Happy Groundhogs Day!!! Lets Hope Bill Murray Dies Soon 02/02/24
And RIP Carl Weathers
Groundhog Day is amazing. Bill Murray the guy, Not so much.
I can’t remember the first time I watched Groundhog Day and maybe that’s on purpose. Much of life can begin to blur together. We all have moments where we feel like we are on autopilot, just going through the motions.
That in lies the brilliance of the movie Groundhog Day which when it first premiered I think most took just as another classic goofy Bill Murray comedy like Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and Stripes.
The big outrageous moments like killing himself over and over. killing the groundhog, PHIL? Phil Connors !!!!, or any snarky comment delivered perfectly by Bill. They all hope up quite well but the humor is not why this endures.
The lynchpin of the movie is the love story between Bill Murray and Andie Macdowell. So many lesser movies would have them falling in love be the way out of the time loop. The day where they fall in love is the best day of Phil Connors life, the day he never wants to end and then he goes to sleep and its gone.
He does everything in his power to recreate this day. He has unlimited opportunities and he can never get back to that day. Because that’s actually what life is. A fleeting memory of good times and bad.
Harold Ramis co- wrote and directed this masterpiece. The core idea that had was what is life to an immortal being. Why would Superman spend any time with Lois Lane when he will live thousands of years with her. Ramis also infused some Buddhist ideas of how long it will take a soul to reincarnate.
He turned the script away from its more goofy and idealistic It’s a Wonderful Life like nature towards a more spiritual and deeper film it is now. Instead of George Bailey having the world hate him, he created Phil Connors who hated the world. And he couldn’t think of anyone better to play a lovable jerk quite like his long time friend Bill Murray.
It’s hard to call the casting a mistake because it’s the best performance Bill Murray has every given but it came at the cost of a twenty year friendship.
Bill and Harold famously did not get along during the entire shoot of Groundhog Day. Bill was going through a divorce and taking it out on everybody on set. He was rude to production assistants, late to his call times and got into many arguments with Harold about dialogue and the character.
Things got to be so bad between Harold and Bill that once the filming was done the two did not speak to each other again for twenty five years. And that only happened because was on his death bed. The two spoke and seemingly made up just a month before Harold Ramis died at 69 years old.
Everyone loves Bill Murray except the 100’s of people that don’t. Us common folk can just sit back and enjoy Bill’s performance in great movies, or hear about his legendary exploits and the real world like bartending college parties in his 60’s. But to most of Hollywood he’s kind of renowned jerk.
He’s had feud with:
Chevy Chase(who’s also a jerk to be fair)
Richard Dreyfuss(also a jerk)
Dan Akroyd
Lorne Michaels
Lucy Liu
Richard Donner
Laura Ziskin
Anjelica Huston
McG
Seth Green
And those are just the ones we know about.
He has gotten so bad that they recently scrapped an entire movie that had already been shooting for a week. Aziz Ansari’s feature film debut Being Mortal was supposed to happen with Seth Rogen(famously great guy) Keke Palmer and Bill. But something happened between Bill and a production assistant on set that caused production to be shut down and eventually scrapped.
We don’t know exactly what happened with Bill on set but it definitely was good. So I joke that I hope he dies soon. Mainly for my own selfish happiness I don’t want to wake up one morning and see Bill is a true monster instead of just a grumpy jerk. The last thing I want to is watch Groundhog Day next year and think of it the way I think of movies with Kevin Spacey.
There’s still time for Bill, there’s time for all of us to make amends with those we have hurt. Every day is a new day as taught to me by Groundhog Day.
Rest in Peace to an Absolute Legend
This just broke just as I was about to send out the blog. The amazing legend Carl Weathers has passed away at 76 years old.
Everyone knows the story of Rocky and Sylvester Stallone embodying that character to winning best picture at the academy awards. The part that no one speaks about is that the movie does not work without Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed.
Weathers brilliantly plays the character as cocky and self assured but as a savvy business man. Most people think he’s just doing an impression of Muhammad Ali but Weathers gave Apollo Creed so much depth and humanity that he is just as compelling as Rocky. The role easily could have been another blaxploitation role with another actor as the character but instead Apollo gets this amazing arc as Adversary to Rival to Friend in the Rocky movies.
Also his body was simply amazing.
He was also a hilarious in comedic roles in Happy Gilmore and on Arrested Development.
I also greatly enjoyed him on The Mandolorian as Greef Carga.
Thanks for everything Carl. I hope they have chicken stew in heaven.
Stand Up Dates
Hopefully in the future this will be the largest segment of the blog but at the moment I just have two dates for you.
February 9th Grace Hall in Ossining, NY Ticket Link Below
February 15th Tommy Foxes Bergenfield, NJ Tickets N/A
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