the groundhog day project

The Mirror Has Two Faces plays like a regular romantic comedy—guy meets girl, guy like girls (or girl likes guy), some manufactured obstacle shows up, but eventually they find each other anyway and all is wonderful. But, it does its darnedest to deconstruct the genre along the way just enough to stand out from the crowd. Still, even as Greg is expressing antiromantic sentiment, scenes play out, visually especially, just like they would in any romantic comedy. Take the proposal scene for instance. Greg and Rose are walking in the park, he’s got something to ask her, so they sit on a bench. They are framed close together on the screen and if not for the exact wording of his proposal and her briefly negative reaction, it looks like any proposal scene in a romantic comedy might look. At the start of the movie, as I mentioned yesterday , Rose is involved in her sister’s wedding. Meanwhile, Greg’s ex hits him up for some relatively meaningless sex before she sees her new boyfriend again. ...

I suppose my problem, having watched La Boheme and seeing which scene they feature in Moonstruck , is that the two don’t actually play well together. On the one hand, you can take the experience of the opera as the thing that turns the heart of Loretta—even though that turn is inevitable from the start because it’s a romantic comedy... (Come to think of it, the use of Casablanca in When Harry Met Sally —something I never mentioned last week—makes more sense if you consider the original ending in which Harry and Sally remain just friends.) The turn may be inevitable, but it still needs a catalyst. Ronny’s persistence isn’t enough. But, the romance of the opera works. It’s simplistic. We don’t know—generally—what’s going on in that scene from La Boheme , but maybe we’ve got a vague idea that La Boheme involves love and romance, or maybe we just assume that the opera includes those things. There’s actually some room for discussion of class in this film, though I’m not sure I part...

From 12 years to a couple days, love, especially on film, can sneak up on you. It can also leave just as unexpectedly. Loretta Castorini Clark (Cher) waited for love before she married the first time and her husband was killed by a bus. Ronny Cammareri was engaged to be married then he lost his hand and his fiancé left him. In Moonstruck , Ronny is clearly the more damaged of that pair, prone to emotional outburst and threats (demanding the big knife to cut his own throat) and acts (knocking over his kitchen table) of violence. Loretta is more sedate. And, early in the film, when her florist client—she does a few small businesses’ accounting—gives her a rose, the film lingers on her and that rose. It’s a beatific shot, a romantic shot. However much it must have hurt to lose her husband, Loretta is still a romantic. Later, after she has gone shopping and has gotten her hair done for a night at the opera, there’s a scene that adds little to the plot but demonstrates again that Loretta...

I wanted to start this final entry for When Harry Met Sally.. by mentioning tarot cards. Long time readers of this blog will know that tarot cards came up a few times in relation to Groundhog Day , and returned in relation to both The Ring and The Sixth Sense (the latter without any cards being in the film at all). And, sure enough, When Harry Met Sally... includes both Harry throwing cards into a bowl— —and a specific reference to tarot cards—among the book titles where Marie and Sally are standing in the bookstore is The Mythic Tarot : But, it is late—the conference day has gone very long, and I have a few notes to get to before I move on to another romantic comedy. Hinnant (2006) details “seven different scenarios or narrative possibilities” or “models” of courtship and romance as demonstrated in Jane Austen (p. 295). When Harry Met Sally... has a tiny bit of what he calls the “drama of prior commitment”—really, the film only employs that as an excuse as to why it doesn...

Day 400. This blog, taking its two phases as one, has been going for 400 days. I just went for a drink to, well, celebrate would be too strong a word. I’m at a coaches conference, in Palm Springs where it is hot and humid, and celebration would take too much energy, too much moisture... which sounds weird now that I have typed it. Anyway, I watched When Harry Met Sally... in a car today, headed out to Palm Springs from Los Angeles. Remember, I watched Groundhog Day in three different cars, four different planes, and... I’m on iPad only today or I would link to the entry [edit to link ] in which I note just how many states I watched Groundhog Day in (or over). Only seven days for Phase Two, so the individual movies will not get much travel time. Anyway... again. Let’s start with something new. Tan (2001) writes: Within the genre of romantic comedy, “When Harry Met Sally....” is among the best and most popular for one simple reason - it speaks the truth about men an women. And it ...

So, I made some notes about Altman and Taylor’s Social Penetration Theory for this blog and then I was looking at them and realized something interesting. In a way, the same stages that make up the theory fit the way I approach movies in this phase of the Groundhog Day Project . Allow me to explain. The basic concept, which I mentioned before, is like that bit in Shrek : we’ve got layers to our personalities/identities, and as we get to know someone new, we penetrate the layers. Like a wedge being driven into an onion. There are four stages to this penetration—orientation, exploratory affective exchange, affective exchange and stable exchange. All of these are driven by a cost-benefit analysis, in which we weigh the cost of revealing more and more personal information against the reward of the relationship (or, in a slightly more cynical way, the simple reward of learning more and more personal information from the other person). Orientation – Griffin (2006) tells us, “peripheral ...

I’ve only ever watched Annie Hall once all the way through. All my fellow film fans may gasp with horror now. I’m watching Annie Hall (and Manhattan ) before When Harry Met Sally.. (and I have been getting that title wrong, leaving out the ellipses) tonight. If for no other reason, I’m doing this because others compare them. Roger Ebert (1989), for example, refers to Harry and Sally as “two people who would be characters in a Woody Allen movie, if they weren’t so sunny.” James (1989), who calls the film “a perfectly pleasant Woody Allen wannabe, full of canned romance,” compares the details; she begins her review with the following: The opening credits feature Woody Allen’s trademark white letters on a black background [because, apparently, white on black titles are unique in film], with a jaunty version of “It Had to Be You” on the soundtrack. The score is rich with Gershwin, the camera infatuated with Manhattan, the dialogue obsessed with love, sex, and death. Altogether, Rob Re...

The old couples are not real, but their stories are. Director Rob Reiner on the commentary mentions having filmed the real couples but they were not as “compelling” as their stories were. Writer Nora Ephron recounts the beginnings of the film—Reiner had the idea, divorced from Penny Marshall, and handed it over to Ephron to write it. He would end up meeting his next wife during the making of When Harry Met Sally —director of photography Barry Sonnenfeld would introduce them. Ephron wanted Sally’s (Meg Ryan’s) hair to get younger as she got older. Spitting at the window then saying he’ll roll it down—that came from and old bit involving Billy Crystal’s grandfather teaching him how to drive. Ephron orders food like Sally does—she did so at the lunches at which she and Reiner discussed relationships in putting together this story and she says it’s getting worse. Ordering coffee, in a very specific but polite way, from a stewardess once, Ephron was asked if she ever saw When Harry Me...

I like the rapport of these two. Whether it’s Meg Ryan (Sally) and Billy Crystal (Harry) playing off one another or the writing/characters playing off one another, they’ve got a nice back-and-forth almost immediately. Even when she’s only telling him things as if he has dared her, when all he did was remain silent—Harry’s “Fine, don’t tell me” is a great way of getting her to talk; Sally is just dying to tell someone everything about herself. And, Harry has a tendency to do just that about him self. They should both be bloggers, really, tell the world about themselves all the time, but veil it in some gimmick, like watching a movie everyday... I’ve said too much. My point is, I like how these two interact. I’ve got some people I can go back-and-forth with like that, at least some of the time, my kids, my ex, a couple of my sisters, maybe a couple of my friends. Particularly, I’d like to imagine that I am both as offputting and charming as Harry is. Like Phil Connors in Groundhog Day ...

It’s been a long while since I watched When Harry Met Sally all the way through. Didn’t see it when it came out in theaters, saw it sometime in the 90s on cable. Last fall, though we watched the beginning of the movie in Comm Theory class when we went over Altman and Taylor’s Social Penetration Theory . In short, it’s about the multilayered onion of our selves—think of that conversation between Donkey and Shrek in the first Shrek movie; we get close to new people by disclosing information starting with the outer layers. But, I’m sure communication theory will get more coverage later in the week. For now, my thoughts on When Harry Met Sally : I considered starting this entry with a line about how I had a lot of female friends in high school... except my school was so small, you could be friends with everyone. Plus, I’m not sure it disproves Harry’s theory. Anyway, as far as romantic comedies go, I’m starting here with a sort of deconstructionist one. I’m not a fan of romantic com...

This is like part four: written in a lounge area on the University of Utah campus. Just judged some informative speeches, not judging this round. So, it's time to explain what the sticky wet dreams referred to. First up is sticky . Really, it's stick and it's not that exciting. In fact, having just checked the transcript of the movie, it's not exciting at all. I thought I had a line wrong in the transcript. When Phil describes "the same old schtick" of the Gobbler's Knob bit, he says "the guy comes out with a big stick and raps on the door." I thought I had it wrong--something like the guys comes out and raps on the door with a big stick. Nothing major. But, I want my transcript to be as accurate as possible. The version I shared here has already undergone some changes--well, the changes were made to my annotated copy, anyway. Interestingly, I didn't misplace the stick but I did leave out the and . So, there is something to fix. But, as...

I won't be getting to impromptu topics today. Today was "sinus day" or "allergy day" or whatever you want to call the day my not that bad allergy to cats catches up to me living with three cats. Every few weeks I'll get a day where my sinuses go crazy. It's fun, but not my kind of fun. Anyway, though I'm breathing right this second, I'm not sure sinus day is over just yet, so I don't want to get into anything too complicated. So, instead, I will deal with screenplay structure today, because that topic is totally simple. Seriously, you follow the basic structure of 3 acts, 5 key points and 8 sequences and make sure the guy gets the girl and Hollywood will buy your screenplay like that. (Picture the snapping of fingers.) Or your screenplay will be tossed onto a pile of numerous other screenplays with the exact same structure... in the trash, or on the desk of some "reader" who will then toss it into the trash. And, then they'll...