Posted on 01/23/2005 3:44:28 AM PST by Roscoe Karns
GROUNDHOG DAY [Jonah Goldberg]
I watched it again last night. I may have seen it more times than Bill Murray repeated GHD. It got me thinking. I think it may be one of the best, most intelligent and deeply layered films of the last decade. I won't go out on the rhetorical limb the way Jonathan Last did when he said Buffy the Vampire Slayer "is the best show in the history of television." But I do think there is so much more going in Groundhog Day than most people realize. There's theology, metaphysics, psychology and most of it is remarkably understated and remarkably funny. No one ever mentions anything like Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal return, or even explains why Murray comes so close to bedding Andie McDowell and then fails over and over again because he can't fake his sincerity. The use of irony in the second snowman scene is brilliant. And, let's face facts, there are few funnier lines in the history of cinema than (I'm quoting from memory): "This is one of those times where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather."
Anyway, just one layman's opinion.
BTTT!
some people just have WAY too much time on their hands! LOL
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You could settle an argument/bet I've got going.
A movie buff are you?
Is the breakfast club the 6:00 a.m. happy hour for all the bartenders and staff?
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A very good movie, but a heck of a long time to wait for a movie review. Its been out for a while now.
"Hush" was the best episode ever.
On Cable, HBO will have the second season of "Deadwood". I hope they rebroadcast the first season for you.
"Deadwood" is the greatest western in the history of storymaking.
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. Bubba & the Hilldabeast are here in Key West, the fair-weather ones feel your pain
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I vaguely recall being invited to a 6:00 a.m. happy hour on the Wharf for what was described as a meeting of the "Breakfast Club." Live music. Dancing. And lots of beer, vodka, and rum. When I think about it, the timing was very close to April 1.
Groundhog Day and Rushmore are two of my all-time favs with Bill. A little trivia: the Xena episode, 'Been There, Done That' was written to be just like Groundhog Day as Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert thought it was the best movie of the 90s.
Considering that most movies are total dreck, what makes a good movie a "good movie"? Spectacular car chases? Outrageous FX? Serious gun play? Clever dialog? Enrapturing musical scrores? Over the holidays, that was one of the topics that came up - best movie, and why. I kept drawing a blank, one movie had great this, but lousy that, another had lots of good things but the plot was lame. Then last night while perusing through the massive Hick movie repository, I spied the "GroundHog Day" and smiled as I pulled it down and played it again because I collected it because at the time I considered it my favorite movie of all time. Nothing has ever unseated it from that position. Why? Couldn't tell you - it is the only movie that I will play over and over - most others just collect dust.
Oh, and there is the gratuitous car chase.
Noticing that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was nominated as 'Best TV Program' by some, may I add that IMHO, the best television character ever portrayed is the Garret Macy character on Crossing Jordan...
Groundhog Day is one of my all-time favorites! I will stop and watch it to the end whenever I see it when I'm channel surfing. This past Christmas my son gave me my own DVD so I can view it whenever I want, and not have to find it accidently.
Completely useless trivia: In the scene where Burt Lancaster is walking out of the office building while police cars pull up to the curb out front, the building used for the filming is the Texas Commerce Tower (since renamed the JP Morgan Chase Tower) in Houston Texas -- and I'm standing in the lobby watching them film the scene...
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"one of the greatest movies ever"
Rate the TOP FIVE MOVIES EVER. You have one minute. Ok, three days.
Got it. I've been there. I went out for an early morning run around the island and I came home drunk.
One more thing Jonah, Hollywood makes things they want to make, not the things we want to see, or at least in the last 40 years. You want to see classic Americanna rent "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", that will rock your conservative world.
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