Groundhog Day
— Only Bill Murray could make misery, misanthropy and rejection this funny.”
- Director: Harold Ramis
- United States, 1993
As a comedy, Groundhog Day is effective enough. As a love story, it’s lukewarm. As a novel concept, it is ludicrously brilliant and I can think of few better examples of extraordinary creativity among the vast annals of movie treatment history.
Bill Murray plays a regional station TV weatherman who awakes to the same day over and over again, in Punxsutawney, PA. Always a superb portrayer of cranky characters, Murray is at his finest here.
And you might think that successive repeats of the same day would be tough for even the finest screenwriter, but Danny Rubin’s plotting has got plenty of mileage and the movie stays alive to the end without being, well, repetitive.
See also:
Hot Fuzz
Not caught by the Fuzz: this British parody of American buddy cop movies is rather tepid.
- Originally published: 25 Feb 2007 in Film
Making a song and dance about it
A bizarrely comedic take on this weepy monochrome classic.
- Originally published: 4 Nov 2007 in Theatre
Ghostbusters
Unique, ridiculous and the first great movie I ever saw at a cinéma.
- Originally published: 27 Nov 2006 in Film
Parenthood
The film that taught us that every family is dysfunctional in some way!
- Originally published: 22 Jan 2007 in Film
Who you gonna call?
Hello you, I'm Mike Padgett. I'm not a Princeton curator, Knoxville mayoral candidate, Kentuckian pastor or Arizona journalist, I just share the same name. In fact, I am a consultant working in user experience and information design.
I also enjoy travel, concerts, films and walking.
I'm originally from Yorkshire, England but nowadays I live in Belgium. My current favourite Belgian beer is Black Albert.
Shameless self-promotion
Over a year in the making, Dopeology.org is my latest personal project: a topology of doping in thirty years of European pro road cycling.
I collected information from thousands of sources, then I modelled and published it via a lightweight user interface.
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