IMPORTANT NOTE: I need to move Friday Night Movies to February 12th, due to a scheduling conflict. I've also received quite a few regrets for the 5th already; hopefully the 12th is better for everyone. <<< Friday, February 12th, cartoon shorts start promptly at 8:00 pm. >>> The next presentation at Kevin's Friday Night Movies will be: *Groundhog Day* (slightly less appropriately) (USA, 1993) Directed by Harold Ramis. Starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Nominated for a 1994 Hugo Award (an SF award) for Best Dramatic Presentation. ("Jurassic Park" won that year.) *** He's having the worst day of his life... over, and over... *** Memorable Quotes: Phil Connors: Do you ever have deja vu Mrs Lancaster? Mrs Lancaster: I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen. Phil Connors: There is no way this winter is EVER going to end as long as that groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don't see any way out of it. He's got to be stopped. And I have to stop him. Phil: I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. *That* was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over... Phil: Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today. Goofs: On February 2nd, 1993, the sun did not rise until 7:25 am in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, hence at 6 am it would still be fully dark. Trivia: Bill Murray's character is named Phil, like the groundhog. The number of identical days that we actually see Phil living is 42, which corresponds to the six weeks of winter predicted by the groundhog's seeing his shadow. In one scene, Phil Connors throws himself from the bell tower of a high building. This building is actually an opera house in Woodstock, Illinois. Local legend has it that a young girl once committed suicide by throwing herself from the same bell tower. Her ghost is supposed to haunt the opera house. Bill Murray was bitten by the groundhog twice during the filming of this movie. More at: http://us.imdb.com/Title?Groundhog+Day+(1993) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Happy news if you believe in it: Groundhog predicts early spring By David Kinney, Associated Press, 02/02/99 08:14 PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) - Thousands of winter-weary people who waited through a rainy night were rewarded this morning: Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow. That means, according to legend, that spring is just around the corner. A cheer went up as members of the local Groundhog Day club made the announcement, shortly after dawn. If Phil had seen his shadow, it would have meant six more weeks of winter. "We will feel winter's wrath, but spring is coming," said Bill Cooper, president of the Inner Circle, the club that stages the annual midwinter festival. It was the same cheery news - if you believe in such things - in Lilburn, Ga., where Georgia's groundhog forecaster, Gen. Beauregard Lee, also failed to see his shadow. Cloudy skies shadows away when the 9-year-old rodent came out of his small mansion at 7:34 a.m., said Ruth Letowsky, a spokeswoman for the Yellow River Game Ranch, where Gen. Lee lives. The Groundhog Day tradition is rooted in a German superstition that if an animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2 - the Christian holiday of Candlemas - bad weather is coming. But in the 110 years since German farmers began the festival in Punxsutawney, the morning of Feb. 2 has evolved into an elaborate show of hoodwinkery. In years past, members of the club voted the night before whether or not Phil would see his shadow, rain or shine. Despite overcast skies last year, the club announced the shadow appeared. They set off fireworks to simulate a sunrise. This year, club members insisted, they did not decide what Phil's decision would be until they actually approached his burrow. An announcement this morning estimated the crowd at just 15,000. Bad weather and a Groundhog Day in the middle of the week kept attendance down, but the crowd was full of enthusiasm for Phil. Mike Simmons made a four-hour trip from the town of Tunkhannock to be here. Asked why, he said: "I have no idea. For the absurdity?"7 "It's something unusual," offered his friend, Sandra Peoples of Scranton. "Something you can say you did once." "And only once," added Simmons' wife, Jackie.