Groundhog Day (1993) Gets better every year!

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Probably the best comedy film of all time anyway imo.

The collected works of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati would beg to contest this hyperbole.

pixelburp wrote: »

Sure, Groundhog Day didn't use the visual medium with the kind of imagination or expression that Keaton or Chaplin sometimes did, but often it's worth looking beyond the perfunctory images to the content within.

Exactly what leaves me cold about Groundhog Day. To me using the visual medium with imagination or expression is exactly what makes a film truly special - and sadly it's where IMO Groundhog Day falls short. It is the product of a mediocre, unimaginative and arguably even hackneyed director, and therefore is distinctly lacking in that spark that makes my heart really jump (I'll use Wes Anderson as a contemporary cinematic comedian extraordinare so we aren't just using dead and gone directors as reference points ). I place a lot of value in a strong authorial voice, and this film IMO lacks that.

That indeed doesn't stop Groundhog Day being funny, empathetic, cathartic etc... (a bit excessively sentimental at times, but that's just me). Thankfully the script and cast do a ****load of heavy lifting where Ramis doesn't, and that's certainly delightful to behold in its own way. It certainly has a potent alchemy, often in spite of itself. I mightn't count it among the greats (and this is all IMO, as Lloyd's comment was too), but that doesn't mean I can't admire it for what it is either

FloatingVoter wrote: »

You try explaining why it is or isn't...you just wind up sounding like the talentless teacher who never gets the joke.

Isn't trying to explain that magic exactly why we talk about films in the first place? It'd be a boring old world of film writing (and we'd be just as well off locking this forum completely) if everybody was happy to just go with 'well that was magic' and leave it at that

It's important to rip apart and challenge the classics - whether that's Groundhog Day or Sherlock Jr or Vertigo or whatever the untouchable mainstay in question may be. To attempt - futile though it occasionally is, given how cinema often works on a purely emotional or aesthetic level - to figure out why it worked for you, or indeed why it didn't (NO film is or should be above dissent).

Sure, Groundhog Day is a thoroughly enjoyable watch, funny and touching in an accessible and charming way. Not much can be said about that (unless you want to really suck the fun out of it and do a structural or deconstructionist analysis of it, which people have actually done :pac:). But hey what's the point in a thread if everybody's just going to say synonyms of 'great film!' and leave it at that? It's always fun to rattle the cage a bit

On another note, have to admit I enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow quite a bit less than others because I kept thinking 'hey, isn't this bit just basically Groundhog Day?!'