the groundhog day project

That bootstrap paradox is vital to Somewhere in Time . In another story, it would be a stranger mystery, or a misguided mistake. Here, it is fundamental to the story being told. The bootstrap paradox has two parts here... First, though, let me define it in case you are not nerdy about time travel stories. The Quantum Tunnel: Exploring Physics Fact in Science Fiction defines the bootstrap paradox as a time travel paradox in which an object or information can exist without ever being created. The object or piece of information is sent back in time where it is retrieved and to become the very object or piece of information that was brought back in the beginning. The name comes from a Heinlein story called "By His Bootstraps" Drawing on the expression about "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps", the story concerns a man who travels back in time to give his younger self a notebook of translations he has made... Except if he gives that notebook to his younger self...

In retrospect, Somewhere in Time is an odd movie to be familiar with as a kid. And, I think I understood the film better than my review go-to Roger Ebert did at the time (and he was almost as old then as I am now). His review begins: "Somewhere in Time" wants us to share its sweeping romantic idealism, about a love so great that it spanned the decades and violated the sanctity of time itself. But we keep getting distracted by nagging doubts, like, isn't it a little futile to travel 68 years backward into time for a one-night stand? I bought the "sweeping romantic idealism" of it, and saw it as much more than a one-night-stand, even as a kid. And, watching it in the present, I still do. (Note: I watched this film during the first year of this blog (in addition to Groundhog Day that day, of course) because to the circular time travel loop within) and wrote about it . Particularly, I wrote about the bootstrap paradox of the pocket watch in the film, and I...

I was going to watch The Empire Strikes Back again today and write about how different people use it, how they put it into their corner, make themselves the rebels, the freedom fighters, or point out how the rebels are not necessarily good, even if they are the heroes. Instead, I'm catching up on some TV shows on the DVR tonight. And, this morning I saw Lady Bird . I won't review it here but to say, it's good; Greta Gerwig makes for a fairly confident director and writer (only her second time doing the former, and her writing credits on IMDb are... I'm not sure exactly what she's written, or how much of particular things she's written), though I hope she continues acting as well; Saoirse Ronan is great in it, as is Laurie Metcalf as her mother, and the film makes for a very thoughtful, if occasionally contrived bit of cinema. During the film I was noting certain lines of dialogue to use for the title for this entry, and an early contender was i wish i could ...

Han Solo likes it when Leia calls him a scoundrel. He gets involved with the rebellion only because he's out for cash. And, decades later (presumably after some brief attempt at settling down and starting a family with Leia) he's a smuggler all over again. And then he dies. Delve into the Expanded Universe--most of which is no longer canon--and he used to be an Imperial soldier. He defected when he saved Chewbacca from being enslaved by the Empire. That's why Chewbacca owes him a "life debt". One bright light of action in an otherwise scoundrelous (c) existence-- (Which brings to mind an interesting sidenote: How did I know about that life debt as a kid? Was that something they put on the description text of the Chewbacca action figure? Like everybody knows those smaller furry forest folk in Return of the Jedi are Ewoks, but no one ever calls them that. We know it because of licensed products, action figures, books, promotional materials. (Similarly, I wonder i...

Roger Ebert apparently never reviewed The Empire Strikes Back when it came out. He wrote a review for it in 1997, though, and he's got a great description of why this film is the reason the trilogy resonates. He writes : After the space opera cheerfulness of the original film, this one plunges into darkness and even despair, and surrenders more completely to the underlying mystery of the story. It is because of the emotions stirred in "Empire" that the entire series takes on a mythic quality that resonates back to the first and ahead to the third. This is the heart. It's an interesting idea, actually--that one film in a series might be the one that really makes the whole work. In the case of Star Wars , with only three films--the prequels and the new Disney-produced films are a separate case--and with repeated actors and filmmakers (and George Lucas behind all three), it is much easier to understand how this works. These three films connect more than, say, the Fri...

Good versus evil is easier when neither side are bumbling fools . Darth Vader is one of the great film villains despite the simplicity of his motivation--hell, in the original Star Wars , does he even have a motivation? He's evil, he's prone to choking people, he's not quite in charge but his powers mean most other imperials defer to him. But, why is he this Imperial... Tool? Weapon? Knight? His look is iconic enough--and James Earl Jones' voiceover performance as well--that he works in a film aimed at a young audience. George Lucas has a good eye for set pieces, especially when he's not free to do whatever he wants with CGI. He is good at throwing one problem after another at his heroes like we're watching some old serial in some small town theater in the 40s. And here, with The Empire Strikes Back , he's just far enough away from the production--as neither director nor screenwriter--that everything works a little better. I mean, it's not just the bett...

I decided on my titles for writing about The Villain on day one. For this one, I was going to, with tongue somewhat in cheek, talk about how this film portrays women, or wom a n. No, wom e n. There is, beside Charming, also the old woman that Handsome helps across the street. And, while Charming is rather idiotic in choosing to help her (with a bit of force) across the street simply because she's standing nearby, she is presented as a bit shrill. Handsome deserves her ire, but I can't help but point out that her ire is still presented as an overreaction. And, Charming--both oversexualized and cartoonishly demure. (It occurred to me last night, by the way, that when Cactus Jack asks Nervous Elk what he does with the white women after he captures them, it feels a little like maybe Cactus Jack doesn't know what men do with women any more than Handsome does. And, I'll return to that conversation later.) The film sends up the usual and has Charming be the one who want...