grudlian.

This assumes Amy Smart knows what is causing the repeating days if the tv is even the cause. What do we all think Amy Smart thinks it is? If I were her, I would assume the perfume spray or possibly a head injury since that's where she starts over every day.

I guess the answer to your question of why waste it is: she doesn't know she's wasting it. She may think she has infinite repeats. So, why not waste it?

I'd really love to see a breakdown of each day by hour. Some days it send like she's spending scrambling around to do everything. Other days she's spending hours baking. Is it physically possible to do everything she does in the time she's given? I don't think it is. I think Harold Ramis said Bill Murray probably spent over a decade reliving the same groundhogs day. This leads me to a question someone else hinted at: did Amy Smart only have 12 days no matter what? I know its a play on the song but let's say Amy Smart didn't fix anything. Let's say she spent 12 days learning piano. At 12 days was she done? Did she need to solve everyone's problems and (arguably) grow as a Pierson like Bill Murray did in Groundhogs Day?

God bless Jim Henson. The world is darker without you in it. Maybe my favorite scene in movie history is Kermit riding a bike. I know Kermit rode a bike earlier in Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas (which, I think everyone should check out if you haven't seen it). I know the whole muppet gang rides bikes in The Great Muppet Caper. I even know Frank Oz lamented that Gonzo on the balloon was way more complicated to film and all people want to know about is kermit on a bike. Well, Kermit riding a bike blows my fucking mind every time I see it. I've read how they planned to do it and how they eventually did it. But all I see is a frog riding a bicycle and I'm never going to see anything else. Maybe this is veering to close to the old "CG is ruining movies" trope. Not since the T-1000 have I watched something that truly, completely blew me away. Instead of wondering how it was done, I always assume it's just a computer. Not to take anything away from the special effects artists working on computers, but "I bet it took a team of people a month to animate that scene" doesn't leave the impact that "KERMIT IS RIDING A BIKE!!!!" does. So, Kermit riding a bicycle is, for me, the last piece of real, honest to god movie magic.

An example for me would be something like smelling the bottle cap. As a kid, I'm sure I didn't understand it or just laughed at the idea of smelling a bottle cap. Now I get the joke is that it's wine with a bottle cap instead of a cork. But certainly all the cameos went over my head as a kid except maybe Richard Pryor or Steve Martin.

Which further doesn't make sense because the point of the movie is that she learns to make all these other people's lives better...but she's being self centered until the very moment she starts doing this. She never learned to be good. So what is her reasoning to not be a jerk?

It's been quite a while but there isn't an explanation in Groundhogs Day either is there? My biggest problem, besides Amy Smart playing a completely unlikable character, is that she doesn't seem to understand no one should recognize her. She acts as though Mark-Paul Gosselaar (or everyone) should know who she is despite knowing none of the characters are experiencing the same thing she is.

I watched 12 Dates Of Christmas last night. It's truly crazy and Amy Smart is truly an awful character. Thanks for the recommendation, SaraK.

For anyone interested, here's a list of albums selling over 10 million copies in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_the_United_States I must confess that the only reason I knew diamond was a certification is because I remember MTV News covering Britney Spears getting the award for one of her albums.

I don't even really like Christmas, but this song is my FUCKING JAM! I basically wait all year for it to be Christmas time just to blast this and Last Christmas.

May as well make this the HDTGM classics Christmas movie on rabbit at this point.

I'm now very interested in seeing this movie.

This movie sucks but I still quote one line of it regularly. There's a part where Jack Black is eating nachos and they all get stuck together. He says something like "this only counts as one nacho." I use this every. single. time I'm eating something and the food sticks together.

This was on my shortlist but Jammerlea has definitely made my choice easier.

Spoiler alert for next week: I love this movie and anyone who doesn't is dead to me. It contains probably my favorite moment in movie history that I will definitely expound on next week.

Can you guys keep arguing if it means more reconciliation cat pictures?

Wait a second. Are you saying that they were going to make Jazz Singer and then they got Neil Diamond, changing the movie to fit him? Because I assumed Neil Diamond brought the idea to others.

Are cantors common in even small synagogue? Or are these limited mostly to big places? The churches I went to as a kid were fairly small. A place where the "music director" is anything other than a musically inclined church member volunteering to lead choir practice is alien to me.

I'm a non-Jewish person who lives in a part of the country with practically no Jewish people. I have no idea what a cantor is apparently. So, what exactly is a cantor? Because I was not picturing literally at all anyone whose 9-5 job is music related. I assumed it was, I don't know, assistant to the rabbi type position. One thing I should say about the Al Jolson Jazz Singer that, in my opinion, is why it would be largely forgotten is Al Jolson himself. My understanding (and I'm basing this on reading about him a few months ago when I saw The Jazz Singer, so corrections are welcome) is Al Jolson was HUGELY popular at the time. Like Elvis or Beatles of Michael Jackson type sensation. The problem is once he stopped being popular, he stopped being popular completely and utterly. One problem is Jolson's particular singing and performing style just didn't age well. The best example I can think of is you know how a band you liked as a kid is embarrassing to listen to now? Even if it's only 10-15 years ago? There's this weird wall of "How did anyone like this?" That's kind of what I think happened to Al Jolson. His style just didn't work after a certain time period. This clip from The Jazz Singer can probably explain why it hasn't aged better than I can put into words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD_YRnuuKyY The other really big reason why Jolson didn't survive in popular culture is blackface. People point out that The Jazz Singer is racist, but the blackface was simply Al Jolson's thing. A documentary of Jolson in 1927 would have featured blackface. So, it's not The Jazz Singer; it's Jolson. While Jolson appears to have been sympathetic in real life to the struggle of black people and was friendly with black people, it's pretty hard to see that in modern times with him performing Mammy or whatever. He supposedly did it in part because he saw similarities between the struggles of Jewish people and black people. While I get that to an extent, at best, it's misguided even at the time. So, Cam Bert is right that the original has stakes. The narrative of the Jolson version is stronger by a fair amount. I think the Jolson version is much less enjoyable because even with stakes, can you imagine someone's dream being to perform Toot Toot Tootsie? Whereas, no matter what one might think of Neil Diamond's music, he at least resembles something a modern viewer would recognize as a star even if the movie is significantly worse in a narrative sense. And you're both 40! Stand up to your fucking parents about your careers goals or give up!

You're right that the original has stakes. The weird thing is that even going back for yom kippur doesn't really reconcile them. It's having a grandson that does it. So, even the religious theme doesn't really hold up.

According to Wikipedia, reception to the original Jazz Singer was largely positive. I think that's based on two things: it's the first movie with synchronised sound which blew people away and Al Jolson was extremely popular. I get the impression people reacted almost like a concert. I happened to see the original earlier this year and it's terrible. If literally any other movie had synchronised sound first, Jazz Singer and Jolson would be almost entirely forgotten. At most, I think it might be a footnote of it weren't the first. At the very least, I think Neil diamond's version is just kind of boring other than a handful of notably bad parts. Jolson's is just bad.

I'll preface this by saying I'm not the most analytical reader. So, the themes could have been obvious to everyone but me. I read the book before seeing the movie and I, in no way, picked up that all the characters were represented in the other stories. There were references to the main character having a birthmark or tattoo or something like that but all the characters having an analogue was surprising to me (or maybe created by the Wachowskis??? idk). Even having some idea of what was coming, it was weird seeing the race swapping.

Does anyone else wonder if Forever NYU is just Neil diamond rewriting the lyrics to Forever In Blue Jeans?

I know the official topic got posted late last week and the two threads were merged. With this being a holiday weekend, I'm not sure when the official one will get posted. Also, nice sign! Correction: The highest award given out for record sales is diamond for 10 million sales. Platinum is 1 million. Gold is 100,000. Neil Diamond's age is brought up a few times. Neil at 39 is way too old for this story to make much sense but Al Jolson was 41 in the original. Danny Thomas was 40 in the 1950s version. Jerry Lewis was 33 when he made it for an episode of Startime on tv in 1959. If you want to count The Simpsons' episode Like Father Like Clown which is clearly inspired by The Jazz Singer, Krusty's voice actor, Dan Castellaneta, was 37 when the episode aired but Krusty was a much more logical young adult during the falling out with his father.

For a second, I was very worried the Golden Girls had an episode with blackface.