the line when it comes to hope. Seriously, the scene with Tommy Dee and the 14-year-old girl in the car is on and I see on my phone that Twitter is blowing up with comments about Trump supporting Roy Moore, implying that all of Moore's accusers are liars. It's like some sick sort of poetry. This is a movie in which the protagonist, the hero of the story, blames a young girl for being alone with his artist (though, he yells at Tommy Dee afterward, he then offers to hook him up when he wants a woman, so there's that), bribes DJs and (sort of) magazine editors for airplay and good press, yells at the woman he's with (and has already come on to), calls women "god damn broads",...

I paid little attention to the news today. Got up, watched a recording on the DVR, went to play D&D, learned of yet another mass shooting--this one in a church in Texas--just before I was heading home. That was a few hours ago now. I've been avoiding news a little more, watched a few more shows waiting on the DVR. My privilege. I can afford to ignore the horrible parts of this world when it's convenient. And, now I'm watching a live-action cartoon; back to The Villain . And, I remember watching this when I was younger, when it didn't matter that Cactus Jack Slade is an awful man, a criminal, a thief, a murderer (at least he's making an effort to be, and it's probably safe to assume he has killed before). But he falls on his face and there's a funny splat sound. He rides a horse that is smarter than he is. It's funny. It's safe, despite the awfulness. It occurs to me that all those Road Runner cartoons that this film quite explicitly apes were ...

Keep in mind, I grew up attending church every Saturday, and I went to a private school owned by the church and was taught stuff from the Bible every day in church. Our church took seriously the notion that the world was ending soon--you can read some more of what that did to me day 534 - what are you expecting? world war iii . Our church (and more specifically out school) made an effort once to fast forward through the line, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch" in a movie night screening of The Princess Bride . But, here I am, however young I was when I first watched Blackbeard's Ghost watching a movie that involves, accurate scrying (read: witchcraft) by Mrs Stowecraft, ghosts trapped in limbo (which ran counter to our church's version of what happened after death), and that ghost is a former pirate, murderer, pillager, probably a rapist, and he's an alcoholic. But, what does the movie do with all these dark things? It all serves a very simple idea--do a...

This weekend, my daughter performed in Twelfth Night three times and had a voice recital. There were rehearsals three times a week for several weeks now and I generally sat around and worked on this blog during those (the rehearsals and the play were 30 something miles away, so it wasn't worth it to, you know, drop her off). And she's got auditions for new things coming up quite soon. For me, fall classes get started this week and I'm teaching a new class I haven't taught yet (though I have covered some of its material as a debate coach). My son's college classes for fall get going tomorrow. My older daughter's last year of her bachelor's gets going in September. My ex (with whom I share an apartment) has already returned to teaching this past week. Like most anyone, we are all so very busy. But, with the right distractions, the right amusements, I at least have figured out how to deal with the stresses of modern life... Until Trump tweets something inane o...

Marco Rubio just referred to Trump's strategy for Afghanistan, laid out in great detail in an amazing speech this evening as "good" strategy and an "excellent" speech. Which would be fine except I was lying about the great detail and the speech being amazing. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was a TelePrompTer speech so it had complete sentences and it made relative sense, but it was half Trump mansplaining the existence of ISIS, telling the same tired story about how Obama pulled out of Afghanistan too early and that's why ISIS exists, and then being really vague about what he's going to do about it. More troops. More war. No end. Last week it was nuclear war with North Korea, not a land war in Asia, next he's going to go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line. I kid because I'm tired and angry. This shit is distracting me from my movie tonight... Hell, it's making me want to draw direct comparisons. Hapless Americans pushing the...

It's the first half of Ishtar that is the problem. If you can just work your way through that, it gets better. The whole torture of that first hour, the awfulness of Rogers and Clarke's songs, their absolute lack of upward career trajectory--it even gets paid off when Clarke breaks down in the desert and asks, "What have I done with my life, Lyle?" And Ebert calls the desert sequence pointless. The desert sequence is the point. It's the answer to the question of the first half... Specifically, look at where the movie begins and ends. The same song in both places. Telling the truth can be dangerous business; Honest and popular don't go hand in hand. If you admit that you play the accordion, No one will hire you in a rock 'n' roll band. But we can sing our hearts out. And, if we're lucky, then no neighbors complain. Because life is the way we audition for God. Let us pray that we all get the job. It's trite. It's simplistic. But, it'...

Plan 9 from Outer Space is, on its surface, an awful film, far worse than The Happening , but even if you've not seen Ed Wood and seen Johnny Depp's take on the titular director as a man so in love with film he cannot see its flaws, this movie has charm. It's just so... earnest and overwrought; its voiceover is too much, its melodramatic underpinnings are too big for its short running time; and its straightforwardness of plot coupled, its simplicity of sets (like this airplane cockpit which is barely more than a wall with a curtain; they don't even have steering columns), its simplistic acting (without being goofy or inhuman like Walhberg or Deschanel in The Happening ), it's mix of cheap original footage and stock footage, and its ridiculous premise make for a weirdly entertaining thing. Jeff's (Gregory Walcott) rant about how he can't tell anyone about the flying saucer he saw because he's "muzzled by army brass" feels like the kind of ran...

Today is Day 1096, the last day of the third* full year of this blog. I'm watching Groundhog Day tonight. I saw The Emoji Movie today. I don't think I have a lot to say. Except this: Two important movies in theaters right now... No. Two important movies in theaters right now are Detroit and The Emoji Movie for two very different reasons. I was going to joke about how both involve the use of force to stomp out those who are different from the norm (not white, and not singularly expressive), and I can still say both will induce rage in the discerning viewer. But, I won't go any further with the comparison because it would be 1) disrespectful to what Detroit represents, to what it could and should do for its viewers--and those viewers should be many, and won't be enough-- and it would be 2) pointless when there are better points to be made. For example, Detroit should make you angry because people are racist assholes, because the slave trade and systemic racism ...

Moonrise Kingdom , another Wes Anderson film, is playing right now. I was going to write about the deliberate artificiality again, how disconnecting the audience from what a film should be, and is expected to be, draws the audience in. But then I saw Detroit today, and I was inclined to get into a sociopolitical rant... But I've been trying to avoid that all month. I've even been toying with musical's or bad movies for next month, keeping it more enjoyable than triggering. And I find myself sitting here just watching Moonrise Kingdom ... I should be ranting. I should be raging. And people should see Detroit when it's in wider release next week and they should rage. We should all rage. We've got a president who asks what's going on in Chicago (with its high murder rate) and it seems like he really has no fucking clue why 1) poor people might exist, 2) why anyone would turn to gangs or violence to get by, 3) why systemic racism, and significant economic upheav...

Allow a bit of paranoia. Perhaps I will manage to be hopeful another day soon, but not today. Watching V for Vendetta today, I found it far too easy to imagine it's world as our own. One specific thought that occurred to me: We're lucky that neither Trump nor any of his have the charisma or wit of Prothero or Sutler . But, as it echoes 1984 and that sort of Big Man version of dictatorship is all too possible. This sort of dystopian story writes itself a bit. The problem with the world today... A problem with the world today is that one voice cannot ring out as clearly, not without extremist rhetoric or a back-up army. A call to revolution or what have you--it would be harder to hear and quite difficult to take seriously. The cacophony of the web distracts and diffuses, degrades and dismisses... And, I was going to talk about Colin Kaepernick and Kathy Griffin, maybe throw in a little Madonna. But, I feel like adding my voice to that chorus will do very little. Like I...

Headline today: Highly educated women are freezing their eggs due to shortage of equally educated men . They should probably start breeding with the stupid men because a) gotta avoid the eugenics implications of the opening sequence of Idiocracy , and b) all men are pretty stupid, in one way or another. I was thinking about starting with a rant about sexism regarding that opening sequence, actually. It's labeled as "Trevor & Carol" vs "Clevon" because, I guess Trish doesn't get to have her name on screen, because Clevon is also breeding with Britney and Brandy... Except I'm not even sure in which direction that is sexist. Sexist toward the women on Clevon's side for not including them? Or sexist toward Carol for the suggestion that maybe it's her fault that she and Trevor can't have kids? Or sexist toward Clevon for putting all the blame on one side of this lopsided equation on him and him alone, while Trevor gets some of his blame miti...