Brian and I just spent a killer weekend in western Pennsylvania with my good friend Brent, whom I met at Bemidji State. It is no mere coincidence that our trip coincided with Groundhog Day. Although Gobbler's Knob doesn't look anything like in the movie, the speech is the same and, yes, there are a load of men dressed in funny suits and top hats. Brent, Brian, and I got up at 4:00 in the morning. He lives about 20 minutes outside Punxsutawney, but it was an hour and a half in the car before we found a parking spot in town. Next, we waited in line for shuttles up to the knob, where we stood an hour in 20-degree weather (not bad, really) with approximately 20,000 other people. The entire ceremony only takes about five minutes, and being short in a crowd never means a good view, but I'm glad I did it. I certainly was part of an awfully big crowd chanting on a "large rat," as Bill Murray says.
We walked back the mile, downhill in the snow. As anyone on my broomball team can attest, I tend to fall over a lot when it's slippery, so I think twice in a mile is not so bad. Listening Coyotes, HOWL! We wandered around town, and literally, these people live with the groundhog year round. We shopped in a strip mall named Groundhog Plaza, and there are more than a dozen groundhog statues painted by various artists around town, much like the Peanuts gang hanging out all over St. Paul. There was even one in front of the place we had a buffet breakfast holding an eggtar. That's right...an eggtar.
After a long nap, we of course continued the festivities with a viewing of the film Groundhog Day, which leads me to the Top 5 of the day:
My Top 5 Time Warp Movies of All Time (in no particular order):
1. Groundhog Day
Bill Murray is a comic genius, and this is his best work. It's hilarious, and it's poignant. This definitely falls under the category of movies I can basically recite. I am proud.
2. The Back to the Future Trilogy
Sure, this is three movies, but I do consider (for the most part) planned triologies and series to be completely lumpable, since they all fall under the same Cinemascope categories, and they complement each other so well. They're better because of the others. Besides, this is the reason everyone from our generation knows who Chuck Berry is.
3. Donnie Darko
I worry for the people who don't realize this is a time travel movie. But oh, they're out there. What's a f***face?
4. Time Bandits
One of the lesser known Terry Gilliam gilms out there. Really, 12 Monkeys belongs on this list, too. It's brilliant, but I just don't have nostalgic childhood memories of it. Plus, it doesn't have seven dwarfs... wait, how many? Anyway, it's all worth it to make it to the end to hear, "Mom...Dad...don't touch it, it's evil."
5. Time Chasers (The MST3K edition)
All I can do is picture me and my brother rolling around the living room laughing. This is beyond explanation, this is pure life experience here.
We walked back the mile, downhill in the snow. As anyone on my broomball team can attest, I tend to fall over a lot when it's slippery, so I think twice in a mile is not so bad. Listening Coyotes, HOWL! We wandered around town, and literally, these people live with the groundhog year round. We shopped in a strip mall named Groundhog Plaza, and there are more than a dozen groundhog statues painted by various artists around town, much like the Peanuts gang hanging out all over St. Paul. There was even one in front of the place we had a buffet breakfast holding an eggtar. That's right...an eggtar.
After a long nap, we of course continued the festivities with a viewing of the film Groundhog Day, which leads me to the Top 5 of the day:
My Top 5 Time Warp Movies of All Time (in no particular order):
1. Groundhog Day
Bill Murray is a comic genius, and this is his best work. It's hilarious, and it's poignant. This definitely falls under the category of movies I can basically recite. I am proud.
2. The Back to the Future Trilogy
Sure, this is three movies, but I do consider (for the most part) planned triologies and series to be completely lumpable, since they all fall under the same Cinemascope categories, and they complement each other so well. They're better because of the others. Besides, this is the reason everyone from our generation knows who Chuck Berry is.
3. Donnie Darko
I worry for the people who don't realize this is a time travel movie. But oh, they're out there. What's a f***face?
4. Time Bandits
One of the lesser known Terry Gilliam gilms out there. Really, 12 Monkeys belongs on this list, too. It's brilliant, but I just don't have nostalgic childhood memories of it. Plus, it doesn't have seven dwarfs... wait, how many? Anyway, it's all worth it to make it to the end to hear, "Mom...Dad...don't touch it, it's evil."
5. Time Chasers (The MST3K edition)
All I can do is picture me and my brother rolling around the living room laughing. This is beyond explanation, this is pure life experience here.
4 comments:
Nice one dude. Billy Murray IS a comic genius, and he may be a genius in other senses as well! I can't believe you want to see the groundhog... that's awesome. Something you can tell your non-existent grandchildren one day.
My friend Sarah & I recently re watched Groundhog Day and we had like a 3 hour conversation over several days trying to figure out exactly how long he was stuck in the Time Warp. I knew it had to be a matter of years, but Sarah claims it had to be at least 10 years in order to accomplish all the things he does, especially the piano playing/ice sculpturing. What do you think?
p.s. idea for next top 5 - top 5 Billy Murray characters/quotes/movies, whatever :)
Very good. Getting up at 4am would really suck but I suppose if you were doing it for a cute fuzzy creature than it might be worth it? And I blame my lack of time travel awareness on the fact that when we watched Donnie Darko, it was late and I was tired! With that said just by not being an in your face time travel movie is a big positive. Plus it has Jake Gyllenhaal and what's not to love about that.
Since you did an excellent job of listing awesome time travel movies, I can not compete but I would like to share my top 5 "Future" movies.
5. CHILDREN OF MEN
4. MATRIX. just the first one the other two not so good in my opinion.
3. THE ISLAND Very interesting...
2. V FOR VENDETTA
and
1. FIFTH ELEMENT (bet you didn't see that one coming!)
So, I was feeling pretty bad about myself because I don't remember any time travel in Donnie Darko, but then I realized that I don't actually remember much of anything about that movie...
Yay for being able to comment!
Top Five Things that are happening today:
5. Getting fun new glasses
4. Finally commenting on Meaghan's new blog
3. Ending this ridiculous work week
2. Celebrating husband's turning old (30!) by eating cake
1. Having Friday lunch with the Girls (including Meaghan!!)
(my top 5 list is off topic and lame, aren't you glad you opened up the comments section???)
I'm sorry. I have no top five for this one as I think the only time warp movies I've seen and had some pleasure in watching is the Back to the Future series. I heart Michael J. Fox. Aw! Anyway. All I could think about when I read "time warp" all I could think was "It's just a jump to the left!"
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