Groundhog Day (1993)

Matt (00:00:21):

Welcome to 1-Week Rental: A Movie Podcast, where we spend the week with a movie and take you along with us on our journey. I’m Matt Stokes. I’m the obnoxious film snob, but I’m trying not to be so annoying about it.

Laci (00:00:31):

And you’re almost getting there, love. And I’m Laci Roth, his wife, and the one who’s prone to liking things for nostalgia, but I am trying to be more well-rounded and discerning.

Matt (00:00:42):

Each week we do a deep dive into a different movie. We watch it a bunch of times, research it, read interviews with the people who made it.

Laci (00:00:48):

Then we discuss the movie, talk about what works, what doesn’t work, and we make fun of it and we love on it.

Matt (00:00:54):

And we can be mean and obnoxious about a movie that might be your favorite movie. That’s okay. We’re not right. You should love your favorite movie. We’re not here to take it away from you. We’re just here to talk about movies and have fun doing it. We get stuff wrong all the time.

Laci (00:01:09):

We’re not in the industry and we never plan to be. We have no skin in the game. So we talk shit about directors and actors however we feel we’re just shooting from the hip.

Matt (00:01:19):

So we spent this week with Groundhog Day. Big movie for you, Laci. How many times before this week do you think you had seen Groundhog Day?

Laci (00:01:28):

Nine.

Matt (00:01:29):

Nine times. Nine. A movie you were quoting every line as it came on. I’m just real smart. Yeah. Doesn’t take me. I was like, “Oh, Laci, that warms my heart. I love that you’re doing that.

Laci (00:01:40):

” I really tried to tone it down.

Matt (00:01:42):

Yeah.

Laci (00:01:42):

I barely did it. Some music and join up the band. It’s a day of poka. What?

Matt (00:01:51):

I think I had seen it three times before. I’ve always really liked this movie. It was never one of my movies that I’m watching all the time, but I was always thinking like, yeah, Groundhog Day, that’s just a great movie, a great comedy and a great profound special movie. But this was the first time I really considered it more deeply and tried to really learn what was going on with the people who made it. And we will talk all about that in our history segment. So Groundhog Day, I mean, yeah, it’s a movie, but it’s also a

Laci (00:02:47):

Day. Oh, okay. I promise this is not a bait and switch, but let’s get this part out of the way.

Matt (00:02:53):

Okay.

Laci (00:02:53):

Let’s learn about Groundhog Day. So I find it super neat. It has way more in common with something like Halloween and Mayday, because this is what the pre-Christians would’ve called a cross quarter day, meaning it comes exactly in the middle of an Equinox and a solstice.

Matt (00:03:12):

Okay.

Laci (00:03:12):

All right. So Groundhog Day being the one that comes right before the Vernal Equinox, which is spring. It’s always been a day about prediction because it’s a super anxious time. In fact, all of the quarter days are about prediction of the next quarter. Thankfully, we have Lexapro and Klonopin now, but we needed other things to make us less anxious back in the day. And so we pretended we knew what was coming by looking at animals in the ground.

Matt (00:03:41):

Quarter, I mean, you’re talking about seasons.

Laci (00:03:44):

I’m talking about seasons, yes. So this is like a farmer thing. And then when Christianity came along, it swept it up and it made it about Jesus thing. So the Christians will celebrate this back in the day and made it about the purification of the Virgin Mary and the presentation of Christ in the temple. Doesn’t that make you think of a groundhog? I have no idea why, but basically you find this all over Europe, the same tradition. They just call it slightly different things. So Irish people call it Saint Bridges Day, but basically what it turned into after Christianity was people would take candles and bring them to the church and get them blessed. And so this is why now in English they would call it when it came to America candle must. Basically they have the priest or whoever bless the candles to light the way into the next season.

(00:04:38):

Just superstitious way of going, “Please let the harvest be good.” People would like clean their boats on this day and like repair things, things that they thought would make them in the best position to have a good hall in the spring.

Matt (00:04:51):

Yeah. And like this is all going back to the majority of human history where we are just totally agrarian and it’s like if you could talk to your ancestors from 10,000 years ago, you’d realize they live like the exact same life I do. And we think like, well, Christianity, that’s very old, but it’s like actually that came along way, way later in human development. And it’s just grafting on these sort of holidays into traditions that are just so ingrained in us that we can’t get rid of them.

Laci (00:05:20):

And they’re all solving the same problem, this anxiousness, this need to put your … Something’s going to handle this. These candles will, this God will. I just need a good harvest. We need to not starve to death. And anyway, so these traditions and superstitions, they just kind of help us get through, man. So I didn’t know this, but mainly this holiday, Groundhog’s Day is only celebrated in the United States and Canada, which is interesting. I just thought it was … We’re all looking at hogs.

Matt (00:05:53):

It’s funny though, every two months we need a release of some sort.

Laci (00:05:57):

It really is.

Matt (00:05:58):

Well, it’s every

Laci (00:05:58):

Three. Oh,

Matt (00:05:59):

Okay. It is every three

Laci (00:06:00):

Months.

Matt (00:06:01):

But it’s like the midpoint of each.

Laci (00:06:02):

Oh no, you’re right. It’s

Matt (00:06:03):

Every two. Or is it every six weeks? Wait, you know what I’m saying? Becoming

Laci (00:06:08):

Anxious.

Matt (00:06:08):

Let’s look

Laci (00:06:09):

At a hog.

Matt (00:06:10):

Right. When I used to work in an office and got sick days, I remember I feel like it’s been about 28 days since I’ve taken a sick day. Time to take a sick day. You’ve

Laci (00:06:19):

Cycled through. Your body just knows it needs one of those kind of days

(00:06:24):

Where you can predict the entire day because you’re going to be at home in your bed where nothing bad happens. Okay. So how did it go from candle mist to groundhogs today? We have two very different sounding things. Well, okay, because candle must always had to do with like a hibernating animal, you would watch for it. If it came out and went right back in, that meant the winter was going to last longer. If it came out, stayed out, that meant spring was coming. Basically you pick a day and that day is February 2nd, used to be February 1st. And if it’s a sunny day, yeah, the animal’s going to see its shadow. Shadows are casted when the sun’s out. So that was your like, oh crap, this day is so beautiful. I guess that means we’ll have to have a bunch of bad days now.

(00:07:11):

It’s just like the superstition of being like, rain is actually lucky on your wedding day. It’s a way of psyching yourself into either outcome will be good. I’ll have a bright, sunny, beautiful day on my wedding day and never think of that wive’s tail again. Or I’ll have the shittiest rainiest day and go, “Well, this is good luck.” So that’s it. Okay, let’s go sit around a hole on this beautiful, bright sunny day and oh God darn nabbit that badger saw a shadow. I guess we deserve more winter. That’s all it is. And it used to be a badger, but then they came to the United States, the Germans did.This is when this all started to pop on over here. So you see it mostly in the Pennsylvania Dutch, Pennsylvania, German parts of the country where all this all sprouted up and because we don’t have a handy badger, it went to a groundhog, which did you know is also a woodchuck?

(00:08:06):

I did not know those two things were the same. Also, wood chucks do not chuck wood. There you go. That nursery rhyme is out the fucking door. And

Matt (00:08:14):

Pennsylvania Dutch are actually Pennsylvania German. It’s just like a-

Laci (00:08:18):

They’re just the exact same thing.

Matt (00:08:19):

They’re just like, “What are you? Dutch? No, we’re German. You’re Dutch.”

Laci (00:08:23):

You like windmills. So the first recorded record of this being a tradition in the United States is in some kind of 18 … Who gives a shit, right? It’s like in the 1800s, but we think that it actually got on over here in the 1700s when most of the people from Germany came on over here. And so the most famous celebration is the one that is in the movie and it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy because now it will never die because of the movie. In fact, that Gobler’s Knob … There’s got to be a porn called that, right? Gobbler’s Knob. That place did used to attract people about like 7,000 to the town every year to see what the … But punk Satani Phil was going to see and now it’s like 30,000 and it’s just steadily stayed around that. 35, 30,000 every year.

(00:09:17):

Thanks, Bill Murray.

Matt (00:09:18):

Was it just luck that this town is the one that got to be the … They just had the best festival? No.

Laci (00:09:25):

So not luck at all. They didn’t even shoot the film there. They actually filmed it someplace else in a place that had a more cinematic town square, but people still go to this place, this place where the movie actually did not get recorded because of the movie. And this tradition does actually happen and it’s just something that it’s tongue in cheek. No one actually thinks it’s real. It’s like a bunch of business … It’s like everything else, right? A bunch of businessmen got together and they’re like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we wore top hats and put on coats?” I always thought in the movie that that guy was the mayor. It’s fucking not. It’s just that guy’s the VJ on the … He’s the person that’s on the radio. Right. Don’t worry. Yeah. So he’s just some local personality and then the other guy’s wearing hats and talking, what’s it called?

(00:10:15):

I think it’s Groundhog Anees or something really stupid like that. They’re just businessmen who like-

Matt (00:10:20):

It’s funny because I literally thought, well, Brian Doyle Murray, who always has to be in his brother’s movies- Yes, he does. … is playing the mayor, but they also have him being the radio guy. I guess they’re just like, whatever he’s here, he can do multiple voices. Yeah, he’s not the mayor. He’s just your guy, your shock jock, morning zoo guy.

Laci (00:10:38):

Exactly. And then the other guy at the top hat, he probably just owns the feed store or something. I mean, it’s just like the people who end up in Mardi Gras cruise here. They’re the people who can afford to do it and have this little man’s club and they call themselves the inner circle and then they do exactly what you see. They read out the thing, they pull out the badger and I think they decide in advance whether he sees his shadow or not. They don’t base it on the sun anymore, but he actually is 2% better at predicting the weather than a typical weatherman, but that’s still really low. It’s like 39% whether the groundhog gets it right or not.

Matt (00:11:17):

Okay. Yeah. This is like when you have the octopus predict the World Cup outcomes.

Laci (00:11:21):

Still kind of impressed that it’s like 2% better. Just last thing is that it’s so odd, but it’s the exact two nicknames you have for me are also nicknames for a groundhog that’s Land Beaver and Whistlepig. I mean, they’re really rude names.

Matt (00:11:37):

Yeah. I’m always calling you both of those things. It’s true. You fucking

Laci (00:11:39):

Land Beaver. They’re called whistlepigs

Matt (00:11:42):

Because- You whistlepig.

Laci (00:11:44):

So they’re prominent for taf actually serve a purpose. They whistle to attract a mate. So they’re like the original, “Hey, there’s a fucking broad walking across the street in New York.” I can’t whistle, but if I were whistling right now, you would be showing me your badge to this badge.

Matt (00:12:04):

All right, whistlepig. Thank you for that history of Groundhog Day, of Real Groundhog Day. Wasn’t

Laci (00:12:09):

That neat?

Matt (00:12:10):

It was neat. I do love connecting it to the page. Danny Rudin, the guy who wrote the original screenplay for Groundhog Day literally was like, “Let me just pick a fun day on the calendar.” And smartly realizes if we can peg a movie to a holiday, this thing’s going to have legs. This thing will always play on TV. And he was right, but inadvertently it ends up being so profound due to all of these just deep seated in the core of what makes us human connections we have to the earth without realizing that. Cycles

Laci (00:12:47):

Of life that we all feel internally and externally.

Matt (00:12:50):

Right. And it’s what’s interesting about this movie is Laci and I love to talk about themes of movies and on tension you will get to when you do that is, does it matter what the creator of the movie thinks? Does their intention when they wrote the script or when they film the movie or whatever, does that matter or does it not matter at all? And I’ve always been inclined to think it doesn’t matter because there’s a number of reasons. One is how do you even decide who the creator of a movie is? Is it the director, the writer, the actors, the producers, whatever. The other thing you’ll see is like people, directors, whoever it is, will change their mind about what their own work means. So it’s like they’re not actually authorities on what the work is actually about. And here in Groundhog Day, you have an example of a thing that was changing constantly throughout its development.

(00:13:43):

The original writer wanted it to be one thing. Harold Ramos wanted it to be another thing. Bill Murray wanted it to be another thing and that weird alchemy is what made it sort of the special movie that it is. So Groundhog Day, just a great example of everything I just said, delete that. All right, this all starts. This all starts with Danny Rubin. Who is Danny Rubin? Danny Rubin. Well, in 2017, New York magazine profile of him talks about his career and his sort of struggles of being a one hit wonder screenwriter. And in fact, his life has really kind of been a groundhog day of groundhog day, of living the movie Groundhog Day for his entire life because though he did have three other movies, screenplays that were produced into movies, this is the only one that was successful and since the ’90s, his entire life has just been stewarding Groundhog Day.

Laci (00:14:37):

He just had one in him.

Matt (00:14:39):

That

Laci (00:14:40):

Was a pretty good day and he lived it over and over and over.

Matt (00:14:44):

He seems to have some Phil Connors in him of studios saying like, “Hey, can you do Groundhog Day again?” And he’s like, “But I don’t want to just do the same thing I already did and I don’t want to follow your formulas, man.” Man.

(00:14:59):

But I think that’s why as we will find Bill Murray kind of felt a kindred spirit in him once he met him. The 2017 New York magazine piece, he said, “I’m the guy who wrote Groundhog Day. I’m not the amazing screenwriter who has had this long and storied career. I’m not Tom Stoppard, but it’s delightful to be so associated with something so well loved. You can break your heart thinking you’re the victim of the amazing life you’ve got.” So he wrote industrial films while trying to break into Hollywood. He wrote a script on spec called Hear No Evil about a murder in the deaf community that was produced into a movie with Marley Matlin as the star and he’s just like, “I got to get an agent. I have to build out my resume.” So he just would fill out index cards with ideas from movies and the ones that felt there were promised like maybe I’ll spend more time working on screenplays for those.

(00:15:51):

So he very early on has a time loop idea. This movie absolutely did not invent the idea of a time loop. There’s examples going back at least a hundred years of the idea of somebody being stuck in the same day over and over again. And even if you’re not thinking about the idea of somebody stuck in a day, the idea that everything recurs again and again, that is also a very old idea in philosophy. Nietzsche talked a lot about it, the idea of eternal recurrence like Peter Pan famously starts with all of this has happened before and it will all happen again that the universe is limited and that means everything that has ever happened is just going to keep happening again and again because it’s all just the same raw materials. He writes the original script Foreground Hog Day on Spec. I’m using as another source, a book called Wild and Crazy Guys about the sort of SNL generation of comedy guys by Nick Desellen from that book, this is Ruben saying this quote, “The only person I had in mind was a young Jimmy Stewart.

(00:16:51):

When I told Harold Ramus, he said, I don’t think he’s

(00:16:56):

Available.” But that is interesting that I could totally see it. I could totally see a 1940s Frank Capra movie with Jimmy Stewart like, “Oh, shame day every day. I wake up and I hear it all the writing.” But that’s

Laci (00:17:10):

The point, right? The universe only has so many ingredients so it made a Bill Murray. Yeah.

Matt (00:17:14):

It’s like,

Laci (00:17:15):

“Don’t worry, it’s coming. Just wait. You’ll get a young Jimmy Stewart.”

Matt (00:17:20):

Yes, exactly. Who …

Laci (00:17:22):

Timothy Shelmi. I don’t know. He’s my answer to everything. He’s just a name I know. Butler, that Butler guy. Is that … No. Well,

Matt (00:17:30):

Now I feel like a fucking idiot. Yeah, of course. It’s a wonderful life. He doesn’t get caught in a time loop, but of sort of time vortex that makes him now appreciate life. And the point of all of this is it shouldn’t take you not being able to die for you to suddenly appreciate like, “You know what? Things aren’t that bad. And this town that I think is so cheeseball, actually it’s really kind of amazing and everyone has a story to tell and their own little life.” And my bitch producer, it turns out she’s a real person.

Laci (00:18:02):

Not sure. Okay. But you can tell from the very moment, and he even says as much, he likes her right away. He’s just so cynical. He has an entire personality based on how above all of it he is, how bigger than this small thing, this small television place, this small producer. But as soon as he sees her, he loves how unironic and nice she is playing around with his broadcasting equipment.

Matt (00:18:29):

It’s a great performance from Andy McDowell that you can almost think she’s bad because she is so understated and kind of just being a real person who’s just like, “What? I’m not constantly making jokes and I’m constantly…” I’m saying things like, “Are you making fun of me? ” That it is kind of disarming to him and he doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

Laci (00:18:52):

Right. She’s not putting up … For instance, the interaction you see him have right first is the back and forth he’s having with the on- air personality, which are probably the types he’s around the most. And he kind of thinks of himself as being that type of person. I go to cocktail parties with people like this woman who is sarcastically saying something to me that the rest of the audience doesn’t realize we’re having an on air fight and then as soon as I get off air, we’re going to go, “Fuck you, fuck you. ” Everything’s cynical and layered and just a big coat of slime on top. And here she is a producer who’s just so unassuming and just says what she thinks, but everything she thinks is nice and she thinks nice things and says nice things and wants nice things. Okay. If we’re not going to play games, I don’t know what the fuck to do.

(00:19:41):

And this whole movie is about him trying to game his way out of this situation, but you can’t game her.

Matt (00:19:50):

Harold Ramos, upon telling him Jimmy Stewart’s not … I keep telling you he’s 95 years old and he’s dead, suggested Chevy Chase and this prospect filled Ruben with dread. He said, “Chevy had never shown any aptitude for depth. He could comment on a character, but he could never be a character. So the fact that they were considering him was making my stomach churn.” But Chevy Chase wasn’t interested. The part was also offered to Tom Hanks, which makes a lot of sense for the early ’90s. He declined. He later ran into Harold Ramos after the movie came out and he said, “I was right to say no because everybody knows me as a nice guy. So if you see me coming in and being a jerky fellow, you know I’m going to be a nice guy at the end of it. With Bill Murray, you have no idea what’s going to happen.” And then Michael Keaton was also offered the role.

(00:20:37):

He declined because he said he didn’t understand the movie. And then once he saw it, he regretted it. Interesting. Three years later.

Laci (00:20:44):

Well, I mean, because Michael Keaton’s depth side also did not get to really blossom until he was an older guy as well with, wouldn’t you say with Birdman? What am I trying to think? What is- I

Matt (00:20:57):

Mean, you’re thinking of Birdman. I think he had lots of great roles in the 80s and 90s. I think that-

Laci (00:21:03):

I mean, Batman, he was kind of dark, but I feel like I mainly knew him from romantic comedy stuff. And so maybe it was just my bubble that I was in, but I feel like they didn’t totally give him the keys to just take that character where … I don’t know that you knew super dark things had come from him yet.

Matt (00:21:20):

Pacific Heights. I think that because he had such a huge role in Batman, people started to see him a different way than he actually was, which is always just kind of a weird character actor.

Laci (00:21:34):

God, I don’t think of him as well. I guess because I found him so attractive. I was like, “Let me sex at him.”

Matt (00:21:40):

Beatlejuice, he’s like a twitchy, like- You’re

Laci (00:21:43):

Right, you’re right. I don’t know. I’d think of him as dad humor, but I’m sure if I looked at all the performances, there’s layers there. And then I’ve got stupid multiplicity stuck in my head.

Matt (00:21:55):

So three years later, he’s in Multiplicity directed by Harold Ramos with Andy McDowell, which I’ve watched to prepare for this movie because that seems like, “Hey, let’s try to do Groundhog Day again.” And let me tell you, that movie fucking sucks. It’s not

Laci (00:22:07):

Good.

Matt (00:22:08):

It’s terrible. I could not believe how bad it was in every respect. And I think my assessment is the most boring thing of like, this is mostly Michael Keaton who’s doing what he can, but he’s not acting against anybody. So it has no comedic engine at all.

Laci (00:22:25):

And I don’t need him to be a lot of different versions of a thing.That’s not really his thing to be a whole bunch of different variations of the same guy, but he has to be for this to work.

Matt (00:22:34):

So in the first draft of the screenplay, the movie starts with Phil already in the time loop. Apparently he’s doing a lot of voiceover, but you go about 15 minutes seeing him go through life without knowing he … You the audience don’t know he’s in a time loop yet Ned Ryerson comes up to him and he just punches him in the face. And you’re like, “Why’d he punch that guy?” And so it’s not until 15 minutes into the movie where he wakes up and it’s like it’s all starting again. At this point, he says he’s already been stuck here for 70 years at the beginning of the

Laci (00:23:06):

Movie. I sound cool.

Matt (00:23:09):

This version centers his loneliness and his misenthropy a lot more than the final version and his way out of the time loop is to help out people in the town rather than just helping out Andy McDowell and himself.

Laci (00:23:22):

Oh, sure. Were there any flashbacks so we could see what he was like before to understand- I

Matt (00:23:29):

Don’t know. … what

Laci (00:23:30):

Frame of … I think it does a lot of table setting to understand what he’s like just for those few minutes before it starts to happen.

Matt (00:23:38):

Yeah. The final twist of the first draft of the screenplay is Reed is a major character and he learns in the end, she’s stuck in a time loop too. What? All of this got rewritten by Harold Ramus once Ruben sold it to Columbia Pictures who then immediately attached Harold Ramus to direct it. So Harold Ramus, let’s talk about Harold Ramos.

Laci (00:24:02):

Please.

Matt (00:24:03):

Six foot two. Not

Laci (00:24:04):

Meatballs. I’m sorry.

Matt (00:24:07):

Major figure obviously in American comedy and movies, co-writer of Animal House, writer of Meatballs. That’s his first collaboration with Bill Murray, writes and directs Caddyshack, writes and co-stars and stripes with Bill Murray, directs the first National Lampoons Vacation wrote Back to School, Armed and Dangerous. And then Ghostbusters the huge movie for all of their careers, which he co-writes and co-stars. And though I was just looking at his filmography of things he directed, he goes from Club Paradise in 1986 and then doesn’t direct a movie again until Groundhog Day in 1993. And that was the last of six times that Ramis and Murray worked together, but it was the first time since Ghostbusters. Basically their collaboration really slows down after Ghostbusters and then Groundhog Day is the last one. But after Groundhog Day, he makes Stewart Saves His Family Multiplicity, analyze this, bedazzled to analyze that.

Laci (00:25:11):

Oh my God. All these are my movies and not load-bearing beams, but I love every single one of those

Matt (00:25:18):

Movies. Stewart saves his family.

Laci (00:25:20):

What is that? That was a character from my era of SNL. “You’re smart enough, you’re strong enough and gosh, darn it people like you, “or something like that. He’s a therapist

Matt (00:25:34):

And he’s

Laci (00:25:35):

Just a feminine steward.

Matt (00:25:36):

Who’s Stewart? Who plays Stewart?

Laci (00:25:38):

I don’t remember. I don’t remember who the actual actor is. It was easy to imitate and because effeminate men are funny to make fun of.

Matt (00:25:50):

Al Franken.

Laci (00:25:51):

Al Franken though.

Matt (00:25:51):

That’s okay. That’s weird. Dies in 2014 does Harold Ramos, but major comedy writer, director, and actor. And if you look at Bill Murray’s career, let’s say at least through Groundhog Day, it is very inextricably tied to Harold Ramos. So Ramus was six years older than Bill Murray and they were very close friends. Harold Ramos named Bill Murray Godfather to his first child. They worked together on National Lampoons Radio Hour in the 70s and then Bill Murray joined the cast of SNL. In the 70s became one of the breakout stars of the early seasons. Then they started making movies together, meatballs and Caddyshack and Stripes and Ghostbusters in 1984. So let’s just talk about Ghostbusters for a moment. Ghostbusters started life as a script written by Dan Ackroyd called Ghost Smashers written as a vehicle for himself and his best friend, John Belushi. And the script was very weird and esoteric and took place on other planet, not earth.

(00:26:55):

And Dan Akroyd’s always been like a weird conspiracy guy, obsessed with the occult and UFOs and the paranormal. But then John Blushi died in 1982 and Akroy puts that away. And at the time he was a big name, but the word in Hollywood on Akroyd was like, ” Is he going to be able to have success without John Belushi?

(00:27:15):

“Because all of his success in movies- Blue Brothers. … alongside John Belushi. But he then has Trading Places in 1983 with Eddie Murphy, which is a giant hit.

Laci (00:27:24):

I love that movie.

Matt (00:27:25):

And so he writes a part for Eddie Murphy in Ghost Smashers and then enlists Harold Ramus and Ivan Wrightman to help him with it. And they’re like, ” How about instead of it being set on another planet, we said it in New York City. “He’s like,

Laci (00:27:37):

” Which is kind

Matt (00:27:38):

Of like another

Laci (00:27:38):

Planet for most people.

Matt (00:27:40):

That’s true. And the brilliant idea of like, let’s treat them like they’re firefighters or like they’re just part of the blue collar fabric of a city and that’s what makes Ghostbusters work so well. Final credit, writing credit for Ghostbusters goes to Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramus and those two were going to play two of the three main characters. The lead ghostbuster was supposed to be played by John Belushi. So who else is going to play him now that he’s dead? Bill Murray was the obvious candidate, but he was looking to transition out of comedy acting.

Laci (00:28:14):

I was wondering if this feud had been kind of under the surface and in a long time coming because his owing your success to this comedy making genius also is what Pigeon held him into being only associated with comedy and people not thinking he could do something apart from him maybe

Matt (00:28:34):

Or … Absolutely. I think that’s it. Yeah, we’re never going to get an actual answer of what’s going on. And Bill Murray’s obviously a very difficult man and that is part of his appeal and what he often plays on screen is a very unhappy man and of sort of aloof and above it all man. That’s part of his persona and that’s why we like him, but it also, he seems like an impossible person to love or care about and certainly to work with. Speak

Laci (00:29:01):

For your fucking self. I couldn’t be more attracted to someone. The impossibleness of it. I love that. I love a

Matt (00:29:10):

Heart to place in. No, I get why one would be attracted to it, but then the reality of actually of having to be in a productive relationship with somebody like that. Looking at the timeline of this all and seeing how much in this early career for Bill Murray that you can really make the case that it was like his comedy buddies, specifically Ramus, are responsible for all the success he is having in movies, but he views himself not as a performing comedy guy. In fact, seems to have a little disdain for it in a way that you see with kind of like genius guys, I think like him for whom it comes easily. It comes so easy that this can’t be important because I don’t have to try that hard at it.

Laci (00:29:50):

I’m sorry. I could also just … I could see being really resentful for people not totally recognizing because I’m always in an entourage, that maybe I’m I’m carrying more of the load than you think I am also because I’m the one completely willing to be something very outrageous or something really unlikeable and the rest of these guys aren’t, that maybe I am more to do with the success of this than I’m being given credit for. I should get to call my own shot next time.

Matt (00:30:18):

Yeah, that too, because when it seems to come so easy for him, he’s kind of easy to overlook. But he always wants to try other things, wants to work in different genres, wants to be considered a serious actor and an intellectual. But his movie that he tries where he plays Hunter S. Thompson, Wear the Buffalo Rome, that is a flop. And he tries to transition into … He’ll do comedies, but he plays Dustin Hoffman’s best friend in Tootsie. And that’s like a comedy for smart people who read the New Yorker magazine and stuff, that movie. And he’s great at it and he’s hilarious. So he is trying to get a movie called The Razor’s Edge made. He co-writes it and this movie is about a man going on a spiritual journey all throughout the, going into the Himalayas and stuff. He prayed

Laci (00:31:12):

Loft seven years in Dibet?

Matt (00:31:13):

Sure.

Laci (00:31:14):

Okay.

Matt (00:31:14):

Akroy says, if you take the lead role in Ghostbusters, you can leverage that with Columbia Pictures to get your movie made.

Laci (00:31:21):

Worst advice ever. Well,

Matt (00:31:22):

It works.

Laci (00:31:24):

But it seems like it probably made it even harder to believe him as anything else once he becomes an accidental overnight fricking ice. I mean, he was already in iconic. No, he’s already. I know, but that movie transcended and a generation of boys only think of him as one thing.

Matt (00:31:40):

And nobody knew that that was what Ghostbusters was

Laci (00:31:42):

Going to do. No, it seems like an accidental Avengers, honestly, because of just the pure marketability of all of it. And then in the instant desire to have this as a Halloween costume, I feel like as soon as you can picture yourself being something for Halloween, you have made a successful movie. Something is so easily translated into something I can make at home. You’ve just made an icon, my friend.

Matt (00:32:08):

When we talk about the irresponsible psychoanalysis we do of the people, here’s an example of it or whatever. This is not irresponsible. This is just like, I think it cannot be understated how much Ghostbusters being … Okay. So he goes from filming the racer’s edge where he’s doing all this important spiritual work and then flies over to New York, takes a while to get into the groove of Ghostbusters. Everybody understands The Ghostbusters is going to be a big movie. We got big stars, big director. As they’re making it … I love reading about productions like this where people can feel it while they’re making the movie like, “Oh, we’re really onto something here.” I love that. But you watch Ghostbusters and it’s just a raunchy comedy. I think the fact that it instantly became like a thing for little boys to match their toys into each other, I think that that-

Laci (00:32:58):

That’s it. The

Matt (00:32:58):

Story.He really resented that.

Laci (00:33:00):

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because it took it into kids’ land when it’s not really for kids. It just has got all the shit they like. You gave them contraptions, you gave them weapons, you gave them slime, you gave them gross shit.

Matt (00:33:15):

Sorry. He gets to be the lead of the movie being exactly who he wants to be. He is Bill Murray and he is not sanding down the smart ass edge. He’s not being like a Harrison Ford, like leading, smooth, leading man at the center of it all. Righ he’s not

Laci (00:33:28):

Trying to be palatable. It was never meant for this group, but they latched on and made it their own and there was nothing he could do about it.

Matt (00:33:35):

So it’s a huge … I mean, for everyone, this is a career defining hit now for Murray Akroyd, Ramus and Reitman and instantly like sequel. You got to do a sequel. You got to do a sequel. And this thing gets turned into a cartoon show and a merchandising phenomenon and he doesn’t want to do it and eventually does do Ghostbusters too reluctantly and then spends the rest of his career like Akroy begging him like, “Play hi Bellary plays Ban Grossbusters three.” The rumor was that Ackroyd would fax him the script and then Murray would have it shredded and send it back to him. Apparently that never happened. But it’s like, yeah, I really admire the idea that you should if you don’t want to do it, you shouldn’t do it. You

Laci (00:34:17):

Should do it. It’s his legacy. And if it didn’t even turn out the right way for him the first time, he doesn’t owe that to anybody. Who knows what goes into people deciding someone’s difficult, but I feel like he’s getting a bum rap for having principles and

Matt (00:34:38):

Standards? Everyone wanted to happen for all of the ’90s and he’s the one who you need. Any of the others, you could feasibly take them away and still make it and he’s the one who you can’t get. He’s

Laci (00:34:50):

Being punished for his own talents. It sucks.

Matt (00:34:54):

But in the midst of this, he also has a falling out with Harold Ramos and we’ll get to that. But the weirdest thing that’s ended up happening with him and Ghostbusters is like the industry changes such that everybody, Michael Keaton, Michael Keaton returns to play Batman. Everybody just goes back to their old roles. It’s sad. No one actually ends up liking it, but fans at ComicCon will be like, “Oh my God, tears in my eyes seeing Bill Murray in the stupid Ghostbusters suit.” And so he just shows up for these lazy Ghostbusters legacy sequels including 2021’s Ghostbusters Afterlife where Harold Ramus had been dead for seven years, but they deep fake him into the movie so that he can stand as a ghost beside these other 70 year old men playing dress up and their Ghostbusters costumes and all the little boy boners in the audience can spring.

(00:35:40):

So it’s like the worst of all worlds because he eventually did relent. And fine, I’ll take your money and I’ll play ball. But yeah, it’s why I can’t help but see Phil Connors and Punk Satany Phil as just do Ghostbusters three, Bill Murray, Kuefool. And it’s what everybody wants. Just fucking just do it. Just say the lines, just say the catchphrases. You’ll make everybody happy. It doesn’t have to be good.

Laci (00:36:04):

Wait, I don’t understand what you mean by that. Why is him doing Groundhog Day them trying to coax him into Ghostbusters?

Matt (00:36:12):

Because the lesson he learns, part of the lesson he learns is like, you know what? All this Groundhog stuff, it makes people happy. And you know what? Yeah, you don’t know. Doing something

Laci (00:36:23):

Over and over and over again makes people happy.

Matt (00:36:26):

Well-

Laci (00:36:26):

That’s the lesson?

Matt (00:36:27):

No,

Laci (00:36:28):

But- It seems like a trap.

Matt (00:36:29):

Getting trapped in Punk Satani does make him realize there is a lot of beauty in sort of the ordinariness of this world and stupid rituals like the groundhog thing. He starts with so much disdain at people being excited for this, but he does kind of learn there is … No, that’s fun. Like you need fun, you need ritual, you need-

Laci (00:36:48):

There’s a life to be had everywhere. There’s a story with everyone.

Matt (00:36:51):

Yes.

Laci (00:36:52):

None of these people are below me because they are people and I am not the main character in their movie. They are leading their own and he becomes an observer of everyone’s individual movie, including The Groundhog.

Matt (00:37:04):

And he can do a very smarmy newscast where he’s like, “And look at the groundhog and give the people what they want because they just want the newscaster to give a fun, smarmy, serious report on the groundhog. And he can give it to them. And I feel like it is the filmmakers kind of saying like, Bill, come on, you could be Peter Venkman and Ghostbusters three again. Just do it. We know it’ll be bad. Who cares? Just give the hogs the slop. Just do it. That’s what I do.

Laci (00:37:31):

Groundhogs their slop.

Matt (00:37:32):

Groundhog Day gets going. They hire Bill Murray, but immediately he goes rogue. So Danny Rubin, the original screenwriter whose script was then rewritten by Harold Ramos, Murray then goes around the director, Ramus, his oldest friend, and reaches out to the screenwriter and goes and picks him up on a private plane and just flies around with him and lectures him about story structure and then starts having him rewrite the script unbeknownst to Harold Ramos.

Laci (00:38:02):

What the fuck?

Matt (00:38:04):

And making it much closer to the tone of the original draft that he had written. So according to Wild and Crazy Guys, Ruben said, “He wouldn’t really talk to me. He would just grunt and paste and smoke cigars and read the newspaper.” And after about an hour of puttering around, he would sit down next to me and say something like, “Okay, if I agree to do this movie, what do you suppose Phil would say here?” I mean, they were already building sets. So that’s another thing is I feel like I know this guy of like, he’s signed on. He has a contract, but he’s still like, “If I decide to do this stupid movie, I’m so unpredictable, I may just disappear forever and you’ll never see me again.” But Harold Ramos finds out and he is furious. So he’s busy supervising them building sets in Woodstock, Illinois and at the same time he’s finding out that his star is meeting in secret with his writer and totally changing the movie.

(00:38:56):

And he calls up Ruben and he’s like, “Let me talk to Bill. Let me talk to Bill.” And Bill keeps saying like, “No, I’m not here. I’m not talking to him.” All of this seems to come from Bill Murray’s marriage to Margaret Kelly falling apart at the exact same time. So he was already very difficult and aloof man, but then his personal life is totally falling apart. So once the production begins, Ramis and Murray just are not getting along on set. They’re not communicating. And so Ramus requests that Murray hires a personal assistant and the assistant can sort of facilitate the communication between them.

Laci (00:39:29):

The Beverly D’Angelo of it all.

Matt (00:39:34):

You’re referring to …

Laci (00:39:36):

Chevy Chase’s whisperer, one person that could help him be … They have a partnership and understanding and she just gets him and- Who

Matt (00:39:47):

Plays his wife in the vacation movies. Oh,

Laci (00:39:49):

Right. And also helps him just kind of be more palatable for the people who have to work with

Matt (00:39:52):

Him

Laci (00:39:53):

When she’s involved in the project. It also always makes me think of the girl that was thought to be that way with Trump. Was it Paige? What was her name?

Matt (00:40:03):

Hopics. Yeah. No, you’ll always get one. Yeah. She truly seems like the only person in the world Chevy Chase likes is the only person he’s ever said anything nice about is Beverly D’Angelo. But Brian Doyle Murray, Bill Murray’s older brother always seems to have to be in his movies to be a handler for him.

Laci (00:40:20):

Ah, okay.

Matt (00:40:22):

And he’s great. He’s a

Laci (00:40:23):

Delight. Yes. I always like to see him.

Matt (00:40:26):

Okay. So please hire a personal assistant and maybe she can get you in line and I can just talk to her and there can be some sort of professionalism. So the producer of the movie, Trevor at Albert says … Well, so Bill Murray’s like, “You want me to hire an assistant so that we can communicate better?” A, okay, and he hires a deaf woman. What?

(00:40:44):

Wow. Okay. So the producer Trevor Albert said, “To many people, it seems like a hilarious thing. You insist to an anarchist that they find someone to help bridge the gap of communication and the next thing you know, they found someone who can’t communicate to be the go- between.” It’s like an existential joke, but the victim of that joke was the young woman more than anyone else. She was in the middle of that thing and had no freaking idea what was going on and it exacerbated the situation on set. It was the everyman thing. Fuck the man. But Harold and I weren’t really the man. And I feel like that kind of sums it all up is him like the producer said, like the anarchist, it will be hilarious if I do that, but you’re really turning an innocent woman making her the victim of everything just so you can look like a cool guy.

Laci (00:41:28):

We’re not your oppressors. We are your friends who you agree to do a movie with. No one is forcing you to do this, but you did commit and now we’ve started building and now you’re being insanely difficult when we’ve already started the process you know better than anyone that it would be really hard and costly and could ruin the whole project to try and replace you right

Matt (00:41:45):

Now.

Laci (00:41:45):

Yeah. Well, who are you raging against? You made this machine. You’re raging against yourself.

Matt (00:41:52):

I think it is a more irresponsible psychoanalysis. I think it’s because these are the comedy people that he came up with that he feels like he can do that too because within the decade he will get pulled into the Wes Anderson universe and he has said, there’s this interview with him earlier this year he said, “I’m not difficult. Trust me. I’m not … ” Ask Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson and Sophia Coppola. They know I’m not difficult, but it seems like some directors later in his career figured out how to work with him, but also he didn’t have like a connection to them going back decades to when they were all just like comedy people coming up together. Well,

Laci (00:42:27):

I mean, when you see yourself as one thing, but then you end up succeeding in the industry as another thing and then you’re working your entire career to try to get out of this perception of you that you never meant to give. I’d say it probably is pretty refreshing to just turn the page and start with people who only know you as this thing you meant to be.

(00:42:46):

So it’s less of him remembering them from their comeda days and them remembering him as that funny guy that they keep making do funny joke stuff. I understand as a person who feels like they need to be on and need to perform, it sucks when you’re having a bad fucking day and they’re still asking you to just do the thing, just be fun. Just why are you being grumpy? Like that is experience of being pregnant as a funny person and you have no energy and no desire to fucking make any jokes. It’s like, I guess I’ll just see you later. Yeah, I guess I’ll just go be alone. I’m not doing my dance.

Matt (00:43:21):

To me it reads him as like, “I know Harold Ramos. He’s my old friend. He’s not the boss of this … ” He’s trying to be a boss on this set. Who does he think he is? I don’t have to listen to him.

Laci (00:43:31):

Or he’s this guy who knows I’m lightning in a bottle and I’m not the one tied to him. He’s trying to be tied to me. Every time he has a project, what do you know? I’m fucking in it. And he will guilt me and guilt me. I’m the godfather to his kid. He’ll write me a letter, show up at my house until I’m just fucking out of friendship, out of loyalty. I’m in his picture and before I know it, he’s made my legacy. I have it. So yeah, I’ll be in your fucking movie, man, but now I’m going to be a diva. How do you like that?

Matt (00:43:57):

And he did say in that-

Laci (00:43:58):

I’m Tim Murray.

Matt (00:43:59):

I can see that. He does say things like, “I don’t believe that just because they cast you to be in the movie like they’re the Supreme Overlord boss of you, ” or whatever, but I don’t know. I guess I do kind of identify with all of this. Where? With Murray’s. With Murray’s fuck the man attitude without me having the talent to pull that off, but then I can also see how fucking insufferable and a nightmare should be to have to interact with him. Yes.

Laci (00:44:31):

Have there been recent events and changes in our lives maybe where-

Matt (00:44:34):

Yes, and you’re aware of that. Hal Ramos’ daughter said they got into a physical altercation on the set.

Laci (00:44:40):

Oh shit.

Matt (00:44:41):

Her dad got so mad at him.He grabbed him by the collar and pushed him up against the wall. Is she in the

Laci (00:44:45):

Industry? I’m sorry. I don’t know her.

Matt (00:44:48):

I don’t know if she’s in the industry.

Laci (00:44:50):

Oh, okay. It’s a daughter, bring your daughter to work day. They had a physical

Matt (00:44:53):

Fight. She wrote a memoir where a lot of this comes from because he didn’t talk about it that much.

Laci (00:44:59):

Okay. Did they die, friends? I mean, they died. Sorry. When he passed away.

Matt (00:45:05):

Just hold your questions.

Laci (00:45:07):

Or you could say, Laci, thanks for the segue.

Matt (00:45:09):

So it seems like this physical altercation might have been the last straw. They basically go 20 years without speaking to each other. Even as the movie is still in production, Murray doesn’t attend the premiere, he doesn’t do press for the movie. Oh shit. But it is- It

Laci (00:45:24):

Kind of adds to the mystique. He’s this interesting character in this movie, this unknowable man who just wants to be seen and known and loved by the end of it. And then he doesn’t go to the premiere. What does that mean?

Matt (00:45:36):

But yeah, it does kind of add to the cult of this special movie that nobody intended for the movie to be like this. There’s directors who are like, “The movie is exactly what I had in my head.”

(00:45:49):

And then there’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know that. I’m not in control of it at all. It just is what it is. And sometimes those are the most special works of art that there are. In her memoir, Harold Ramos’s daughter Violet wrote, “Some people hypothesize that Bill may have been resentful of my dad’s influence on his career or wondered if my dad had offended or betrayed Bill in some way, but truly the root of his decision remains a mystery to this day.” So Harold Ramos seems like he truly had no idea why Bill Murray hated him so much or just was not talking to him. He was just the kind of guy where he will be mad at you and not tell you that he’s mad at you.

Laci (00:46:27):

And we know people like this and we know someone that led, we all have person in our life who let it build, let it build where you think you’re having a conversation about what you’re talking about and realize it might just be layered in a whole bunch of … You’re just put on a face and at any point now you’re about to fucking blow. And that’s really immature on Bill Murray. I mean, you need to be someone who can talk things through, but I mean, who knows what makes fucking art? I don’t know.

Matt (00:46:53):

In 2004, The New Yorker had a piece on Harold Ramos by Tad Friend and it describes him preparing his movie, The Ice Harvest. So there’s a part of the movie that ultimately went to Oliver Platt, but the writer got to sit in on this meeting with producers and executives and Ramis is talking about it and he talks about this character and he says, “I’d like to take one shot at Bill Murray.” And the writer’s like, “The producers in the room kind of got a little uncomfortable.” And one executive said, “But would he do it for the love of the movie?” Meaning I know he’s going to ask a lot of money.

Laci (00:47:30):

And how much time had gone by at this point?

Matt (00:47:32):

10 years, but would he do it for the love of … Basically, would he take a discount to be in this movie and then said, “I’m sure you have a personal connection.” And Ramis responded, “No, I don’t.” For a

Laci (00:47:43):

Personal disconnection.

Matt (00:47:44):

I don’t even have Bill’s phone number, but I just talked to him eight years ago. So at this point, the article then describes everybody in the room suddenly starts exchanging Bill Murray’ story. He’s like, “Oh, Bill Murray, what a crazy son of a bitch.” But Harold Ramos just stays quiet, just stays stoned silent there. But he always seemed to hold out hope like, “Maybe we’ll just work together again and we’ll never talk about it, but we can get some of the old magic back.” This

Laci (00:48:07):

Is interesting though and it goes to my point in that Ramus is really the one that was taking advantage because why is your hope that you’ll work together again?

Matt (00:48:15):

Because you

Laci (00:48:16):

Hope that you’ll be friends again.

Matt (00:48:18):

Because if you know that he is not somebody that we can talk it through with, that is the nature of it. We just start doing things again together.

Laci (00:48:27):

Fine, but maybe he’s also somebody that you can’t help taking advantage of because he’s good at everything.

Matt (00:48:31):

You’re saying taking advantage. This is a professional creative relationship. He’s not taking advantage. He’s also giving something to Mari. I got

Laci (00:48:40):

You. But if Bill made it clear that like, “Hey, I want to just be friends now. I don’t want to be attached to every project that you have. And just because you have it in your head when you’re cooking this up doesn’t mean I’m going to do it. I don’t owe you that. ” Maybe Ramis was not … I’m really assuming some shit here. I just could see like, okay, either I’m your friend and I have to be in all your projects or else you’re going to be mad at me or we’re not friends. So maybe we’re just not friends.

Matt (00:49:06):

You need to be able to say no if he’s-

Laci (00:49:09):

Team Mary. Team Mary team.

Matt (00:49:11):

You don’t have to sign onto the movie.

Laci (00:49:14):

And Ramis gets to be mad at you.

Matt (00:49:16):

Okay. I wasn’t expecting that. I don’t

Laci (00:49:18):

Think you understand Ramis or Murray Raynaud.

Matt (00:49:20):

Okay. I do see what you’re saying that maybe he feels like because we have this long relationship, I actually can’t say no. Right. But then the response is like, “But you’re a grownup. You’re like 48 years old. Of course you can say no.” Also, you’re saying yes is yes, that will allow Columbia Pictures to pay me $10 million to be in your movie.

Laci (00:49:40):

Okay. But then that’s like saying if you had the ability to never, ever die, you could do anything you wanted. Doesn’t that sound like a dream? Well, that’s the same thing as saying, “What if you had $10 million?” Well, I guess I’ll just put it with my other $10 million. My day to day still fucking sucks. I’m still sad. I don’t feel like being funny and he only thinks of me as funny guy. He’s more and more pigeonholding me into this corner and it’s helping his career and not mine. I am sad and going through a divorce. This motherfucker’s mad at me. Be nice to me. I’m going through a divorce.

Matt (00:50:09):

Okay. So at this point-

Laci (00:50:13):

I didn’t know it was going to be like this, Matt. I just really feeling Murray right now.

Matt (00:50:16):

2014, Harold Ramos is dying of an autoimmune disease. He’s 69 years old. Apparently Bill Murray’s brother, Brian Doyle, says like, “I think he’s about to go die. Can you please just go talk to him?”

Laci (00:50:25):

Maybe don’t do an accent while you’re telling me this part of the story.

Matt (00:50:28):

That’s not an accent. That’s just his voice. Brian Doyle Murray. So Bill Murray pays a visit to his house with a box of donuts. Harold Ramos had largely lost the ability to speak, but his daughter recounts that they reconciled and laughed during their time together that moment. So that’s Harold Ramos and Bill Murray. But what of Groundhog Day? Well, it was a big hit at the box office, but very quickly it was like, yeah, I think like Shawshank Redemption or something like its legacy is on TV and on VHS and just as a reference and just this is a groundhog day scenario. What do you think it is though, Laci, just about this movie though, other than the obvious stuff? What is its power?

Laci (00:51:09):

Well, it’s power. The reason why I get drawn in, why I start watching it and I can’t stop is because you cannot help but put yourself there and the whole time you’re watching what he’s doing and wondering what you’d be doing. You can’t perceive of 10 years just to get good at flicking a card into a hat. I mean, based on the 10,000 hour rule, which is complete junk science, some people have this movie as him being in this loop for 10 years and some at like 10,000 years. No one knows how much French he actually knows. We only see him use some French, right? I mean, playing the piano isn’t that fucking hard, is it? I don’t know. But it’s just something I think all of us as children or at least us deep thinkers have had that moment where we realize we understand what eternity is and it freaks us the fuck out.

(00:52:00):

And for me as a Christian child, I got super scared of heaven, not of hell because I can’t perceive of me ever going to hell. I can perceive of me going to heaven and the picture painted is boring as shit.

(00:52:14):

I don’t know. It’s just a sandbox you want to play in because you know you’re going to have to deal with it at some point if you think there is an afterlife. Afterlife is Groundhog Day and this movie is like our chance to like, what would we do with that? Are we going to be okay?

Matt (00:52:28):

Or, and the movie, it’s not even subtle about it when he’s talking to the two drunks at the bowling alley, like this kind of just already is life for most people is every day is exactly the same.

Laci (00:52:42):

Sure. But there are consequences. Every day’s the same you struggling to make good of what you have and not fuck up what you already have where it’s different because you can just … No, that’s the great beauty of it. It’s like getting $10 million. I’ve got some fuck me money and fuck you money.

Matt (00:52:59):

But it does not take that much of a leap to understand how this would feel because it doesn’t feel that different from … I think it’s the same reason the Sixth Sense twist is so powerful is like, I can understand what it would feel like to be a ghost and I can understand what it would feel like to live in a life where nothing I do matters at all to the world.

Laci (00:53:18):

And it’s the point of … It shows you right here in just a simple thougt experiment that the things you think are going to make your life better aren’t sleeping with whoever you want, getting the girl of your dreams, eating whatever you like, having as much money as you could have, being invincible. All those things are just to fill a hole when at the end of the day, you just need to like find happiness in your day-to-day life, find interest and community with people around you and like make the best of what you have and just accept that all you can have is what’s in front of you. And as soon as he does that, he’s figured it out.

Matt (00:53:54):

Yeah. And so the answer here is something that everyone can take away from their own lives. Same with the Sixth Sense, actually. I wasn’t expecting this connection, is like, “Oh, good. I’m not dead. I have time to reconnect with the people in my life.” That’s actually what matters. I can value the relationships I have.

Laci (00:54:11):

So I keep thinking over and over about the quote you gave in the very beginning and like I want it on a T-shirt. Can you say it again?

Matt (00:54:17):

What was the

Laci (00:54:18):

Quote? About the thing that the creator or was it the writer? His quote. I mean, it just sums up all of this. It sums up everything. Your life feels like a hell, but it’s somebody else’s heaven.

Matt (00:54:32):

The thing he said about it’s delightful to be so associated with something so well loved, you could break your heart thinking you’re the victim of this amazing life you’ve got.

Laci (00:54:39):

You could break your heart.

Matt (00:54:41):

You could break your heart-

Laci (00:54:42):

Thinking you’re the victim of this amazing life you’ve got.

Matt (00:54:45):

Yeah.

Laci (00:54:46):

Yes. That’s so

Matt (00:54:48):

Profound

Laci (00:54:48):

To me. I

Matt (00:54:50):

Want it

Laci (00:54:50):

On a shirt.

Matt (00:54:52):

So yeah, one of those movies that you look at the box off, it’s like, yeah, nice little hit. But yeah, it’s so much bigger than that and was made into a musical in 2017 with Danny Rubin collaborating with the Broadway producers of the Matilda musical. So his life has also been just like, I’m Groundhog Day for the rest of my life. He wrote a book that I bought on Kindle that is kind of funny. It is called- It’s kind

Laci (00:55:14):

Of funny.

Matt (00:55:14):

How to write Groundhog Day. Oh, that’s funny. It’s kind of a parody of screenwriting guides, but it’s like, I don’t know what to tell you. All I know how to tell you is how to write Crown. But it had a lot of good insights into the movie that we shall now go ahead and talk about in our movie discussion. We should

Laci (00:55:33):

Do it.

Matt (00:55:33):

Which you can hear if you subscribe to one week rental wherever you listen to your podcasts. Groundhog Day opens of course with the clouds rapidly moving in the sky.

Laci (00:56:18):

Are you channeling Phil Connors right now? I

Matt (00:56:21):

Don’t know what I’m doing.

Laci (00:56:22):

You’re kind of being deep thoughts.

Matt (00:56:24):

Well, it’s like, why? Why the clouds? Is it the march of time it can’t be stopped unless you go here, go to this place? Hey, I have a question.

Laci (00:56:33):

What’s your question?

Matt (00:56:35):

What would you try to do to get out of the situation?

Laci (00:56:39):

Well, I think I wouldn’t be able to think of … That’s the point, right? You’re supposed to come to some kind of internal piece, some kind of realization of like everybody has a story.

Matt (00:56:50):

What am I doing?

Laci (00:56:51):

Yeah, you’re jerking yourself off way too high up in the air. Your dick is all over the place, but there’s something beautiful in that and that he decides to live there at the end. The point is as long as inside you feel good, you’re happy with yourself, you can live anywhere. You can talk to anyone. You can do any activity and be at peace.

Matt (00:57:14):

I was thinking if he moved away, this would be like in the leftovers, spoiler alert for the leftovers.

Laci (00:57:19):

Oh, wait, give him a chance to tune out. Okay, go.

Matt (00:57:23):

Kevin always having to go back to the underworld. For the rest of his life, Punksatani would be, Phil’s got to go back to it because that’s where

Laci (00:57:30):

He spent an eternity in there. To see if it happens again. Yeah. The whole question of like, is he a God is so interesting because he went through this horrible thing but gets to live with this intense knowledge of he’s a God in that town, but there’s nothing he doesn’t know about anyone except for what they’re like when they’re in a different mood. But he only knows everyone as they are in their temperament, including the person he falls in love with on that day. None of the women on their periods. Some of the people who have just had a relative die, guys with IBS, you’re catching them on a very specific day.

Matt (00:58:09):

True, but the universe is now completely limited to this day, so he is the master of all of

Laci (00:58:14):

The universe. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about after Phil. Phil getting to live in Ponxitoni if he wants to afterward, being the God of this town because he knows everyone and everything and they have no idea why.

Matt (00:58:27):

He’s going to be such a letdown to these people for the rest of their lives, most especially to Andy McDowell. Wait a minute, I thought you knew everything about me. And then he’s like, “No, only what I could learn in that day.” No,

Laci (00:58:38):

But he does.

Matt (00:58:38):

He doesn’t know what she is like.

Laci (00:58:40):

That’s what I’m saying, because if she wasn’t on her period, he doesn’t know what hormonal and a McDonald doll was like. He doesn’t know what a sick one is like or lost relatives. That’s my whole point is that he is a master of that town under those exact circumstances.

Matt (00:58:58):

Yeah. So maybe God, if God is real, our universe to him, it’s just a day and he’s like, “Are you kidding? This is nothing. This is tiny. This is one day.” Anybody could learn all the shit about this universe if they only had to live in one day because we can’t even conceive of what more days are like. So maybe that’s what God actually … I thought I had a point that I was going

Laci (00:59:20):

To- I didn’t think he had one. I was like, “Where the fuck could this be going? “

Matt (00:59:23):

Phil Murray’s Phil Collins. He’s a weatherman. Hey, is he-

Laci (00:59:26):

Phil Collins.

Matt (00:59:27):

Phil Collins. Phil

Laci (00:59:28):

Connors.

Matt (00:59:29):

Connors. I wrote Collins every single time. Oh, good. Phil Connors, he’s a weatherman. He’s a weatherman, not a meteorologist, right? There’s a difference.

Laci (00:59:37):

There is a difference, but he is a meteorologist. He is. And that he does have the education and understanding of the weather systems. He’s reading out loud things he understands about the weather and he also is the person who predicts the weather.That has morphed into your meteorologist can look like a scientist, can click anybody. As long as you’ve got a hot person reading the copy and pretending like they know what they’re talking about when they’re pointing at the board, but But they make it a point for you to know that he actually does understand.

Matt (01:00:05):

And is he a good weatherman, would you say?

Laci (01:00:07):

He’s as good as a weatherman can be. That’s the point.

Matt (01:00:10):

Weather predicting

Laci (01:00:12):

At the end of the day is a stupid thing. It’s futile.

Matt (01:00:18):

Yeah, that’s true. I mean, it’s a misunderstood thing. It’s like you can get a pretty good idea, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be right all the time and people are going to be so mad at you about all the times you’re wrong. And having the training, the science background, but people only respond to his presentation of it. He’s almost Bill Murray-esque and people care way more about the shit that I don’t care about, the things that come naturally to me.

Laci (01:00:42):

The goofy stuff, right? I’m trying to be deep. I’m trying to tell you why things are the way they are and why that I tell you it’s going to rain and that it doesn’t, that that doesn’t mean I was wrong. Especially if you’re a person who doesn’t leave your house all day. We are a tiny speck on the vast land he’s trying to forecast for. If 15 miles to the right, he’s correct. He was just off by 15 miles. Well, that makes him wrong to me, but right. He’s still right. How frustrating. He’s trying to predict the weather of an entire radius of people and it’s like, well, you only … I stare at my radar all the time trying to see when a storm’s going to pass because our son hates the storm so much. And it’s amazing how tiny where we are is and

Matt (01:01:30):

How

Laci (01:01:30):

Long it can take.

Matt (01:01:31):

He understands the assignment though. I’m supposed to be a little smarmy, have a little bit of fun up here, do just a little bit of goofiness, but ultimately bring you the information in a way that you can understand and ultimately just digest and shit out and never think about again. And then goes to talk to Nan, the news anchor, and they have some back and a little snippy back and forth. You

Laci (01:01:53):

Can tell they are not … He doesn’t have friends. We don’t meet a friend of Phil.

Matt (01:01:58):

Right. That’s true. And he says, “I won’t be back here tomorrow. I’m going to Punksitani because it’s Groundhog Day.” And Nan is like, “This must be your third year in a row doing that. ” Fourth, Nan.

Laci (01:02:10):

Which is weird because he’s a weatherman. And it’s funny because he has these aspirations of moving up to bigger and bader weather predicting platforms. He’s in local news.

Matt (01:02:22):

Well, he’s in Pittsburgh. He wants to go to New York or Philadelphia. He wants to go to a major market rather than a mid-major market. There’s

Laci (01:02:28):

Still just a weatherman. There’s still just going to be known for being able to predict. It’s not even the same as being known for being able to read out news really well. I feel like a weatherman is just not prestigious.

Matt (01:02:40):

Well, but he just wants more eyeballs on it.

Laci (01:02:43):

Yeah. Yeah. So he’s dismissed this one horse town, which is a lot of horses in this town when you think of the difference between this town and Punksatoni. So he’s just not a content person.

Matt (01:02:57):

Yeah, because do the people in Punksatani Pittsburgh is the big city.

Laci (01:02:59):

Couldn’t be bigger. Yeah. Well, he doesn’t see value in building relationships or even being nice to people he thinks he’s going to not live next to in the future, which is his whole evolution while he’s stuck in that day is like, no, even here, even here, you have the power to make someone’s day so much better. You can’t save their life. You are not God. You can stop them from having to wait for someone to fill up their tire with air. But mainly what you do is you make someone feel like you’re listening and you care about them and if they’re paying attention, that’s all anyone needs and that kind of fulfillment can happen with anyone.

Matt (01:03:40):

Yeah. I like that the town, it’s not that this place is magical or it’s like, oh, this place made me realize this place is so special. It is like any place you go to, even though this is a totally fiction … There are no small towns like this. Every small town is just a shitty little suburb or a Walmart surrounded by a bunch of …

Laci (01:03:58):

Check cashing places.

Matt (01:04:00):

Yeah. But if he went anywhere and got to spend time owning the mysteries and secrets of the place, he’d see the beauty in it.

Laci (01:04:08):

It would be vast though, right? I never even thought about this, but you see him try everything except for leave. It’s like he knows there’s a boundary. It’s like he’s in the cabin in the woods place like, oh, the cave was blown out. Well, there is only this place. But I just realized he tries everything but becoming a pilot

Matt (01:04:28):

Getting on a fucking

Laci (01:04:29):

Boat.

Matt (01:04:29):

So this is why I asked this question at first is it’s strange that there isn’t the scene where he’s gets straight out of bed, gets into the van and just drives and drives in every single direction. And we get the scene where it’s 5:59 the next morning and he just snaps back to the bed.

Laci (01:04:44):

Right. Because it could be the same day every day for the rest of your life, as long as you’re in a new place, it’s a different day to you. This only works if you wake up and can only be in this one place.

Matt (01:04:55):

Yeah. There is the suggestion though when he can’t get, he gets on the phone and they’re like, “There are no long distance lines suggesting like, no, the universe has put a snow globe around this town.”

Laci (01:05:05):

Yeah, but he really does reside himself to that quickly. Almost like he feels like, “Fuck it. I needed to slow down. I needed a lesson. I really fucking like Rita.” There’s something about him that’s like, “No, I deserve this town.”

Matt (01:05:22):

And we meet Rita, Andy McDowell, who’s going to be going with him to Punk Satani. She is a producer and they already know each other a little bit. I think this is an interesting dynamic. We’ve talked before about how there are no romantic comedies where the couple starts out as a couple. This is at least a variation where they do know each other a little bit

Laci (01:05:40):

And

Matt (01:05:40):

It’s about-

Laci (01:05:41):

A lesser movie, they’d stumble into each

Matt (01:05:44):

Other at

Laci (01:05:44):

The town. Yes.

Matt (01:05:44):

This would be her first day on the job. No,

Laci (01:05:46):

No. She’d be a local. She’d be trying to teach him the lessons of why a small town life is just as valid or something

Matt (01:05:54):

Boring like

Laci (01:05:55):

That. But it’s

Matt (01:05:56):

Not that. It’s not that at all. And she is from the big city, but she’s like, “No, it’s cool. They have fun stuff to do over there. It’ll be a real needle time, I think.

Laci (01:06:05):

” Yeah,

Matt (01:06:05):

She’s

Laci (01:06:06):

Content

Matt (01:06:07):

And says like, “I thought we could even stay an extra day and get some incredible footage of the fun and festivities.” And she’s having a lot of fun in front of the blue screen. She’s a billion times happier than Phil could ever be.

Laci (01:06:22):

And you can see his face when he lays eyes on her acting this way. He wants that. He knows there’s something in her that’s not heavy. Something that’s weighing him down that isn’t weighing her down and he’s at the same time pissed at it and in awe of it.

Matt (01:06:38):

Yeah, because it’s not like she’s arrived at a similar position in life as he has.

Laci (01:06:44):

Yeah. Went to school for French literature. What did she think she was going to be? Certainly not a fucking producer.

Matt (01:06:50):

But it’s not like he’s like, “Well, I have to be this way. I’m so singularly focused. That’s how I got where I am.” She’s like, “Well, I’m where you are too, but I’m not miserable like you are. “

Laci (01:06:58):

Right. And she even says, I just try to go with the flow and it’s gotten her just as high as him. She didn’t have to be an asshole to get to his flow.

Matt (01:07:08):

We also have Chris Elliot as the cameraman, Larry, and they’re the central trio getting in the van to go to Punk Satany PA and Phil is moping about having to do this thing because what if somebody important sees me doing this on TV and then they won’t take me seriously. It might hurt my career prospects. And Rita’s like, “But it’s nice. People like it. ” And he’s like, “Well, people are dumb. They like dumb things like blood sausage.” But then she does the thing, she’s like, “No, I think the groundhog is so cute.” And he does the little face. She makes a litle groundhog face. And then the thing we always talk about loving, he starts making fun of her groundhog face and she laughs and they’re just kind of laughing and

Laci (01:07:47):

Joking with each other. Anyone that does anything odd with their body, face or voice, if you’re a true asshole, you need to ask them to do it again.

Matt (01:07:58):

And she takes it in good humor while still being like, “Yeah, but he’s an asshole.”

Laci (01:08:03):

Right. She still feels like she has his number. She’s not a person that’s easy to get over. She’s got good instincts. She comes off as a small town girl because of her accent and how nice she is, but you watch her, she’s very good at reading people and she’s got standards. She’s not a person that easily breaks her standards or boundaries. It’s interesting about her. And

Matt (01:08:28):

I don’t know, it’s interesting. It’s an interesting performance because it’s a very, very difficult line she’s walking.

Laci (01:08:33):

Yes, between folksy and smart and savvy. And she seems to be both, but there’s something like Sandra Bullock in her. There’s something about her that is just like, I want to stare at her. She’s effortlessly pretty, but it’s so accessible. She’s beautiful and they don’t ever put her in anything revealing. You don’t even know the shape of her body. She’s just what you want. Warm. Yeah.

Matt (01:09:04):

There’s no cynicism to her. So I think that it’s easy to overlook how difficult this performance probably is. When you see her in multiplicity three years later with the same director in a similar kind of comedy, how kind of bad she comes across just because … Well, she has way less to do in that movie, but I think- Just act

Laci (01:09:24):

Surprised and confused and

Matt (01:09:25):

Befuddled. Yeah. Yeah. And she’s not so central to what that movie is dealing with, but I don’t think she’s particularly good in that I wouldn’t blame her and say it’s because she’s bad, but I think she’s the kind of actress who you probably don’t notice how good she is because she doesn’t do anything

Laci (01:09:39):

Showing. Makes me look easy. Right. So things that look natural and easy, like Shelly Duvall, you dismiss them as, well, then they must not be acting. I can’t feel it. I did want to point out something in the character, Larry. This is probably the least Chris Elliott performance of a Chris Elliott movie. Really is.

Matt (01:09:57):

Yeah.

Laci (01:09:59):

He’s just a guy.

(01:10:00):

He is a great example of someone that doesn’t have these same boundaries and standards. As Rita, he allows who’s around him to affect the way that he acts. So you could be convinced that he’s just as shitty as Phil is. When you first meet him throughout most of the movie, until Phil starts to gets him a cup of coffee, asks to hold his camera, it is a completely different person that is revealed under there who is just waiting for acceptance and it’s just like someone like Phil can affect the room unless you’re Rita and that’s why he’s so drawn to her. She just is.

Matt (01:10:37):

They pull up to the Pennsylvania hotel and Phil’s like, “Oh, the worst place in the world, this beautiful, old building.” But Rita, good producer, isn’t show you about it at all. It’s like, “No, no, you’re not staying here. I booked you out of bed and breakfast. It’s good.” I anticipate the needs of the talent and so I knew you would have to go stay at the bed and breakfast. So Chris Elliot and Rita go to the hotel, he goes to the bed and breakfast, which I would think Phil would want a bed and breakfast even less than a hotel. Yes.

Laci (01:11:05):

Right. All the folksy bullshit, not having your own bathroom. What is it that you’re wanting? It almost seems like the reverse should be happening. She wants the folks each arm and he wants just, give me the towels, check me in, check me out. I want a bar at the bottom of this, not jeopardy with a bunch of old people.

Matt (01:11:22):

Yeah. But I don’t know. It’s just this is a fantasy and this town is, in reality, it’d be like you’d get off the interstate and there’d be a Hampton Inn right there that you could stay at that’s like 10 miles away from the town.

Laci (01:11:32):

Also, if he’s placed in a hotel, one with several floors, him waking up and learning everyone in that hotel does not work the same. They need to be able to keep this town feeling really small. That hotel looks out a place every time they show it, I’m like, “Oh yeah, a big building. Oh yeah, big building.”

Matt (01:11:48):

A big small building or a small big building.

Laci (01:11:51):

But it’s got a bar. Well, you can tell it’s like a room you rent out to have a party where they end up dancing, but there is a bar too.

Matt (01:12:00):

Yeah. So it’s the next morning, I’ve got you babe plays at six o’clock and he hears the radio, hears his brother on the radio, Brian Doyle Murray. “We’re cold out there and the snowstorm coming in and he’s so grumpy and everyone he meets is so fucking excited about the ground. Going to go see the groundhog. And the woman who runs the B&B, she’s-

Laci (01:12:22):

I love her.

Matt (01:12:23):

Yeah. She’s just like, ” Ooh, getting cold out there and he’s just such a fucking cock about it. He launches into a weather report.

Laci (01:12:29):

Right. Did you want to talk about the weather or just chit-chat? “She just goes,”

Matt (01:12:33):

Chit-chat.

Laci (01:12:35):

“Because that’s what funice people do.

Matt (01:12:37):

Yes, but he delivers everything in a way where you’re like, ” I guess that wasn’t mean. He was being playful with me, but no, he is being a dick.

Laci (01:12:44):

“He is just a low hum of a gaslight all the time where you’re like, ” I feel dismissed, but he is not being me. “You’re just constantly like, ” I feel like I should be mad right now and all you’re doing is confusing me. “That’s uncomfortable.

Matt (01:13:02):

Even when it gets nice at the end, he’s still kind of doing it, which is fine. I don’t want him to transform into a totally different person. No. So walks out into the town and Steven Tobilowski as Ned Ryerson-

Laci (01:13:16):

That

Matt (01:13:17):

The hat deal

Laci (01:13:17):

Knows Ned. Bang.

Matt (01:13:20):

So I mean, it’s so obvious now knowing that the writer of the movie intended wrote this with Jimmy Stewart in mine. Not literally I’m going to cast Jimmy Stewart, but this is It’s a Wonderful Life. This is just a riff on It’s a Wonderful Life and this town is Bedford Falls and if you watch It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s the story of George Bailey’s life leading up to that bad Christmas where he tries to kill himself and his whole life is like, ” Oh, I’m going to get out of this town and go on my big adventure. “And every single time he tries to leave, it’s like the Truman show and something stops him.

Laci (01:13:52):

Right. Well, because it’s the classic thing of the way I feel my sadness inside of me, my discontent is tied to this place and it’s almost like if you never get to move around and see that it follows you, then I could see living your whole life being like certain it’s this town, it’s this place.

Matt (01:14:12):

Yeah. There are characters like Ned Ryerson. There’s a character, I think Sam Wainwright, who has a catchphrase and it’s hee-haw. Every time he talks to you, he has to say hee-haw. Yeah, I think that’s definitely a deliberate- I

Laci (01:14:25):

Love

Matt (01:14:26):

This. You got to have a thing.

Laci (01:14:28):

It’s just two different ways. Scrooge, it’s a wonderful life and this are just three different ways of showing you how to appreciate the life that you do have and go about it differently, right? I’ll show you your past, present and future. Well, that’ll fuck me up good, so I guess I’ll be a good guy. Also weird, it’s scrooged, so that’s another Bill Murray vehicle. Yeah. Well,

Matt (01:14:49):

It’s just a natural … Take a guy who seems miserable and unhappy but is fun enough to move around in the world and have people drawn to him, that’s a natural kind of person to play that role.

Laci (01:15:00):

Well, but it’s also someone that other people look at and think, oh, to be that guy, to be someone so charismatic, to be somebody people are drawn to that’s so effortlessly funny, what I wouldn’t give to be that guy and yet I’m nice. I’m a waitress and I’m nice to all my people. I work in the Brinks truck. I do my job really well. I look at this guy and I think he must have it all and he looks at us and thinks what a bunch of fucking losers.

Matt (01:15:26):

Yeah, we’re slime.

Laci (01:15:27):

But also looking at himself and thinking,” I’m a fucking loser.

Matt (01:15:32):

“Which he says at one point in the movie, he’s like, ” I never think you could ever love somebody more than you love yourself. “He’s like, ” That’s not true. I don’t even like myself. “Very revealing line. So yeah, watch out for that first step. It’s a dude. It’s

Laci (01:15:46):

A

Matt (01:15:46):

New

Laci (01:15:46):

Season. I also like that the point isn’t that this town is full of angels. There’s plenty of shitty people in this town or just regular people and it’s not the point. They shouldn’t have to be perfect for you not to be the reason they have a bad day.

Matt (01:16:03):

Right. Ned Ryerson, he’s pleased to see you because you’re a person from his past, but also immediately launches into his sales pitch.

Laci (01:16:10):

God, have you ever been part of an MLM for even a second?

Matt (01:16:13):

I mean, yeah.

Laci (01:16:15):

Which one?

Matt (01:16:16):

MLM, Laci asking about multi-level marketing things like Amway or

Laci (01:16:22):

Herbalife. Herbal Live. Yeah, tons of things. Anyway, have you?

Matt (01:16:26):

What I have done is business networking things that operate with the same

Laci (01:16:30):

Sort of student. Okay, nevermind. I’ve done it for just when I was like 19, 20, before I understood how small my network was, it’s like you are searching your brain for someone you wouldn’t be completely embarrassed to ask if they need this fucking grape juice I was selling. The Serave was like pomegranate. It’s such a stupid thing. It’s like, who do I know? If I saw somebody from fucking college, oh, thank God.

Matt (01:16:59):

Yeah.

Laci (01:17:00):

I’m not going to see you at the grocery store later. You’re perfect. Do you want to buy insurance? Please say yes.

Matt (01:17:06):

Yeah. No, the business networking I was doing, I didn’t end up joining it. I was just, they require if you join to bring a new person to every meeting. So it’s the same thing like, okay, who the fuck do I know who I can-

Laci (01:17:17):

You’re the exact wrong person.

Matt (01:17:18):

So I was that person to a lot of different people. Yeah. So hundreds and hundreds of people are descending on Gobler’s Knob as this fat guy polka music plays and everybody just having a great, great time. And Bill Murray gets on the camera and does a great little insincere, smart, again, understands the assignment and his performance is so good that you can tell he’s like, “I’m barely giving this anything, but I’m showing you I can do this well.”

Laci (01:17:45):

But it still leaves you as a viewer of feeling like, okay, I’m an asshole. He’s an asshole. This entire town’s full of a bunch of ass. He puts that film on you. He makes sure you know you’re not allowed to go like, “Aw, you’re spits like being around someone who only knows how to handle themselves with sarcasm. You’re not supposed to-

Matt (01:18:04):

What’s that one? They

Laci (01:18:04):

Can’t let you slip. You can’t slip into sincerity or they’ll fucking have your nuts.

Matt (01:18:08):

I have no idea what you’re talking about. So films his first report and then Brian Doyle Murray and all these businessmen, the local car dealership owners who are dressed in these 1870s costumes, read a declaration, pull out the poor little groundhog, hold him up. Oh, watch that. The groundhogs wispring to me that, oh, six more weeks of winter. And then Phil gets back on the camera and says, This is one time where television fails to capture the excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather. And then Andy McDowell’s like, okay, want to try it without the sarcasm. We’ve

Laci (01:18:40):

Got it.

Matt (01:18:43):

And so they attempt to leave town, but that blizzard we keep hearing about is moving in and the roads out of town are closed so they have to return.

Laci (01:18:50):

Phil’s self-assuredness is just, it’s the thing blocking him literally. He’s the one that predicted no blizzard and his self-assured, I know it all. I know exactly what I need. That’s what gets him stuck.

Matt (01:19:08):

He tries to make a phone call, but he’s told the long distance lines are out. Again, the universe is trapping him. There’s nothing outside this universe.

Laci (01:19:15):

The literal snow globe.

Matt (01:19:16):

Yes. So he goes to drink at the bar of that hotel that he’s not seeing at.

Laci (01:19:21):

It’s the only bar you get the sense of that, right?

Matt (01:19:23):

Only bar in town. It

Laci (01:19:24):

Seems to be.

Matt (01:19:25):

Well, no, there’s the one at the bowling alley. That’s the sad bar.

Laci (01:19:28):

Right. You got to have the bad boy bar and then you’ve got to have the sweeties bar.

Matt (01:19:33):

And so Chris Elliot and Andy McDowell come to talk to him and they’re like, “Hey, want to come be with us?” And he’s like, “No, I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.” And

Laci (01:19:43):

Not watch the TV that’s not in my fucking room. The hell.

Matt (01:19:47):

Takes a shower, but there’s no hot water. And I do love he goes to the bed and breakfast owner, he’s like, “Hey, there’s no hot water.” And he’s like, “No, why would there be? ” No,

Laci (01:19:53):

There wouldn’t be today. It wouldn’t be today. Oh, that’s interesting for the rest of his life if he’s truly stuck there, never one more hot shower.

Matt (01:20:04):

There was a period of time where I was only taking cold showers. I remember. Because I read it was good for you. Fucking weird. Yeah, I know. And it does get easy very fast, but now if I think about that, I’d be like, “Oh no, never. No, I’d never do that. ” So then it’s the next morning and it’s happening again. I got you babe. And it’s so well done because when he hears it and he hears the DJs talking, he’s just like, “Hey, idiots you put on yesterday’s tape.”

Laci (01:20:25):

Because

Matt (01:20:25):

He knows everything. He’s got all the answers. He

Laci (01:20:28):

Is a fast learner, but I mean we have no way of knowing how long he’s in this hell, but he does seem to be quickly picking up on all the things.

Matt (01:20:39):

And he goes downstairs and that guy asks him about the groundhog. He asks again, he’s like, “What?” Tells him, “Don’t mess with me pork chop. What day is it? ” It’s

Laci (01:20:48):

Groundhogs day.

Matt (01:20:49):

And everything’s repeating. A staple of these time loop movies is how video gaming they are because you realize you can say something, people will say things to you, then you can say something different to them the next day and they’ll kind of just reset to what they were already going to say. So it’s like human beings are pre-programmed like NPCs to only have a handful of things they’re going to say or do to you.

Laci (01:21:11):

We’re all social and different degrees of comfortableness with that social element. So we plan in advance what we’re going to say to a person who looks like they’re about to fucking talk to us.

Matt (01:21:24):

Yeah. Well, and you just have, it’s stimulus and response. This is what I say when somebody says this, and so I’m going to say it no matter what. So goes to Gobbler’s knob and is going to go through with the weather report again, but then just decides no, drops the mic, heads back to the bed and breakfast. So this is where I feel like this, this is exactly what I would do too. Just takes a bunch of sleeping pills. Well, I’ll just unplug the universe and plug it back in. Reset, see what happens in the morningBecause I fucked up my back last week and there’s nothing that can help other than just days progressing. So I would just go to sleep and be like, “Please, please, please, please, please wake up and my back will be normal.” That’s sad. But same thing. And there’s the thing with the pencil.

(01:22:07):

He cracks the pencil in half so you have sort of a visual representation that time is not moving forward.

Laci (01:22:14):

Oh, you know what? Is it seven stages of grief? Can you look them up? Because I think he might be going in that order. Denial is the first. Let’s just see if we can track it. Oh, five stages of grief. Shock, denial, pain, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression, and up return. And then reconstruction. Yep. He goes through these cycles exactly

Matt (01:22:33):

This way. Let’s try to track it. So he’s in shock and denial right now. Yes. When do we think he gets to pain and guilt?

Laci (01:22:40):

That’s when he starts to try to … Let me think. God damn it. I’ll know it when I see it.

Matt (01:22:48):

Sits down with Rita at the diner and he says he’s reliving the same day over and over again. She’s like, “Well, what do you want me to do? Well, you’re a producer, do something. So maybe you should see a doctor.” So he goes to the doctor played by Harold Ramos who takes x-rays and is like, “There’s nothing wrong with your head. Maybe you should see a psychiatrist.” So he goes to a psychiatrist and I like that the psychiatrist is … I don’t know. I usually see couples who have marital problems. The psychiatrist is played by the guy who plays Selena’s husband on Veep. How about that?

Laci (01:23:19):

Oh, yes it is now that I put it together in my brain.

Matt (01:23:23):

And then to the sad bowling alley where he talks to the bar flies. What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was the same and nothing you did mattered?

Laci (01:23:32):

Pain, guilt. He’s in

Matt (01:23:33):

Pain right. That sums it up for me. Which you know, the older you get, yeah, that is how life feels. Oh yeah, it’s Christmas again.

Laci (01:23:41):

Or just if you’re in a rut, like a job you don’t like and you’ve had it for too long or a marriage, you’re not happy and you’ve been in it for too long. You can get stuck in so many different things

Matt (01:23:51):

And

Laci (01:23:51):

Feel powerless.

Matt (01:23:52):

Your podcast, like, okay, it’s time for the summer of whatever. Got to write a new song. Oh, it’s Halloween again. Great. Got to pick some horror movies. Not really

Laci (01:23:59):

What I was thinking about, but whatever.

Matt (01:24:01):

But no, that is certainly how I feel with the march of time. Like, oh, it’s going to be time for volleyball again. Then it’s going to be time for theater. Then it’s going to be time. Then it’s going to be summer vacation. No school. Then it’s going to be … So just bullshit after bullshit.

Laci (01:24:16):

Well, each month has a bullshit in it. We’re approaching that bull. Just some of them are bigger and when it’s time to get to the big ones, you’re like, “Oh, ready.”

Matt (01:24:23):

It’s always that. It’s always time for that. It’s always April.

Laci (01:24:27):

You’re really Phil Connorsing all over me right now.

Matt (01:24:30):

So Phil gets in the car with them and he drives and he asks, “What if there were no tomorrow?” And they’re like, “Well, we could do whatever we want. ” So he drives on the train tracks, but this gets them arrested and they wake up and he goes to sleep in jail, wakes up at the bed and breakfast.

Laci (01:24:43):

And then he’s excited about his

Matt (01:24:45):

Little

Laci (01:24:45):

Superpower for a moment. And so then now he’s doing shit that’s just tempting it. Well, fuck it. If nothing matters, I’m going to steal money. I’m going to pretend there’s a costume contest when there’s not. I’m going to-

Matt (01:24:58):

You do pickup artist stuff with first Nancy. Learns all the stuff about her and then goes back the next day. And I love that he learns all the stuff about her. Then it resets. It goes the next day and he’s like, “Nancy, it’s me from … You don’t remember me? I asked you to prom.” She’s like, “Oh yeah. Yeah. ” And I don’t even think she’s lying. I think she is now getting a false memory. “Yeah, I do remember you. Yeah. “And then he ends up making out with her at his hotel, calls her Rita by mistake and she’s like, ” Who’s Rita? “He’s like, ” I love you. “And she’s like, ” Aw, I love you. “And they keep going.

Laci (01:25:31):

So right now he’s in the phase where he’s doing the thing that is the thing all of us can comprehend. We can all understand this phase. And it’s why I remind me of the show Plurabis. It’s like, okay, well, if all of this is mine, there’s no repercussions for me using any of this. What’s the best of this thing? Now what’s the best of that thing? Now, how can I make that as good as possible because there’s no limits. It’s all the things you think you want in life, money, fame, no rules to be at the top, to be in control, to be able to tell people to do, to be able to read people’s minds, to be able to manipulate perfectly and you realize so quickly how empty all of that is. All of the goals you thought you had in life, none of them were what you thought you are still empty.

Matt (01:26:21):

Pushing the bat. What can I do here? How can I best indulge everything I’ve ever wanted to do, of all the sex I want to have. I wanted to dress up like Clint Eastwood for the Men with no name trilogy for some reason and go to the movie theater. Because the

Laci (01:26:34):

Noki keeps having to see over and over and over. It’s the only one that’s at the theater.

Matt (01:26:37):

That’s not what’s playing or that’s not what’s on the marquee, but I don’t know.

Laci (01:26:42):

Oh, okay.

Matt (01:26:43):

That’s what I have. He’s dressing up as Clint Eastwood from the good, the bad and the ugly or from a pistol of dollars, one of those and something else is on the marquee. But yeah, I mean, this is like a video game. If you’re playing Grand Theft Auto, eventually you’ll be like, ” I’m just going to start killing people and riding my car over stuff. “Or as we see with our kid playing Mario 64,” I’m just going to go swim around in the moat for a long time.

Laci (01:27:04):

“And it reveals his character, right? And maybe it’s also revealing that they needed a PG-13 and R, but he doesn’t go on a killing Spree. He just goes on the killing himself Spree. He never outwardly turns- I never thought about that. He is a good person. He’s just a searching person, a sad person. There’s something to do with his dad too because there’s no reason to call the homeless man pop and father. No one else does. He has an actual name, but he instantly, there’s something about him that makes him think of his own dad and now he couldn’t change him or save him or …

Matt (01:27:37):

Yeah, that’s one of his great things about this movie not explaining things where you feel like that too was probably almost an accident. They probably at some stage were like, ” Well, we need to learn more about Phil and his life and everything and couldn’t agree on it so they’re just like, Fuck it, we won’t include it. “And that made the movie better that you just see it in the performance.

Laci (01:27:54):

Right. And that we have no idea if this town is bound for real. All we know is that he never bothered to look into that because there is something fucked up about it. If you do fly out of this town and all of a sudden every day is different, but if you move around every day

Matt (01:28:11):

The people back there are stuck in that town?

Laci (01:28:15):

I guess he resets, right? So he just wakes up there anyway. But I don’t know, breaking my brain, I guess you’d never know, did I really just need to break free from this town and now it’s stopped? Or if I go back there, are they still living that day over and over again? Yeah.

Matt (01:28:32):

The rest of my life I’d live in fear of waking up and

Laci (01:28:37):

It’s hapening again. The next day is Disney World or you have a son coming or you’re waiting on your wedding. I would be so fucking nervous. “Oh, this is the one. This is the time I’m going to wake up and it’s going to be a loop, but I’m never going to get on my wedding.”

Matt (01:28:50):

Yeah. Or yeah, you could never know that the day you’re living is … Well, this is part one of an infinite loop of the next infinite loop. But it seems like he runs through having sex with all these women pretty quickly and then moves on to Andy McDowell and knows he’s going to have to work a little harder with her, but is doing the same thing. I just want to learn about you and then I can pretend to have all the things you’re looking for in a man. I want a man who’s humble and intelligent and kind and courageous. And he’s like, “Well, me, me, really. “

Laci (01:29:23):

Man, I’m really close on this one.

Matt (01:29:25):

And she studied 19th century French poetry in college.

Laci (01:29:29):

Poetry. If you’re

Matt (01:29:30):

Her. So he recites some French poetry from … What kind of degree is that?

Laci (01:29:37):

Okay. But this is in the face of you needing to have a bunch in common with a person. It’s really just that you only get a couple times to make your bad impression. So you probably shouldn’t laugh at them when they state their degree, but they don’t have a ton of comment. She just has what he wants, which is like peace and he doesn’t drink sweet vermouth, but On the rocks with a twist. He doesn’t care about poetry, but if you care about somebody, you can learn about what they like and then you can have an appreciation for it too. So he might’ve started learning French in poetry because he was trying to impress her, but then it’s like, oh, this is just a totally valid thing. And so the things we’ve been told about dating and shit, it’s like you can just focus on the other person and you accidentally turn yourself into a good partner.

Matt (01:30:24):

Yeah. And liking somebody, it has very litle to do with anything you can sort of

Laci (01:30:30):

Intellectualize. It’s just

Matt (01:30:32):

A vibe.

Laci (01:30:33):

And also it could just be what he did have in his mother. It could be what he didn’t have. Who knows? But she’s content everywhere and he’s content nowhere and I could see being really drawn to that.

Matt (01:30:44):

And I think it even starts with, I just want to have sex with her and it’s a challenge.

Laci (01:30:47):

Take her down a peg. There’s no way she’s any different from these other fucking floozies.

Matt (01:30:51):

To his room and he initiates sex with her and she’s not like … I could never. She’s just like, “No, we need to get to know each other. We’ll see each other tomorrow.” And then he’s like, “No, you can’t leave. There will be no tomorrow.”

Laci (01:31:05):

But he really gets so close. Using his tricks, he really does have a magical date with her, but it’s so close to working that he tries over and over. I love that montage of him getting slapped at different points of the date to see how far he gets into that date, how many times.

Matt (01:31:26):

And

Laci (01:31:26):

He just keeps trying to recreate it with his tricks, not with his care.

Matt (01:31:30):

And even seems to be getting worse at it. The first time he seemed to get it the best.

Laci (01:31:34):

Because how could you? He’s so cynical. He knows what she’s going to reply to the things that … If he doesn’t know what he’s going to say, that’s interesting. But because he’s planned it all out because he’s trying to game it, you’ll lose interest pretty fucking quick.

Matt (01:31:47):

Yeah. His game isn’t fun. He’s trying to rush through everything now. “Oh, these kids are throwing stoneballs at us. Let’s throw them back. Oh, this is so fun.

Laci (01:31:53):

“Well, he’s learning the lesson of how useless and empty manipulation is. I could do this perfectly and get her to sleep with me, but what would that feel like? I would know why I did it and how I did it. And now it’s time to kill myself with toast.

Matt (01:32:09):

Yeah. We get to the depression stage where it’s,” I just can’t even get out of bed. “But if you can’t go back to sleep or … Well, you know what I’m saying. So he just starts to kill himself over and over and over again in the bathtub, jumping off a building, getting in front of a vehicle, stealing the groundhog and getting into a high speed police chase and then driving off the cliff. But interesting, there’s a couple of times where he dies and you will still stay with Rita and Larry. They’ll identify him at the moor. It always resets when he dies. It does keep going, which is kind of interesting. Yeah,

Laci (01:32:48):

That is. Yeah, I didn’t think of that. Yeah.

Matt (01:32:51):

And he is now determined I’m a God. Rita, I’m a God and I’m not the God, but I am at least a God, which I’ve always loved thinking about.

Laci (01:33:02):

Or like a demi God. What does that look like?

Matt (01:33:04):

Yeah. And maybe the Christian God is just the demi God who in- He’s been

Laci (01:33:09):

Given this planet.

Matt (01:33:10):

Yeah, exactly. No. No, exactly. He has

Laci (01:33:12):

This toy to play with, this anhill.

Matt (01:33:15):

Exactly. Yeah. And maybe Jesus is an all powerful God, but he does have the powers of resurrection. And because he could do that, he could be like, ” I’m God. I promise I’m God. “And be like, ” Yeah, he probably is. I believe him. Maybe the real God uses tricks. He’s not on nippot and he’s just been around so long. So he knows everything and he proves this to her by going to every single person in the diner and just saying, Here’s what her deal is. Here’s what his deal is.

Laci (01:33:42):

“Predicting plates falling.

Matt (01:33:44):

Yeah. And she believes him, which is interesting. Nice. The movie-

Laci (01:33:49):

There’s a sincerity in him, a desperateness in him. And she, like I said, is a good reader of people. That’s why she slaps him every time she knows she’s getting played and she follows him in as far as she trusts him or is interested by him or pities him because she’s reading real feelings

Matt (01:34:08):

On

Laci (01:34:09):

Him. He’s not manipulating her every time. She’s just the only person he can … He feels right to ask for help.

Matt (01:34:15):

Yeah. In Edge of Tomorrow, Time Loop movie, Tom Cruise is stuck in the time loop and he has to go find Emily blunt and he knows what to say every time to get her to believe him. So it’s like, I have to go through this spiel every time. And it’s not like Bill Murray then does this. I know what to say to Rita to get her to believe me, but it’s just sometimes I’ll talk to her and she’ll believe me sometimes. Or is this the only time? I think this is the only time in the movie she actually is in on the time loop thing.

Laci (01:34:44):

Yes. And she even says,” If it’s not too boring, maybe we could do this again sometime. “And that’s just such a profound thing to say because Rita, you might not be real in this world and you’re wishing for a good day for an illusion of you that you don’t even know. For her to wish a happy day for a part of herself she could never know is real is so sweet. And if it’s not too boring to you, maybe let’s do this again sometime. It’s just like I love that. It sums up her. She cares to be nice for the sake of being nice to whatever and whoever. If it affects them right then, then she wants them to feel better right then.

Matt (01:35:30):

I never took the line like that, but that is … Yeah, that’s very sweet. You could care about an alternate universe version of yourself.

Laci (01:35:38):

Right. You can care just for the sake of caring, even if you don’t understand it, like caring about someone on the other side of the planet, even if you have no understanding of how they’re actually living.

Matt (01:35:47):

Yeah. So I think the best scene of the movie is she’s like, ” It might be that you’ve been given a blessing. Sometimes I think I could use a thousand lifetimes to do all the things I want to do and she decides I’m going to spend the rest of the day with you. “And we just cut ahead to them. It’s almost midnight in his bed and breakfast room and they’re doing card tricks and she’s having fun. And then you realize, oh, she wanted to stick around till midnight to see if he’d blip out of existence or whatever. And he didn’t, but he’s like, ” No, that doesn’t happen until six. “So she falls asleep around four o’clock and I think it’s a very good scene where she falls asleep and he starts talking to her and he gets really genuine. “I could never deserve somebody like you, but if I did, I’d never take it for granted or whatever.” And then she just opens her.

(01:36:31):

Did she say something?

Laci (01:36:32):

No.

Matt (01:36:33):

And then it’s six o’clock and his eyes are wide open and the camera pans over to show you that she is not there. I really start to feel the exhaustion because I don’t know how sleep is working here. Do you wake up every morning feeling like you’re physically rested? Well,

Laci (01:36:50):

Right. If there’s no repercussions, I’m assuming he wakes up feeling exactly like he did the day he woke up there first.

Matt (01:36:57):

Yeah.

Laci (01:36:58):

So it sucks if he had too many to drink the day

Matt (01:37:01):

Before. Right. But still carrying the mental burden butt decides, “You know what? Fuck it. I’ll be nice now. I’ll try being nice to meet you. ” I’ve done everything

Laci (01:37:09):

Else. Well, let me just get something out of, what have I always wanted to do? Play the piano, reconnect with my dad.

Matt (01:37:17):

Give the homeless person money. First just gives him a lot of money and he’s like, “Oh my God.” And then goes and is nice to Ned Ryerson, decides to start learning piano. This is something I always think about though. Playing an instrument is obviously mental, but it is physical and if your body resets every day, you’re going to lose the muscle memory every day. So your finger shrinking your desperity. So I don’t know, but he does and he learns ice sculpture and so people who try to track how long he is actually stuck in this loop- It’s like

Laci (01:37:48):

10,000 years.

Matt (01:37:48):

Would say, yeah, he would need that many years to learn all this stuff. If

Laci (01:37:52):

You’re using the 10,000 hour rule, which has already been proven to be not a real rule, but if you use 10,000 hours as a way to master something, the amount of things he masters, that’s how many years, 10,000 years or something crazy amount

Matt (01:38:07):

Because it multiplies. Even if you just watch what he does on the piano, I think like, oh, that would take 10 years for me to get good at doing that if I did it every single day, which I won’t. So he sees the homeless man having a heart attack or something at night and takes him to the hospital and then he’s told by the nurse that he has passed away and the nurse is being like, “Sometimes people just die and they’re old and there’s no real reason for it. ” And he’s like, “What? No, there’s got to be something. Can I see his chart?”

Laci (01:38:35):

He’s still figuring it out, right? He’s still trying to control things instead of just enjoy things or find enrichment. And he thought he’d feel enriched if he could save this man’s life, but instead he just gave this man a good day on his last day alive and that’s good too. And this little boy that you catch out of the tree never says thank you, but you stopped him from breaking a bone and there’s value in that. These old ladies could have waited and gotten their flat tire fixed, but they would have been in the cold and they wouldn’t have gotten the shopping they wanted to do that day. This business owner’s going to choke and his whole family is going to be so sad for six hours until it resets, but there’s value in you giving that man six more hours this day.

Matt (01:39:20):

Well, and if time ever starts advancing again, you literally saved his life.

Laci (01:39:24):

Fine, but that’s not what Phil’s doing. Phil has found five tragedies that happen in this small town and he makes them his errands. It’s not for a selfish reason. He just realizes this is the right thing to do even if they will be gone in 12 hours.

Matt (01:39:40):

I do think with the homeless man and the nurse at the hospital, she is though being a litle dismissive because he is homeless and doesn’t seem to have anybody. And I think part of it is just like everything in the world has value. You just got to slow down and look at it.

Laci (01:39:53):

Well, but this man’s been treated like a homeless man for years and you can’t undo even, you can wake up one day and realize you should reconnect with your kid and that kid’s 15. You could be a really good dad from now on, but there’s nothing you can do about the trauma that happened and what this kid’s life’s going to be like because of that 15 years. So you are limited. You decided, Phil, now that you’re going to be a good person, but that doesn’t change everyone’s life and it doesn’t always change yours. It’s still the right thing to do. And there’s even a point during this phase where he’s sitting at the cafe and just looking around and you can tell he’s just looking for a new person to get to know a new person and enrich because he’s not just like mining them, he’s finding out what they need that day and then giving it to them, like that couple that is sure they want to get married.

Matt (01:40:46):

I’ve been playing Mario 64 with our son and-

Laci (01:40:50):

You’re in a time loop.

Matt (01:40:52):

Yes. I’m not a video game guy. I’m now becoming one because my son is making me and he is autistic and he is obsessive. And so we 100%ed Mario 64, something I never did when I played that game when I was a kid. And what I didn’t know, and I’ve now learned from reading video game people, is this feeling of utter emptiness that comes when you really do finish a video game like that. There’s nothing left in this game. And I feel like Phil in that game, like, is there any little hidden anything anywhere that I can unearth?

Laci (01:41:28):

Well, then you just convince yourself that everything would be fine if you could just do this one thing, have this one thing, accomplish this one thing. And it’s like, but if you can’t find a way to feel fine while our son is screaming at you and upset with himself and distraught, if you can’t just be in that moment okay, getting that next star that you need, it doesn’t change anything because it only makes him calm and happy for that few moments. The point is how do you find peace when things are bad?

Matt (01:41:59):

Yes, of course. Yes. It is always just the pursuit of things. You never feel good when you do it with video games at least.

Laci (01:42:06):

Well, with any accomplishment that is, again, the point is to be content at any station and stage in your life, that is the actual goal. How much education could I get? How much money could I make if I had all infinite time, but it’s like, you’re missing the point, missing the point. You just might be right there in that desk for the rest of your life. How are you going to make the most of it?

Matt (01:42:29):

How are you going to be okay with the fact that the desk, this might be it?

Laci (01:42:33):

And it turns out you probably will get the most fulfillment and the most okayness from stop thinking about yourself altogether and what use can you be to someone else?

Matt (01:42:42):

We finally get to this groundhog party we have heard so much about.

Laci (01:42:45):

Have we?

Matt (01:42:46):

Yeah, they said, “We’re going over to the groundhog party.”

Laci (01:42:49):

It’s only that day that they say, I guess the first night they say it too.

Matt (01:42:52):

Yeah.

Laci (01:42:53):

It sounds like fun.

Matt (01:42:54):

And it looks like fun. It’s us. Just all these old people in this little VFW hall or whatever and a cool band playing some … Well, he makes it cool by putting on sunglasses and going up and playing the piani and we see he starts dancing with Andy McDowell and all these people come up to him like, “Oh, Phil, you saved my life. You saved my marriage. You make life worth living.” And she’s like, “I don’t understand. How do all these people know you? ” But then there’s a Bachelor auction, which has it ever happened in real life? This is only a thing in movies. Something write down. Come on.

Laci (01:43:32):

Bachelor auction, is that real?

Matt (01:43:34):

Maybe

Laci (01:43:34):

At frat houses, right? That’s got to be a thing. Who wants them

Matt (01:43:39):

Though? Let us know.

Laci (01:43:40):

Just give us a minute. Give them a minute. They’ll be day raping you by seven o’clock.

Matt (01:43:44):

No need to bid. You did not need to bid. So goes up and all the old little old ladies are bidding on him and then Nanny McDowell’s like, “Everything in my purse, $348.90.”

Laci (01:43:55):

Well, and that she’s just the kind of person that keeps a balanced checkbook at all times. That’s so cute.

Matt (01:44:00):

That’s right. Yes. That she has it to the scent.

Laci (01:44:02):

Yes.

Matt (01:44:04):

So she gets her and so he takes her out to and he makes an ice sculpture out of her face and then they start kissing and it’s snowing. And he says, “You know what? No matter what happens for the rest of my life, I’m happy right now.” Exactly what Laci was saying just a moment ago. If you are only living for goals you are in pursuit of or for circumstances to change, those things are not actually going to give you what you need.

Laci (01:44:30):

Well, and Rita’s cold, right? She wants to get out of that situation. She thinks she wants to be done and he’s found how, yeah, but this minute, this second, this hour we’re spending together outside, it’s really all I have. Who knows how we’re going to feel once we go inside again? Not that you have to prolong it, but just sit there and be cold. It’ll be worth it. Patience. These things that people tell you are virtues, there’s a reason

Matt (01:44:58):

Impossible. Yeah. Doing ic school, I’m sure making sculptures is a very soothing and fulfilling thing to do.

Laci (01:45:04):

But it’s futile, right, because it melts.

Matt (01:45:08):

The point is that it’s not forever.

Laci (01:45:10):

Right. The point is that it’s a flower that only blooms once in its life or whatever.

Matt (01:45:14):

It’s a Marvel Lamar.

Laci (01:45:16):

It’s a GD Garden Lantern.

Matt (01:45:19):

So then it’s six o’clock. Well, there’s one thing she says. Fuck, I don’t think I wrote it down. Ask

Laci (01:45:24):

Me.

Matt (01:45:25):

Ask me.

Laci (01:45:28):

I think I’ve proven I know every line

Matt (01:45:30):

In this movie. That’s okay. He says something to her and then she says, “Because I bought you and I own you. “

Laci (01:45:35):

I bought you. I own you. You said stay and I stayed. I can’t even

Matt (01:45:42):

Make a comment.

Laci (01:45:44):

Stay.

Matt (01:45:45):

That’s the next morning. Nevermind.

Laci (01:45:46):

Yeah, that’s the next morning.

Matt (01:45:47):

Yeah. So it’s six o’clock again. He

Laci (01:45:49):

Says, “I love you and I love you. And wait, I’m happy right now because I love you. ” And she says, “I think I’m happy too.” She’s not being unreasonable. She is feeling feelings of love, but it doesn’t make sense for her to be in love.

Matt (01:46:04):

It

Laci (01:46:04):

Makes sense for her to be happy. She’s just a very reasonable doubt. She’s a down to earth, grounded person. That’s what it is. She’s grounded.

Matt (01:46:13):

And it’s six o’clock again and I’ve got you babies playing, but it’s a different part of the song. Yes. What? And then the DJs are like, “Oh, come on, you’re playing that song again.” Pan over. Rita’s in the bed with him. Whoa. There were debates from the filmmakers. How much clothing do we put on them? Do we have them be naked to say they had sex? They might not have had sex. We don’t know. They didn’t. We do know. They’re enormous PJs. We

Laci (01:46:36):

Do know they didn’t have sex. No, we do. She said he’s kissing her and she’s like, “Why weren’t you like this last night? You fell right to sleep.”

Matt (01:46:45):

Oh, she does say that. Yeah,

Laci (01:46:46):

She does,

Matt (01:46:46):

Matt. Why are you here? And she says, “I bought you, I own you. ” And I wrote down in my notes, that’s kind of hot. Suddenly she’s sexy.

Laci (01:46:53):

Because she hasn’t been trying to be sexy babe to him until just now. You know what I mean? This whole movie, this is all my whole point. You don’t know sexy Rita. She’s never once been trying to be sexy with you because you haven’t earned her respect or desire to be with you that way. And the very next moment you get a Rita you’ve never seen.

Matt (01:47:10):

And what’s a sexier name than Rita other than Laci?

Laci (01:47:13):

Diarita.

Matt (01:47:14):

Why did you stay? You told me to stay, so I stayed.

Laci (01:47:18):

You said stay. So I stayed.

Matt (01:47:20):

I

Laci (01:47:21):

Said stay. So you stayed. I can’t even make a collis stay stick.

Matt (01:47:24):

And it’s snowing. Finally, the blizzard that he said would not happen, but did happen. It’s here and it’s the next day. And he’s like, “You know what day today is today? It’s tomorrow. You’re here. I’m here. Is there anything I can do for you today?” She says, “I’m sure I can think of something.”

Laci (01:47:40):

Which means eat my badge, please.

Matt (01:47:42):

Yeah.

Laci (01:47:42):

Yeah.

Matt (01:47:44):

Right now. What?

Laci (01:47:47):

He’d be like, “Fuck yes.”

Matt (01:47:48):

No, but he’s like, “But I’m not in a time loop anymore. I never learned how to do that. “

Laci (01:47:53):

He knows how to eat pussy in general.

Matt (01:47:55):

I hope so. It’s

Laci (01:47:56):

Okay. It’s good because he needs new stuff too, right? He’s got to be a real person at some point.

Matt (01:48:03):

But that’s why I’m saying how disappointing she’s going to find him for the rest of their lives.

Laci (01:48:06):

That’s not true.

Matt (01:48:08):

He

Laci (01:48:08):

Still has all these things he knows how to do. He’s still that man in this town.

Matt (01:48:12):

He doesn’t have any powers anymore.

Laci (01:48:14):

He never had any powers.

Matt (01:48:15):

He did. He had the power to learn anything she needed him to know. He had the power to slow down.

Laci (01:48:21):

But none of that is what impressed her. Knowing all the stuff about her, knowing how to kiss her, that might have helped get to the sexy phase. But no, you’re supposed to have the awkward figure out how to have sex together phase. You can’t skip that.

Matt (01:48:34):

If you’re going to get past all of this and she’s going to be like, “What happened to the guy who always knew things?” So pans over to the alarm clock and now it says 6:01. Holy shit. You

Laci (01:48:43):

Already said this.

Matt (01:48:44):

They go out into the world and it’s covered in snow. Oh, I

Laci (01:48:47):

See what you’re saying.

Matt (01:48:48):

And he says, “Let’s live here.” And they kiss.

Laci (01:48:50):

She doesn’t say yes or no. She doesn’t go, “What the fuck?” And

Matt (01:48:53):

Then he says something about renting that I didn’t make out.

Laci (01:48:56):

He says, “We’ll rent to start.”

Matt (01:48:57):

Okay. Yeah. We go up into the sky and that’s that. What’s that? That’s the movie.

Laci (01:49:01):

Hey, when they go up in the sky at the end, is there other clouds?

Matt (01:49:03):

They’re going in reverse. No, I don’t know what. There are clouds, yes, at the end.

Laci (01:49:08):

You just had a whole conversation

Matt (01:49:10):

With me.

Laci (01:49:10):

Ry wasn’t even participating. It doesn’t matter. It’s fine. I was just curious because you mentioned the clouds in the beginning, so I thought maybe they had …

Matt (01:49:17):

There are clouds in the sky, yes. It’s like Toy Story.

Laci (01:49:20):

Well, the point is that your thoughts are weather and weather will always go by.

Matt (01:49:27):

Yeah, it’s always going to be changing, but also-

Laci (01:49:30):

Right. And your thoughts aren’t you. Your thoughts are just what you think right now and in two minutes it’ll be different. So what’s you is what’s underneath.

Matt (01:49:40):

And weather is taking all of these inputs from all around the world and it’s all one giant soup. It’s all connected just like humanity. Never forget that, Phil. Good look, Phu. The groundhog says to him as the movie ends. All right. Final thoughts and star ratings for Groundhog Day.

Laci (01:50:16):

What do

Matt (01:50:17):

You think of Groundhog Day?

Laci (01:50:18):

Five Stars. It’s a perfect movie. It’s subtle and not subtle and full of heart and full of sarcasm and it’s realistic and completely surreal and it walks so many lines.

Matt (01:50:31):

Yeah.

Laci (01:50:31):

I don’t know how

Matt (01:50:32):

It does. It’s a miracle.

Laci (01:50:33):

It’s a miracle.

Matt (01:50:33):

It really is. There’s nothing quite like it including the Frank Kappa movies that I think it is riffing on, but it is totally its own thing too. It does seem like a miracle knowing its production and knowing the difference between what they kind of intended, what the different intentions that were fighting against each other and the way it ended up with this perfect little movie.

Laci (01:50:56):

And those guys are also in their own Ponxitoni when you think about it. They’re all coming at this at different stage of their careers with the different ambitions, what they think they need to do. This is a jumpstone to a touchstone to this. We’re not about this movie. We’re about what this movie will give us next. They’re that. And because they’re all pushing and pulling and they make this perfect thing on accident, there’s no way to do this again

Matt (01:51:18):

Because

Laci (01:51:18):

You’re not going to find those five men or three in that same stage again. They are new. They are new Phil. And so you can’t put them in a room, have them push and pull and come up with another mirror. It’s an anomaly.

Matt (01:51:31):

Yeah.

Laci (01:51:33):

And just enjoy it for what it is.

Matt (01:51:35):

Exactly. For Bill Murray, he went on and then Wes Anderson, I think in Rushmore, gave him his first dramatic role that people really liked. It’s a funny role, but it was like, okay, this is a different side of Bill Murray. And then his career goes off in a different direction. And he’s tried occasionally, was it movie, St. Vincent? What if I made a comedy again and no one wanted it? You can’t go

Laci (01:52:02):

Back. Well, because drama is funny, right? Gallos humor, it’s what saves us from not wanting to live anymore. Being able to laugh at a funeral. Oh God, now I’m singing a fucking song on accident. But yeah, so once you’re like, oh wow, the real levity comes out of this dark stuff and I can relate to this way more. It’s more enriching.

Matt (01:52:22):

But also the kinds of movies that were his bread and butter early in his career, like the movie industry doesn’t make them anymore.

Laci (01:52:30):

Yeah. But that’s weird because Ghost Busters is a huge franchise. You’d think they’d keep making them. Well,

Matt (01:52:35):

They do keep making Ghostbusters. That’s one of those things where … And the new Ghostbusters are comedies, but it’s like the only way you can get a big comedy is if it’s part of a legacy franchise. And it is very sad that comedies don’t exist anymore. And it’s like Bill Murray didn’t appreciate that. Right. He

Laci (01:52:52):

Thought they’re deep

Matt (01:52:53):

People. But you were doing special magical things that people are going to be watching for the rest of time.

Laci (01:52:57):

And you were partnered with a special magical guy who had a real knack for comedy and for what to do with you in a comedy. Even if it was the stuff that came so natural and didn’t feel like a talent to you, it didn’t feel like enough of a challenge, but he still knew how to make you shine and then you severed ties with him for 20 years. So you can resent the thing that made you …

Matt (01:53:23):

Five stars for me too. Yeah. Perfect movie. Love the movie. Thank everybody for listening to One Week Rental. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Plusky.

Laci (01:53:31):

Please subscribe every place that there’s a Instagram, TikTok. Please say something nice to me in the comments. Men don’t like me in small doses. We’re learning on social media. Be sweeties. And if you’re new, we are so very, very thankful that you found us and that you stayed till the end of this.

Matt (01:53:51):

Yeah. And follow us on Letterboxd Summit Matt Stokes nine, Laci’s at Loadbearing Laci. And my band is roar at nine. We do the music for one week rental, including the song you’re hearing right now. Thank you so much.

Laci (01:54:01):

Thank you. I love you. Goodbye.