Life of Groundhog, by Ric Meyers
Oh, it’s been a good week. Two of my (diametrically-opposed) favorite comedies are coming out on remastered special edition DVDs this coming Tuesday (one which was embraced by all religions while the other was roundly condemned by all religions) and I could hardly be happier. The operative word here is “hardly,” because, for while both DVD editions are good, one, in particular, could have been great.But this is sour grapes on my part. I love Groundhog Day, and appreciate the skills of its star, Bill Murray, so much that I shouldn’t begrudge his disinterest in participating with the 15th Anniversary release’s special features – but yet, I still do. I shouldn’t be so petty, too, because of Bill’s absence, the true value of director/co-scripter Harold Ramis comes into sharp focus.
I’m a big fan of Ramis as well, ever since I saw him as harried station manager Moe Green on the original import of the milestone Canadian comedy series SCTV. I can never forget his delivery as the evil boss in the show’s satire of The Grapes of Wrath, The Grapes of Mud; “You think this land is urine … but it’s all our land, not just urine” (you had to be there, I guess).
Ramis left SCTV early, which I also begrudged, come to think of it. But all was forgiven when he started helming, or being intimately creatively involved with, such comedy mainstays as Animal House, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, As Good As It Gets, and Analyze This. Groundhog Day could be his masterpiece, however, given that it’s a romantic comedy fantasy classic.
Columbia Pictures, minus Murray’s input, could only muster a single, pretty poorly photoshopped, disc, but Ramis is all over the extras. There’s a commentary with him, which I lapped up with my admiring head nestled on my hands. There’s also a video talking head grandly titled “A Different Day: An Interview with Harold Ramis,” which I watched appreciatively with my chin on my fist. Then there’s the making-of doc called “The Weight of Time” (borrowing a phrase by story creator and co-scripter Danny Rubin), which I watched with the back of my head resting on my sofa top.
If a long-mislaid but vividly documented Depression-era motion picture called Ingagi should ever re-surface – in the manner that such lost-and-found titles as the 1931 Spanish-language Dracula or the 1912 Richard III have cropped up, in unexpected out-of-the-way locations – its rediscovery alone would justify a monumental curatorial celebration and an overpriced DVD edition.
Ringed with popular anticipation in view of its producer’s involvement with the hit teleseries Lost, director Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield proves to be something more than the moviegoing customers might have expected.
December of 1938 saw the arrival of an ad hoc comic strip called Tippy Tacker’s Christmas Adventure, signed by one Robert Pilgrim and distributed to the daily-newspaper trade by the Bell Syndicate.
As we were driving back east from two weeks in Detroit, Columbus, Chicago and Toledo – next time, I’m getting a campaign bus – we heard the news of Evel Knievel’s death. No, this blather isn’t about him, although I do think that saying you’re going to take your motorcycle and jump over 50 school buses loaded with nuns and orphans and then strapping rockets to the bike is cheating. Nope, this blather is about Irwin Allen, noted dead movie and television producer/director/writer and former cover story in Modern Asshole magazine.
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