 I thought I'd wrap up the month of February's Screening Suggestions somewhat appropriately, covering a film that takes place at the beginning of February, directed by the great Harold Ramis, who sadly passed six years ago, just yesterday. This is a title that hardly needs an introduction, and ends up on a lot of favourite lists. I once considered this one to be good, but slightly overrated, and didn't quite get what made it so special. Nowadays, however, it's easier to shed a positive light on it when the core themes really start to click with my adult mind.
We meet Phil Conners (Bill Murray) who works as a weatherman for the Pittsburgh station, WPBH-TV. Generally seen as cynical and egotistical, he reluctantly works a job in the small, real-life town of Punxutawney, Pennsylvania. Here, with his crew consisting of the station's new producer, the beautiful Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman, Larry (Chris Elliot), they cover the February 2nd Groundhog Day Festival. Being that this is his fourth time covering the same fluff story, Phil wants to be in and out of the town quickly. But the weather has different plans, and a blizzard snows them in town for the night. Upon waking up at his bed and breakfast on what he believes to be the next day, Phil soon realizes that he's reliving the same day. Passing it off as a bad case of déjà vu at first, he wakes up on the same day again, and again. Realizing this, he first sees it as a gift where he can get away with anything without having to suffer any consequences, but soon finds his lows when he sees the day inescapable and hopeless. Soon enough, he falls for Rita, and uses his constant time loop to do anything in his power to impress her and win her over. With this, he often learns the hard way that actions have consequences. Each day, he goes about things in different ways, learning what works and what doesn't. This curse to repeat the same day, multiple times with multiple outcomes, also ends up being a gift. With it, he can learn a lot, not only from his mistakes, but how some simple decisions can turn a horrible day into a fantastic day, and that's the real takeaway from this. Speaking personally, I find this to be a big lesson for how to live your best life. This starts out being a horrible day for Phil, but as he repeats it, he gets to know the people of the town, Rita, Larry, and even himself. I also take it as a great appreciation for something along the lines of the multiverse, and could see this as Phil living the same day in a different universe every time he wakes up - every universe being a new opportunity, and every decision he makes creating a new reality for him to wake up to. That's just a consideration. There's nothing wrong with the idea of a time loop, if you prefer. Either way, the point that your decisions can influence your happiness is there and clear. And so, we wrap up the feel-good month of February on a high note. The more I see this movie, the more I like what it's trying to do. In it's own way, the story is completely timeless, and even for a 1993 movie, it works very well today. The time loop's estimate is debatable, but coming from Ramis, himself, he mentions it spanning anywhere from 10 to 40 years. In the spiritual sense, he could be stuck in this loop for a full 10,000 years in relation to the Buddhist culture, which suggests it takes that long for the soul to evolve to its next level. So it's honestly anybody's guess, but I feel like 10,000 years must be a stretch to get one day perfect. In the end, the mere hour and 40 minutes the film takes to tell the story is all that's needed. This is one for the soul, especially on one of those bad days. Remember, we get tomorrow to improve ourselves, and this is a film that begs us not to take such things for granted.
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 I tend to give a lot of credit to any actor who can embrace their inner child to actually play a child, and play it well. Robin Williams tends to come to mind when he pulls it off in 'Jack' (underrated, but perhaps needs a revisit), but the only man who arguably did it better was Tom Hanks in 'Big' - an Oscar nominated performance from 1988 that has yet to be topped. He nails everything from the way he talks to his subtle mannerisms. It's very evident that Tom Hanks had a lot of fun with this role, and did his homework in some way before pulling it off.
Josh (Hanks/David Moscow) is an average boy living an average life. He hangs out with his best friend, Billy (Jared Rushton), and has a crush on a girl named Cynthia (Kimberlee M. Davis). In a line-up for a carnival ride, he attempts to try to break the ice with Cynthia, but he's told he's not tall enough for the ride. In his frustration, he wanders over to a Zoltar fortune telling machine that "grants wishes". He wishes he was "big", and the next day, he wakes up as a full-grown adult. Freaking out his own mother (Mercedes Ruehl), Josh realizes he can't go home to figure things out. Instead, he seeks Billy's help, which eventually leads them to New York City, where he can lay low until he can find another Zoltar machine to hopefully reverse his wish. This is where he finds out immediately that there's much more to the adult life than meets the eye. In killing his time, he manages to find a data entry job for the famous FAO Schwartz toy store. Here, he develops a few new relationships where his adulthood is often tested. His boss, MacMillan (Robert Loggia), sees him as the perfect man child to test the company's toys. The toy making team-leader, Paul Davenport (John Heard) has a strong dislike for him, as he seems to constantly undermine him. Finally, his coworker, Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) likes him and his open mind, but he's still 13 on the inside, and not quite in touch with those things yet. As the story unfolds, it's a great case of Josh learning a lot about what it means to be an adult, but it equally covers all of these adults and how they would typically deal with a kid's mind. MacMillan embraces it, especially as a toy store owner, Paul is obviously very annoyed by it, and Susan, though it's not quite as obvious in her situation, kinda meets it in the middle. She finds his child-like mind frustrating at times, but that frustration he causes is all part of his charm. This is perfect for any kid going through those difficult stages of puberty. I remember it well. We wanted to do what adults could do (in more ways than one), and in many ways, this is the film to show them that things aren't necessarily all they're cracked up to be. It's also a good way to show these kids that it's important to embrace your childhood while it lasts. It's a very short time in your life that you might take for granted.  In the vein of classic family films that I could recommend to literally anyone, 'The Princess Bride' is a title that sits somewhere near the top. We get a good story with likable characters. It has the ability to open our eyes up to the fact that a good family movie does not need to be "made hip", or rely on toilet humor for cheap laughs. It's proof that simplicity is often so much better, and over the years, it has become a title that I hold close to my heart, balancing so much just right. Primarily a lighthearted comedy, it brings some great comedy, fun adventure, and even a bit of romance, in the end, becoming the epitome of a feel-good family classic.
Our story takes shape in the form of a grandfather (Peter Falk) reading it to his grandson (Fred Savage) while he's home, sick in bed. The grandson is unsure about liking the story, especially due to its romantic spin. "No kissing!" But eventually he finds himself reluctantly intrigued by the story, giving us a movie with a few cut scenes that show us how into the book the kid becomes, and showing us that sappy love stories can actually be pretty damn good. The story, itself, focuses on Buttercup (Robin Wright), who has been chosen to wed the crooked Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). She does not, however, love him back, and pines for Westley (Cary Elwes), the farm boy who worked on the farm she was raised on, who had a secret way of telling her he was in love with her. One day, Westley went to sea, only to be killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts, and Buttercup has been heartbroken ever since. Soon, Buttercup finds herself kidnapped by a collective consisting of the clever Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), the brawny Fezzik (Andre the Giant), and the sword-wielding expert out for revenge, Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin). These kidnappers are pursued by the Dread Pirate Roberts, himself. Humperdink and his men, lead by Count Tyrone Rugen (Christopher Guest), are after everyone, and the whole set-up is ripe for adventure and big reveals (but I think most people know what the big and obvious reveal is at this point). This is another one of those films that was popular once, faded away, and then became popular again, seemingly developing a cult following. But let me tell you, this is a great one to catch with its audience in theaters if you ever get the opportunity. You get to watch with an audience who looks back on this film so fondly, and I have quickly become one of them. I remember watching it a couple of times as a kid, but didn't think too much of it. Now I watch it, and it's honestly just a great time. You don't sit there and question the reality of anything, because its a storybook unfolding, and the results are often pretty funny. Beyond that, you love the relationship between the grandfather and grandson (and yes, they are unnamed), and if I'm honest, it makes me remember my grandparants in a loving way, so it manages to tug on the heartstrings a bit too. But perhaps that's personal. So, this might sound odd, but the next time you find yourself down and out with a nasty cold or a rough flu, this comes as the highest of recommendations to sit and watch. You can relate to the grandson, sick in bed. Plus, it'll put a smile on your face for an hour and a half. Give it a watch before you take that afternoon nap. This one is a beautifully light comedy that still holds up, and I definitely find myself within this collective of people who hold this one close to them, because it is, definitely, a "comfort food" movie.  According to most, that dear old month of January brings those winter blues to their peak. The weather is gloomy, and often gets in the way of your plans, your New Years resolution is still in its most challenging, beginning phases, and things just go back to the way they were after a lovely week of Christmas and New Years. Thus, I thought I'd cover what I like to call "comfort food" films. And that's exactly as that sounds. These are warm movies that we remember fondly, triggering a nostalgia for that point in your life when you didn't have to think about anything in the winter other than your school's Christmas break, tobogganing, snow men, snow forts, etc.
Let's kick it off with a consistent go-to for me over the years. 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' comes to us from director John Hughes, whom it could be debated, understood teenagers of the time better than anyone out there. This one always made my Top 5 as long as I've been familiar with his movies, mostly due to its subject matter. It essentially provides a rough guide as to how to fake sick and stay home from school so you can hang out with your friends. And yeah, it sounds like a terrible thing, but what kid didn't watch this and think "wow, this movie speaks to me", seeing it as a movie that is understanding your feelings more than just an instruction book. Ferris (Matthew Broderick) fakes sick one beautiful day, and wants to use the time he has to hang out with his lovely girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara) and best friend, Cameron (Alan Ruck). He manages to get Sloane out of school with a pretty extreme phone call, and manages to get an actually sick Cameron out of bed, mostly to use his Dad's 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California for the day. So really and truly, Ferris is a bit of an asshole, and I like to look at this movie in a different, but still positive light nowadays. But more on that in a bit. In the meantime, we have one of those situations where the villain is just doing his job. Albeit to an extreme, but when you think about it, he's more in the right than Ferris is here. We just side with Ferris because he's the kid we're relating to, and Principal Edward Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) is the symbol of authority trying to bring us down. It's an interesting watch to try out as a child as well as an adult. It offers different perspectives, and in its own way, it's kinda timeless like that. Going back to watching in a different light, I say that the best way to get the most out of it is to make it Cameron's movie. He gets the most development throughout the film, learns a few things in the end, and in one day, his friends who are more or less being jerks to him ultimately teach him to be a different kind of person. The same could be said watching it as Ferris' sister, Jeanie's movie. She spends the whole thing by herself with an attitude because Ferris seems to get away with murder. But then she has a conversation with then newcomer Charlie Sheen, and things change a bit for her. These perspectives keep it fresh, and frankly, tell a bit of a better story than just "here's how you skip school successfully". Truth be told, there's not much development to Ferri's character. It's there, but it's not quite as abundant as Cameron's or Jeanie's (although Jeanie is pretty tertiary here). Though, let's all be honest, as kids, we leaned much more towards Ferris, who is also responsible for giving us the post-credit scene that 'Deadpool' parodies. So, whether you haven't seen it at all, or it's been a long time, I say it's worth a watch. Despite the overall subject matter, this is still very much a feel-good comedy. It's a quick and easy watch, great for a Sunday afternoon (actually this month's whole list is pretty good for that). |
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