View From the Bushes

Yesterday was Groundhog Day. One of my friends (who occasionally posts a comment under the handle of Smallberries) celebrates GHD in lieu of Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July (okay, that may be an exaggeration, but it's close). As for myself, it's not as big as Christmas, but it does have one big thing going for it, the movie Groundhog Day. It's interesting that there has been only one movie about GHD, and hundreds if not thousands about Christmas, and yet there are the same number of true classics ("A Christmas Story" being the Christmas classic, though I confess that Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life are strong contenders, though the latter is more of a Public Domain success story, but that's a topic for another time).

The movie GHD is so good that Charles Murray. author of Human Accomplishement has cited it repeatedly as one of the few cultural achievements of recent times that will be remembered centuries from now. The latter line was shamelessly cribbed from an article in the National Review. The article goes on to say how GHD has been the subject of countless philosophy and ethics lectures, and an equal number of sermons by just about every religion you can think of. Though I think what gets missed as people talk about the genius of the movie is the underlying holiday. An identical movie titled "July 4th" would not have done nearly as well.

My own story with regards to that movie is somewhat interesting. Partially because I saw it at a sneak preview, I hadn't seen any trailers for the movie. All I knew was that it had Bill Murray and Andie McDowell in it, so as the plot revealed itself I was genuinely surprised when it turned out that he was repeating the same day over and over again. Sometimes I think all movies should be seen this way, and other times I think we should just watch the trailer and skip the movie.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross