In celebration of Groundhog Day and the 20th anniversary of the release of Groundhog Day, the classic movie directed by Harold Ramis and starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, we're going to be liveblogging the movie starting at 8pm EST tonight.
If you'd like to watch along, you have several options: you can buy or rent on iTunes, buy or rent it on Amazon, find it on Bittorrent or Usenet, or stream it on Netflix (not sure if it's actually available). If you're awesome, you might already own a copy of the movie on DVD or Blu-ray. AMC is also showing Groundhog Day several times today but not at 8 so you'll have to DVR it earlier. Check local listings as they say. There will be commercials in the AMC version, so you'll get behind every time there's a break, which is a bummer but not an insurmountable issue.
However you choose to watch it, queue up the movie at the blank screen just an instant before the clouds appear and at 08:00:00 pm EST on this clock, push play. Ok, cool. We'll see you right back here at 8 pm tonight?
(Oh, and Bill, if you're out there, we'd love to have you join in. Send me an email.)
An update: Ok, the liveblog has concluded, the archive is here. Also, Bill never emailed. :(
The internet is awash in great Bill Murray stories, but this one might be one of the very best. From the middle of an AV Club interview with Kelly Lynch in October:
AVC: It seems like your sex scene in [Road House] must be one of the most uncomfortable in cinematic history, being up against a rock wall and all.
KL: Oh, I know, but I was padded. [Laughs.] No one knows, so it looks more painful that it was. They really liked everything about the way that scene looked, with the blonde hair against the rocks behind me, but I was like, "Isn't this kind of... mean?" So they put a thin padding under my dress, so you can't see it. But he's still slamming me against the rocks, so I had to be careful not to hit my head. Thank God Patrick was so strong. He could've carried me around that room forever.
By the way, speaking of Bill Murray, every time Road House is on and he or one of his idiot brothers are watching TV -- and they're always watching TV -- one of them calls my husband and says [In a reasonable approximation of Carl Spackler], "Kelly's having sex with Patrick Swayze right now. They're doing it. He's throwing her against the rocks." [Away from the receiver.] What? Oh, my God. Mitch was just walking out the door to the set, and he said that Bill once called him from Russia.
AVC: Sorry, not to dwell on this, but you said that Bill Murray "or one of his idiot brothers" will call. Which brothers are we talking about?
KL: All of them! Joel has called; Brian Doyle has called. They will all call! Any and all of them!
AVC: This was already an awesome story, but now it's even better.
KL: I know, right? I dread it. If I know it's coming on -- and I can tell when it's coming on, because it blows up on Twitter when it is -- I'm just like, "Oh, my God..." And God help me when AMC's doing their Road House marathon, because I know the phone is just going to keep ringing. It doesn't matter if it's 2 or 3 in morning. "Hi, Kelly's having sex with Patrick Swayze right now..."
The whole Monty Python group was there, most of us from [SNL], a lot of other funny people, and Gilda. Gilda showed up and she'd already had cancer and gone into remission and then had it again, I guess. Anyway she was slim. We hadn't seen her in a long time. And she started doing, "I've got to go," and she was just going to leave, and I was like, "Going to leave?" It felt like she was going to really leave forever.
Dave Itzkoff went to interview Bill Murray for the NY Times on the occasion of the release of his new film, Hyde Park on Hudson, in which Murray plays Franklin D. Roosevelt. Itzkoff was expecting just a normal interview but, due to a scheduling problem, ended up accompanying Murray on stage at an evening appearance and continued the interview in front of members of the Screen Actors Guild.
Mr. Murray, having changed his shirt but still in the blue shorts, leaves the hotel and boards a chauffeured S.U.V., where the conversation continues.
Q. It sounds as if you also wanted to convey Roosevelt's voice as much as his physical presence.
A. We had a discussion about it, and we agreed that you don't want to do an impression. You want to get it in you, and then you want to play -- [The car is suddenly cut off by another vehicle.] That person was insane. [To his driver] Well-avoided, Mustafa. But you can bump her now. She's got it coming.
If you're like me, you can read interviews with Bill Murray all day long. Here, go nuts.
When I work, my first relationship with people is professional. There are people who want to be your friend right away. I say, "We're not gonna be friends until we get this done. If we don't get this done, we're never going to be friends, because if we don't get the job done, then the one thing we did together that we had to do together we failed." People confuse friendship and relaxation. It's incredibly important to be relaxed -- you don't have a chance if you're not relaxed. So I try very hard to relax any kind of tension. But friendship is different.
They told me I have two minutes. I'm going to pop this Red Hot [candy, pops in mouth] so I'll be finished in two minutes [mumbling with candy in mouth]. Why do you give this award? Why? Because you have to throw a party. Because you have to compete with the Golden Globes. [Cheers.] We all asked that question. You're able to get out tonight, celebrate - without your relatives - you earned, you deserve it.
But why do you give it to Sofia Coppola? Why? Because you want to encourage her, I think. I think that's the real reason. Look at her. Look at her! She comes from a family, mother and father both very successful, creating entertainments, amusements and thought-provoking work. She wrote a spec script for The Virgin Suicides. The ambition of these young people! Can you believe it? The ambition! She got the job as the director. She directed Lost in Translation in another country in another language, and got a prize for it. [Pause.] God, this is a hot, hot Red Hot. But I'm not going to quit on you people, because I've got another half in my pocket. [Pulls out of pocket and puts in mouth.] I got one-and-a-half in my mouth right now. [Mumbling.]
And the whole bit about life and success and freedom derailing careers and creative work is just spot on gold. (thx, david)
Man, what if Spike Jonze had made Being Bill Murray instead? Casey Weldon did a series of paintings of Bill Murray as characters from Wes Anderson's movies...but non-Murray characters like Max Fischer, Margot Tenenbaum, and the Baumer.
This has been linked around quite a bit in the last week, but it's worth a look if you haven't read it and like Bill Murray at all. According to the article, this is only the fourth or fifth time that Murray has been interviewed in the past ten years. On his involvement with Garfield: The Movie:
No! I didn't make that for the dough! Well, not completely. I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I'd never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that.
[...] So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the fuck was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.
And I love that he loved Kung Fu Hustle so much...I agree that it is underrated.
What did Bill Murray whisper into Scarlett Johansson's ear at the end of Lost in Translation? Someone did a bit of audio analysis and posted their findings as a video. (via avenues)
Update on The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson's new film starring Anderson regulars Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman. Apparently this article confirms the rumors that Bill Murray is in the film. (via goldenfiddle)
