Soul Survivors

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite day is still Valentine's Day. I have a romantic bent, even though it doesn't show up very often on this blog.  Years ago I had a tradition: I would buy a carnation for each of the ladies with whom I worked for Valentine's Day.  Most of them appreciated the gesture. I never really had a girlfriend, and as such I never married, so I never had a wife. This tradition was my one outlet for that romantic side.  Unfortunately, in 2009 I was laid off from that job. I got the job back six months later, but I never reinstated the tradition. 

That said, that romantic bent never really took hold when it comes to movies.  I can count on the fingers of one hand the list of movies you might call "romantic" that I like. "Romcoms" as they might be called, usually don't appeal to me.  I make an exception for The Princess Bride, one of my top 10 movies of all time, because I generally don't think of it as a romantic movie, although to be sure, there is some romance in it. My attraction stems from the fact that it has some great action and some of the best repartee in movie history.

In addition, there a few other movies that are classed as romcoms that I actually like. These, too, appeal to me for other reasons than the "rom" side of the romcoin coin: Groundhog Day, for example.  The appeal comes from the situation that Bill Murray's character finds himself in. Dave is also classed as a romcom, but I like the part of Kevin Kline trying to fill the role as President even though he isn't, and not necessarily the romance part that develops between his character and Sigourney Weaver's character.

If you look at the archives of this blog, you may notice a couple more that fit the bill, but in each one of those, there is some other aspect that drew me to the film, not the romance.  This movie today really had nothing to draw me to it initially.  I just happened to come across it once several years ago and had nothing else going on so I watched a few minutes of it.  And then, by gum, I was hooked.  Of course, if it hadn't been for that initial set up, if it had just jumped into the story with Robert Downey's character all ready grown up and only then gradually revealed the part about his having ghostly companions, I probably would have switched channels.

 Interestingly enough, Heart and Souls is actually listed as one of the movies in one of the  Frightfest Guide books I have, one which covers "Ghost Movies". So I'm not the only person with my bent of mind that likes this movie.

The film stars Robert Downey, Jr in the lead role, accompanied by Alfre Woodard, Kyra Sedgewick, Charles Grodin and Tom Sizemore as ghosts. 

It also has David Paymer, an actor whose face you might recognize, if not the name. Paymer was familiar to me because of his role in a short-lived TV show I regularly watched in the early 90's, The Commish.

 

 

 

  Heart and Souls (1993):

The movie starts out by introducing us to the main characters who are still on this side of the world at this point.  Penny (Alfre Woodard) in a widowed mother struggling to take car of her kids. 

Harrison (Charles Grodin) is a man who wants to be a singer, but usually chickens out when he tries to audition and has never really tried. 

Milo is a thief who stole some valuable stamps from a kid and sold them to another guy, who may or may not be a mob guy,. (It is not actually stated as such but that's the impression I got) 

Wrapping it up is Julia (Kyra Sedgwick), a woman who is faced with making a decision to commit to a marriage with the man in her life, but is on the fence. 

Coupled with this are Frank and Eva Reilly (Bill Calvert and Lisa Lucas) who are expecting their first child. When it becomes evident that her time is due, Frank piles Eva into the car and races to the hospital.  Meanwhile all our main characters have boarded a trolley bus. The driver of the bus, Hal (David Paymer) is distracted by an amorous couple and ends up driving off a bridge, hitting the car that Frank is driving beforehand, the result of which causes Eva to have to give birth right then and there.  While Hal is immediately taken to Heaven, the four others end up being attached to the newborn baby, Thomas.

The four are not aware of why they have been put in this situation and end up staying with Thomas for the next 30+ years.  At the beginning they interact with Thomas who grows to love them, but realizing they are inhibiting him from becoming a normal kid they decide to disappear from his life. (How they figured out they could do that is never really explained.) So they are still stuck with him into adulthood, even though they can do nothing for him.

And at some point, even though they really don't want to, they decide they are doing more harm than good for the kid. So they tell Thomas they have to leave him. The kid is distraught, of course, and wants them to stay, but they do "disappear".  Of course, they are still there, just not present in his life.  After all, they still haven't discovered why they are attached to him in the first place.

Now it is years later. Thomas (Robert Downey, Jr) has grown up and is a ruthless business executive.  Julia and the rest are still hanging out, still unaware of what the point of it all is. (Imagine being tasked to accomplish something, not being told what that something is, and having to  spend 34 years not getting it done.)

Well that's all about to change.  Hal, the bus driver guilty of having caused all of their deaths has spent the past 34 years in a sort of Purgatory for his sins, being the ferry man (or trolley man, to be correct).  He returns to Earth because it is now time for Julia et. al. to make complete their journey. 

(Notice how I have encapsulated the four by just naming Julia? There's a reason for that. It simplifies things, for one, but also when I first saw this movie I developed a crush on actress Kyra Sedgwick.  She's still beautiful even today.)  

It turns out that the four had left this world with unfinished business, and God granted them a stay of execution to Heaven. They were supposed to use Thomas to help them clear up said business, either willingly, or if he refused, to inhabit his body and make him do it. (Now he tells them... .) Apparently God has a different ethical standard than you or me...at least different from me, anyway.

So now the four have the goals. For at least two of them, the goal is pretty clear.  Milo needs to retrieve the stamps he originally stole and deliver them to it's rightful owner.  Harrison (through his surrogate, anyway) needs to overcome his stage fright. (And what a way to do it... on stage at a B. B. King concert...) Penny, for her part, tries to discover what happened to her children.  Her two daughters are easy to find. Her little boy, Billy, is not so easy, as he was adopted but neither daughter knows what happened to him.

As a result of the indiscretions that Thomas (or really, the ghosts inhabiting Thomas' body) does, he is seemingly in constant contact with the police. And one policeman in particular, Sgt. William Barclay (Wren T. Brown) who collects for the parking  tickets Thomas has grown to collect over time. Barclay also  just happens to be on the scene when Thomas gets arrested exiting the stage after his impromptu singing at the B. B. King concert.

So what about Penny and her young son... ? Do I have to tell you who Sgt. William Barclay is (or was?)

The final soul left to rectify her past is Julia (hence another reason why I gelled the four ghosts...) It turns out however that when Julia left the bar and her boyfriend back in 1959, that the boyfriend had since died, having never married, and died a lonely broken man. Thomas is angry and yells at the trolley man (and God) about what kind of sadistic thing that was, but Julia sees it all in perspective and tells Thomas that the point was to make him a better man in his own romantic life. (Although how anyone could have foreseen that need is anybody's guess. Unless we are not the master's of our own destiny and it has all been played out in advance by the Supreme Being.  But that gets into a philosophical bent I'm sure the film makers never intended.)

Heart and Souls is not for everyone.  I feel certain that most of the guys who cringe at the idea of a "chick flick" will not be as enamored by it as I was, But it has some interesting things going for it.  It takes a full 30 minutes of the movie to get to the present, and another 10 minutes before the ghosts get active in their quest. However, there is one treat in that first 30 minutes that I would like to point out.  Julia works in a comedy bar. And on stage is one of the best comics of that era, Bob Newhart. (OK, so not THE Bob Newhart. It's actually his son, Robert William Newhart. But he is doing his father in such a great on the nose impression that for a minute or two I thought it actually was the real thing.  You have to be a fan of Newhart's stand-up  to catch it.  I recommend seeking out two albums that are ought there.)

But, anyway, the last 1 hour of the movie fairly fly by as pure entertainment, especially the scenes where Downey has to essay the character of the ghost who inhabits him at the moment. It's not on par with some of the other movies (or plays) I have seen where some actor has to pretend he is someone else in the same picture. (Face-Off comes to mind here, where Nicolas Cage has to convey that he has become John Travolta's character.) But Downey is pretty good at doing it. We have seen over the years what a great possibility that Downey can shine, given the right roles. 

To quote Ty Burr, a critic in Entertainment Weekly on this film: "You may hate yourself for liking [it], but at least you can take comfort in the fact that you've been had by professionals."  Trust me, its a decent date movie, even the guys might not be so turned off, especially with Kyra Sedgwick to look at, or to see a good portrayal by Downey in the lead role.  

Time to head home now.  I'll be extra careful when I see a bus coming the other way.

Quiggy

Alien Babes on the Beach

 

 

 

 

Beach Babes from Beyond (1993): 

 

Stallone! Swayze! Travolta! Estevez! See them all on one screen!  

Got your attention now?  A dream casting that no one has ever seen, you think?

Well, it's true.  However, those people you just thought of are NOT in the movie.  What you are really getting is:

Jackie Stallone (the mother of Sylvester).

Don Swayze (the brother of Patrick).

Joey Travolta (the brother of John). 

Joe Estevez (the uncle of Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen and brother to Martin Sheen).

Sorry to burst your bubble...

But you get a movie that asks the cosmic question "what would happen if aliens from outer space landed in the middle of a summer beach party?" (quoted from the movie trailer, by the way.  I don't claim credit there).

 

 

OK.  that said, this movie is NOT one I'd recommend.  To anyone over the age of 21 anyway. In 1993, even in my early 30's, the idea of a movie which basically had no plot except to sandwich between some soft core sex scenes was a bit beyond my tastes. In my 20's, maybe. I did watch a few late night movies on Showtime, which at least in the 80's did air some soft core porn.

And that's all this is, really.  A soft core porn movie with an intriguing idea for a plot if they had developed it as a straightforward movie, but they didn't.  

The basic plot is, if you are really interested (and have made it this far into the review) is that the parents (played by Don Swayze and Jackie Stallone) are on a trip to get away from it all leaving behind their young daughter (Nicole Posey).  The daughter, Sola, and two of her friends, Luna and Xena (played by Tamara Landry and Roxanne Blaze) hot wire Sola's father's T-Bird hot rod spaceship to head to a distant planet (called Beta 45, but we would know it as "Earth") to check out guys with "large cranial capacity" (yeah, right).

And they'll have fun, fun, fun 'til daddy takes the T-bird away. (Sorry, couldn't resist...)

Meanwhile, on Earth, best buds Dave and Jerry (Michael Todd Davis and Ken Steadman) hook up with Dave's uncle Bud (Joe Estevez), who has a knack for acquiring dilapidated beach houses which frequently get condemned.  The sub plot here is a bikini contest to save Bud's current domicile. And the alien girls are on board to help out.

Added in is Joey Travolta as a dispenser of healthy alternatives to standard beach fare at a beach snack food hut.

With all that, if this had been a straightforward film, even with the usual topless scenes of women that are bound to show up in these kinds of movies, I think this movie would have been at least interesting.  Unfortunately, because of the even more frequent soft core sex scenes, even I was turned off by it. Maybe if I seen it in 1993 wen it came out I might have been more receptive...

I can't help but wonder if the almost headliner names here, (Stallone, Swayze, Estevez and Travolta) even knew what the final goal was when they signed on.  (Burt Ward, Robin from the 60's Batman TV series is also in it).

If you decide to take a gamble on this there are a couple of sites online to watch it for free. I am not going to post even my usual marquee pic or the movie poster lest anyone get the idea this blog is going in an entirely new direction.  I still like some of the more risque types of movies, but I draw the line at recommending soft core porn.  I only add this because of the interesting aspect of casting the familiar family names that were the focus of the first 20 seconds of the movie trailer.

(Note: I can't even put up the movie trailer, even though the one I found is censored enough to not be too offensive. But if you are interested enough it's on YouTube. So is the movie if you're so inclined to check it out on your own.)

Back to more acceptable fare next time.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

Man on the Edge

This is my entry in the Unemployment Blogathon hosted by MovieMovieBlogBlogii

(Forenote on the title of this entry:  I came up with the title on my own.  But afterwards I found that it was not exactly original.  The heavy metal band Iron Maiden wrote a song called "Man on the Edge" released on the album The X Factor.  Since I am not an Iron Maiden fan, I had not heard the song.  It is based on the movie, however.  I was reluctant to change the title I had come up with.  As a consolation to Iron Maiden, though, I include here the lyrics to what is a pretty decent song:

The freeway is jammed and it's backed up for miles
This car is an oven and baking is wild
Nothing is ever the way it should be
What we deserve we don't get, you see

A briefcase, a lunch, and a man on the edge
Each step he's closer to losing his head
Is someone in heaven? Are they looking down?
Nothing is fair, you look around

Falling down

Lyrics:  Blaze Bayley, Janick Gers)

 So what would it take to send you over the edge?  Losing your job? Being stuck in a traffic jam with no AC in the middle of summer?  Having an ex-wife who refuses to let you see your daughter?  Or just the fact that society in general is falling apart at the seams?

The film Falling Down gives us a look at a man who has issues with all of the above.  William Foster is not really a bad man, but he is a bit mentally unstable even before society starts to Break down the breach of his defenses.

Michael Douglas stars as "D-Fens" (the name is what he is credited as in the movie, based on his car's  license plate, but he does have a name, William "Bill" Foster).  Five years earlier Douglas had won the Oscar for his role as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street.  He was not nominated for his role here, and I really couldn't switch places with any of the five nominees that year, but I think he does an spot-on job in the role.

The movie also stars Robert Duvall as Sgt. Prendergast, a man who is on his last day on the police force before his imminent retirement.  Duvall as Prendergast is a desk jockey, due to some event prior to the film which caused him, at the behest of his wife, to get off the streets.  He is the one who realizes there is a connection between several random incidents happen in a ghetto area of L.A.

Falling Down (1993):

It's hot.  Bill Foster (Michael Douglas) is stuck in a traffic jam.  His AC isn't working.  Finally something just snaps and he abandons his car in the middle of the road, telling a fellow frustrated driver that he is "going home."

Sgt. Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall) just happens to be in the same traffic jam.  He helps the police push Foster's abandoned car out f traffic, noting that the license plate is one of those vanity plates, with the name "D-FENS" on it.

We follow both characters as they progress through the day.  Prendergast ends up eventually at his desk in the police station, while Foster progresses across the low-rent neighborhoods of L.A.  Foster has a goal to reach the home of his ex-wife in time for his daughter's birthday party.

The first indication that something is really wrong with Foster comes early on as he tries to get change for a phone call.  (In case you are a product of the 21st century, there used to be pay phone booths were you could make phone calls...I don't know if there are any left anymore.  I haven't seen one in years.  To my American readers:  Have you seen one recently?))

The Korean store owner refuses to give Foster change, instead demanding that he buy something.  When Foster learns that his can of soda is going to cost him such a rate that will leave him with not enough change to make the phone call he initially wanted the change for he begins to rant about the injustice of the economy.  Foster relieves the storekeeper of his baseball bat that he pulled out to chase off Foster and uses it to smash several displays.

While sitting on the remains of a demolished building, Foster is accosted by two gang members who confront him about trespassing in their gang territory.  One of them pulls a switchblade, but Foster uses his newly acquired baseball bat and chases them off.  He trades the bat for the knife that the gang member dropped.

Not long after, the two gang members are cruising the streets with a couple of others in a car when they spot the offending Foster.   They attempt to perform a drive-by shooting, but only manage to either kill or wound several innocent bystanders.  And wreck their car.  Foster comes along and sees the carnage and takes their gym bag full of guns, leaving behind the knife.

Several events occur over the course of the film in which Foster becomes increasingly agitated over the state of affairs in society.  The most impressive scene (and one in which I can relate) is when he walks into a fast food restaurant wanting breakfast, only to be told that they are only serving lunch menu items now.  They stopped serving breakfast at 11:30.  (It's 11:33, according to Foster's watch.)

(I had a similar incident happen at a McDonald's some years back.  I wanted breakfast and because it was 5 minutes past the breakfast menu, they refused to sell me breakfast.  I, however, did not pull out a gun at my frustration.  I just went elsewhere, where I found a place that would serve me a breakfast.)

Back at the station, Prendergast is dealing with certain events that come up and putting two and two together eventually draws a connection to the abandoned car, the harassed storekeeper, the gangland shooting and the to-do at the fast food restaurant.  All the while dealing with his own connection to instability with a wife (Tuesday Weld) who is insistent that he come home and forget about his last day at work.

Prendergast runs into a bit of a brick wall because no one else will believe that the events are interconnected.  No one except his confidante in the force, Det. Sandra Torres (Rachel Ticotin).  With the help of Torres however, Prendergast ends up on the trail of Foster, whom he determines is trying to get to the home of his ex-wife.

A final confrontation between Foster and Prendergast occurs on the pier near the ex-wife's home.  And its not going to go down easy, although Foster can't believe that he is the "bad guy".  After all all he wanted to do was see his daughter and give her a birthday present.

I have to admit I can relate to Foster on some level.  He isn't really a bad guy.  After all, he only really kills one person in the film and that is a guy that most of us probably wouldn't feel much compassion for in the first place, whether or not we can agree to the self-appointed execution of him by Foster.  Really, Foster is just a man who has become disgusted with the way society seems to be crumbling around him.  He just takes it to another level that most of us would not.


The film got a lot of good reviews at the time it came out, although there were a few dissenting views.  Most of those, as you can probably guess, disparaged the vigilante theme of the movie.  One can't help but think of parallels between it and Death Wish, although I think Paul Kersey kept his head for the most part in that film, even if he did kill more people.

Well folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth.  Fortunately, my AC works.  Drive home safely.

Quiggy

The Boys of Summer

This is my entry in the Box Office Jocks Blogathon hosted by Dubism and Return to the 80's

When it comes to movies about sports, second only to football, for me, is baseball.  Known as "America's pastime, baseball has a history that dates back to before any of you were even born.  And it even has enjoyed a heyday when even football was just the new upstart on the block.  Baseball was more commonly referenced in the 40's and 50's on old radio shows which I think proves it being more popular and well-known than football in it's day.

You gotta admit that if you ask someone to name the greatest sports players of all time, many on the list will be baseball players.  Just off the top of my head I think of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and from my own childhood and adult years, Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Roger Clemens, etc.

The baseball phenomenon may have diminished some in the years (I guess it depends on who you ask), but a baseball game is still the highlight of a kid's life.  Even an adult's life.  I, for one, never got to see a professional baseball game until I was in my 40's, but I can still fondly remember going to see my beloved Houston Astros take on the hated in-state rival Texas Rangers.  (This was when the Astros were still in the National League, so a match-up between the two was a rarity by comparison to today when they are both in the same division of the American League).

Major League (1989) and Major League II (1993):

In 1954 the Cleveland Indians won 111 games, a record that stood for 40+ years as the most wins for an American League team, and went to the World Series (where they lost to the New York Giants).  By 1960, the Indians had started on a downward spiral.  By 1989, the time of this movie, the Indians had been in a slump never finishing better than fourth in the AL.  (Note: For many of those years there were only two divisions in the AL,unlike the three in modern days, but still, 4th wasn't all that great, but at least they weren't in the "cellar" those years).

For the 1989 season, Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) the widow and new owner of the Indians, has a dynamic plan.  A spoiled rotten former Las Vegas showgirl, she wants to move the team to Florida.  But the city of Cleveland has a contract with the team and a move is pretty much impossible.  But she has found a clause in the contract that will allow her to declare it null and void if attendance for games falls below 800,000 for the season.  So she plans to get a bunch of losers and has-beens to be on the team, thus, hopefully finishing "dead last" in the league.

Rachel Phelps

To do this requires pulling in a bunch of misfits.  Along with an aging catcher, Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) , a pitcher whose better days were in the past, Eddie Harris (Chelcie Ross) and a pretty boy dilettante shortstop, Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen),  she has the team send out invitations to some pretty low rent candidates.  These include a voodoo enthusiast hitter named Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) and a pitcher with a wild and uncontrollable fast ball Rick Vaughn (Charlie Sheen).  Vaughn, by the way, has come from a prior position as a pitcher on the California Penal League.  He was arrested for stealing a car.  Added into the mix is another hitter who thinks more of his ability than he really has, Willie Mays Hays (Wesley Snipes).  To manage the team, they get a guy whose only experience has been coaching minor league teams, Lou Brown (James Gammon),

Roger Dorn, Rick Vaughn and Jake Taylor

(L-R) ???, Pedro Cerrano, Willie Mays Hays and Eddie Harris

With this lineup, the perennial seem destined to fulfill Rachel's dreams.  The early season plays a bit like a scene from the Keystone Kops.  Errors abound.  The team slumps.  But they are sticking to the middle of the pack in the standings.  So Rachel starts to take away some of the more privileged amenities from the team to induce them to play bad.  Like hot water in the showers.  And subsiting a twin engine prop plane for the egregious jet to take the team on road trips (and then, that failing, making them ride a bus).

When Rachel's plan becomes apparent, Brown finds the motivation for the team.  If they improve enough to win the AL division series her hopes will be dashed.  And, of course, they proceed to try to get better as a result.  Spoiler alert! If you want to watch this movie and the sequel first, you should skip down to the part where I talk about Harry Doyle.

Of course, the Indians do win the division series.  Flash forward to the events of the sequel, Major League II.  In this film, the Indians had gone on to the AL championship series, but lost to the Chicago White Sox.  Now they are trying to mount another attack on the ultimate prize, a trip to the World Series.  Fortunately for the team, Rachel sold the team to Roger Dorn, so she is no longer a problem to the team.

But unfortunately, in the interim, many of the team players have become somewhat of a dilettante bunch themselves.  In particular, the ace pitcher, Vaughn (who had been known as "Wild Thing") is in a slump.   Much of this seems to be attributed to the fact that he has renounced his wild image and become more sedate in his lifestyle.  The rest of the cast has also let stardom go to their heads.  All except Cerrano, who has become even more devout, but this time has added Buddhism to his repertoire.

The team starts to slump again, and worse, Dorn is in bad financial straits and has to sell the team back to Rachel. That plus the loss of a major star hitter,  Jack Parkman (David Keith), who left the team to join the rival White Sox.  So what motivates the team to mount another attack?  Well, initially it's the heart attack that Lou suffers.  (No, he doesn't die...this ain't Rocky III...)

In both movies there is a side love story going on.  In Major League, Taylor tries to get back with his ex-wife, with whom he still retains a love, despite his amorous adventures he had both while married and now as a divorced man.  And in Major League II, the focal point is on Vaughn, who has a relationship with his manager, Rebecca Flannery (Allison Doody), but is still in love with his former girlfriend, Nicki (Michelle Burke).

Another cast member that shines is Randy Quaid as a fan of the Indians who initially is optimistic about the teams chances, but grows increasingly disgruntled, even alienating his seatmates to the point where they relegate him to a seat by himself in the nosebleed section of the outfield.


 Harry Doyle:

One of the highlights of both films is Harry Doyle (Bob Uecker), the play-by-play announcer for the Indians radio broadcast.  Harry tries to rally the fans, despite the Keystone Kops antics of the team.

"Juuuuuuuuuuuuuust a bit outside!" (said after a wild pitch by Vaughn that misses the batter's box by a mile.)

"This guy threw at his own son in a father-son game."

"Heywood leads the league in most offensive categories, including nose hair."

"Well, the Indians have a runner, I think I'll wet my pants."

"We've got a real nail biter, here, folks.  It's a lot closer than the 11-2 score."

And by far my favorite, an exchange between Doyle and his color man:

"One hit???  That's all we got is one goddamn hit?"
"Harry, you can't say 'goddamn' on the air."
"Ah, don't worry about it.  Nobody's listening anyway."

Bob Uecker has had a great life, if you ask me.  He played baseball for real back in the 60's, playing for five years, and holding what I think is still the record for the lowest batting average for a career (.200).  To his credit, however he was a great defensive player in his position as a catcher.

Uecker moved from the playing field to become a broadcast announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers, and also being a color man on national TV broadcasts.  But it his frequent role in Miller Lite commercials in the late 70's and early 80's is probably what he is most remembered, especially for folks in my age bracket.  That exposure lead to a TV series, Mr. Belvedere, in which he played a sportscaster who  hires the titular character to be a butler for his family.  And, BTW, to his role in the Major League movies.  (No, despite the fact that he had been a broadcaster, it was his performance in the commercials that got the attention of the producers of the movies.)

Uecker has written two autobiographies.  The first one, Catcher in the Wry, is a hoot.  You really get an idea of what a consummate comedian he would have made had he chosen that outlet instead of baseball.  I haven't come across the second one, Catch 222, but I imagine it's probably pretty good.

Is This Day Never Gonna End?

This is my entry in the Year After Year Blogathon hosted by Movie Movie Blog Blog

"Well, what if there is no tomorrow?  There wasn't one today!" -Phil Connors

What if tomorrow never came?  How would you cope with it? What if you woke up this morning, and you were reliving the same events, over and over and over and over again?

Sorry, you can't pick the best day of your life and just relive those events for eternity (otherwise I'd opt for Nov. 15, 1985 and just endlessly go to the Cowboys-Bears game that was played that day, and laugh uproariously as the Cowboys get shellacked by the Bears 44-0.  But even that would get boring after a year or two.)

No, it's just a random day in your life.  And to top it off, you are stuck in a town you don't particularly like.  And the people in the town are celebrating a holiday that you just can't stand.  What if you had to live on that day for the rest of eternity.  Not just the rest of your life, because you aren't going to grow older.  If you woke up the day before your 40th birthday this morning, tomorrow it would still be the day before your 40th birthday and on and on forever.

This is the concept that Danny Rubin came up with one day while trying to come up with a script idea that could get his foot in the door in Hollywood.  He first had the day established as just a day in late January, but then hit on the idea of establishing the event that transformed Phil Connors' life as February 2, Groundhog Day.  This idea had some appeal because if it actually did get filmed it would have it's own annual tradition already set in, much like Miracle on 34th Street or A Christmas Carol have become an annual tradition on another holiday


Several changes occurred from the first draft of the script to the final finished film.  First, in the original draft, we would have seen the beginning of the movie as Phil is already trapped in the endless time loop in the middle of the time loop with no indication of why he has been subjected to the time loop.  After studios balked at this idea (although director Harold Ramis liked the concept), Rubin added a scene where Phil broke up with his current girlfriend who cursed him with a spell.  But Rubin was never really satisfied with this.

Eventually we got the finished script that we can see today.  One notably trivia piece is that both Tom Hanks and Michael Keaton were  approached to play the role of Phil Connors.  Hanks didn't think he could pull off the asshole Phil convincingly enough because he thought his audience would expect him to be nice, and Keaton just didn't understand the concept.  (He has later admitted he regretted the decision).

By the way:  The movie was actually filmed in Illinois.  It turns out that the real Punxutawney didn't have the right feel for those involved in producing the movie and so the town of Woodstock, Illinois substitutes  for the legendary town.

So how long does Phil live in this endless loop?  Estimates have ranged from 10-10,000 years.  In order for Phil to go from being confused to desperate to complacent in his predicament, and in order for him to eventually become a consummate artist and musician (which he does by the end of the movie), a good estimate is somewhere around 34 years, according to a website I looked at.  

Groundhog Day (1993):

The movie establishes what a jerk Phil Connors (Bill Murray). a weatherman on a Pittsburgh TV station, is early on.  He is rude and sarcastic to just about everyone, including his news broadcast co-host, his cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot) and his new producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell).  Phil is scheduled to go on a remote to Punxutawney to cover the groundhog celebration and his distaste for it is evident.

Connors is set up in a bed and breakfast house because he refuses to stay in the local hotel and wakes up to the fading sound of the Sonny & Cher song "I Got You, Babe", and a pair of D.J.s telling him to put on his booties because "Its COLD out there!"  He goes down to the groundhog celebration, running into several recurring characters in the process, including the overly enthusiastic Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky), with whom Phil had gone to high school.

At the groundhog shindig, Connors continues his disgruntled demeanor, causing both Rita and Larry to confer that he is a "prima donna".  They leave Punxutawney to return to Pittsburgh, but the blizzard that Phil had confidently claimed would bypass Pittsburgh hits, forcing them to return to Punxutawney.  Connors reclaims his room at the B&B and goes off to sleep.

Upon awakening, the first indication that something is amiss is that the radio wakes him with the same fade out from "I Got You, Babe" and the same D.J.s telling him "It's COLD out there!"  Unfortunately for Phil this is the beginning of a nightmare, because he seems to be stuck in repeating the same day he had just lived through yesterday.

And it's not over yet.  Because the next day he wakes up again to the same radio and meeting the same people.  Phil doesn't really know how to react to this, but eventually he begins to try to explain to Rita what seems to be happening to him.   Of course, she thinks he's nuts or at least just overworked because neither she nor anyone else for that matter is aware of the time loop.

Eventually Phil starts to be Phil and use the inconvenience to his own advantage.  At one point he takes advantage of a lapse of attention to steal a bag of money from an armored truck.  He finds an attractive woman and learns a few details about her so that during the next cycle he can seduce her.  But even this becomes boring after a while.  He then goes through a period where he just wants to end it all.  But even suicide is not an option, because the next morning he still finds himself waking up to those same fading strains of "I Got You, Babe".

Over and over again Phil tries to find ways to improve upon his lot.  His driving passion becomes one to get Rita in bed, and he spends several episodes gradually learning things about her in order to get her to fall in love with him.  But Phil is still learning how to be a decent human being and his lessons don't seem to be cracking through that thick skull.

Phil finally starts to get the idea that he can use the situation to improve himself and learns how to play the piano and become an expert at ice sculpture, among other things.  And finally, he learns to be a decent human being.  But will it be enough to get him out of the time loop?

The movie has some great comedic moments, but it works better as a sort of bizarre romantic comedy.  Phil's efforts to get into Rita's panties transform from just crude sexual desire to an honest effort to get her to love him for whom he is (or for whom he has become through the endless time loop).

Well folks, its time to fire up the old Plymouth again (Say, haven't I said that before...?)  Drive safely, folks.  (That, too...? Hmmm.)

Quiggy

Life in the City

My friend, Chris, (Angelman @ Angelman's Place) turned me on to this series. I had seen it in the racks at the library, but it didn't attract my attention, mainly because the title (and the spine of the DVD box) didn't reach out and slap me.  (I admit I have sometimes checked out movies just because the DVD box's spine looked cool.  What can I say...)

Tales of the City is based on a series of articles written by Armistead Maupin. originally written for The San Francisco Chronicle.  It covered the lives of several fictional characters, based on Maupin's experiences, living in San Francisco in the late 70's.  The articles were collected and edited into a novel also titled "Tales of the City".  Maupin went on to write a total of 9 novels (so far) surrounding the characters he created for the original series.

San Francisco, in 1976 at least, was the gay capital of the United States.  More or less.  As a young adult in the 70's I saw the parody of that idea.  Talk show comedians and hosts pounded the point home in their monologues all the time.  Of course, I have never been that far west in my life, so I only know from what I see on TV, but it probably is significant that the first openly gay politician, Harvey Milk, was from San Francisco.

Tales of the City (1993):


The series opens as we look in upon a phone conversation between Mary Ann Singleton and her mother.  Mary Ann has decided to become independent (and at age 25, it's probably about time, but her mother is reluctant to untie the apron strings...)


Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) is perhaps the most naive and inexperienced person I have ever seen in film.  I thought of Candide, the novel by French author Voltaire, which was about a similar type of character experiencing the world outside his own rather narrow view.  She is from Cleveland, on vacation in San Francisco in 1976 and has decided to stay in San Francisco permanently.

Mary Ann

I get the feeling that she never saw drugs in Cleveland, nor any gay people, because she reacts with shock when she encounters both within her first few days as a permanent resident.  I also got an idea that she may even still be a virgin, although she is 25 and that seems highly unlikely given the time frame of the film.  She certainly seems to have never met the kind of guys she meets at the bar.  These are guys who must have religiously read a pamphlet called "How to Pick Up Women", a pamphlet that was advertised in men's magazines in the day.

Initially Mary Ann goes to live with Connie Bradshaw (Parker Posey).  Connie is a friend from Mary Ann's high school who has been living in SF for some time previously.  But Connie's freely sexual lifestyle is the exact opposite of Mary Ann's.  Plus Mary Ann wants to be a bit more independent, so she goes apartment hunting.

Connie

She ends up at a boarding house owned by Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis).  Anna is a free spirit from an earlier age.  (It turns out she also harbors a dark secret, which I won't reveal, but will say it would have been shocking at the time, although not so much in today's age.)  Anna grows her own marijuana on the premises which she distributes to her tenants freely.  (No that's not the dark secret...)  I think Anna is kind of like a god in her own little realm of 28 Barbary Lane, the location of her rooming house.  She certainly seems to have a second sense of what is going on in the lives of her tenants, anyway.

Her other tenants include Mona Ramsey (Chloe Webb), a latter-day hippie who works as an ad consultant for Edgar Halcyon (Donald Moffatt), an advertising exec, and the one for whom Mary Ann eventually starts working a a secretary.  Also living in the building ids Brian Hawkins (Paul Gross), a womanizer whose only goal seems to be getting in the sack with every woman he meets.

Mona (with Michael)

Edgar Halcyon

Brian (with Michael)

Halcyon has a daughter, DeeDee Halcyon Day (Barbara Garrick), who is married to Beauchamp Day (Thomas Gibson), Edgar's second-in-command at Halcyon and a man who can't commit to one woman, even if that woman s his boss' daughter and his wife.  Beauchamp sleeps around on DeeDee, and even beds Mary Ann at one point.  He is the second most unsympathetic character in this film, in my opinion.  Even if DeeDee is somewhat of a harridan, that's no excuse for not staying commited to your marriage.

DeeDee and Beauchamp (with a friend)

Rounding out the core cast is Michael Tolliver (Marcus D'Amico), who often goes by the name "Mouse".  Michael is gay.  His romantic relationships always seem to fall though.  But he is happy-go-lucky most of the time.  It was he and his then partner whom were the first gay men Mary Ann met early in the film. Early on, Mouse's relationship with his partner goes into the dumpster so he ends up rooming with his best friend, who just happens to be Mona.

Michael (again)

Over the course of the series relationships develop. And sometimes deteriorate.  Mouse meets a new lover, Dr. John Fielding (William Campbell).  But the doctor is a bit out of his league socially.  John takes Michael to a private party hosted by some rich gays.   These guys are rich, elitist, and entirely prejudiced against the lower class gay people.  (Gay Republicans?  Is there such a thing?)  The cadre of friends include characters who are played by Ian McKellen, Bob Mackie, Paul Bartel and Lance Loud.

Dr. John

Mona, it turns out, has a former lover, D'orothea Wilson (Cynthia Williams).  D'orothea has a secret of her own. (Of course she does... didn't I say this is basically a soap opera?)  Mona ends up moving out of Barbary Lane, to the disappointent of Michael who had just moved in with her, as well as the extreme disappoint of Mrs.Madrigal.

Mary Ann takes on a part time job as a volunteer for a suicide hotline, where she befiends the somewhat unstable operator of the hotline, Vincent (John Fleck).  Vincent has problems of his own, mainly that he is dealing with the loss of his wife, who left him.

Living in the "penthouse" above Barbary Lane is Norman Neal Williams (Stanley DeSantis), a shy overweight older man with whom Mary Ann develops a platonic (to her) relationship.  But it turns out that Norman has the biggest dark secret of all, which leads to one of the biggest "didn't see that coming" moments of my film watching career.

But the main story line, aside from Mary Ann's trip from innocence to experience would be the relationship that Edgar Halcyon develops with Anna Madrigal.  Edgar is dying and has been given only six months to live by his doctor.  He ends up meeting Anna in the park and they discover they have a common past.  From this develops a blossoming relationship, only encouraged by the loveless marriage Edgar has with his wife.

This film is so much like a soap opera.  Everybody is connected to everybody else.  I never was much for soap operas.  I briefly watched General Hospital back in the 80's but after three months I stopped, it just wasn't my cup of tea.  Despite that fact,  this big budget "soap opera" intrigues me.  I actually care about the characters. And to be honest, I actually cried at a couple of the developments.  (I wanted so much for things to work out for Michael.  I felt something of a kindred spirit for the guy.)

To the faint of heart:  Be forewarned, there is some nudity in this.  Enough so that the ultra right wing Moral Majority blew a fuse when it aired on PBS.  It was a point of contention in the often fought battle to curb public funding to people who don't stick to the rules of common decency, or common decency as it is viewed by the fundamentalist sect of the Religious Right anyway.  But it is mostly topless women and a few bare asses.  In other words, there are no dangling participles in this film.




Quiggy