This is not a reviews blog. In fact I can't remember ever reviewing a movie on here before. There are plenty of other stops out there for you to get your fill of that. But I recently felt the need to speak of the joys that one can get from repeated viewings of Bill Murray's 1993 classic 'Groundhog Day'.
For the uninitiated, the movie centers around Phil Connors, a weatherman for Channel 9 Pittsburgh. When we meet Phil, Murray plays him at his prickish best, oozing contempt for the masses surrounding him as he bides his time awaiting a network honcho with the proper sense and purse strings to notice his genius. He's tired of filing the same small-time stories day after day, year after year. He goes through the motions of his 'final' Groundhog day report, happy to be done with the podunk town once and for all. But the universe has different plans for him.
The roads are snowed in (a pride-damaging wrong prediction) so the Channel 9 Action News weather team is forced to retreat back to Punxsutawney, where Phil must spend at least one more night in the God-forsaken town. But come morning it becomes plain something has gone very wrong. Phil is the only one that notices everything seems a bit familiar. He's stuck in the same day, again and again. Just not figuratively this time.
Every night it's back to the same bed and breakfast with no hot shower. Every morning he wakes to Sonny and Cher on the alarm clock. The repetition makes the film not only re-watchable but a continuity watcher's delight. The same car stalls in the same place each morning. The same townsfolk gather at the same restaurants. Phil begins to notice the clockwork and turns it to his advantage.
As he gets to know every corner of Punxsutawney proper he avoids the normal pitfalls of everyday life. Phil takes joy in his newly found Godliness, as the mortals around him plod through their day as predictably as rats through a maze. “I don't have to worry about anything,” he confesses to his skeptical producer Rita. “I don't even have to floss.”
Not flossing is the least of the fun Phil squeezes out of his odd new life, and his antics run the gamut from robbing an armored car to playing chicken with a train. The way in which he cons the town dressmaker into a night of hanky panky is a thing of genius. And yet everything gets boring given enough time.
The wrench in his works becomes his producer Rita, played by a perky and pleasant Andie MacDowell, whom he grows to know and love through the sheer repetition of her company. Come morning he returns to his role of mere work acquaintance, all his work from the night before evaporated. But each evening he tries to make their date just slightly better than the last, with a tweak of a toast here, a change in dinner topic there. The ultimate realization that despite his most heroic efforts he will never win her heart, breaks his spirit. Cue the despair. And numerous suicide attempts. To be fair, the attempts are actually successful, but even loosing his mortal coil isn't enough to break the spell.
It turns out to be the bum on the corner he ignored countless times that breaks him free of his funk. Phil tries in vain to help the old man, powerless to prevent the man's death. There is a power in this lesson of life's preciousness that causes him to reevaluate his own.
No longer is his self improvement done solely to manipulate others. Echoing the earlier advice of Rita, the world begins to look more promising to Phil as his predicament shifts from curse to gift. Like the Buddhists say: 10,000 joys, 10,000 sorrows. It just takes him a while to figure this out.
I can think of no better story of personal transformation. It's an inspiring ride watching Phil's progression through bafflement, panic, depression, playfulness, despair, inspiration, and finally mastery.
What would you do with eternity? Would you have the nerve to do anything you wanted if no one would remember tomorrow? The themes the film explores are universal. This may explain why the DVD has subtitles in more languages I've ever seen (seven).
It's not my favorite film, but it's up there. There's just something about it that lends itself to repetitive viewing. Plus it's one of the rare ones with claim on an actual date that can be used as an excuse to do so. Thus every February 2nd I pour a tall drink, fix a snack, pop in the DVD and plop down into the recliner. It's a ironic ritual I've been carrying out for about a decade now.
We are creatures of habit, often to a comic fault. Recently I noticed that each time my lunch crew and I visit Chik-fil-A, I choose not only the same meal, but the same table and seat. It is so easy to slip into our little ruts that we don't notice them until we see how deep the wagon wheels are riding along the trail. But if anything, this is one habit I think helps keep things fresh and reminds us to use our time just a little more wisely.
And there's a reason this is being written on February 3rd. Yesterday I had to watch not only Groundhog Day, but the season premiere of Lost. It was a late night and writing fell victim to sleeping. So I invite you to take up the tradition yourself, 364 days from now.
SAN FRANCISCO- If yesterday's keynote address by Steve Jobs is remembered for one thing, it will be the collective sense of letdown the CEO unleashed on the MacWorld attendees at the Moscone Center. While it's true that the level of excitement and anticipation that preceded the recently unveiled iPad virtually guaranteed some unmet expectations, few could have guessed the depths of such disappointments. It seems the $499 creation possesses no actual, inexplicable magic.
To begin with, the over-hyped device has neither camera, scanner, or videophone. While these omissions may seem forgivable, the lack of even a basic form of printer is not. And anyone hoping for even the simplest telepathic interface is simply out of luck, you'll still be forced to manipulate the iPad with crude finger gestures. So much for pushing the envelope.
Those hoping for a little more real-world security are out of luck too. The iPad is not equipped with an emergency GPS transponder, retractable knife blade, or even a stun gun. That it doesn't boast a heart defibrillator seems scandalous in this day and age. So much for piece of mind.
Also glaringly absent are any features which appear to violate the general relativity principle, so it goes without saying that consumers hoping the device would offer even the most basic form of time travel will be sorely disappointed. Though to its credit, the iPad's screen is remarkably sharp, and the video clip from 'Lost' shown in the demo looked clear and the motion fluid.
Powering the device is a standard (albeit long life) battery, not a miniaturized embedded nuclear power source as many analysts had hoped for. Some optimists had even rumored it would be powered by a proprietary perpetual motion generator. Maybe in the next iteration, folks. In fact, most if not all of the iPad's functionality appears to stubbornly obey the laws of thermodynamics and nowhere to be seen were any features that couldn't be explained by the known laws of physics.
While it will function as a fairly capable e-book reader, it will not read those books aloud in a pleasing British accent, nor express surprise as plot twists arise. The iPad could have been the most incredible creation ever devised by the hands of man. Instead, Apple seems to have taken the easy path, releasing a consumer device aimed merely at providing entertainment and media consumption.
The iPad's durability failed to impress as well, being incapable of surviving a simple 3-story fall onto solid concrete, day-long submergence underwater, or just a few minutes in a pizza oven. In all three tests, the device failed miserably or at least behaved in a diminished capacity.
Despite the iPad's massive shortcomings, Mr. Jobs remains the eminent huckster. While the vast majority of the press and public attending the conference appeared underwhelmed, most interviewed planned on purchasing the device on the day of it's release.
Mine hands hath not been idle. They have been laboring, though not on postings here as anyone capable with a calendar can judge. Sorry, that's the Two Gentlemen of Lebowski speaking. I'm currently reading through a Shakespearean re-penning of the Coen's grand slacker manifesto, The Big Lebowski and kicking myself for not having done it first.
But that is not the reason I have forgone not only writing, but exercise, Facebook, family outings, and reasonable temperament these past four weeks. Truth be told there are two reasons. You don't really want to hear the first reason. The first reason quite simply makes for a shitty tale. It's as boring as can be. OK, but you asked.
The first reason was there is an application-layer packet tracer enabled on some Cisco firewalls that scans a subset of port traffic, one version of which has a bug in which CPU utilization will spike and sporadic packet drops can occur, when coupled with a (previously to Friday morning undiscovered) ten-fold increase in database load on a separate application sharing DB space, a ramping up of zombie database connections can occur on your web servers and...I'm certain I lost half the readers there. OK you diehards, thanks for sticking around.
Well to tell you the truth the reason is because I can understand and type such a ludicrous, technical thing, and the accompanying month-long overtime ordeal it takes to learn such a thing when your job depends on it. It's a hell of an education when technology goes sour like this, but a body can take only so much of such cram sessions. I've lost several pounds of muscle mass and I would swear, numerous patches of hair from where I pulled it out trying to find this bug. On the bright side I can now talk like Scotty if need presses.
After four weeks of a problem like this one, one which had you seriously wishing you had chosen fine arts instead of computer engineering, there is an actual, palpable sense of a yoke being lifted. Honestly I feel several inches taller and years younger. This was without a doubt one of the best three day weekends ever. Upon my triumphant Friday evening return to the homestead, I chased the boy around the yard then actually sprung for takeout. The next day we drove to the beach and flew kites. Sunday we threw a birthday party for the kid. Monday I drank rum and played video games. My apologies to the ghost of Dr. King. All of which was completely unaccompanied by any worries whatsoever of work. Completely.
Life even smells better after you get past a rough haul like this one. Or at least it must, as lately I find myself taking deep breaths and exhaling wistfully as I grin like a schoolboy. This is how the freshly paroled must feel.
The other reason for my authorial absence is the 69 Mustang's eventual return to the road and subsequent ignition fire at 90 mph. Not to fear, all survived the smoky, panicked pull to the curb but a few Nixon-era smoldering lengths of wire awkwardly cowering behind the dash. But that damn thing is it's own story for another day. I'll do a motor-head edition for all you grease monkeys out there soon enough.
Anyway, back to business as usual. Thankfully there aren't too many readers hanging on this pulpit's every word else I'd feel guilt for having left my flock untended. Well that's true in spirit if not in number, the Bunker has been reeling in a few hundred eyeballs each month now. Which you would think would make me as proud as a strutting cock in a locked hen house, but for the fact that 9 out of every 10 hits we get around here is someone looking at that damned Snoopy photoshop I did of Charlie Brown reading a scandalously discovered Playbeagle magazine. That stupid joke has gotten hits from, seriously, something like 170 different countries. Every day I get people from Kuala Lumpur to Guam looking at that. I guess people the world over love a good picture of Charlie Brown chastising Snoopy for his crude taste in canine pornography. Thank you, Google images, for this weird bit of Internet pseudo near-fame.
LOS ANGELES- Citing irreconcilable differences, singer/songwriter George Thorogood's liver has applied for a legal separation from its host of 59 years.
Thorogood's popularity peaked in the 70's and 80's as the creator of hard drinking songs such as "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer", and "I Drink Alone". It is hard to imagine a pool hall jukebox not stocking at least one of his blues rock hits.
Yet on Tuesday in the L.A. County courthouse, George Thorogood's liver appeared via teleconference seeking to finally end what it deems an abusive relationship.
“I've done my job faithfully,” said the liver as it read a prepared complaint, it's speech slurred and often halting. “For almost six decades, day in, day out. All George ever gave me was unending toil and ingratitude, never once considering me or my health.”
“You come into this job with a sense of purpose. Like you could change the world,” it read. “But when you see how there's no light at the end of the tunnel, how you're being taken advantage of, (there is) only so much one small liver can do”. Fighting back tears the yellowing, sickly organ concluded its statement, “sometimes I feel he's just trying to slowly poison me.”
The liver said in an earlier released written statement that it hoped to find someone more deserving and appreciative of its labors. "I'd like to find a nice quiet place where I can rest and maybe one day write my story."
Judge Lamar Quincy asked Thorogood if he had anything to add. The musician merely grunted, saying (his liver) should “quit being such a pansy and bone up." He then flipped the monitor the middle finger and the signal was disconnected.
If the request is granted, it would be the first time a major organ succeeded in having itself removed from its owner since Ron Wood's lungs successful bid to separate as soon as a viable donor was found.
WILTSHIRE, ENGLAND- Proof of alien life or elaborate hoax? Some farmers call them otherworldly art and are thrilled to discover one of the mysterious visages gracing a hillside. Others say it is outright vandalism, no more than a waste of valuable grain by mischievous pranksters. Whatever your belief, in the world of crop circles the southern region of England is the place to be. No other place on Earth has a higher concentration of crop circles than right here.
And it was in the county of Wiltshire last week that Mr. Jeremy Benthingham first discovered his fields had joined the ranks of the ethereally decorated. On the morning of October 30th shortly after the farmer pulled his tractor from its barn, Mr. Benthingham first saw the mysterious designs. And he was not impressed.
“If you ask me it looks like a damned joke. The fellow must have been bloody blind” he said. “Or just learning” he added with a chuckle.
In place of a soothing circular pattern or complex geometric mandala, the field had been transformed into a mishmash of drunken squiggles. “It's embarrassing” he said. For farmers of this and the neighboring counties which make up the breadbasket of England, the first crop circle is normally a badge of honor. But despite his disappointment, Mr. Benthingham is not alone in his less than stellar experience.
In June a farm 30 kilometers to the south was visited by a mysterious crop-circler that left behind a barely discernible representation of a human form. “The left arm was completely out of proportion from the body like a fiddler crab,” said one witness of the amateurish attempt. “It had no neck, sort of a stick figure with a crooked spine.” In the nearby town of Saxsbury a mangled rendering of the Solar system was said to resemble “a rather unsuccessful Etch-a-Sketch” said the landowner Jamie Spitts. Not only were the orbits wavy and badly skewed, but there were only seven planets. One of which embarrassingly intersected with the Sun. An area of crude back and forth swipes has many believing it to be an attempt to cover a mistake. “Like second grade art class.”
While some state the entire episode is a hoax on a hoax, Ken Potter of the Crop Circle Alliance disagrees. “Could it be there's a hidden meaning in the misshapen forms, and that our primitive minds can't understand them?”
Crop circle enthusiasts disagree on the reason for the recent spate of poor quality visitations. Some of the believers say the ethereal beings responsible are indeed training new artists or trying out new equipment. “Even the military has training exercises” says Potter. “Or for all we know, the circles we've seen all these years were performed by a handful of very talented beings. Perhaps the torch is being passed. And no one's born a Picasso”, said Potter. “Except Picasso I suppose.”
Whatever the reason, most agree that 2010 can only be an improvement over what many are calling the lost year of the crop circle.
They just get thrown away. Or do they? I can't imagine the things ever wear out. And even if yours starts to show some age it's not as if you'll be embarrassed if someone sees the shape it's in, because as a rule people don't see other people's dildos. Unless a moving day goes horribly awry.
This goes for male or female shaped latex goodies of course, I'm not just picking on the ladies here. Feel free to substitute the words “pocket pussy” in place of dildo if it makes you more comfortable, we're all adults here.
And it's not like most people are eager to have to buy such things more than once. Once suffering the humiliation of their first sexual aid purchase, most slink from the store with the paper bag clutched as tightly and hopefully inconspicuously as possible to the chest thinking to themselves and the heavens “Well that's over with”. It's a relief as profound as finishing a public speech or meeting the in-laws. You only hope you never meet the clerk who sold you the thing at a church/school/business function.
Would a rusted steel dildo ever be turned in for scrap? Price of iron is up. Maybe your melted-down dildo could one day end up part of a skyscraper. It would be an ironic turn of events to say the least, a phallus reborn. Or would it be polished one afternoon to restore its onetime gleam? I'll bet a fiver the web already has instructions on how to do this. Perhaps it would be disposed of with the hopes the neighbor boys didn't pick your trash. My uneducated guess is that it would be hard to be parted with, maybe hidden away like an old lover for 'lean times' before it was eventually forgotten and misplaced. Perhaps a generation later a suddenly scarred descendant would notice what that old paperweight on grandpa's tool bench really was.
You'd be surprised at some of the pathetic objects people will haul into the pawn shop hoping for a buck or two. I once saw a man happily accept three quarters for an old extension cord and a hacksaw blade. Would a similarly illiquid crack fiend actually try to cash in a used sexual device? More importantly, what would it fetch? I'm tempted to go undercover just to catch the reaction of the aged pawnkeep's face as I argue how it was barely used. Maybe if I swear it had been boiled in hot water.
Oh this is just great. I give every last one of those damn kids a candy bar, and one of them decides it would be funny to throw a rock through our glass storm door. Watch your feet, dear. Trick or treat? Oh this trick is just Hilarious!
Honey, where's the dust pan? And while you're at it, where's my baseball bat? I'll play ball with the wonderful little sprites!
Sigh...no dear I'm not going to do anything drastic. Yeah they're just kids, but dammit look at this mess! I pulled some pranks in my day, but this is over the top. Are we out of Hefty bags? What? No, Hefty bags! You know, the really thick ones. I think they're by the water heater!
Forget Snickers, next year they're getting a jawbreaker each. Those generic ones. Or Bit o' Honey, I'll bet those are cheap. No wait, trick gum! The kind that gets really hot. Oooh boy, next Halloween's gonna be FULL of tricks let me tell you!
Owww! Damned glass. Can you bring me a band-aid too, honey? I can see how that whole razor blade in the candy thing got started. No dear, I'm just joking. Jeez.
What do you mean the rock looks familiar? It's just a rock. You gave one of them a WHAT?! Holy mother of God are you kidding me? The grumpy kid with the flying ace dog and messed up ghost costume? You've been giving him one every year? Why not give him a roll of toilet paper and a can of spray paint while you're at it?
Talk to his mother? And say what? He returned the rock we gave him? A rock! Brilliant. You're the one that should be cleaning this up.
Um, have you seen the cat this morning?
* Encore edition sounds so much more dignified than "rerun", doesn't it? Then again unless you've been following this jalopy for a year now, it's new to you. Even if Letterman does reruns, I feel I need to ask your forgiveness: I've got my hands full rebuilding a small block Ford right now and figured this post might just need to become an annual ritual.
I know, I know, the ancient Chinese warned us against pursuing our wishes. Let me start out by saying, to hell with the ancient Chinese. But I do recognize the need to be careful what you wish for, or at least be prepared if those wishes come to fruition in strange, twisted ways you hadn't envisioned. If the stars are in an ornery mood get ready for a curve ball.
It would be my rotten luck that I would finally meet Bill Murray in a men's room at some hotel bar. I step up to the urinal for some routine business and there he is taking a leak one stall over. Do I dare break the Golden Rule of the men's room, striking up a conversation with a stranger in mid-flow? As I silently cursed the Universe for putting me in such a conundrum I'm sure my mind would race for a loophole, some way of acknowledging one of my greatest heroes without being added to his mental list of autograph assholes.
In the unlikely event I ever fall into such a circumstance, I've prepared a statement. “Sorry Mr. Murray, but I'm just not going to bother you for an autograph with your cock in your hand.” I'd then give a friendly nod and walk back out to the bar like nothing had happened. I think he'd appreciate it.
That's the dream of all us fans, to meet our number one living figure and say something so clever or devastatingly cool they not only laugh, but possibly offer up a dinner invitation, or ask if you have any interest in seeing their record collection.
Since I have no idea when I will meet Bill Murray, I find myself preparing for every possible contingency. If we become trapped in the same elevator, I will say “Emergency call buttons are for pansies!”, and volunteer to be the guy that tries to climb through the ceiling hatch thingy and up the greasy cables, heedless of any damage to my clothing or person. There is no film in which this escape route has failed to work.
If we find ourselves at the same DMV getting our licenses renewed I will pipe up with “You know Bill, if you put Organ Donor on your license it makes for a great dirty pickup line.” I wrestled with the question of whether I should use his first name so soon, then came to the realization I'll have to gauge each situation accordingly.
Another challenging introduction would be accidentally backing into his Mercedes as I leave the airport parking garage at two in the morning. I'm loaded down with jet lag and sleeping pills, fumbling for the radio when BAM, a familiar looking gray-haired figure is fuming in my rear view mirror. But I am prepared. “Tag, you're it Bill!” I think that one calls for a first name basis, just to break the ice.
Of course, delivery here is crucial. I don't want to anger him further by treating the accident like my lucky day. His dream wasn't to meet me, and I probably just made him late for something. I'll make sure the man isn't hurt, then offer to buy him a steak. Or if I signed for the extra insurance on the rental, offer to let him take it for a wild ride around town, not worrying about the bodywork. Everyone wants to scrape a rental car along a Jersey barrier doing forty.
With any luck we'd end up drinking Johnny Walker on his veranda, smacking golf balls onto the roofs of his neighbors. No one minds if Bill Murray hits a golf ball onto their roof. They get a thrill when they hear one hit, knowing its source. Very few people on the planet have this power. He'd tell me stories about hazy weekends at Hunter Thompson's farm or the time he joined the Mile-High club with a Lufthansa stewardess en route to film “Stripes”. And oh the laughs we would have doing donuts in Harold Ramis' lawn.
Now I'm no stalker. Nor will I subject myself to kidnapping and tying up his pool cleaner for an opportunity to sneak onto his estate in disguise. I'll instead allow the hands of destiny to work their magic. Of course trusting in fate to introduce me to Bill Murray runs the risk of frankly, running out of time. Let's face it Bill's not getting any younger. And with his hearty passions for life's pleasures, I personally don't see him pulling off a George Burns-style longevity gig.
A friend suggested I steer my efforts into landing a bit part in the next Wes Anderson picture, of which he has starred in all but one. This plan presents another level of complexity, but one thing it has going for it is that as Mr. Anderson is my favorite director, I wouldn't feel any guilt in using him so. Time to get cracking with some acting lessons. That or bribe his casting director. Either way it's just a matter of time. I can feel the stars at work already.
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This is not a reviews blog. In fact I can't remember ever reviewing a movie on here before. There are plenty of other stops out there for you to get your fill of that. But I recently felt the need to speak of the joys that one can get from repeated viewings of Bill Murray's 1993 classic 'Groundhog Day'.
