the groundhog day project

If you've been reading this blog lately-- and you're still reading? --you know I'm maybe a few steps past your average bleeding heart liberal. I side with extremists. I appreciate a violent rebellion. It occurs to me as today's film in my "movie life" list-- having skipped both Summer School and Can't Buy Me Love because I have previously included them in this blog in different contexts. Also, I realized partway into writing what follows that somehow I put today's film a year early on my list, but oh well, it's already on --gets started, this might have been my first brush with the kind of 60s radicals that I would become much more enameled with in college (the second time). The movie, by the way, is Running on Empty . A couple of 60s radicals, responsible for a bombing in '71 that blinded a guy, live their lives on the run, moving and changing names every few months when the Feds get close. Thing is, they've got two kids. Th...

Let us stick with rebels , but (semi-)real ones, and we will take them seriously. The Company You Keep references the Weather Underground right away, uses some news footage-- (Though I'm pretty sure it gives people's names that were not actually part of the organization... and, I trust my impulse here. I've written four papers (one published) about (at least in part) Weatherman (aka the Weather Underground Organization), the most recent just this past spring and I've been meaning to look into getting that one published. Thing is, there a few things I know a lot about in recent years-- Groundhog Day and Weatherman are two of those things. Got a copy of the FBI file and everything. Anyway, my impulse on the name Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) proved correct when we jump forward in time and that's one of our main characters. So, fictional.) --lets us know that this is going to be about the past coming back to haunt the present. A common enough theme. Solarz is ar...

(650) I was going to make a point today about performativity and performance... but then I thought maybe I'd already made it. Some scribbled notes on my copy of Brickell's (2005) "Masculinities, Performativity, and Subversion" that I wanted to share, and a quick Google search and I found the blog entry-- Day 557 - i think i hear a footstep --in which I typed up my scribbles word-for-word... I suppose you can go read that entry (which, ostensibly, was about Singin' in the Rain , by the way) but the basic gist was that all performance is performativity. That is, everything we do, even our subversions, our revolutions, are defined and con fined by what the world tells us we can get away with. I just recently started reading José Esteban Muñoz' (1999) book, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics . The gist I'm getting so far to his idea of disidentification is effectively finding your identity in the differences, the opposite ...

T.V. Carpio's Prudence is a lesbian, or at least attracted to women; let's not limit her simply because the film (perhaps, necessarily) does. I almost want to give her a specific label to counter the notion of Anne Thompson (2007) in Variety , who refers to "songs about confused sexuality, politics, war, race riots and psychedelia." I'll give you the last four, Thompson, but the movie never tells us that anyone in it is "confused" about her sexuality. Prudence quite directly points "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at a female cheerleader. And, Taymor makes this quite clear by letting the male football player stay in the frame just long enough that we in the audience might automatically assume he is the object of Prudence's affection then having him leave and the cheerleader look toward Prudence/us. That young woman is the object of Prudence's attraction. There is confusion but that arising in the audience from heteronormative impulses watch...

Skip past "Girl" and jump into "Hold Me Tight" and you wouldn't necessarily take Jude as the lead character here. That song juxtaposes not really Lucy and Jude but Lucy and Molly (Jude's girlfriend in Liverpool). Plus, the American Bandstand style of Lucy's high school dance and the club scene (with Beatles stand-ins) in Liverpool. The film starts us with these two worlds clashing not because the film will necessarily be about that , but because the film is about various cultures colliding, breaking, and exploding. Hell, just now as I typed that, an army truck full of soldiers drove past the football game where we meet Prudence. The nice wholesome high school scene--about to be interrupted for us by the introduction of homosexuality--is first interrupted by that army truck. And that interruption is a pleasant one. The army guys whistle at the cheerleaders, the cheerleaders and football players cheer on the army guys. The movie does not play for us the ...

Warning: I am in the mood for meaning, apparently. Predictions show a steady low, You’re feeling just the same. But seasons come and seasons go. I’ll make you smile again. If you don’t believe take me by the hand, Can’t you feel you’re warming up? Yeah, I’m your weatherman. They say it’s gone, say winter’s done That don’t mean a thing. ‘Cause I’m the one that moves the sun For you I’d turn it into spring So when you’re feeling lonely, try to understand, Baby, I can warm you up ‘cause I’m your weatherman. The lyrics to Weatherman heard just before and after the bit inside the van on the ride to Punxsutawney. Benesh (2011) says it just "masquerades as a pop romantic love song" (p. 90). She thinks there's more to it. Obviously, the lyrics themselves give us a metaphor, winter for a low mood, spring for being happy. Benesh's take is interesting, since if we choose to link the song to the characters, we would presume this is Phil talking to Rita; he's the weatherm...

It's day 150, so I wanted to do something special. This was written only in the time it took for the movie to play (actually, a little less, as I completed writing it and typing it up just as the last day of the loop was just beginning), so I don't figure it's the best poem ever (and I can't believe I couldn't fit in the name Punxsutawney). But, I think some of the lines turned out quite well. So, without further ado... The Ballad of Phil Connors Come all and hear of the hapless weatherman Who in cold midwinter couldn't predict a storm. Time started repeatin', he had no choice but transform. Come listen to the sarcastic weatherman Who ridicules the townsfolk, tricks a local filly, Steals a bag of money, drinks and drives willy nilly. So, come all and hear of the sad weatherman Who, stuck in coldhearted curse of "I Got You Babe," Learned to lie and speak French better than ol' Honest Abe Come all and watch the lonely old weatherman Who for ...

Today is a day to celebrate. For today is All Hallow's Eve Eve and it is also Haunted Refrigerator Day. It's probably other things as well, but I picked those two because they seemed funnier. Today is also the 90th day of The Groundhog Day Project . And, I thought it was worth celebrating some milestone at some point... or did I celebrate one before? I can't even remember. I'm pretty sure I missed day 33 and day 40 and day 50 and day 67. (That last one was a test. I'm pretty sure 67 has no significance for anyone.) But, I don't actually want to talk about celebrations per se, so much as holidays more broadly. The hypothesis for today is that Groundhog Day could take place on no other holiday than Groundhog Day. And, I don't mean that we couldn't have a movie entitled Groundhog Day that actually takes place on Arbor Day, though that would be inappropriate, but rather that the plot of this film, if it were to be set on any holiday, had to be set on Gr...

Michael Faust, in Philosophy Now , is one of those who put Phil’s transformation as something driven by his love for Rita. He says it is this love that …proves decisive. By immersing himself in ‘otherness’—by learning everything that makes MacDowell’s character tick—he is transformed. He sheds his old sexist, masculine carapace, and emerges as a far more rounded human being, in touch with his feminine side (his ‘inner other’). Claire S. Bacha, in Psychodynamic Counseling , suggests (though she sides more explicitly with Faust’s take later) instead that “Rita becomes a goal for Phil, a test.” She further adds: The film does not explain why this happens, but the feeling is that Rita becomes the object of Phil’s desire exactly because she seems so much his opposite. She possesses all the qualities that he lacks and thus becomes a challenge. Phil no longer wants himself. He wants the other. Now, both of these authors put Phil’s transformation solely in his ability to connect to “the ...

The opening track on the Groundhog Day soundtrack is “Weatherman” written by Harold Ramis and George Fenton. It’s “a cheesy pop number” just like Ryan Gilbey calls it in his critique of the film. Its lyrics are so on the nose, it kinda loops back around to being awesome. Lyrics like this: Predictions show a steady low You're feeling just the same But seasons come and seasons go I'll make you smile again If you don't believe take me by the hand Can't you feel you're warming up, yeah, I'm your weatherman The best line, and perhaps most indicative of Phil Connors being a god, is this one: “For you I'd turn it into spring.” Of course, the film starts with track 2, “Clouds,” a rather unassuming bit of music that dares you to get distracted away from the film. Then, of course, Bill Murray gets on screen and your attention is back. Next comes the obvious, “I Got You Babe” followed by “Quartet No. 1 in D – The Ground Hog” which is the nice pleasant music playi...