Dec 16 2024 - Hot Frosty Please

 

If I were to make a dish named Hot Frosty - it would be a dessert and would have a frozen outside and a hot melted inside.  And I think maybe peppermint or vanilla flavours for the frozen mousse.  Melting chocolate on the inside and everything in a pool of hot dark chocolate. But that's not the Hot Frosty that's popular this year. And indeed it is "The Hot Frosty" not "A Hot Frosty" this year -  it is a Netflix movie in which actor Dustin Milligan shows off his abs when he comes to life from being a snowman. Who would guess big, fat, round balls of snow would transform into - well look below.  Seems like it is tempting to click on the visit button to find out more.     Here  is on plot summary: "Two years after losing her husband, Kathy (Lacey Chabert) magically brings a handsome snowman (Dustin Milligan) to life! Through his naïveté, the snowman helps Kathy to laugh, feel and love again, as the two fall for each other just in time for the holidays... and before he melts." There have been millions of views of this movie - that means a lot of talk and explanation of the movie..   Another:  A grieving widow and a little Christmas magic turn a six-pack-sporting snowman into a helpful household himbo in a delightful Christmas-themed romantic comedy. This one "explains" the ending:  It was only after Kathy fell in love with Jack that the universe granted her wish and helped him become completely human. His body temperature was no longer low, and for the first time, he experienced a shiver. Kathy was overjoyed, and she kissed Jack while the entire town cheered for them. Nothing is impossible on Christmas—a woman could fall in love with a snowman! Jack continued to live with Kathy. He gifted her a home repair manual, and she bought him tickets to Hawaii. He had always wanted to travel there, and now that there were no chances of him melting away, Kathy thought it was the perfect opportunity. And an actual review: Considering the current state of the world, how can I complain about a successful bit of holiday cheer and escapism? Hot Frosty embraces its ridiculous premise — yes, this is a hot snowman with abs — but adds enough holiday magic to make this more than pumping iron, Yuletide edition. The CBC Radio interviewed Russell Hainline who is the writer/author of this screenplay.  He also pens Hallmark movies.  He doesn't seem to worry that he's the writer of fluffy stuff - he seems to have a fun attitude all-round.  This started as a motion blur image of the pond at Charles Daley Park, and then it got the water colour plugin treatment.  It seems like a Winter Solstice-themed image now.

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Feb 2 2023 - Ground Hog Day Again

 

How did ground dogs get their name?  I don't think they eat dog food. They are marmots and closely related to squirrels.  They are closely related to Prairie Dogs.  They are both in the Marmotini tribe. The Groundhog that we celebrate today is a Marmota monad, or a woodchuck.  Groundhog Day was a "calling card" script - a showpiece to get a producers interest for Danny Rubin. When it passed to Harold Ramis who was to direct it, he took it over and rewrote it, a few times, it looks like.  Who did they want to play Phil?  Kevin Kline was Rubin's choice and Tom Hanks was Ramis' choice.  Michael Keaton rejected it - he did not "understand" the film.  Bill Murray's brother played Buster Green - the presider over the Groundhog Day festivities.  The production company trapped a while groundhog in the woods, named it Scooter, and it became the famous groundhog. Even Bill Murray tried to rework the script, in an attempt by Ramis to appease Murray, who was so difficult to deal with that Ramis and Murray didn't speak again until before Ramis' death in 2014.   Mention the movie and don't you hear "I Got You Babe" immediately? Danny Rubin had chosen the song from the beginning.   Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney became a tourist destination with tens of thousands of visitors rather than hundreds.   Of course, the time loop remains the wonderful mystery at the movie's core.  "In an early draft, Rubin had Phil estimate he had been there for 70 or 80 years. Later in life, once Ramis had married a Buddhist woman and adopted some of that philosophy, he started to quote a Buddhist doctrine that says it takes 10,000 years for a soul to evolve to the next level. In the end, there is no definitive answer." Isn't that such a satisfyingly answer, and perfect for the real Bill Murray.  He's made headlines repeatedly over the years.  Last year, the film he was on was suspended over his behaviour issues.  Chevy Chase gossiped on Stern's show in 2008 about Murray's behaviour.  "Charlie's Angels" director McG claimed Murray head butted him once.  Richard Dreyfuss had negative words hurled to him. Inexcusable and unacceptable language was used on Lucy Liu.  I guess there's more.   Would that be 70 years of bad behaviour with no change? It might be 10,000 years before Bill Murray evolves to a next level.  And in the end, we won't be here by then.   If Bill Murray sees his shadow today 6 more years of Covid. Why wasn't Bill Murray cast as Thor? Because nobody likes an electricity bill.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 17 2022 - Pi in the Sky

 

I heard an interview with Darren Aronofsky, the director of the Move Pi.  (Not to be confused with Life of Pi). So I went and read the plot summary on Wikipedia HERE.  That is fascinating of itself.    Such imagination to created that set of circumstances and events.  The themes of the film are religion, mysticism and the relationship of the universe to mathematics.  Coming up is the 25th anniversary of the movie.  Darren Aronofsky gets back the rights to the movie - he put that in the contract at the time of his directorial debut.  He said he is going to launch the refurbishment of the movie on Pi Day, March 14th.   This gives new meaning to Scientific American calling Pi Day the celebration  "Irrational exuberance". And Pi?  What about it?  Pi is an irrational number, meaning it cannot be expressed as a fraction.  Pi is a transcendental number, a real number that is not algebraic, or in even more technical terms, a real number that cannot be a root of a polynomial equation with integer coefficients. Where did Pi come from?  The earliest known reference to Pi comes from ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians and the Babylonians (4,000 years ago). In ancient times, documents such as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus found the area of a circular shape in a curious, three-step manner.  Here is the explanation of the experiment from Scientific American:   "Try a brief experiment: Using a compass, draw a circle. Take one piece of string and place it on top of the circle, exactly once around. Now straighten out the string; its length is called the circumference of the circle. Measure the circumference with a ruler. Next, measure the diameter of the circle, which is the length from any point on the circle straight through its center to another point on the opposite side. (The diameter is twice the radius, the length from any point on the circle to its center.) If you divide the circumference of the circle by the diameter, you will get approximately 3.14—no matter what size circle you drew! A larger circle will have a larger circumference and a larger radius, but the ratio will always be the same. If you could measure and divide perfectly, you would get 3.141592653589793238..., or pi."   And how many digits are there?  More than six billion have been identified through computer computations. Christmas themes at the Fantasy of Trees this year. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Day 7 Wake-up Call

Mark Wigmore gave a movie review yesterday morning on JazzFM.  He explained what makes the latest Marvel movie - Black Panther - a stand-out movie.  He was very excited about this movie.  It is the most positive view of black people ever presented. The setting is a technologically advanced African nation.  The cast and characters are black people who are smart, powerful and interesting.  No movie has ever been made with this premise before.  Reviewers are excited by the social and political message of the movie: "But Black Panther also offers the kind of story that so many of his fellow superheroes can’t: a legend that empowers those with brown skin, cherishes Africa, and rewrites history to create a black monarchy that rules the most intelligent and powerful country in the world". Another reviewer describes the social and emotional impact:  "I had the privilege of watching the film while seated in front of Denzel Washington, beside Whoopi Goldberg and in the company of almost every major black actor and celebrity on the east coast: Chris Rock, Gayle King, Tyra Banks, Robin Roberts and more. Denzel was moved to tears by the movie, said he felt like a proud father, and predicted it would make a billion dollars". This could be called a  "social moviement."  It seems to hark back to the Black Panther "social movement" of 1966 when this comic was created.  There is great excitement building.   Something most of us haven't heard of is at the centre of our North American society in a sudden.  It's Afrofuturism - Afrofuturism addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through a technoculture and science fiction lens, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afrodiasporic experiences.  More from Wikipedia here.  This picture is one of the buildings on the Ringling Museum site in Florida.

I had no idea - it is Groundhog Week! (not day)

This is Groundhog Week!  How could I have missed that it has now become a week rather than a day. We can watch the Groundhog Day festivities live from Wiarton.  Or we can remember the great movie Groundhog Day. I consider this a National Observance Day of some sort.  That's because this is the informal celebration of the movie Groundhog Day as well. Do you remember last year when  we found out what Harold Ramis during filming thought were the number of years in the loop?  First it was 10,000, then 10, then 30 to 40 years.  The rationale ranges from how many years to evolve to the next level of spirituality, to how many years it takes to master a major skill such as a language or playing piano. This is the current popular calculation - 12,395 days - 33 years in the loop. Here's how this was calculated: Learning the sequence: 42 days Find Cowboy Outfit: 1 day Watching Heidi 2 at the movies: 100 days The Seduction of Rita: 4 days Becoming fluent in French: 4380 days Date fails: 8 days The Suicides: 20 days Learning ice sculpture: 3833 days Card flipping: 180 days Learning the piano: 3833 days Total: 12,395 – or 33 Years, 350 days So we have a special "National Observance Day" - it is a combination of celebrating our Canadian contingent of the original Saturday Night Live Troupe in this classic movie and Canadian Groundhog day.  Two great Canadian traditions.

It's "I Got You Babe" Day

Being Canadian, this is the morning we wake up to Sonny and Cher's 'I Got You Babe' coming from the clock radio next to the bed.  If anyone mentions Deja Vu, I start to sing the first bars of the song.  So here we are at Groundhog Day. The synopsis of the movie is wonderfully written at Wikipedia 'here'.  The most interesting section for me is on Time loop duration speculations.   Time loop duration speculations Estimates regarding how long Phil supposedly remains trapped in the loop, in real time, vary widely. During filming, Ramis, who was a Buddhist, observed that according to Buddhist doctrine, it takes 10,000 years for a soul to evolve to its next level. Therefore, he said, in a spiritual sense, the entire arc of Groundhog Day spans 10,000 years. In the DVD commentary, Ramis estimated a real-time duration of 10 years. Later, Ramis told a reporter, "I think the 10-year estimate is too short. It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything, and allotting for the down time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years." In 2005, Rubin said, "Ultimately it became this weird political issue because if you asked the studio, 'How long was the repetition?', they'd say, 'Two weeks'. But the point of the movie to me was that you had to feel you were enduring something that was going on for a long time ... For me it had to be—I don't know. A hundred years. A lifetime." In 2014, the website WhatCulture combined various time duration assumptions and estimated that Phil spent a total of 12,395 days—just under 34 years—reliving Groundhog Day. Danny Rubin was author of the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Harold Ramis.  He wrote a book on writing the movie - How to Write Groundhog Day.  Here is the hilarious promo page:  Buy it today! What if tomorrow never comes? Screenwriters How and why did the original screenplay change? Philosophers  Was this comedy influenced by Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence? Fans How long did the time loop last? New Screenwriters Seven acts?  It had seven acts? Psychologists Was the structure really based on Kübler-Ross’ stages of death and dying? Lovers Was it always a romantic comedy? Guys Which movie star with the initials A.MacD. sat on the screenwriter’s lap? Buddhists How much will this book cost? Danny Rubin seems to be truly thankful and happy for this experience.  I checked out his blog called Blogus Groundhogus.  The latest entry is February 2015, so I'll assume that is sufficiently recent to indicate things. Our Koi looks like it is entering a portal gate.  This was a reflection of a bridge at the Jacksonville Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens.  And of course, we continue the heart theme.