the groundhog day project

The last recap was Day 942 - what we got here is a little game of show and tell . Today is Day 1000. So, how about a quick reminder of where we've been lately. Day 943 - the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth took Murder in the First as its jumping off point, ended the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon month and was maybe the thematic end to this blog because that's where every movie was every other movie and the message was on repeat. Day 944 - i'm going out to punxsutawney was a thing I wrote for class about my pilgrimage to Woodstock, Illinois and meeting Danny Rubin, and Danny Rubin later sent me a lovely message about it on Facebook. Then I drifted. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them 945 946 947 The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him 948 949 950 The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her 951 952 953 The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them 954 955 Antichrist 956 The Squid and the Whale 957 958 959 Mrs. Doubtfire 960 961 ...

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known." - Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters Today I mostly finished a draft of my thesis. Gotta add a couple things tomorrow, check some formatting, then hand it off to my committee for comments. Officially, I turn it in in two weeks. Defend it a couple weeks after that. So, today, I was writing about how a blogger can deliberately manipulate their public identity, become the words. High Fidelity , which is really just a placeholder as I get to tomorrow--Day 1000 as well as the end of the main part of my thesis writing. It's a big day. I imagine my world without this blog and me not being a blogger. I think about labels. Online, I can label myself whatever I would like to label myself. I can play the information game and control what you know about me. I can do my research to talk about a film thoroughly, make myself look like I know what I'm talking about even when I don't. And,...

Rob Gordon lives in Apartment 2B. I don't know if that's from the book--I can't be bothered to check--or if it's even on purpose. But, I noticed it and noticeable things matter. Echoes of "to be or not to be" or maybe I'm reaching. But, in a story about a guy trying to figure out who he is, it makes sense. A corny, on-the-nose sort of sense. And then there's the deus ex machina of Laura's dad dying, without even the setup of him being sick. (The script tries to cheat by mentioning that her dad never knew she and Rob broke up because he "wasn't up to it.") Kinda ruins the movie the more I watch it. I mean, it was a lame bit of plotting in the first place. But, it gets more offensive with each viewing. But, I keep viewing anyway, because... (And, really, he just compared Charlie to 'Nam? That's gotta be offensive to someone.) Seriously, what is Rob's problem? You don't own every woman who's kissed you. Sex isn...

I was writing today about the choices we make as bloggers. Or, as people on the internet more generally. Papacharissi (2009) Calls it an "information game." But for the moment I cannot talk about that. I've been stuck on High Fidelity because I find a bit too much of myself in Rob Gordon (John Cusack). Tonight, I'm checking out the deleted scenes before I get into the film proper, and I just watched one that surprised me because who else plays Rob's father but Harold Ramis. And, I'm done. I mean, to loop back around like that. Andie MacDowell's real first name is Rosalie (my mother's name) and now Harold Ramis is playing the father of a guy named Rob (my name, you inattentive passerby). Everything loops back to Groundhog Day , eventually. Every movie is every other movie. I intended to talk about white male privilege today, I want to talk about punctum, but here I am talking about links back to Groundhog Day because every blog entry is the same, e...

At one point in High Fidelity , Rob says "that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like." On the one hand, I think it's both. On the other hand, yeah, I regularly measure people based on what they like. Do they like the same movies as me? (So many.) Do they watch the same TV shows as me? (Again, so many. The highbrow HBO or Netflix originals and the nerd-friendly CW shows. And, I totally understand if you don't like Banshee because a) you haven't even heard of it or, b) you can't handle the brutality of the violence.) Listen to the same music? (Actually, music isn't such a big deal for me. I'm not a one-type-of-music person, though I do obsess about one type at any given time, for sure. I don't need someone else to like what I like, though if you've got a thing for musicals and the occasional heavy metal, the occasional folk rock, we might get along.) Read the same books? (Again, not the most important thing. I mea...

I've got a theory, one minor part of my master's thesis, that among other things I do in this blog, I reference my knowledge of and experience with other films in order to 1) yeah, increase my credibility when talking about film, 2) obviously, to make my points using basic comparison and contrast, but maybe most importantly, 3) to manipulate the reader into thinking I know what I'm talking about, whether or not I actually do. Admittedly, that's just another way of saying #1, but the thing is, there's a certain clout to just having this blog, maintaining it for hundreds of days, watching movies day in and day out, that suggests to the casual reader that I must know something. #3 is supposed to be a negative version of #1. Like, yeah, I've got plenty of film knowledge, I've seen thousands of films, gotta brag about that from time to time, but I'm still just some blogger, a bit too full of myself sometimes, desperate for attention yet often actively avoidin...

Film School Rejects offers up five reasons High Fidelity is still culturally relevant. (In 2014, mind you, but I find the implication that a movie from 2000 wouldn't still be relevant a little odd.) Their #1 is what they call the--and I'm not sure this is a word-- listiclization of everything . Two years past their piece, how many clickbait articles offer up top ten reasons for such and such or the top 18 excuses for whatever, you won't believe what #14 is. (Meanwhile, teenage Rob is admittedly a jerk: "I wasn't interested in Penny's nice qualities. Just breasts.") Their #2 is about vinyl, and yeah, hipsters totally want vinyl to stick around. Their #3-- the rise of DIY creativity --which, yeah, YouTube and Vine and every other online platform for Joe Schmo to be famous. Their #5 (which doesn't get numbered in the piece--and yeah, I realize I skipped #4, bear with me) is your preferences are still bullshit . Political debates about Trump mixing...