P.S. A Column On Things

Micro-Review: Tenet

It is early in the year to award the coveted SciFi Handwavium trophy, but Tenet wins it hands down for the word inversion. The film is entertaining at some times but confusing most of the time, with timelines running forward and backwards at all times. Christopher Nolan reportedly took 20 years to write the script. Chris, no matter how long it takes to write something, we can all use a good editor, something you obviously didn’t have. Lots of confusing bang-bang, some interesting/amusing philosophizing, and a number of good actors working below themselves.

Galaxy Quest: Humor is the Best Medicine

Those of you who share my vintage may remember the story of Norman Cousins of the New Republic, who treated his illness with Marx Brothers films in 1974, at a time when you had to use a movie projector and borrow films from a film exchange.

Laughter is still the best medicine, I rediscovered with a recovering friend last week. Without question, the film Galaxy Quest, a gentle spoof of Trekkies, is the funniest laugh-out-loud movie I have ever seen. I laughed so loud my wife came out of her home office to say she could hear me while tele-treating her clients. I stifled my guffaws. Groundhog Day is still my favorite film, and The Paper is still the best journalism film, but Galaxy Quest is now, officially, the funniest film ever made.

Groundhog Day… Again

Daniel Dern checks in with a couple of notes:

• He reminds me of Netflix's Russian Doll series. Definitely Time Loop, but I didn’t really like it for some reason.
• The Here I Go Again episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow on the CW. Dern says, “It's an OK enough episode, notable mostly for the looped character, who got told in one loop to, come next loop, say "Groundhog Day" to a crewmate to quickly explain.” Which means, as many of you know, it checks one of my tick boxes for Time Loop greatness. It also name checks a Star Trek Next Generation Time Loop episode. This is a clever twist on the trope, neatly written, funny, moving and touching.
• Daniel also pointed me at one of a number of lists of Time Loop movies.

Groundhog Day Redux

In the better late than never department, my long-time musical associate George March added some new instances of GHD-type plots:

• "Defending your Life" (1991), and "Heaven Can Wait" (1978).
• James P Hogan's book "Thrice Upon a Time"
• The 2006 made for TV movie "12:01"
• a more recent film: "Source Code"
• the various TV shows that have done episodes with that theme.

Yes, I know Boss Level started Friday on Hulu; see next item.

Time Loop Redux: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things ****

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things on Amazon Prime is another valiant effort to push forward the boundaries of the time loop trope, which, as most of you know, reached its pinnacle in Groundhog Day, IMHO.

You may think it is silly to start with this, but this movie is sooo close to being the perfect length for a comedy: at 99 minutes, it is only nine minutes too long. It is good, albeit not great.

It is funny, sweet, clever and entertaining. It meets my main criterion for time loop films, which is to mention Groundhog Day. Like Palm Springs, it puts more than one person in the loop. Like GHD, it doesn’t waste our time with a bunch of handwavium about how the loop started. Like all great time loop films, it is a romance, albeit a young adult romance.

Credits: Written by Lev Grossman of The Magicians fame and directed by Ian Samuels, who also helmed the YA film Sierra Burgess Is a Loser. Harold Ramis (may he rest in peace) and Danny Rubin (may he be greenlighted again someday) are still the Best Time Loop Film Team Ever, but I am encouraged that Hollywood keeps turning out new product in this venerable genre.

The movie makes it seem as if Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits is a time loop movie. It is a time travel movie, not a time loop movie.

Review: Glorias, Gloria Steinem Biopic ***

As a charter subscriber to Ms., and the one-time boyfriend of several staunch feminists, I noted with interest The Glorias on Amazon. Some incidents depicted I didn’t know, but seem likely to be accurate, because the incidents I do know are represented perfectly. The time shifts are occasionally confusing and the gimmick of having Gloria at all her different ages riding together on a bus is a tad cute for me. Still, not terrible.

Like all biopics, it tries to hit the highlights. Her first famous article, on the life of a Playboy bunny. Her assertive television appearances. Her fight for the ERA and against Phyllis Schlafly. Her founding of the ever-struggling Ms. Magazine. As far as I can tell, they left out Irina Dunn’s quotation, popularized by Steinem, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” The movie does show her younger self reminding her of her bon mot "Marriage makes you half a person," at the time of her brief marriage in her 60s (he died after two years).

If you, like me, were formed intellectually by your exposure to this assertive, independent, intelligent woman, you will find this film interesting. A lot of men find strong women scary or irritating; they shouldn’t watch this film. I, on the other hand, have never liked any other kind of woman, starting with my mother, so I say, “Right On.” While I find many of Steinem’s failed initiatives sadden and disturb me, she delivers the coup de grâce herself when she says at a rally that one of the benefits of old age is that you can “remember when things were worse.”

 If my mother were in college today, asking how to become a lawyer, her advisor would probably not tell her, “Better to be a teacher or a nurse, dear. Women don’t become lawyers.”

Groundhog Day and Buddhism

As usual, I expect new material for my Groundhog Day The Movie website from my avid readers. Fire away if you have something you don't see here.

Welcome to another perennial item. I run this one (nearly) every year in conjunction with Groundhog Day. The Bill Murray movie of the same name is the 34th funniest American film of all time, according to the American Film Institute. It is also my favorite movie of all times. This is the eleventh time I've run this item!

I went to a showing of Groundhog Day sponsored by the San Francisco Zen Center on Friday, Aug. 10, 2001, held in the Trustees' Auditorium of the Asian Art Museum in Golden Gate Park (relocated in October 2002 to the old SF Main library in the Civic  Center).

I have so much to say about this exciting, exhilarating, eye-opening experience that it is now a subsite titled Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me, which includes a description of that seminal showing, commentary, and links to other sites that deal with the connection. While noticing the connection between this movie and Buddhism is not particularly profound, it was news to me, and the nuances were explored in a particularly exciting fashion during the Zen Center presentation. My site is rapidly gaining ground as the authoritative center for GHD/Buddhism commentary on the web. I brush it up and add new material regularly, so if you haven't been there in a while, take a look.

If you love the work of GHD writer Danny Rubin as much as I do, check out his web site which includes a bio, a list of his works in progress (exciting) and a list of his sold films (also exciting). I have been privileged to share a radio show with him. He has been nice enough to correspond now and then with me via e-mail. He's written a great e-book, How to Write Groundhog Day, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Go out and buy your own copy!

Also, the University of California has published a Groundhog Day book, by Ryan Gilbey.

I finally bought the book The Magic Of Groundhog Day by Paul Hannam. Danny Rubin wrote the foreword. You can find out more at Hannam's website. Hannam wrote me that he "did a book group on my book and several readers said that they could not believe how great the movie was after learning about its profound spiritual and psychological meaning. Even at Oxford 90% of the students thought it was just a Bill Murray comedy!"

Pixar’s Soul

I found Pixar’s new film Soul to be breathtakingly beautiful, entertaining and thought provoking. Yes, you need Disney + to get it, but I think the subscription is worth it just for the one film.

The clearest description of what it’s about came from my daughter Rae: “live mindfully.”

In more detail, Vox says, “The spark is the focus of Soul, and — importantly — how a spark differs from a “purpose,” which one of the big beings that shepherds the souls around derides as one of those words the mentors use that don't really mean anything. A spark is not your purpose.”

Is it a lazy review to quote two other people? Yes. Does that detract from the fact that this is a great film you should see? No.

Theater Vs. Movies

San Francisco Chronicle film editor Mick LaSalle recently wrote: “movies and theater, at their best, are equally great. But at their worst, theater is much worse. This is why: When a movie is bad, it’s usually because it’s imitative. It’s cheap. It’s trying to please in obvious ways and not succeeding. When theater is bad, it represents the collective effort of people to say every single thing they’ve ever wanted to say. It doesn’t try to please an audience; it begs the audience’s indulgence. Bad theater assumes that sincerity gives it the right to bore an audience to death for 2½ hours.”

I quote him only in order to disagree, and to express my long-held personal view of the difference between the two media. I have always found films to be entertainment first/about something second, and theater to be about something first/entertainment second.

And, although the hundreds of movies I’ve seen in my life don’t match Mick’s output from last year, I must say I’ve seen a lot more rotten film than rotten theater. Ask me to gamble on an unknown movie versus an unknown play, and I’ll pick the play every time.

Mini Review: Let Them All Talk

Worth the subscription to HBO Max. A subscription is less than two movie tickets a month, back when you could see movies. Worth your time: a great movie. Well-written, well-acted, pretty to look at. Stephen Soderberg directed, shot and edited the film (using two pseudonyms). What a career! I've loved everything he's done since Sex, Lies and Videotape. Kind of the goyishe Woody Allen, without the perversion. Reliable. Consistently Good. Keeps working, against all odds.

Talk is what they used to call a mid-market movie; serious issues, written for adults. And featuring adults: women who look their age! Summary from RogerEbert.com: “Alice Hughes (Meryl Streep) is a world-famous, Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has been asked to go to England to accept an award. She can’t fly, and so she convinces them to pay for her to take the Queen Mary across the ocean, and to spring for three people to accompany her—old friends Roberta (Candice Bergen) & Susan (Dianne Wiest) and her supportive nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges).”

Yup, that sums it up. Great dialog, much of it supposedly improvised. Shot on board the Queen Mary II.

Clearly a roman à clef of Mary Carthy's book The Group, and the discord it sowed among  the friends from Vassar upon whom she based the novel. Since most first novels are autobiographical (with varying levels of fictionalization), I am sure this is a common phenomenon, taken to an extreme because that's what movies do.