The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2020: Groundhog Day (1993), directed by Harold Ramis

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Every Day Is A Holiday", by DOPE LEMON (feat. Winston Surfshirt)

      There are a myriad of Christmas movies. There are movies about Halloween, Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July and St. Patrick’s Day, and there’s probably a movie or two involving Hanukkah somewhere in the vast depths of the cinematic trenches, besides that one Rugrats TV special. As far as I know though there is only one movie about that most sacred of holidays, the day that everyone waits for with bated breath and girded loins: Groundhog Day. Maybe it’s because I saw a video on youtube showing off Groundhog Day 2, the official sequel in VR game form, but suddenly I felt an urge to return to this movie that I believe I watched over a decade ago. Unfortunately this meant that the film that originally occupied this space had to go, a little something by the Coen Bros. if you’re curious, but this blog being what it is there’s no doubt we’ll be seeing them again sometime in the future. Unless we get stuck in a time loop, I guess.

      Released in 1993 through Columbia Pictures, Groundhog Day was directed and co-written by Harold Ramis (who you might know from Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and about a dozen other things) and Danny Rubin (who you might know from...well, pretty much just Groundhog Day). Bill Murray stars as Phil Connors, a narcissistic and mordant weatherman for a Pittsburgh news station who along with his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) who travel to the town of Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog Day festival and to see whether Punxsutawney Phil, the titular hog, will see his shadow and thus damn the world to six more weeks of winter. The day doesn’t go well; Phil hates Punxsutawney, hates the people, hates the festival and that damn hog and he’s not exactly subtle about it, much to Rita’s chagrin. Were it not for a surprise blizzard shutting down roads and phone lines he would be out of there like that (insert finger snapping here), and when he goes to bed that night he swears that tomorrow will be the last day he ever sets eyes on Punxsutawney again.

      Only tomorrow never comes. When the clock hits six Phil Connors awakes to find that is once again Groundhog Day; The same song on the radio, the same people at the same places, and when he goes to bed the clock strikes six and it all happens again. At first Phil is rather pleased, reveling in his newfound freedom from consequences to indulge in all manner of vices, as well as try to get inside the pants of Rita. That sense of satisfaction quickly turns sour however, and not just because Rita rejects him at every turn. When you know that anything and everything you do will be wiped away by the next day, when you know everything that will happen because you’ve seen it happen again and again and again. How does a man cope with eternity? If he crumbles, can he put himself back together again? Better figure it out soon, it’s Groundhog Day tomorrow.

      Harold Ramis had primarily been a writer at this point in his film career, as I mentioned earlier, and we know what he liked to do as writer: Dry wit, screwball comedy, characters that are smarter than anyone else in the room. All or which is still present, but this collaboration with Danny Rubin has introduced an emotional core that had heretofore never really been present in a Ramis film. Groundhog Day is funny, sure, goofy even at times, but there also times when it’s not funny at all. When it is fact serious, either in a positive way (Phil’s budding relationship with Rita) or negative (Phil’s spiral into rock bottom), and indeed in its overarching existential theme of finding meaning in one’s life and in our relationship with other people. Had things tipped more towards Animal House it wouldn’t have worked, it’s the humanistic element that makes it.

      Who better to exemplify that balance than Bill Murray? Seriously, I can’t think of many comic actors that go from detestable to lovable in as few steps as Murray. He takes a quarter step back and he immediately goes from a guy you wouldn’t piss on if he were on fire to a guy you’d want giving the toast at your wedding. I’d even go as far as suggest that it was this film, rather than The Razor’s Edge almost a decade earlier that really redefined Bill Murray as an actor. He went in the Bill Murray of Saturday Night Live and Ghostbusters and out came Bill Murray of Lost in Translation and Rushmore.

      He is supported by a great cast. No big names, but they’re unique and, like Phil, seeing them over and over again really inures you to them. I could see the argument that Rita doesn’t stand out enough as a character to be the female lead in a romance story, and you could probably debate the logic of a woman falling heads over heels for a guy that she previously thought was a chode in less than 24 hours, but she certainly looks the kind of woman you’d spend an infinite amount of the exact same day trying to get close to her. It’s a bit strange seeing Chris Elliott playing a character so down-to-earth as well, but I honestly forgot he was in this movie from the last time I watched it so it was a nice surprise.

      Groundhog Day is one of those movies that is so ubiquitous at this point that recommending it is probably unneeded, so I’m going to recommend it anyway. It’s an interesting premise that is properly explored and pushes a worthwhile message, seasoned with gallows humor, and served with a romcom. A ‘feelgood’ movie if ever there was one. If you’re interested digging into that Second City/SNL oeuvre this probably wouldn’t be the movie I’d lead with, but it would definitely fit into the must-see category. Doesn’t even have to be on Halloween, just make a holiday of it some day. Unless we get stuck in a time loop, I guess.

Scrooged (1988), directed by Richard Donner

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Christmas Must Be Tonight", by The Band

     I’m not totally up to snuff, or I’m suffering from writer’s block, or my hands have finally caught up to the crap my brain has come up with, so here’s a short article I managed to come up with as my gift to all of you you. No, you can’t return it.

     Well it’s that time of year again folks: Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice/Festivus. A time of festivity and joy, where families and friends gather together to enjoy fine foods, exchange gifts with one another, bask in the glow of each other’s company and attempt to not be utterly rancid dicks to each other for at least 24 hours. Or, if you’re the kind of miserable dick that I sometimes tend to be, it’s a disgusting display of consumerism and greed that long since killed any sense of goodwill that the season originally had and replaced it with high suicide rates and naked opportunism. Mostly however, I tend to see Christmas and the assorted other holidays much in the same way I see the life of Batman: Full of childhood trauma, often times drifts into dark places, but ultimately a force for good. If you see any clowns at your Christmas party though, you get the fuck out of there. No good can come of it.

     Speaking of movies, Christmas is the one holiday (aside from Halloween) big enough to have it’s own film hype train surrounding it, like a festive Flava Flav. Most of them are, of course, schmaltzy three dollar productions shat out by the Hallmark Channel or ABC to appease moms and people with a high saccharine tolerance, but there are a few gems that really justify the concept of a Christmas movie. The most famous is easily It’s A Wonderful Life (which actually helped to destroy Frank Capra’s film career), but you also have A Miracle on 34th Street, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Nightmare Before Christmas, Home Alone, Rudolf and the other Rankin-Bass animated films, A Christmas Story and probably others that I’ve forgotten or that you the reader care more about. It’s no easy task creating an iconic Christmas movie, and I’m not talking about a movie that is just set on Christmas either. You have to take that same message of peace and love that every other X-mas movie out there is trying to push and twist it just enough that it stands apart from the others without alienating itself from the message it’s meant to represent. Many have tried to create a Christmas movie that will be remembered throughout the ages, and they all been washed away into the great yuletide sea. Does Scrooged, the film I’ve decided to write about this time, share a similar fate to it’s brethren? We shall see.

     We shall see.

     Directed by one Mr. Richard Donner, whom you might recall from such films as Superman, The Goonies, The Omen and the Lethal Weapon series, Scrooged is a slick 80s take on the classic Christmas Carol story by Charles Dickens, which was about a old rich bastard who is tortured by three ghosts on Christmas Eve into being charitable in case you can’t check wikipedia for some reason. SNL alum and comedic legend Bill Murray plays Francis Xavier Cross, a rich young bastard who just so happens to be the president of the IBC television network, which is about to broadcast an international extravaganza edition of ‘Scrooge’, as they call it. Frank is a miserable dick, as you might expect, whose relentless drive upwards has alienated himself from everyone around him, including his brother James, assistant Grace (with requisite ailing child, although he’s not so much dying of some sort of super-polio as he is the strong silent type), and his former lover and love interest, Claire Phillips. One night, Frank is visited by his old business partner Lou Hayward, who warns him of continuing down the path he’s made for himself so far, and drops the truth bomb: Frank will be visited by three ghosts, who will attempt to show him the error of his ways, or else. You can probably guess what happens from there.

     Predictable though it may be, there are a lot of good points to Scrooged. It’s funny for one, as you might expect from a film that counts Bill Murray, Bobcat Goldthwait amongst it cast. Not quite laugh out funny in my opinion, except for perhaps a few moments with in Ghost of Christmas Present, but there’s a low simmering humour that persists throughout the film. I also quite like the special effects, especially the Ghost of Christmas Future moments (is this always where the budget goes in these types of stories?), which are fantastical without being overblown. It’s something that I’ve always enjoyed about the Donner films that I’ve seen; they’re fantastical without being full-on fantasy, grounded without mulling about in hard-nosed reality. Scrooged is a bit too goofy to work out as well as Superman in that regard, but it also feels like a film that is having fun being a film, and isn’t that what we as an audience like to see? I mean, that’s why Guardians of the Galaxy made 80 trillion dollars right? Because it was fun?

     Hopefully that was one coherent paragraph.

     The major complaint I have with this movie also happens to be its major strength: that of it’s lead actor, Bill Murray. Now I love Bill Murray as much as the next guy, and he’s been in plenty of films that I consider the pinnacle of comedy, but that’s kind of the problem. Frank Cross is supposed to be this caustic, self-serving prick, the Ebenezer Scrooge of Scrooged and I can’t see Bill Murray in that role. A smug jerk sure, the sarcastic asshole that you can’t help but like, but a Dickensian heel? No. In fact, whenever you see Bill Murray trying to lay down the Scrooge, it just comes off as forced and unnatural, like he’s trying to take the piss out the role. Which is fine on some levels of course, you know what you were buying into with Murray in the 80s, but it undercuts the more dramatic moments of the film and (once again) makes those scenes come off as unnatural. Even if I had never seen a Murray-centric film before, I can’t buy him as an evil boss, or really anything other than a guy who has mastered the art of the snark. Which is probably why he did The Razor’s Edge and all those Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch movies, to prove he had acting chops and shut fuckers like me up.

     So is Scrooged worthy of being considered a Christmas classic? Eh, could be. It’s got enough black humor and jokes for the adults while not being too dark for kids to enjoy, much like The Goonies, which I would guess classifies it as ‘fun for the whole family’. It’s got a little bit of happy, a dash of sad, and it ends on the positive message that you want out of a Christmas movie. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but I certainly wouldn’t have a problem placing it within the Christmas movie rotation next time winter rolls around. Try it out for yourself, maybe you’ll feel the same way.

Result: Recommended

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! See you all next year!

Coffee & Cigarettes (2003), directed by Jim Jarmusch

come watch my inevitable decline

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Cigarettes and Coffee", by Otis Redding

     The first thing I ever saw by Jim Jarmusch was Horse, a concert film/documentary of the great Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse, in case you were wondering. I was hanging out at the home of my friend Big John, a rock star in his own right and major Young fan, drinking and smoking as hip college goers are known to do. Through the chemical haze, I decided that Horse was actually a pretty good concert film as it turned out, featuring vintage footage of the band combined with present day concert performances. The name Jim Jarmusch got stuck in my head that day, just waiting for a time that it could bust out and convince me to finally see one of his movies. Biding it’s time, like a tiger on the prowl.

     That time is now.

     Coffee & Cigarettes was an independent film directed by Mr. Jarmusch in 2003. The movie is presented in a series of vignettes, each featuring different actors, with no overarching narrative. In all but two of the stories, a characters enters the scene, somebody consumes some coffee and cigarettes, an awkward, vaguely hostile conversation is held, and then a characters at the end of the scene (the only differences, by the way, are in the one instance where the characters drink tea, and another where no characters enter or leave). The title of the vignette reveals to us the nature of the story, “Twins” has twins for main characters, “Delirium” has a conversation relating to delirium, and so on. It’s not a bad way to do things, and using coffee & cigarettes as a connecting theme is as good as any, but there’s a distinct lack of weight in these vignettes. Why are these people so passive-aggressive? Is it the caffeine/nicotine? The the scene ends, and I’m wondering how I just spent several minutes of my life.

     I will give credit to Jarmusch in grabbing some damn interesting talent for his movie, which leads to some amusing situations. Who hasn't wanted to hear Steve Buscemi talk about Elvis Presley’s evil twin, or Jack White operating a Tesla coil, or RZA and GZA discussing alternative medicine with Bill Murray? Not to mention Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Cate Blanchett...Folks who I would love to see converse with each other (perhaps over some coffee & cigarettes?), without all the meandering bullshit that’s been tossed in. Would I like to hear a conversation between Iggy Pop and Tom Waits? Abso-fucking-lutely. Did I like the scene in which they conversed in Coffee & Cigarettes? Not particularly.

     Not much to say this around, or perhaps more appropriately not much I feel like writing. My first non-Horse experience with Jarmusch has become the least enjoyable movie I've done so far, which admittedly isn't saying much at this point. It’s possible that I just don’t ‘get’ the message he was trying to put out here, if there was even a message to get in the first place. It’s also possible that the film sucks, and he would've been better off just making a documentary. Obviously Jim Jarmusch and I have things we need to work out together, with the film and with our relationship.

     Perhaps over some hot chocolate and hashish?

Result: Recommended if you like coffee, cigarettes, coffee & cigarettes, people talking about nothing for 90 minutes, or Bill Murray gargling oven cleaner

          Not Recommended if you like narratives, action, clean lungs, or Ms. Cate Blanchett