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Groundhog Day is the source of my biggest disagreement with Christy. She thinks it's repetitive. I think it's brilliant.
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My mother in law doesn't get it either. And I don't know anyone who is as obsessed with it as I am. But that probably comes as not a huge shock.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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10,000 years sound right. Some religions believe that human beings are reincarnated into the world over and over again until we finally obtain enlightenment. This process must take thousands of years. I always thought Groundhogs Day was a encapsulated version of that philosophy. Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I dunno about 10,000 years, I think I would probably go insane after a few weeks, even if I was trying to take the time to better myself, simply due to the repetition of the events of the day I couldn't change. Not that I have any idea how long it took, but I always sorta felt like it was maybe several months, though certain learning curves don't fit that particularly well.
quote: Phil Connors goes through February 2nd, 34 times. There were many more days implied, for example how he knew everyone so well in the diner, but only 34 days were actually shown.
It's funny that they think of the Diner as the main case where extra time is obligatory.
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Because learning multiple languages and professional-quality piano is really just a matter of a few days for a dedicated individual. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:The only problem I had with it was the great advancement of his piano playing from nil to what he did on stage -- even over months, playing every single day, I don't know many people who could be that proficient that fast. (I took piano lessons for 15 years, and play often). I had no problem with him learning a language fluently, however, though.
Honestly, there is a difference between practicing every day, and having a lesson every day. In my opinion, if I had had a piano lesson every day of every week of the 12 or 13 years i took piano, I would be a freakin amazing performer right now. There's something about someone else being there, correcting everything as it happens, as opposed to self-motivated practicing on your own time. And of the course, the sheer amount of time...i used to take one lesson a week. I'd really only improve in my piano playing during the lessons. So if i had those lessons EVERY DAY...it might be a stretch, but i wouldn't be surprised if i learned to play as well as he did in whatever time he had.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies. I bought the DVD. It's similar to a time travel story, going back in time one day, over and over again; except that even when he kills himself, he still wakes up again to relive the same day. It is amazing that there is never any attempt to suggest any mechanism or explanation for how and why Phil Connors kept living Feb. 2 over and over again, and you are left guessing why he finally breaks out of the endless cycle after he gets his act and life straight. But somehow you don't care, because the story is so interesting. What if you could keep going back in time and reliving one day until you finally get everything right? The story the writer(s) developed out of that was really interesting and plausible, with a lot of emotional depth to it to go with the humor.
Yes, BannaOj, Bill Murray played the psycho gardener in Caddyshack. In that movie, I loved the way he kept humming the "Green Beret" song as he prepared to dynamite the gopher.
Bill Murray also had the lead role in Ghostbusters, I and II. Those movies also starred Sigourney Weaver.
It is interesting how some of the top comedians also make it as dramatic actors--Robin Williams, Bill Murray, Jim Carrey, Dick Van Dyke, Whoopi Goldberg, etc. Perhaps to be a really good comedian, you need good acting ability.
[ January 11, 2004, 05:26 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Bill Murray has always been much funnier in movies, too. On SNL I always thought he was very stupid. (Except for his Weekend Update stuff which was often hilarious.) His caddyshack role was really minor but became the reason it turned into a cult classic. In Tootsie, he totally stole that movie away from Dustin Hoffman.
That was when his tradition of blurting out hilarious lines started, those lines that we would repeat forever, that were just so perfect. They are so characteristic of him that I feel sure he must have written them, or most of them. When he said, "You slut!" to Dustin Hoffman, that was the funniest line in the movie. What are some of his others? In GB2 there was, "Well, it's not a rule, actually, it's more like a guideline", and "Okay... so... she's a dog." I can't remember them now but I know there were several in GB1 and Stripes too. He really is a genius. His movies, even when wildly popular, always feel like cult classics.
[ January 11, 2004, 05:43 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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I always thought it was just one day. Bill Murray seemed to think so too, which is why I believe he got so agitated over the whole matter. Posts: 1934 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Caddyshack is somewhere in my top ten favorite comedies of all space and time.
"Cannonball! Cannonball comin'!"
I also really enjoyed "The Man Who Knew Too Little." There was something slightly unsatisfying about it, probably the implausibility of the whole thing, but other than that it was really funny.
quote:I dunno about 10,000 years, I think I would probably go insane after a few weeks, even if I was trying to take the time to better myself, simply due to the repetition of the events of the day I couldn't change.
Yes, you would go insane after a few weeks. But after a few 100 years, your sanity would return to you, this time more firm than ever. Then you would really start to grow. And you also have to factor in that he has a goal (get the girl) and is highly motivated. Never underestimate a man's sex drive.
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Someone mentioned Puxatawney Phil, which reminded me that I did see the movie! It was on HBO I think, and I ended up coming in in the middle and then watching the beginning on the next halfhour cycle after. I liked it and thought it was funny. The little bit of music that he hears that inspires him to take piano lessons is from a sonata I had memorized at one time. The ending wasn't entirely convincing,(not that it ever could be given the premise) they should have showed more footage showing him excecuting his "perfect" day.
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I was always struck by the immense, paralyzing, all-encompassing fear and paranoia that must have filled him once a new day started. So many unknowns, his sudden mortality. I always thought that at the moment he "really" realizes that his ordeal (which assumed spanned a number of years) was over he'd go far more insane than he ever was during it.
But a great movie nonetheless.
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Banna, you have GOT to see Lost in Translation. I loved it.
There's a thread on sakeriver about it, but you have to see it first. The thread is filled with spoilers that'll ruin the movie for you otherwise.
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This is totally off-topic, but it makes me happy pretty much every time I see someone mention sakeriver.
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If I weren't so broke I'd have a Groundhog day party. Probably a Lincoln's birthday party too. And Chinese New Year. The Good Lord probably keeps me poor so that my home doesn't become a den of debauchery every February. Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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My take on the iterations thing is that he didn't do *everything* every day. Once came to realise that no matter what happened, it would all be reset over night, he could set aside 20 or thrity years to crack the piano - a few more to learn French, medicine, counselling etc. etc.
I think of the final day as the integration of all of those sub-projects. Bear in mind that if you had 10,000 years or so, you'd probably go mad and regain your sanity more than once...
But then maybe we shouldn't analyse the film to death, and just enjoy it for the great feel-gooder that it is.
"They say we're young and we don't know" *smash*
cracks me up every time...
Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
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Wow! So many old names! I think I was too young when I first saw Groundhog's Day, because I just assumed that the days they showed (or I suppose referred to) were the only days that happened. It never occured to me that it might have been more than a month or two.
Posts: 1547 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I actually liked 12:01 more than Groundhog Day. I like them both, but 12:01 has Helen Slater in it, and that's pretty much going to make any movie a winner for me.
And if we're talking about Bill Murray movies, why has no one mentioned Stripes and Meatballs?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Lost in Translation left me feeling *VERY* lonely and I didn't like it. Later, I watched it leaning up against my hubby and it was a much better movie.
Tom: I agree with you and my hubby agree's with your wife. I think GHD is a good movie and my hubby gets frustrated watching the same scene with small iterations over and over.
...
At the end of the movie when the new day starts, I always wondered what a shock that would be. Yes, it's what he's been working toward the whole movie but suddenly, after years of knowing exactly what was going to happen, with no fear, he's thrust into a new day where anything could happen. And if he screws up, no more do overs. I have to wonder, after being in a "I'll get a new chance tomorrow" mindset for so long, how scary returning to real life would be.
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quote:I heard the original script called for 10 years, not 10,000. A little more realistic, but I'm not sure which one, if either, is right.
That's what I've read as well. I think it was on Roger Ebert's web site.
I like the 10 years answer. It's a nice round number, it's long enough for him to learn what he learns and become a different person, but short enough to still be human.
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Nighthawk: No kidding =) but after 10 years (can we agree on that length of time?) of knowing exactly what was going to happen, now she can die or get hurt. she (and you) will grow old again...
Personally, I think I'd like a Groundhog day. There are so many things I want to learn that I just don't have time to. It would get frustrating and boring, yeah. Nothing I did would have any permanence except personal growth. But stepping outside of time to get that personal growth... That would be worth it.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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For those of you who still haven't seen this movie (Banna, did you ever get to see it-I know this thread is a few years old) there is a marathon on the Comedy channel all today. So you can watch it over and over and over again!
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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This movie, when I saw it during its initial release, gave me a crush on Andie MacDowell that continues to this day (even though she's 20 years older than me). But neglecting that it's still a clever story.
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You know, it has been my experience that I, personally, cannot maintain interest in a woman who is not interested in me very long. If romantic feelings are not reciprocated, they eventually wither and die. I think the longest I ever maintained a state of unrequited love before losing interest was about two years.
And I'm supposed to believe this guy kept it up for ten thousand years? I find that a bit of a stretch. . . .
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: The ability to step out of time to get stuff done has been one of my greatest fantasies long before the movie came out.
Did you ever see The Girl, The Gold Watch, And Everything? It's a great book by John D. MacDonald, and they made it into a TV movie with Robert Hayes (Airplane) and Pam Dawber (Mork and Mindy) back in 1980. It's about a watch that can essentially stop time for a subjective hour at a time.
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There was an article written by Jonah Goldberg about "Groundhog Day" in the February 14, 2005 edition of National Review titled "A Movie for All Time." The article was very positive and spoke of the philosophical meanings of the movie.
It is only available to subscribers, and this particular issue is available in PDF only. If you want to read the article in hard copy, I think they send you a back-issue if you ask.
Here's a few points raised in this thread that the article addresses (all quoted from the above mentioned article).
quote:According to Harold Ramis, co-writer and director, the original script called for him to endure 10,000 years in Punxsutawney, but it was probably closer to 10.
quote:The point is that Conners slowly realizes that what makes life worth living is not what you get from it, but what you put into it.
quote:As NR's own Richard Brookhiser explains: "The Curse is lifted when Bill Murray blesses the day he has just lived. And his reward is the day is taken from him. Loving life includes loving that it goes."
quote:There's much to the view of Punxsutawney as purgatory: Conners goes to his own version of Hell, but since he's not evil, it turns out to be purgatory, from which he is released by shedding his selfishness and committing to acts of love. Meanwhile, Hindus and Buddhists see versions of reincarnation here, and Jews find great significance in the fact that Conners is saved only after he performs mitzvahs (good deeds) and is returned to Earth, not Heaven to perform more.
quote:He doesn't find paradise or liberation by becoming more "authentic," by acting on his whims and urges and listening to his inner voices. That behavior is soul-killing. He does exactly the opposite: he learns to appreciate the crowd, the community, even the bourgeois hicks and their values. He determines to make himself better by reading poetry and the classics and by learning to sculpt ice and make music, and most of all by shedding his ironic detachment from the world
I was nine when this movie came out, and I remember first that it was funny, but after watching it a few times I realized (as a young teenager) that there is a lot of metaphor and life lessons here. I liked that he comes into the day as a thouroughly unlikable, even hateworthy, man, but comes out changed. The lesson I took from this is that going through life hating so much and seeing life through a lens of contempt is no way to live because it can ruin you. It is "soul-killing" and can make so many other people miserable with no reason to be so.
As for how the day continued to repeat for Conners, I think that is a metaphor left to the viewer to decide. Sometimes a gimmick like that is a terrible cop-out because the writers and producers didn't want to think too hard, but in this movie, it's brilliant. He may have brought it on himself, it could be from God, or from the Cosmos. The movie doesn't attempt to establish which religion or belief is implied because it isn't about which religion is right, but the right way to live: with love and happiness. Conners goes through a journey that almost anyone, no matter what belief or non-belief, can identify with.
Edit: To change small thing.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: The ability to step out of time to get stuff done has been one of my greatest fantasies long before the movie came out.
quote:Did you ever see The Girl, The Gold Watch, And Everything? It's a great book by John D. MacDonald, and they made it into a TV movie with Robert Hayes (Airplane) and Pam Dawber (Mork and Mindy) back in 1980. It's about a watch that can essentially stop time for a subjective hour at a time.
I may have seen that when I was a really young kid. I know I saw something like that, but I thought it was a Twilight Zone episode.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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"Have you read the book Replay, by Ken Grimwood?"
Lisa, I'm thinking more and more we need to trade must-read book lists; you keep mentioning personal favorites...
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