Conference bookie::movies

    I have a computer adventure game that bombs out whenever you try to use
    a "save game" feature.  It is very frustrating, and it means that you
    have to start everything over again every time you play.  I finally
    gave up playing.

    Watching this movie reminded me of that--nothing that Bill Murray did
    was remembered by anyone else when he relived the same day over and
    over again.  The frustration of that feeling was captured beautifully,
    as well as the way that he continued to deal with that problem.  The
    film advanced (despite the infinite loop of the plot) in very creative
    ways, and it was also quite funny.  I really enjoyed this movie.

    3.5 stars out of 4.

    -- Mike

	Just caught this one too.  I must warn you that this starts
	out kind of slow and repeatative like his last movie
	("What About Bob") but then picks up steam and turns out
	out to be a very creative and original film.

    Siskel & Ebert both liked it.  The clips they showed made me more
    inclined to see it, now that I realize it's not a sequel to
    "Caddyshack".
    

re              <<< Note 33.3 by 3270::AHERN "Dennis the Menace" >>>

  >  Siskel & Ebert both liked it.  The clips they showed made me more
  >  inclined to see it, now that I realize it's not a sequel to
  >  "Caddyshack".
   
I enjoyed most of the movie, but I think it was a tad too long. The editing 
gave the impression that Murray's character lived through the day several times
just getting information to get laid. It took him a looooonngg time to get to
the next day.

Regards
Barry  

    Spoiler response
    
    
>The editing 
>gave the impression that Murray's character lived through the day several times
>just getting information to get laid. 
    
    It gave that impression because that's precisely what he did.  
    
    -- Mike

    The jokes are iffy and they're directed without much oomph but that
    only matters for the first 15 minutes or so.  Once the concept kicks
    in, all they have to do is get out of its way. 
    
    May be the dumbest film in years to make me think so much.  In other
    words, Hollywood at its best.
    
    Ray

I too enjoyed the movie greatly, but found one plot point that
disturbed me a bit as I was thinking about it in the shower this
morning (sign of a good movie: you keep thinking about it, even when
you saw 8 other movies after it).  It involves the ending, so I'll put
in a spoiler warning here.




I found it mildly disturbing that the only way Andie MacDowell's
character could love Murray's character was for him to become so sweet
and charming that *everyone* loved him, which to me suggests she has
impossibly high standards, and is headed for certain disappointment;
while his character *has* become more lovable, he couldn't possibly be
as kind on any other day, or even any other accumulation of days.  In a
sense, this is almost as false as the first time he gets her up in his
room by trickery.

>    The jokes are iffy and they're directed without much oomph
    
    A friend who saw the movie with me pointed out that the flatness of the
    jokes actually worked as characterization.  She'd always been annoyed
    by the glib shallowness of the young Bill Murray and figured that this
    movie opened with a truthfully middle-aged version of the character:
    tired, more obnoxious than amusing, like a dried-up old junkie with a
    $200-a-day knee-jerk cynicism jones.
    
    Thinking it over, I agree with her.  Of course Harold Ramis undoubtedly
    _thought_ he was being funny but I'm not about to start taking the
    artist's intentions into account this late in the critical game.
    
    Ray

    Yep, a fun flick with a nicely nightmarish undercurrent. [The
    video-game comparison is very apt indeed - I could feel him trying to
    work out the optimum set of "moves" to take him through the day. And
    without notes, too!]
    
    Favorite quote: "What if there's no tomorrow? There wasn't one 
    today..."
    
    -b

    Eh.
    
    A short I saw on Showtime or HBO or something like that handled the
    whole concept a lot better.
    
    That aside, I was disappointed.  Well, not terrifically since I don't
    usually hold out too much hope for Bill Murray films (which are
    terribly uneven), and I guess I've outgrown the
    smart-ass-cynic-who-always-gets-the-girl-anyway type that Murray seems
    to play.  For smart ass cynics, I prefer Bugs Bunny, but that's neither
    here nor there at the moment.  :)
    
    Anyway, removing my neutral feelings about Murray, my general apathy
    for Andie McDowell's patented wood-like realism, and the rather
    inexplicable solution to the plotline, there was the makings of an
    interesting movie in there somewhere, but it just didn't execute.  It 
    wasn't funny enough to be a comedy, and skimmed over the nightmarish 
    quality of living one day of your life over and over again to make it a 
    neat psych-study of a man doomed to eternity in one small town.  I didn't 
    buy the love story, and agree 100% with whomever said that her standards 
    were impossibly high.  She didn't want a boyfriend, she wanted God. 
    
    The stuff that WAS good -- "Sometimes, people just die" -- were barely
    touched on and stumbled over to get to the next joke and/or sappy part.
    
    Then again, if you like Bill Murray better than I, you would probably
    find this worth a $6.50 ticket.  For those who are 50/50, I would
    recommend catching it at a cheap ticket time/theatre, or waiting for
    video.
    
    **.5 out of ****
    
    kim  

    re: .0
    
    Andie Mcdowell.
    
    I watched her movie "The Object Of Beauty" with John Malkivich. I loved
    the movie and I loved her and John's acting. She is beautiful too. This
    is just my opinion.
    
    Bharat

    I was dissapointed by this.  I just didn't find it as funny as I
    expected to, and I usually like Bill Murray.  
    
    I thought the best part of the movie was the stained glass windows in
    the bed and breakfast place he stayed at.
    
    Lorna
    

    Didn't anybody love the groudhog? I mean, he looked so EVIL in
    the truck! It was great.
    
    (Apparently the cast HATED the groundhog by the end of the film -
    it looks kind of cuddly, but it is really a nasty rodent....)
    
    The best part for me was reading the credits - Phil the Groundhog
    was played by "Scooter" - this was perfect to me because my fat,
    slovenly, sometimes vaguely evil kitty is named Scooter.
    
    helen

    I liked the movie, i liked Bill Murray and I liked the Groundhog !
    
    One of the best comedies for a long time.
    
    Andrea

    
    My favourite scene was the one with the toaster...  It's a while since
    I've laughed so much...
    
    Graham

    Loved it.  Seems the girls hated it though.  George and I were rolling
    with laughter while the two slept inbetween.  (Maybe the 11:00 was too
    late?)
    
Spoilers follow....                                                        
    
    I loved when Bill jumped out of the Mercedes dressed as Clint Eastwood.

    I also loved the different ways he handled needle-head (BING!) and how
    he tried to recreate the one date that did go well, the second time and
    could not get it right again.

    He decides to kill the ground hog to end everything, but comes right
    back to the "I got you babe", tune.

    (Did anyone notice that the movie went on, at one point, beyond his
    suicide?  For some reason they filmed him on a slab at the morgue after
    he jumped out of the window...  That was the only part of the movie I
    didn't understand its purpose or rational...)

    He finally started to enjoy things he was walking right by after he got
    his kicks out of his system.  (This was the main morale of the movie to me) 
    When Phil/Bill was reading at the shop and noticed the classical music.

    Goes to show that, within some seemingly confined areas, there is allot
    to explore.  (Thats how I saw it, anyway)

    Great movie.   4.5 outta 5

Continuing after he's laid out:  I think that was intended to show
that, while he could die within a given day, when the day ended, he was
right back where he started.  At one point he enumerates all the ways
he has died.  Or am I answering the wrong question?

    No that's it.  

    It seemed the whole movie had Phil at the center of his own universe.

    semi-spoilers
    
    Everything revolved around his consciousness.

    He kept on waking up a 6:00am.  Once he fell asleep or died, everything
    would start right back over again, at 6:00am.

    The only time this didn't happen was when the world keep on going after
    the Phil character was dead from jumping off the building.

    But I'm probably making too much of the scene.  I think it was designed
    to show the apathy of the other characters toward his death.  (i.e.,
    he was too loved)

    A dern good little movie. I guess I really didn't give it too much deep
    thought. I just enjoyed the interesting plot twist so much.
    
    Bill Murray was funny again (and it really has been a while).
    
    Curt

    RE: .19  by 16821::VETEIKIS 
    
    >A dern good little movie. I guess I really didn't give it too much deep
    
    I didn't know Dern was in it, Laura or Bruce?
    

    
    Saw this on video yesterday.  An exhausting, boring movie to watch.
    I found it lacking in humor, loooooooonggg and dragged out.  Can't for
    the life of me understand why this movie received all of the great 
    reviews I'd heard for it when it was released.  My wife thought it was
    basically like a Scrooge movie.
    
    Lv

    I had the exact opposite reaction, perhaps becaue I wasn't expecting
    much.  I enjoyed it, though one has to be a Bill Murray fan, granted.
    I liked how his character changed over the course of time.
    Though it was never explained how or why he got stuck in the time
    warp, at the end it didn't matter.
    
    Richard
    

    
    i think i've inadvertently seen this movie about 3 times, yet each
    time i liked it more than the last. definitely worth giving a try.
    

    re .23, yawn.  :^)
    
    I'd go nuts if I had to watch this loser a second time.
    
    Lorna
    

    
    >i think i've inadvertently seen this movie about 3 times, yet each
    >time i liked it more than the last. definitely worth giving a try.
    
    
    	Maybe you're stuck in some kind of a loop.
    
    	8^)
    
    							GTI

    re .25 maybe *that's* why Joe plays the piano so well!  :-)
    
    Lorna
    

    I liked it at first, and have seen it a few times since.  I actually
    liked it better each time I've seen it.
    
    (I think I keep picking up on some very subtle things that are missed,
    but pretty funny)

My wife and I liked this movie much more than we thought we would.  I like
Bill Murray generally and my wife likes him only moderately.  But what 
made this film for us is the way he explores every possible choice.

It reminded me of the 5 stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression 
and acceptance.  The first day he is in denial, then he gets angry (when he
seduces the girl in the restaraunt, when he stuffs himself with all of the
fattening foods, and later when he tries to seduce Andie McDowell), the
bargaining is during the more anti-social activities (robbing the Brinks
truck, some of his more spectacular suicides), depression is when he just 
rolls over and goes back to sleep, and finally acceptance.

That is when he starts to wander around town and really see it, and when he
begins practicing the piano and learn languages and read books, etc.  He
sees the chance to spend the time doing something enjoyable and productive,
even if it is something frivolous like flipping playing cards into a hat.

To me that was the best part of the movie: not the slapstick at the start
(though dealing with the insurance salesman was funny), but seeing how you
could improve the situation to get what you thought you wanted.  Look at
how many times Andie McDowell slapped him: he must have tried dozens of
times before giving up.

All in all, better than we thought it would be, and a reasonable treatment 
of one of my favorite topics: time travel.

-- Ken Moreau

  Being the skinflint that I am, I waited until this movie showed up on broad-
cast TV to watch it.
  I haven't read all the replies, but here are some thoughts.
  I liked the various ways he handled the situation he was in, and how he 
evolved into doing random acts of kindness. However, I expected that "something"
was going to happen to get him out of the time loop. That he simply got out of
the loop one day without anything spectacular happening kind of disappointed me.
  He had no way of knowing when he would get out of the loop. Lucky the loop
didn't end on the day of one of his "suicides".
  I too am interested in time travel, but I'm more interested in the "science"
part of it. I think Star Trek: The Next Generation did the "time loop" thing
much better in the episode where the spaceships kept colliding with each other.
In that case there was a specific event that put them into the time loop, and
another specific event that got them out of it.

    
    	Did you ever see the made-for-TV [or cable] "12:01"?
    
    	Same idea, but done much better, IMO.
    

    
    	Take a look at notes 237 and 646.
    
    	[Some bozo started 2 notes for the same movie.]
    

> Lucky the loop didn't end on the day of one of his "suicides".

    Hardly "lucky". The basic premise of this movie is that this is not  a
    random event, but a lesson, arranged for him by some unidentified
    Cosmic Moral Force. Isn't it? He gets out when he learns his lesson
    completely.

    The logic of this movie is internally consistent and cleverly applied. I'm
    amazed you want to apply scientific logic to what is essentially a morality
    play that turns around a fantasy event. Would you compare "It's A Wonderful
    Life" to Star Trek and conclude Star Trek was superior because it treats
    alternative universes more scientifically?

    John
    

    RE: .31  ("12:01")
    
    Discussion of "12:01" has been consolidated into Topic 237.
    
    - Dave, yer mod

    When I saw Groundhog Day originally, I went with a bunch of programmers
    from the office. One of them summed it up by saying "Gee, that guy got
    a chance to *debug* his life." All of the iterations, incremental steps
    forward, and dead ends (pun intended) reminded him of debugging code.
    
    It would be really interesting to see someone take up the "infinite
    loop" idea and play to the darker side. What would a human being
    *really* do if they knew that they would be "forgiven" and get to
    start all over the next day. I doubt that the major studios would
    touch something like that, but given the success of Tarantino's
    work and other over-the-top movies like "Natural Born Killers",
    maybe an indie would do it.
    
    Geoff

    > The basic premise of this movie is that this is not  a
    > random event, but a lesson, arranged for him by some unidentified
    > Cosmic Moral Force.
    
    I didn't get that premise from the movie itself but from the previews.
    The voice-over had a line to the effect that he was stuck living the
    same day over and over "until he gets it right".
    
    Interesting that the alarm clock in the movie posters was an
    old-fashioned clock with hands and bells on top, but the clock in the
    movie was digital.
    			Jim
    

	FWIW, I just recently read a newspaper articile that said that
	a judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed against this movie for
	supposedly ripping off this guys book that has a similiar theme
	(of someone repeating the same day over and over again).

	The judge ruled 1st that the idea is not copyrightable, and 2nd,
	there was lots of differences between this persons book and the
	movie.