A trope definer? I got you, babe!

A classic comedy that marked the end of one of the great teams? I got you, babe!

A perfectly crafted tale that asks all the right questions? I got you, babe!

Case and Sam are joined by Melissa Patterson to discuss the pinnacle of Bill Murray’s comedic career, Groundhog Day… despite some technical difficulties.

Find Mel…

On Instagram at @melpatselftapes and @melpatters

On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/melissa.a.patterson1/

SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts • Google Podcasts • Spotify • iHeartRADIO • Stitcher • RSS

Transcription

(AI Generated. Subject to Error)

00:00
Sam
Am I back? Am I back? Can you hear me? I can hear all of them. I can see them, Matt. This is actually pretty hellish, just not existing.

00:11
Case
Welcome to certain point of View's another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com. Hey, everyone, and welcome to another pass podcast. I, case aiken. And as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam alicea.

00:28
Sam
Hello.

00:29
Case
And today we are joined by another member of our cosplay contingent. We have the wonderful Patterson.

00:36
Mel Patterson
Hi.

00:37
Sam
Hi.

00:38
Case
We have so many comic con pictures of us in spandex together.

00:42
Mel Patterson
Oh, yeah.

00:44
Case
But Melissa, you do lots of stuff, so do you want to give some quick plugs?

00:48
Sam
Yeah, sure.

00:49
Mel Patterson
So I am an actor and sort of an intuitive reader. As been since the pandemic, I've been giving intuitive readings over the phone. It's been quite interesting. I think that's a skill you use a lot as an actor. Coming up, though, I don't have any film projects at the moment, I do have a project I'm going to start working on the Sound of Music choreographing, actually, down in Kentucky at a small theater in Maysville, Kentucky, the Maizeville players at the old opera house where Rosemary Clooney used to sing back in the day. So if you're in Kentucky, maybe in like September. October, I believe. I believe it's in October. So come check out the Sound of music.

01:34
Case
Awesome.

01:35
Sam
Well, the hills will be alive.

01:38
Mel Patterson
They will be alive with something. I don't know exactly what.

01:43
Case
But I mean, like choreography. That's the type of thing where you have to really commit to doing that same task again and again until it's, like, completely rogue.

01:53
Sam
Yeah.

01:53
Mel Patterson
Till you get it right.

01:55
Case
Which is perfect for the movie that we're talking about today. Because today we are talking about Groundhogs Day.

02:01
Sam
Yay. And the existential crisis that is Groundhogs Day.

02:05
Case
Yeah. So this is a fifth movie or a fifth episode, I should say. This is not our usual fare of speculating on how a movie could be improved. I kind of think this movie is about as good as it could be.

02:16
Sam
Yeah, absolutely. I think even though there are certain things that I think may not translate as well in just modern day, I still think that the movie holds up really well and that it's still very fun. And, I mean, I guess I will venture to say that all of us have a little bit of nostalgia around this film. So that does affect how you view a film. But I will say that the casting is pretty good. The acting is pretty good, the story is pretty great, and it has launched a bunch of other things.

02:52
Mel Patterson
Right.

02:53
Sam
A lot of other things. Use this device now, this groundhogs day, like a day over and over again in different mediums. So it's definitely an important film in the history of american film.

03:09
Mel Patterson
Totally. I think it is on the list of like all time greatest films. Greatest films of all time. Something like that.

03:16
Sam
Yeah, no, you're right, because it's also something that people can generally relate. Like, there's the scene where Bill Murray is in the bar and he's talking to the two drunk guys and he tells them he's know and he's telling them honestly because this is actually happening to him, that he is basically waking up in the same place every day. And he means it literally, but they take it as figuratively. And he's like, I'm waking up in the same place having the same day over and over again, and I can't escape.

03:46
Mel Patterson
And the guy next to and the.

03:48
Sam
Guy next to him is like, yeah, that's pretty much it for me. And he's got this blank stare in his eyes. And I think for the most part, most people feel that you wake up in your same bed, you go to the same job, you work 8 hours a lot of times doing the same exact thing over and over again because that's your job.

04:10
Mel Patterson
And especially during the pandemic, I feel like this movie is so relevant now that we're still kind of going through this thing. We're not quite through it yet. The entire world is going through this monotonous having to stay inside and having to sort of hunker down and go through the same routine over and over again, not being able to go out and about and change things up.

04:36
Case
Yeah. Patrick H. Williams, a YouTuber who is podcast adjacent with us, he did a whole video essay about the comfort of these trapped in a day kind of episodes. And obviously Grand Hogs Day is a huge part of that because it kind of defined the trope. But since then, there have been plenty of movies like Palm Springs last year that also sort of play with that convention. But it kind of starts here and it's sort of fascinating because it's such an easy to explain concept.

05:04
Mel Patterson
Actually. It's funny because one of the things they talk about with, you know, and Harold Remus and know the filming of the movie itself, so it dealt with the subject matter, know, having to repeat the same day again and again, kind of until you learned your lesson, at least that's kind of what I took from it, but I feel like Bill Murray was kind of going through the same things that his character was going through in real life. From what I read, he was dealing with a divorce, and he was sort of throwing himself into the movie and wanting to do this sort of more serious, existential. He was wanting to be a more serious actor and maybe make the film not as comedic.

05:47
Case
Yeah. Which at this point, he had worked with Ramis so many times and had started to feel like his career was being defined by working with him specifically and working in comedy in general and really wanting to get out of the rut that he. I'm inferring, but of doing that, like, of being typecast as a comedic actor and move into dramatic stuff, which you see his career start to pivot that way after this. He still does comedies and has been doing comedies this whole time because he's so good at it.

06:16
Mel Patterson
Right? Yeah, that's his forte, definitely.

06:20
Case
We definitely know that he is an actor who has tried to be broader, do more dramatic works, do more serious works.

06:27
Mel Patterson
Yeah. And he's certainly capable of that as an actor. He's definitely capable, but I think his strength does lie in that comedy and that sort of sarcastic wit that he's got. He's just so great at playing the.

06:40
Case
Asshole character well, and it's his comfort zone. That's the thing about being trapped in the day. There is a comfort to knowing exactly how things are going to be. It is scary to branch out and move on to February 3. It is scary to go into the unknown because all of a sudden there are consequences that are not there when you're in that loop in life. For him as a comedic actor who's known for doing good comedies, there is a certain bar that people are going to judge him on.

07:11
Mel Patterson
Right. That's interesting that you say the word comfort. You've said that a couple of times. And I think, especially during this pandemic, people want to feel comfortable because there's that sense of uncertainty of not knowing what's coming or what's going to be ahead. And I think that it is comfortable to know, like, okay, well, I'm going to live the next day over again. I guess you sort of start out with that comfort of knowing that tomorrow is still going to be the same day. I guess that's a positive spin on living the same day over and over again.

07:56
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome to another past podcast. I'm Kay sake, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

08:03
Sam
Hi, I'm back, bitches.

08:06
Case
You are back. We are back. We are back on our bullshit. And today we are talking about Groundhog day with Melissa Patterson.

08:17
Sam
Oh, my God. I'm Bill Murray right now. That's what I am living the entrance of this podcast over and over.

08:28
Case
It's cool.

08:29
Sam
Getting kicked out. My mic keeps turning off, Sam.

08:33
Case
It's cool. It's cool. I got you, babe.

08:38
Sam
Hilarious. At one point, I was talking and I was saying something. I was like, oh, they can't hear me. And then everything crapped out, and it was like, great. Wonderful. All right.

08:53
Case
Well, we're never going to get trapped in a cycle of being on a day where everything just works. Like, obviously it's not going to work that way.

08:59
Sam
No, you can't have the perfect day, right?

09:02
Mel Patterson
Yeah. Well, and then you got to go through all the stages of grief, of the denial, the anger, until you get to the acceptance of, like, well, it's just not going to work.

09:12
Sam
Yeah, I mean, did a pretty good job with the suicide sequence.

09:15
Case
Yeah, that's where it gets dark and truly nihilistic right there.

09:19
Sam
Yeah, but it kind of makes sense. First you'd go to like, oh, well, I can't die. Well, then what chaos can I cause? Which is basically what happens, right? He goes through and tests his limits, and then finally one day, he's just like, well, screw this. I hate this. And then when he accepts it, everything is better.

09:38
Case
Yeah, it starts to work that way. So, I mean, we should point out for people who are not familiar with this movie. So we're talking about a 1993 comedy directed by Harold Ramis featuring Bill Murray. That is such a trope definer that it's hard to believe that there aren't really tons of examples from before. Like, there are some. They got sued by people accusing them of ripping off story ideas because it hadn't actually been done that much. But now it's sort of just everywhere. We were saying that there are modern movies that are kind of doing this trope, and it's always called pulling a groundhog day, which is insane because Groundhog Day has nothing to do with it.

10:15
Mel Patterson
Yeah, that's so true. It's just part of the vernacular. You say, oh, I'm in a groundhog day. I think I read something about the military and how in Iraq they talked about the monotony of their tour of duty over in Iraq and how they were living the same day over and over again. And so they would just call it, yep, we're in Groundhog Day. So it's funny how it's become a part of pop culture, know, I guess mainstream culture.

10:42
Case
Yeah. And I wonder how much of that could be due to the appeal of novelty and the cult around it in modern society. If you were, for the majority of human experience, a hunter gatherer, just going out and collecting food every day and then chilling out, having your family and surviving the day being the same every day was just kind of a given, and there would be, like, the little idiosyncrasies, but for the most part, you were expected to do the same thing each and every day. When we get into agrarian societies, like farmers. Yeah, there's a rhythm to it, but you plant the seeds in this day and eventually you harvest them. But there's still, like, the same basic work every single year. The structure works the same way.

11:23
Case
Even getting into urban settings of the majority of human history, there was still a lot of repetition. The same stories are being told when we get to religious services, work the same way on the same point of the year, and so on and so forth. It's really like the 20th century, especially in America specifically, there is a push to have the new and to value the new, and some of that is like the planned obsolescence aspects of capitalism and products and so forth. But we want the same but different in all of our media, and we want to consume new media. We don't want to reread stories.

12:00
Case
Now that everyone has Netflix and access to a million movies at any given time, it's really hard to just be like, oh, I want to go back and rewatch this movie in a way that when we didn't have so much choice before, we did totally because of how it was. And that, I think, creates a mental burden on us when we're looking at life in general, where it's like the idea of getting stuck in that sort of cycle of doing the same thing seems like a type of hell that it didn't before.

12:27
Mel Patterson
Well, that's a good point that you bring up. I hadn't actually thought about that, about how the simplicity of just simpler days and the monotony of that and the routine of that is something, I guess, to strive for. And I think in today's culture, and I think actually the trend since the pandemic is actually people are moving away from the cities and the hustle and the bustle to a more simpler farms and suburbs and getting back to nature and that sort of thing. And so I guess that idea that there can be something pretty profound in that monotony and that routine know, finding the joy in the simple things of life. And I think that's what Bill Murray found towards the end of the know.

13:14
Mel Patterson
It was sort of the appreciation of the small town and the people in it and the interactions, rather than his big ego of, I'm going to go to this other network and I'm going to be a big star, whatever that he was talking about at the beginning.

13:28
Case
Yeah. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another past podcast. I'm Kay Staken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

13:40
Sam
Yes. Hopefully for good this time. God damn it.

13:44
Case
We are continuing our discussion about Groundhog Day with Melissa Patterson.

13:49
Sam
I got you, bitch. I feel like this episode, it's like, almost like I don't even know if I want to start getting points across because I don't know if they're going to finish. I would like to add that I don't know if it's necessarily like embracing a small town so much as being forced to embrace connecting with others.

14:10
Mel Patterson
Right.

14:11
Sam
I think Hemudgeon in the beginning, and I feel like you can do that anywhere, but he was such a cremudgeon and he was such a grouch, and he was so on his high horse and really not able to connect to anyone. He's the classic Scrooge type of person. And, I mean, this movie really is kind of like a wonderful life, and Scrooge kind of like, shoved together with this mystical, like, living a day over and over again. So once he learns to accept his life in this town and learns to accept that he needs to improve himself, because he does find Rita lovely, and he would like to improve himself so he could be someone who's worthy of being with her.

14:53
Sam
And then he makes all these connections with all these people, then helps all these people and he realizes that life is great when you have other people and when you become the better person that you've always been meant to be, then people actually see you as the person, like, see you as important. He became important not because he was famous, not because he was a celebrity, not because he was a weatherman from Pittsburgh, because he was a person who was involved completely in the town. He did all these for people, and he made connections with them, and that's what made him important.

15:32
Mel Patterson
Yeah, exactly.

15:34
Sam
That's really lovely. One of my favorite scenes is when he gets hit on the head with a shovel.

15:37
Mel Patterson
I know. I never noticed that. And I was rewatching it and I was like, that is fantastic. At the beginning, when he's on the.

15:45
Sam
Phone yeah, because he's basically throwing a tantrum and he's on the phone and he's just like, don't you have a line for celebrities or people? There's, of course, something on the other end. He's like, well, I'm both, so get me on that line because I need to get out of here. And then someone hit the back of his head with a shovel. And it's so great because it's so well deserved.

16:06
Mel Patterson
The timing is perfect.

16:07
Sam
It's exactly what you would want to do. Like, shut up, you twat.

16:13
Mel Patterson
Exactly. When I was watching it, I was thinking about as you go through the movie, because he goes through so many stages where he's sort of given up and he's committing suicide and robbing the bank or whatever, doing all these sort of bad things, necessarily good or bad. I guess you could label, however, but.

16:39
Sam
Tricking women into sleeping with you because you found out their information, that's still bad.

16:44
Mel Patterson
That's pretty bad. Oh, yeah, definitely. And you know what, too? I felt so bad for Nancy because watching this movie in this day and age, through the meToo, the eyes of the movement, and now it's like we see so much the sexual harassment that goes on from the past, whereas before, it wouldn't have been given it a second thought of, like, can you help me with my pelvic tilt? He asked his boss that, his female boss, which nowadays you're like, he'd be out of there. Yeah, but poor Nancy, he gets all of her information at the beginning of the movie and then tricks her into sleeping with him.

17:24
Case
I totally agree, especially because he does that to other women in the town. We don't see how much happens, but we know that there's a certain number of days just to do certain tasks. Like, there's 10,000 year scenario, which is like the real long shot kind of one. But even in a scenario where he just learns how to play piano masterfully and ICE sculpt and so forth, he's been a lot of time there. And I would not be surprised if he has had sex with literally every person in the town. Not just every woman in town, every person in the out. Yeah, well, he goes through that whole process. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another past podcast. I am case Aiken. As always, I am joined by Sam Alicea.

18:11
Mel Patterson
Hello.

18:12
Sam
I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid.

18:15
Case
Will we make it through the day? I don't know, but we are joined by Melissa Patterson.

18:20
Sam
Hello.

18:20
Mel Patterson
Hello.

18:21
Sam
Yay.

18:22
Case
And we are going to try to get through Groundhog day.

18:26
Sam
I do agree that he's probably slept with everyone in the. Everyone. Everyone including the man that he gave the Heimlich maneuver to possibly.

18:35
Case
Yeah.

18:37
Mel Patterson
Who is actually his brother in real life, by the way.

18:40
Case
Yes.

18:41
Mel Patterson
I had no idea. Bill Murray has like nine brothers and sisters and that was the guy who he gives the Heimlich maneuver to. And that's.

18:51
Case
It's his older brother.

18:52
Mel Patterson
Brother. I had no idea. I learned something new.

18:54
Sam
Yeah.

18:55
Case
Brian Doyle Murray.

18:56
Sam
Yeah.

18:57
Mel Patterson
I had no idea. I think it's great.

19:00
Case
Yeah. Because were talking about sort of the interesting aspects of the loop. And what's crazy to think about it is that it relates so much to things that we have experienced now. It feels very video gamey. It feels like we talk about how it relates to the quarantine. There's all these aspects that are like, oh, it's such a good metaphor. It's such an easy to understand situation that you can find relatable and for so many reasons. When you're replaying a video game that has a lot of NPCs that you interact with, it feels the same kind of way where you're like, oh, I have a good relationship with this character. I'm going to go interact with this character and have the same kind of dialogue trees. And maybe sometimes you're just trying to skip through it.

19:41
Mel Patterson
Exactly.

19:41
Case
Which he does on certain ones. Like on day three, he's rapidly cutting through every conversation. He walks up being like, I slept fine. Yes, I will have coffee. Because he knows all the questions that they're going to ask. It's the same as when I was playing Mass Effect. I had characters who I'd want to go have the same dialogue tree with just because it was fun to have that little chat with a character. When I finished Mass Effect two, at the end of the game, you're basically back on the ship right before the end and I went and had the exact same dialogue tree with every character just because I knew, hey, this is the last time I'm probably going to be doing this, at least on this playthrough.

20:14
Case
So I'm just going to just have a nice time chatting with Kelly and be like, oh, yeah, okay, nice. Moving on. And it's the same tree every day and it's just like this movie. It's very video gamey in that regard. But they definitely weren't thinking about video games when they made this movie.

20:28
Mel Patterson
No, not at all. Not at all. Speaking of video games, I did hear that there's a virtual reality game that I think came out in 2019. That's actually based on Groundhog Day, where the character in the virtual reality is Phil's son. And so you kind of go through. They set it up.

20:48
Sam
It's called, like, groundhog day. Like father, like son, or.

20:53
Mel Patterson
Yeah, which would be interesting. I think that would. I would want to play that. I've never really done a lot of virtual reality, but I think it'd be.

21:01
Sam
A lot of fun. I feel like I already live the same life every day. I don't know if I need a game to do that. I think my basis is, like, the sims. My baseline for how realistic I want things to get is, like, the sims. Maybe some farming simulations and animal crossing. And then, like, pretty much I always. I will be honest. I always use the cheat code in the sims. Like, I always give myself as much money as possible. I'm poor in real life, and I don't need to live that reality. In the sims. I don't need to live that reality. I want to build a mansion, maybe kill a couple of people so it can be. Know, maybe court some aliens. But I don't need to be poor. Like, I don't need to work my way through a bunch of jobs.

21:56
Case
Well, can you imagine? Phil got lucky, in the sense, in the script of the type of day he has is one that he actually gets to observe real differences. Like, can you imagine if he was just a farmer or on vacation somewhere, how many days it would take to notice that you were in the loop in the first place?

22:14
Sam
Yeah, that's.

22:15
Case
Here's. It's very clear signifiers, and that's a lot of shorthand. It's, like, nice. From the directorial standpoint. Again, like I said, if he was a farmer, he could have living out on his own or during quarantine, just, like, watching his way through Netflix being like, oh, that's weird. Netflix didn't record where I left off on that episode.

22:30
Sam
I had no concept of time during quarantine, and I would have not known if I were in a loop at all. I actually feel that Phil is lucky because there are time markers.

22:48
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome to another past podcast. I am case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

22:55
Sam
I have a toaster and a bathtub, and I'm not afraid to use it.

22:59
Case
Well, don't do it too quick, because we have a wonderful guest. We've got Melissa Patterson.

23:03
Sam
Hi.

23:05
Case
Yay.

23:07
Sam
Save execution.

23:09
Case
And we are talking about Groundhog Day. It's the fifth episode, so we're talking about a good movie that could have gone wrong for lots of reasons. We're having connection issues. That's why we're doing this a little bit. But one thing that was brought up before you came back on the call, Sam, was that the script was originally structured very differently from what we actually got.

23:27
Sam
Yeah. Which I found really interesting when I was reading about it, because I don't even know how I would feel about this. If Rita ended up in her own loop, that was one of the structural things where basically she would reject him, and then you'd find out that she was in her own loop. And it was struck because there was felt like there wouldn't be enough actual resolution for people to be. To feel like there was, like, I don't know, happiness in the world, instead of a nihilistic view of we're all repeating our same mistakes over and over again. And so even though one person can break out, we all need to break out individually in order to be happy, which is fine and true, but that's heavy. Super heavy.

24:15
Case
Ruben started working on this after reading the vampireless stat and speculating on how just the monotony of an eternal existence can be so oppressive and overwhelming. And that was the basic impetus. So while there are short stories that were written about the same kind of concept, people, like authors who sued the production because they thought it was being ripped off, like Richard A. Lupoff, who wrote the script or not the script, the story. Twelve 01:00 p.m. This is kind of a novel take on it. And the original script called for Bill Murray to be in the loop already, and we would just sort of come in Meteoraz, seeing him experiencing the world on repeat, or rather seeing him just know everything already, and then we'd find out that he's living the loop. And I think that's interesting.

25:00
Case
I think that though this movie being so early in the existence of this trope, would have been difficult for an audience that was not already sort of up to speed. I haven't seen Palm Springs yet, but I know that there is something like the situation with Rita with two people stuck in the loop. So I wonder if that's just that we are now primed for those kind of variations the same way. Like X Men, for example. Right now they've revealed that everything is in this big loop. For one of the characters, it's not a day, it's her entire life. And so that's now a big story point for it. But were primed for those kind of things by virtue of a movie.

25:36
Mel Patterson
Like this because of Groundhog Day. Yeah. It sort of laid the groundhog work very bad. I know.

25:45
Sam
And it was wonderful. They also kind of leaned up because the original script had a lot more of Bill's conquests in it. He had multiple Nancy's, and they kind of cut that down to kind of create a more concise love story. It's still relatively on the creepy side that he decided to use this power to get to know Rita better and kind of know. It's that gray area of, like, is this romantic, or is it creepy? But at the end, he really does care for her and he really loves her. And I guess we forgive it because we do. And it's an older movie.

26:27
Case
He's not released from the loop because it's not even really that he ultimately wins her love. It's that he's not even trying to at that point, he went through that cycle of manipulation.

26:38
Mel Patterson
Right.

26:38
Sam
It's he stops trying to convince her and stops being manipulative and starts just, like, living life and making connections that he's allowed to move forward because he's actually beat the game. Finally, he passed all the levels. He saves the kid free.

26:59
Mel Patterson
He makes don't crash.

27:01
Sam
He saves the guy joking.

27:05
Case
With a script like this, it's really easy to sort of position everything in weird spots because the loop keeps happening. But what's really nice is that there are some very clear sections where you can see the shift in his personality when we go through him trying to manipulate people, going through nihilistic phases. The halfway point is when Rita stays up all night with him, and that's the spot where he stops trying to game the system, and he starts trying to embrace it and actually kind of see the benefits. And by the time we get to that last day, which we actually spend a really long time, like, the whole third act is the last day that he's there.

27:46
Case
At that point, all the things he's doing, it's because he's choosing to make other people's lives better, even if it's a fleeting thing, even if that kid's still going to fall off the tree tomorrow, he can save his life today.

27:59
Mel Patterson
Right.

28:00
Case
And he can live that day and, in a sense, get a little bit more.

28:04
Mel Patterson
Yeah, well, and I think it's that conversation that he has with Rita that night where she stays up all night with him and she says something to the effect of, like, well, I don't know, Phil. Maybe it's a good thing that you're going through this time loop or whatever she says, I don't know the exact line, but she sort of changes his perception, sort of a shift in his perception of how he sees what he's doing. And then also, I think her just sheer virtue of her character also inspires him to be a better person. And so it's that, you know, of every day trying to be the best person you can be until he sort of wins the video game, so to speak.

28:50
Case
Yeah. Because that day he wakes up after Rita stayed up with him all night, that is the day where he actually felt real loss, like he had come so close to really having a connection with a person that was going to be permanent. And then kind of that's the point where all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, not only does nothing matter in the sense of consequences, but also the rewards I have to live in this moment. I can't live in an ongoing thing.

29:18
Mel Patterson
And it's also clear he goes from his head and his ego to his heart, and that's when his heart kind of takes over.

29:25
Sam
Well, he also says to her before that night is over that if he was a better person, that he would love her for his whole life. And I love that line only because the truth is that at that time, he doesn't know if there is actually the rest of his life to live because he can only live this one day, so there is no life to love her in. So not only does he not feel like he's, like, a good enough person because she's the kindest person he's ever met, and he doesn't feel that he's that kind, but he can't even promise her or even himself that the rest of his life he could love her because he doesn't have a rest of his life. He only has today over and over again.

30:09
Mel Patterson
That's so true.

30:10
Sam
And so I think his sadness is even more profound the night of, because it's a bigger loss than just the loss of, like, oh, I lost that moment. It's like, no, I lost all the moments that could be. And so then he just decides to embrace his life as it is right then.

30:31
Mel Patterson
Yeah, that's such a good point. Yeah. And I think that's something that we forget as humans, we're always looking to the future or even sometimes stuck in the past, and we do forget that all we have is this moment right now. And I think that's ultimately why this movie is so universal and so timeless, because it speaks to know human truth of all we have is now. And in this moment.

31:01
Case
Yeah. And it's simple, it's streamlined, the whole. So if initially it was supposed to start with us just observing Phil already in the cycle, the decision to actually introduce him and show his background, like, for example, the opening scene with him at the weather station, that's all reshoots later that was added in to give additional details. So we actually kind of wanted as an audience to see more of what goes into this day. Like, more of all of the pieces.

31:30
Mel Patterson
Yeah.

31:30
Case
And then we actually get the day before where he's, like, checking in. He makes sexist comments to Rita. He does all this stuff.

31:39
Mel Patterson
Yeah. I think that really shows who his character is at the beginning, and I think that's so important.

31:43
Sam
It's fun watching him lose it, too. It's actually fun watching him devolve. It's actually fun watching him figure out that something is very wrong and go through this process instead of having him already in the process, watching him descend into a type of madness and chaos and then roll with it in a chaotic way and then kind of be done with it. Because if we didn't have that first half to see what his growth would be, I don't think that the movie would have been as good. So I think that it was an excellent choice to change that up.

32:26
Mel Patterson
Yeah, I think that was what Harold Ramis, he sort of did some of those rewrites and he's got such a great eye for that. Or I guess I should say he has.

32:37
Sam
Well, the person who suggested it was actually Whitney. I can't remember her.

32:42
Mel Patterson
Oh, the producer or something? The associate producer, yeah, she was a.

32:45
Sam
Producer on it, and she basically suggested that it would be more interesting to see him kind of descend, to start in a place the day before, to kind of give everyone a footing of where he was so that you could actually watch the process of him discovering he's in a time loop.

33:07
Case
Yeah. Day two, I think, is a really important section for explaining this trope. Like him coming to understand that the day is repeating in the first place. It's so useful in terms of getting sort of, like, funny beats out there. And we just wanted to see that wasn't originally in the script. They weren't going to show him sort of processing it. But day two and then day three is where he first starts to have the possibilities open up. So arguably, the break into the second act is when they first reference that there are no consequences from this. And that's when he starts driving the train tracks and stuff, which is so great.

33:43
Mel Patterson
I love when he hits the mailbox.

33:46
Case
Yeah.

33:47
Sam
I love that. The drunk guys are like, if we wanted to hit mailboxes, we would have let that guy drive.

33:52
Case
It starts to get into that sort of, like, the truly hedonistic phase of the movie where we get the screenwriting term, like the fun and games section where he's going, and here's all the fun possibilities.

34:04
Mel Patterson
And it makes you think, what would you do if there were no consequences? Your mind starts thinking of all these possibilities. What would you do, Case?

34:16
Case
Like, rewatching it, I was like, oh, I actually would really want to try to do a lot of the here's the best possible day kind of stuff, just because it seemed to be like, a scenario of like, well, if it's going to be the same every day, shouldn't I try to have at least the most positive energy about it? I don't gain a lot of positivity from selfishly taking shit too much, but there definitely would be at least a day where I would just sleep.

34:42
Mel Patterson
Totally. Oh, yeah.

34:44
Case
That's one thing I think they missed. He gets up at 06:00 a.m. Every day.

34:48
Sam
I know.

34:49
Mel Patterson
Sleep in. I'm sure he had some days where he was, like, hitting the snooze button.

34:54
Sam
Right.

34:56
Mel Patterson
At least I hope that would be my groundhog day.

35:07
Case
Everyone, welcome back to another past podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

35:14
Sam
Help me. Someone help me.

35:17
Case
Well, perhaps that person to help you would be our guest today. We are joined by Melissa Patterson.

35:21
Mel Patterson
I got you, babe.

35:24
Case
And we are talking about groundhog day.

35:27
Sam
If only I would learn the value of connecting with others and living fully in this moment, maybe I would stop getting kicked out of this format. Okay, can we talk about how awesome it is that the studio, and we know studios do this sometimes? The studio really wanted an explanation for why this loop was happening. And the writers, everyone included, just really, honestly did not want to do it. They felt like it would detract from it. But they wrote a script. They wrote, like, a scene in the script that had, like, a gypsy's curse in it that they wrote, and they basically put in there, but they may not have ever shot, or the legend says it's lost the scene, but either way, and they had always planned to do this.

36:27
Sam
They had secretly all decided that they were going to do this behind the studio's back, and the studio just had forgotten about it by then.

36:35
Mel Patterson
I love it. I love it because I think it was like some ex lover named Stephanie or something was supposed to curse him with groundhogs and some sort of time loop or something like that. I don't really know exactly, but, yeah, I'm so grateful that they did that because I think it would be a totally different movie.

36:56
Case
Yeah, there was, like, a lot of studio notes about the meta structure of the day, of the repeating day that I think, again, comes from it just being not. This is the trope creator as far as, again, it existed before, but this is the one that crystallized it for our ability to talk about it. And so when studios were looking at this particular property, they're like, no, I don't understand. How does it not work for that? How many days could it possibly be? And wanting to really categorize that, which Ramis and everyone involved have been like, well, they've given various figures. The cute one I've heard is that it's six weeks, which is the six weeks of winter that the Groundhog predicts, which is like, it's cute. Is it actually in play? Definitely not. He can't possibly have learned all the.

37:45
Mel Patterson
Things he did sculpting and piano playing in six weeks. I wish I could do that.

37:49
Case
Right, exactly. No matter how focused you were, which he's not focused because he's just picking up all these things. So I think they took a step back from the concerns of it for the better. We don't need to think about it. We just know by the end of the movie we don't need to dwell on the creepiness of some of the actions that he's done earlier, because while they're bad by this point, he has spent so much time moving past it. There's tons of religious conversations in this all. And watching it now, I couldn't stop comparing it to the final season of the good place.

38:22
Mel Patterson
Oh, my gosh, yes. I wish. I recently watched during quarantine. I watched all four seasons during quarantine.

38:32
Case
That's a good show for it. But that also is sort of an example of the concept of eternity and that spirituality often sort of works towards and how we react to it because we're so defined by the limitations of our life. There's a reason midlife crises exist, because when you're a kid, your whole focus on like, oh, I'm going to be bigger, I'm going to be stronger, I'm going to be taller, I'm going to be cooler. I'll know more as I get older. And at a certain point, you stop and figuring out what is the plateau? Can you survive on the plateau and then the downward spiral after that. That plateau is very ominous for people who define their entire life about achieving the next step of whatever sort of thing they were working on, which isn't.

39:15
Mel Patterson
That sort of the message of all 80s movies? I feel like every 80s movie or early 90s as well, there's always that lesson of the person trying to achieve success, or they're working in the office, but yet then something happens and they go visit a farm and they get stuck there. Know, I guess I'm thinking of things like baby boom with Diane Keaton and things like, what is it with Michael J. Fox where he goes like Doc Hollywood or something like that. He goes out to the farm, he's got this great big doctor's job making all this money, and he ends up in sort of a simple small town life.

39:52
Mel Patterson
But it's always that concept of bettering yourself as self improvement, doing better as a person, connecting with people rather than being in your ego and living that sort of high powered executive business existence.

40:14
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another past podcast. I'm case Aiken. As always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alice.

40:22
Sam
Hi.

40:24
Case
And today we are discussing the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. But to do that, we are joined by Melissa Patterson.

40:32
Mel Patterson
Hello.

40:34
Sam
Yay. So excited to begin talking about this film. It is one of my all time favorite films, so, yeah, I can't wait to start talking about it.

40:46
Case
Yeah. But before we go too deep into talking about this, we should probably do an ad break for some of the other great shows on our network.

40:55
Sam
This is soon. It just began.

40:58
Case
Did it? Man, that movie was excellent. It really was. Totally blew my expectations away. I know. Right now I really want to tell everyone about it, but I'm not sure how. Yeah, if only there was a podcast dedicated to reviewing films and discussing the latest news and trailers on upcoming films. That would be nice. Yes, for sure. And we can call it the Senegai show. What? No. It will be called real movie critic unleashed. No. How about Senegal, featuring real movie critic? How about the real movie critic and his sidekick, the Seneguy? CG and RMC. RMC and CG. The real movie critic versus the Cineguy only@currentpilv.com. Or wherever you get your podcast, you're going down, critic. Bring it on, guy. And welcome back to another past podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

42:21
Sam
I fully accept this time loop I'm living in right now, embracing it, hoping that positive energy will mean I can stay. Hi, guys. Welcome back.

42:34
Case
That positive energy is coming from one particular person because we are joined by Melissa Patterson.

42:39
Sam
Oh, boy.

42:42
Case
And we are talking about Groundhog Day again, are we?

42:46
Sam
I don't even remember what we're talking about anymore. You guys are talking about Groundhog Day. I am slightly listening and struggling to come back to the conversation. I am not talking about Groundhog Day. I am mumbling to myself that I am gone again and saying stuff like, can you hear me? I'm a ghost. Background. I am the haunted. I am not Groundhog Day. How different would this movie had been if Tom Hanks had been.

43:22
Case
Like, the. The pre production choices really cemented this movie. Tom Hanks would have been just. You wouldn't have bought him as the dick bag.

43:32
Sam
I think it's really funny that he personally felt that way, which is why he turned it down. And he said, supposedly. This is allegedly that Murray was such a miserable son of a bitch on and off screen that it would be a less predictable outcome when he became a nice person at the.

43:51
Mel Patterson
Exactly.

43:52
Case
Exactly. Why don't we talk about that one? Because that's sort of, like, the biggest thing, some of the scripting stuff. Sure. Ramis at this point is known for sort of making movies that started off not as gold and turning into great stuff. Someday, as a fifth movie or fifth episode, we'll talk about Caddyshack, because that is one of the examples of finding a movie in the edit. But Ramis, with this, helped them make a pretty solid script. We have some really nice structure. The first act is amazing. The midpoint with Andy McDowell staying up with him is great. And then the third act being like the last days, is really solid. You get all this information you need. It works really well. The actual shoot, apparently was miserable, from what I hear.

44:37
Sam
Yeah.

44:37
Mel Patterson
That it was like freezing cold temperatures, that Bill Murray and Harold Ramis just were not getting along at all well.

44:46
Sam
Murray apparently really liked the original script better, and he liked how dark it was, and he liked some of the more nihilistic features and loneliness that I think you still get in this film. I think you get a sense of loneliness here and there. But the studio really wanted something that was comedy, and Raymond kept having to remind him, no, this is still a comedy. And also, apparently, Murray was going through a divorce at this time. So some people credit some of his antics on set to just general personal unhappiness, just on a personal level. But this hurt their friendship very badly.

45:30
Case
Yeah. They never worked together again.

45:31
Mel Patterson
Yeah.

45:32
Sam
And I believe Remus's daughter says that they didn't speak again till 2014, shortly before his death.

45:40
Mel Patterson
Right.

45:41
Sam
So this was like something that really hurt the two of them.

45:44
Mel Patterson
Yeah. I think, too, that they both sort of achieved what they each wanted. And I think they were able to sort of marry the two together, which is why I think that their partnership was so brilliant. And it's so sad that they didn't work together again. But I think this was the ultimate collaboration of. Even though they weren't necessarily quite getting along. But I think the movie has such a great example, like you said, sam, of Bill Murray's sort of dark angstiness. I think he brings that forth so well, juxtaposed with Harold Ramis's comedy and romance and presenting sort of heavier material in a lighthearted way.

46:21
Mel Patterson
One thing that really strikes me when you talk about that is, like the opening song to the film where you first see the credits and you have the clouds at the beginning and that sort of like polka music at the beginning. That's the only thing I really dislike about this movie. If I had to say there's one thing I don't like about it, is that there's this sort of like, happy go lucky, and you think it tells you, okay, you're about to watch a comedy, which I guess it sort of presents this light hearted sort of thing, and then it kind of.

46:51
Sam
I will say, though, that I think that music is the perfect choice because it is simultaneously the most happy, joyful kind of music, but also can be very obnoxious. Right. And so this whole event is this small town, loud, boisterous thing that is so much fun. And he hates. Like, he hates it. It's perfect to make you feel what Phil would actually see. It's absolutely perfect because he is annoyed by this whole freaking thing. Like, how happy everyone is, how bouncy the music is, how everyone's in the square for this stupid thing that he calls a rat. He is done with this. He's done this every year. He is fucking done. He's tired. And then you've got everybody else, like poca poke background. So it's actually really perfect because. And especially since it replays every morning, it becomes this, like.

47:55
Sam
And also the song that plays on the radio every morning is the most optimistic song, right? Like sunny and shit. I get you, babe, over and over. But meanwhile, he's not happy and he's fucking alone. He's alone in loop, much like I am alone in my loop. I am really understanding everything here. And these two song choices are perfect because the two song choices are so optimistic and they're so upbeat for this guy who is basically, especially for the first half of the movie, hating everything. Everyone's so happy. Why? This town is stupid and everyone. And then you've got polka music just playing in the background, ready to bounce around.

48:50
Mel Patterson
Yeah, it definitely accents the irritation of Bill Murray. I think you're right. I think you're right.

49:02
Case
Yeah, I got you. Babe is a particularly interesting choice, considering that it's so optimistic. But also, they're divorced at this point. It's already sort of an example of the artifice that he's probably getting friction up again. Which, by the way, it was fun to go and rewatch the trailer for this movie where they couldn't use that song in the trailer. So when the 06:00 hits, they cut to the news. People being like, it's Groundhog Day every single time to sort of convey that element.

49:34
Mel Patterson
Right.

49:34
Case
But that song is artificially positive. And if you know anything about it, you're like, but that whole relationship is over. Everything's done. It's all fake. It's all fake. It's all phonies. And that's the light that Bill Murray is in at the start that Phil is going through and having to sort of come around on it, like, being okay with the things that are like, yeah, it might not be real, but people are actually feeling something good about it. It's making people feel better, even if it's not sincere. Sort of is like one of those steps of him kind of coming to being a better.

50:10
Mel Patterson
I didn't. I also read somewhere, speaking of that song, that Cher's album sales sort of rose and people thought she had written the song just for this movie, which I think is kind of.

50:24
Sam
Oh, people.

50:26
Case
Silly people.

50:28
Mel Patterson
Yeah, yeah.

50:29
Case
So were talking about the Ramis Murray kind of bickering. And that was a big part of the issues on set for this. Like, Ramis at one point apparently grabbed Bill Murray by the collar and threw him against a wall while they were, like, arguing at each other, which is so weird because he seems like such a nice.

50:47
Mel Patterson
Right, right. Well, yeah, I think that Bill Murray was being so obnoxiously annoying, calling Harold at all hours of the night, wanting to discuss the film and argue his point and things like that, you know, tensions just got so high that. I'm not sure exactly, but. But, yeah, I think that he just sort of had a breaking point.

51:10
Case
Yeah, I was reading up a little bit because I've heard some other shitty things about Bill Murray on set, so I was looking into it. Apparently, a few people have tried to deck him on set, including Lucy Lou.

51:22
Mel Patterson
Whoa.

51:23
Case
Yeah. Which is why he didn't come back for Charlie's angels, too.

51:26
Mel Patterson
Oh, wow.

51:29
Case
I don't know. I mean, a lot of this is unsubstantiated rumors or just, like, hollywood gossip, but I got a feeling that the guy going through a messy divorce because he had an affair is probably the one who's, like, a pissier person in this.

51:42
Mel Patterson
Right? Right.

51:49
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome to another past podcast. I am case aiken. As always, I am joined by my co host, sam Alicea.

51:56
Sam
Hi, everyone.

51:58
Mel Patterson
Hello.

51:59
Sam
Feel like I keep doing this. Hi.

52:04
Case
I get that sense of deja vu as well. But we should probably introduce our guest today. We're joined by Melissa Patterson.

52:11
Mel Patterson
Hello. We have made it, Melissa. Hi. Welcome again.

52:16
Sam
Welcome. What have you been doing? Do you have any plugs you want to share? People might have forgotten them or not them by now. Since this is day 365 of Groundhog Day podcast, fairly sure I've been here for an entire year just doing this, just talking about the fact that Tori Amos was almost cast as Rita. I know.

52:45
Mel Patterson
I cannot imagine that whatsoever. And I was a huge Tori Emos fan when I was about 16 years old. A huge Tori emos fan with her boys for pale album. But I could not see her playing Rita. I think Andy McDowell was the perfect choice.

53:04
Sam
I do, too. She's so good as Rita that I can't imagine anyone else being either.

53:12
Mel Patterson
I can't. So she's so genuine and kind, and you can kind of see that radiating through her personality. And you can tell that she's just really being herself as an actor. She's not putting on anything. She's just genuinely her authentic self. And that comes through. She's from South Carolina, actually. I'm from North Carolina originally. But what's funny is I read somewhere where there was a line that said when Ned Ryerson at the end comes in and know, oh, where are we? Let's. Let's go, guys. He wants to kind of join in on their fun after. They're like, this is the best day ever. And there was a line she was supposed to say, let's not ruin it. And they changed the line to, let's not spoil it, because in her South Carolina accent, I guess she couldn't say the word ruin.

54:03
Mel Patterson
I had to consciously think about that as a southerner, because you want to say things like, let's not ruin it. I've heard ruin my mom would say, ruin it. I don't want to ruin it. It's pretty pronounced, pretty exaggerated. So I understand why they changed it, which I think is really funny. But to me, her accent is not heavy, but I'm sure maybe to someone else it might be a little out there. I don't know.

54:30
Sam
What do you guys think?

54:31
Case
I don't think it's particularly heavy. And she indicated that she wasn't, like, going full on it, but it certainly was more. So it was noticeable compared to any other role she's done. She dials it way down.

54:44
Sam
Normally. Yeah. I don't know if we've taken a moment to do this, but if anyone's listening to this, and it sounds like a podcast of non sequiturs, really sorry about that. I'm just jumping back into conversations and totally derailing everything. And also, case probably already apologized to you, but I'm so Matt, so sorry.

55:07
Mel Patterson
I just find this.

55:08
Sam
This is a train wreck. We basically are driving on those train tracks and then just swerving every time a train comes.

55:15
Case
So looking at these kind of things, I actually had forgotten just because it had been a while, but I directed a play that had the same structure once, and it was kind of interesting to be reminded, like, oh, fuck, yeah, okay, yeah. Just all the processes that go into trying to reset a scene the same way every time. We had transition music and everyone kind of got back in position, sort of straightened up. It was set at a restaurant, and everyone sort of restructured where everything was. Took a sip of water to get the glass down to the right amount so the waiter could come by and pour more water in, et cetera, kind of things.

55:53
Case
The actual craft of making this movie, I think, is really interesting how you get all the actors to be in the same positions and to really do the stuff, do the things that movie making normally does.

56:07
Mel Patterson
But I think, case, what you're trying to say is just the repetition of getting all of the actors, whether it's principals background, all back to one and doing those same motions on the same beat. I was actually noticing, and you can kind of really see it in the Ned Ryerson scene. And it kind of goes to me as an actor, it kind of reflects, know, in each situation, every time you do a take, it's going to be a little bit different. Right. Because you're a different person than you were five minutes ago. And so all the little nuances and everything is not going to be exactly the same. And so I think what was interesting is you expect, even though it's the same dialogue and the same routine as far as blocking or as far as where they're standing and whatnot.

56:54
Mel Patterson
It does change with Phil's reaction each day, which is so interesting that Phil, in the world where everything is constant, Phil is the variable. And so I think picking up on those little nuances here and there and trying to set everything back to one with everyone doing the exact same thing is really difficult.

57:16
Case
It is. What's weird about it is that every movie has that to a degree. Like every movie, you reset back to one. You try to do the scene the same way, maybe improve on it in some elements, but then trying to keep track of what day you're on, because you're going to film all of those Ned Ryer scenes together. You're not going to come back to it. You're not going to film in chronological order, which most movies don't do, but some do, and some still at least have the benefit of those kind of things. Continuity editors have to be super on point for this, and apparently Bill Murray couldn't keep track of which scene that they were in. So he was like, wait, so is this a good fill or a bad fill? And that became like the sort of, like, the big question.

57:53
Case
It was kind of like the way that Jeff Bridges and Big Lebowski would be like, did he burn one on the way over before every scene, this would be like, all right, so which mode am I in? Am I on the rise or in my steep decline? Because that would sort of then change the energy of those scenes. And because most of the dialogue's still the like, it's so difficult to memorize a script where there's only, like, subtle permutations each time.

58:17
Mel Patterson
Yeah.

58:18
Sam
Makes everything very strange.

58:20
Mel Patterson
I know.

58:21
Sam
I think Stephen, he did a great job as the insurance salesperson, because I feel like his interactions with Bill or with Phil in those moments are the most notable because they're really, honestly, these keys to that first, like. And he's the one that, of course, Phil resents the most right off the, like, maybe the third day he runs into him. He decks the guy in the.

58:57
Mel Patterson
This. I heard this theory where they were saying that Ned Ryerson was actually the devil and that everything was fine in Phil's life until that moment where he meets Ned Ryerson, and it's sort of Ned or the devil asking him to sort of sign his life away where he's talking, know, do you have life insurance? Do you do. Am I right? Am I right? He's so great in this role I just love. And. And theory was that he's the devil and that everything sort of goes wrong until he signs the papers at the very end, where there's that scene where Ned comes in and says, oh, he bought life insurance, dental insurance. He lists all the insurances. And their theory was that he only was able to shift because he signed those papers.

59:51
Mel Patterson
I don't necessarily think that's true, but I think that's an interesting thing to look at.

59:57
Sam
I mean, he did sign a lot of papers.

01:00:00
Mel Patterson
He did.

01:00:02
Sam
But I feel like the devil only needs one. I don't think he needs that many. He needs you to sign a triplicate, like, at all.

01:00:08
Mel Patterson
I don't know. I mean, I haven't signed. I'm not a sign them yet, so I don't know either.

01:00:14
Case
Well, and I imagine that Phil has, like, the. The last day is probably pretty close to the day. Like, I think that he is, at that point, starting to get a lot of the routines down. That sort of makes the most optimal solution. So it might not be the final perfect day, but he probably did it a bunch of times beforehand with mean, like, there's nothing in the text to sort of support that. He only just now, finally was like, oh, I'm going to be nice to Ned today.

01:00:47
Mel Patterson
Yeah, I don't think so either. But that was their theory. And I thought, oh, interesting.

01:00:51
Case
It's fun to speculate on. And Ned Ryerson is such a key character in this.

01:00:59
Mel Patterson
He's so great. There's a YouTube video of him telling, and he's such a great storyteller as well. But he talks about his audition for Ned Ryerson, and he talks about how he was filming a film with this guy, Kurt Fuller. He's also a fantastic character actor. And Kurt Fuller, they were talking. They were actually ended up being roommates on this film. They put them together in this one room with two separate. And so he said that at night, it was like they turned out the lights and know talking. And Kurt was like, so have you got any projects coming up? And Stephen Toblowski was. He said. He said, do you? And Kurt was like, yeah, actually, I have this big thing where I'm going to play Ned Ryerson, this insurance salesman, in this film with Bill Murray.

01:01:50
Mel Patterson
And knowing that, Stephen was kind of like, oh, I just got called in to audition for that. So he didn't really mention it. And he went and auditioned, and Stephen ended up getting the part. And so it was sort of awkward going back to shooting after he got the part. He also talks about how he just sort of went for it, that he sort of went for this big, grandiose sort of character and didn't know if it was exactly right, but really took a shot, took a leap, went out on a limb and created this obnoxious insurance salesman.

01:02:30
Case
Yeah. It's such an over the top performance. That's so fun. I think we've all known people like this. I joke that it was kind of like a family member, and it was a lot of fun to sort of see that character. And because he's so over the top, he really stands out in all of those scenes. Just very fun because you need to have strong, distinguished characters throughout so that we all get to know them, because we do keep repeating all these interactions with everyone.

01:03:04
Mel Patterson
Right.

01:03:10
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome to another past podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I.

01:03:14
Sam
Am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea. Yeah, you're joined by Sam Alisa. That's who you're joined by. That's who's here. That he is, as always, here all the time, again and again.

01:03:27
Case
Yeah. Who else is here?

01:03:29
Sam
Solid co host Melissa Patterson. Melissa Patterson is here. She's the ray of sunshine in a dark world that is time loop of technology. We are. I am basically the matrix groundhog day right now. I am living in the machine, and the machine wants me to relive logging onto this program over and over again. If anyone has a blue pill or red pill, I'll take both and see if it'll stop the pain of this. Oh, gosh. Because it's just constant. It's constant.

01:04:10
Mel Patterson
Thank you. I should just call you Sam Murray. I just can't believe it.

01:04:18
Sam
It's so funny. Just call me Phil.

01:04:20
Mel Patterson
Yeah.

01:04:20
Sam
Call me Phil. Phil, like the groundhog. Yeah. Remind me to not drive angry. I don't drive at all.

01:04:27
Mel Patterson
Don't drive angry. Don't drive angry.

01:04:30
Sam
But I think it's a good rule for everyone. Don't drive angry.

01:04:33
Mel Patterson
Also, don't pet any groundhogs because they will bite.

01:04:36
Case
Yeah, that's a good thing to bring up. So the don't drive angry bit is right before the groundhog actually bit Bill Murray pretty hard. Apparently they were biters, and he had some issues on set with that.

01:04:50
Sam
I mean, who didn't have issues with Bill Murray, apparently.

01:04:54
Case
Apparently, yeah. So it was freezing cold because they had to shoot everything in a pretty condensed time frame in the exterior, and they wanted it all to look like February, look like six more weeks of winter. So that just became a huge issue. They were all, like, chattering. Apparently Anna McDowell, at one point, her face started to get, like, frostbite one of the shoot days. Just so cold and painful to work with. And then you have animals that fucking bite people. You got people, actually from Puxitani because they didn't film in Puxatani. They filmed in Illinois because they thought it looked how Puxatani was supposed to feel.

01:05:32
Mel Patterson
Right.

01:05:32
Case
As opposed to how it actually looks.

01:05:34
Sam
Well, they talked about.

01:05:35
Mel Patterson
Sorry to interrupt. They did talk about in actual Punksatani, the actual groundhog Day ceremony is held sort of away from the town square, sort of on this mountain, and it's more of a somber sort of religious event rather than a joyful polka kind of. Kind of thing in the middle of the town square. Sorry, continue.

01:05:58
Case
Yeah, so the reps were out. Just make sure everything was right. And apparently the stage they made was a pretty good copy of it. And the town signed off on it as being appropriate. Yeah, just like lots of craziness involved. And then businesses were, in some cases, not cool with it all. Lloyd's paint and paper, which can be seen in all the Ned Ryerson scenes, actually sued the production over, quote, unquote, lost business.

01:06:24
Sam
Right.

01:06:25
Mel Patterson
I don't think they actually won, though. I think I heard that they lost.

01:06:30
Case
Well, of course they tried to sue for an absurd number that was like, no, that's not even like your annual sales. That's definitely not like your issue here.

01:06:37
Mel Patterson
You would think that they would get more business.

01:06:40
Case
Yeah, well, and I think now that they have, I think both Paxatani and I forget the name of the town in Illinois, both have seen big surges in terms of popularity. I know that the diner that they film at isn't a real diner, but it was attempted to be a couple different restaurants after it, using the tip top name. They tried to do, like, an italian restaurant there. And then I forget something else. None of them really succeeded. Yeah, people tried because people like this movie.

01:07:10
Mel Patterson
Right. I think that's great. I think that's fantastic. I also heard, too, speaking of the town of Woodstock, Illinois, that, you know that commercial that they filmed for the Super bowl, this past Super bowl, the Jeep commercial based on Groundhog Day, I was listening to a YouTube episode of that, of Steven Tubalowski talking about how they filmed it. And he mentioned that they actually recreated, because times have changed and the setting has changed, the bricks have changed, the storefronts have changed. And so in order to shoot that commercial, they recreated exactly what it looked like in Groundhog Day. So they redid all the storefronts, they painted the bricks back to whatever color, which I thought was a little excessive, but also pretty detailed and accurate to the film, I guess.

01:08:03
Case
Well, yeah, I mean, if you want to relive that day.

01:08:05
Mel Patterson
Yeah.

01:08:06
Case
You've got to do those steps.

01:08:07
Mel Patterson
No, it's so true. It's so true. It's so true. I think he was also saying that he and Bill Murray hadn't seen each other since the film, which was over 20 years ago. And the director was just like, yeah, so, yeah, just you're going to do the scene like you did in the film. And they were like, we haven't done.

01:08:24
Sam
That since the film.

01:08:26
Mel Patterson
So there was no script for this Jeep commercial that they just sort of improvised the whole thing. So they just kind of made it up, which I thought is pretty funny and also a little irresponsible on the director's part. But it worked.

01:08:41
Case
I guess there was probably some craziness in terms of, like, getting the shoot together because of the pandemic.

01:08:47
Mel Patterson
It was a little last minute from what. Understand. Yeah.

01:08:56
Case
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another past podcast. I'm Case Aiken. As always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

01:09:04
Sam
I'm starting to have real existential questions if I actually exist or not, or if I'm a figment of your imagination. I did make a joke once that I was case's figment of imagination, and now I'm starting to think that maybe it's true and this is my reality now.

01:09:22
Case
Well, it's entirely possible that my imagination just can't conceive of two such incredible people as my co host, Sam, and our guest today, Melissa Patterson.

01:09:32
Sam
Oh, my boy.

01:09:37
Case
Yeah, I'm like Ender in the later ender's books because I'm just not able to maintain three individuals. So one of us has to fade. And I'm sorry, Sam.

01:09:47
Sam
I guess it's me. I guess it's just. It's fine. I mean, your brain is doing all that it can. Don't overwork it. I mean, clearly, I keep coming back, so there is some willpower there.

01:10:02
Mel Patterson
Yeah. Well, I think whatever gypsy curse that we have today on this podcast keeps.

01:10:10
Sam
Sending you away, it's probably because we keep using words like gypsy's curse.

01:10:18
Case
I cringe a little bit every time. I mean, those are the words they used in it. But. But, yeah, that's. That's a bit rough.

01:10:26
Sam
I feel like there are some things that we become better about every year, and I feel like that pervasive phrase is so hard to let go because it's so part of lexicon. But really, honestly, that's probably why I keep getting kicked off, because I brought it up.

01:10:48
Case
No joke. Last night I had dinner with my family because my parents anniversary is this week.

01:10:55
Sam
Mine too. Tomorrow. My parents. Well, in the future when people hear this, it will have been passed. But talk about a time loop. But tomorrow is my parents 43rd wedding anniversary.

01:11:12
Mel Patterson
Amazing.

01:11:12
Case
That's awesome. I believe it's 45th for mine. Anyway, I had to explain to my parents and my sister that referring to someone as being like a gypsy was a racist statement and they had no idea. And I was like, oh, no, this is bad.

01:11:30
Sam
You're like, okay, gather around. No, don't do. Thanks, family.

01:11:37
Case
Yeah, we had to explain the Roma people, and then we had to explain the travelers in Ireland, and I was like, oh, you just really have no idea about any of this and have just been willfully ignorant. Okay, cool.

01:11:52
Sam
I don't know. What is the rating of this on Rotten Tomatoes? Was it like 96? I mean, it's basically got to be up there, right? Because this is definitely one of those movies. It's got such a huge cultural impact and there's so many different things that have been adapted since then.

01:12:17
Case
Yeah, it's a 96 on the main review and then it's 88 for audience score.

01:12:24
Sam
No, it was interesting because even though Bill Murray acted out while he was in this film, and even though it did affect his relationship with Remus and it was not an easy shoot for him, he did unexpectedly show up to support the musical. Yes. He went more than one night, and he was very moved by the performance and by the show itself. And I guess there is a sense of nostalgia for him. And now that he's come around, he might be in a better place in his life.

01:13:00
Mel Patterson
Now he's older, more forgiving, he was.

01:13:03
Sam
Able to be very positive about the experience, and the cast felt really supported by him. He said some really nice things to them.

01:13:12
Mel Patterson
Yeah. From what I read, it was a really positive experience. I think for everyone involved. I will say one thing that I really love about the musical. I got to see it because I used to usher when we had Broadway, and I got to usher it one night and it was pretty fantastic. But I love how they wrote that song called playing Nancy about Nancy. So it sort of addressed the sexism through today's lens of the, for today's modern audience, which I think is pretty fantastic. I guess that was maybe Tim mentioned, and I guess Danny Rubin did write quite a bit of it. I think he did write the musical.

01:13:57
Case
So I haven't had a chance to either hear the soundtrack, and I didn't see it on Broadway, which is a bummer because it's such a fun property. And like I said, I directed a stage show that was called Trials of the scientific mind, and it was like there was a time traveling device, and the character's body was like the person in the loop was starting to break down over the course of it. So that was one of the ways it was different. By the end of the play, he had bloody noses and was truly falling apart as an element of the time loop. But it's fun to think about this on stage because it feels like a play.

01:14:37
Case
When I have worked on shows that have run for a decent length of time, doing the same thing over and over again has that element of it. Eight shows a week on Broadway is going to really make you feel like you're going crazy, because totally are like, oh, wait, I just did this. I just did this.

01:14:55
Mel Patterson
Yeah. What scene are we at? Net. Wait, what's next again? Yeah, totally. It's so interesting to you that you talk about just the mental breakdown of the monotony, of reliving the same thing over and over. I think that nowadays, too, with the pandemic and the quarantine, I think that so many people have had issues just of mental health issues and being alone versus being with someone. I feel like the movie Palm Springs, even though I haven't seen it either, but I watched a bunch of trailers and commentary about it, and it sounds like to me, Palm Springs might be that version of the time loop where you're with another person. Like, you get stuck with your spouse in the quarantine versus, like, me, I was alone the whole time.

01:15:43
Mel Patterson
And so it was just, I guess, all the different versions and the different ways people have had to sort of hunker down and sort of get stuck with one another and deal with this sort of time loop that we've been living in for the past year or so.

01:16:01
Case
Yeah.

01:16:02
Mel Patterson
But I don't know, I'm kind of rambling.

01:16:06
Case
One thing I wanted to talk about. This movie is great. It's a great movie. It had a lot of drama on set, but not a lot of, as far as I can tell, big production issues besides just needing to deal with a cold and deal with all the shit. The poster design is terrible. Yeah, it's so bad. I had forgotten how bad. So I actually dug up my DVD copy so I could listen to the commentary track.

01:16:29
Mel Patterson
Oh, cool.

01:16:30
Case
Because I love commentary tracks. They're great. But the box art is, like, one of the two posters where Bill Murray is trapped inside the clock. And it's so dumb trying to visualize this thing, because Groundhog's Day is a nothing holiday. No one really cares. But it is very easy to explain because it feels very primal and rudimentary and, like you references in the movie, it's like, oh, you're not even eating the groundhog. Because that was part of the actual old world kind of ritual that it's based on.

01:17:02
Mel Patterson
Wait, they ate the groundhog?

01:17:04
Case
Yeah. It would be a groundhog hunt, and then they would eat it. And at one point, Bill Murray is like, you're not even eating it, or whatever he says. It's like day four when he's really depressed or somewhere.

01:17:17
Mel Patterson
I missed that in that group.

01:17:20
Case
But it works because it's a holiday that really doesn't have a lot of stake for anyone. Maybe the people of Paksatani have a big investment in it, but you can explain it to anyone overseas, and it translates pretty well because the movie is like, hey, we're going to explain it, but there is no visual way to represent this concept on box art without looking kind of insane or just looking like Caddyshack, which was one of the issues that they had with Bill Murray being associated with a big rodent. So they're like, all right, I guess we'll do clock, which is not even a clock. It's a calendar. Like, if it was just like. It's shocking that they were like, I don't know how we're going to represent time being on a loop, because. How do you represent it?

01:18:04
Mel Patterson
Yeah, no, that's a great point. Yeah. If I were to draw visually the movie poster without putting a rodent in it, that would be really interesting. I think I would focus on maybe the romance aspect of it. Yeah. I don't know.

01:18:25
Sam
ICE sculptures.

01:18:26
Mel Patterson
The ICE sculptures. Exactly. That's brilliant. Brilliant, Sam.

01:18:29
Sam
I would actually make it so that it's Bill Murray making an ICE sculpture of a.

01:18:36
Mel Patterson
Yes, yes.

01:18:37
Case
A frozen in time groundhog. That works.

01:18:40
Mel Patterson
I love it.

01:18:41
Sam
It would be, like, him, and he would have, like, that face, like, ha. I did it kind of thing.

01:18:47
Case
Yeah. If I were doing the poster, I would do Bill Murray pulling, like, one of those pull calendars and have, like, a pile of February seconds on the floor while he's holding 1 February 2 in his hand. And the one on the actual calendar is also.

01:19:04
Mel Patterson
It's also February 2. Yeah.

01:19:06
Case
I love that. But it's such a weird concept to try to sort of express, because otherwise you're just being like, it's a day in a town. This is actually a thing I don't think anyone. We haven't talked about and might be like, one last point to talk about. Day in the life movies used to be really popular, specifically day in the life city kind of scape movies like documentaries, back in the early days of filmmaking, would do these whole, like, this is what a day in Berlin looks like, or this is what a day in Moscow looks like. One of my favorite documentaries. Even though it doesn't really have a story, per se, or isn't about a thing, man with a movie camera is about. What is it like doing a documentary about a city for a day?

01:19:50
Case
And this is a subversion of that because it's fiction. And the day keeps repeating. Instead of it being like, oh, we're just capturing all the sights and sound. This is what it looks like in the existence of your average Puxitanian.

01:20:04
Sam
Right.

01:20:05
Mel Patterson
No, that's a great point. And it makes me think, too. I wonder if. Because you said it used to be a thing, and now it's really not so much. And it makes me wonder if social media, that it's so prevalent of, like, everyone is sort of documenting their lives for themselves or for whoever. This is what I ate today. This is how I put on makeup. This is my morning routine. This is my night routine. And so it makes me wonder that social media has sort of made documentaries a little more obsolete or just a little.

01:20:42
Sam
I don't know.

01:20:44
Mel Patterson
I don't know if anyone has done a study on that. Not that I would, because we got lots of.

01:20:50
Sam
On the social media.

01:20:53
Case
Yeah.

01:20:54
Sam
Take my dog to get a puppuccino.

01:20:56
Mel Patterson
Yeah, exactly.

01:20:56
Sam
I'm going to TikTok, and then we're going to watch lick the cup. Yeah, that's it. That's the TikTok.

01:21:03
Mel Patterson
Yeah. But it's like a day in the life of my dog, or a day. This is what I do every day. And people watch that, and people are fascinated. I think it's because people are like, well, am I living the right way? What do they do? What are they doing? Let me see how they put on their makeup. Or let me see. I must be doing it wrong.

01:21:22
Case
Yeah, it's definitely a lot easier to find what little snippets of the world it used to be. People would just have no idea what two countries over would.

01:21:33
Mel Patterson
So you'd have to watch the documentary, right?

01:21:36
Case
Yeah, but no one's going to cut together a two hour documentary about like, oh, well, this is just what San Francisco is like for all you New Yorkers.

01:21:45
Sam
That's what they do on the.

01:21:49
Case
Exactly. Like now. Like now you might get one where it's like, this is the cooking scene in this town, or this is the housing market in this town on house hunters. This is what the fashion industry looks like here, or like, the cool nightclubs. You might have something, like, very focused one thing as like, a series. So, weirdly, maybe the successor to that is, like, diners driven and dies.

01:22:14
Sam
Yeah, I think to a certain extent, too. You'll see on YouTube, people create reaction videos to other things, like whether it be a TV show or a music video or something like that. And there is, like, a need. The fact that you're watching someone else watch something is a strange human need for connection. And those reactivities super popular during the pandemic. And I think it's because people were so isolated that to watch someone watch something and be like, I agree with that person, or I don't agree with that person, or discover their joy at discovering something for the first time was a very human emotion that I guess were all missing while were trapped in our apartment. Very, totally.

01:23:05
Mel Patterson
Yeah, I totally agree with that.

01:23:08
Sam
That's possibly why we don't get a lot of that, because we are putting that out. We're just not putting it out in professional settings. We're just putting it on YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and recycling those onto Facebook. We're crowdsourcing anything.

01:23:26
Case
I don't know, it's just an interesting kind of element of this. This is the meta level where once something is so passe that you can really kind of play with it. Now we're seeing people play with it with the medium of Groundhogs day or like the time loop kind of thing. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another past podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

01:23:57
Sam
Hi. Hello, everyone. I'm so happy to still be here.

01:24:01
Case
I'm so happy that you're still here, too. And also, I'm really happy that with us today is Melissa Patterson.

01:24:08
Sam
Hi. Hi, Melissa. So good to hear from you.

01:24:14
Mel Patterson
Oh, boy, I'm glad.

01:24:16
Sam
Getting a sense of deja vu now.

01:24:18
Mel Patterson
Yeah. Feeling a little deja vuish? Yeah, a little bit.

01:24:21
Case
Yeah. And that makes sense, though, because today we are talking about the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day.

01:24:27
Sam
Oh, my God, I love this movie. I cannot wait to start talking about this film. Do we even begin?

01:24:35
Case
Who can even say where we should begin? Before we get into that, however, Melissa, I'm so glad that you're here. Give some plugs.

01:24:43
Mel Patterson
All righty. Well, I don't have any film projects coming up at the moment, but I do have a theater project. I'm going to be choreographing the Sound of music in a small theater down in. Yes, they're going to be alive with some dancing and some singing and some voices. I don't know. She hears voices in the hills. But no, it's going to be in a small town in Maizeville, Kentucky, the Maizeville players. And it's going to be directed by Lauren Declanberg and Rachel Rogers. And it's going to be pretty fantastic. So if you're around Kentucky in October, you should check out the Sound of music.

01:25:23
Case
Yeah. And otherwise, if people wanted to follow you or find you, where can they do that?

01:25:29
Mel Patterson
Oh, yeah, they can find me on Instagram and Facebook. Instagram is melpatters and Facebook is just Melissa Patterson.

01:25:39
Case
Well, guys, that was a really weird conversation about.

01:25:44
Mel Patterson
It was its own. It was.

01:25:51
Sam
It really just felt like it went on and on and also didn't happen at all. Exactly at all.

01:26:01
Case
Well, Sam, if people wanted to find you, where could they find you here?

01:26:05
Sam
You can find me here. Otherwise, I am clearly honestly telling you the truth when I tell you that I am just a figment of Case's imagination. If you have any complaints, you can find case at, you can find me.

01:26:20
Case
On Twitter at case aiken. You can find the podcast on Twitter. At another pass, you can find stuffido@certainpov.com where you can find tons of other great shows. We've got so many fun ones. Oh, many, so many, so many great shows. Like panology. Panology is a great comic book podcast. Alex and his various co hosts every week look at what came out that week and kind of give their thoughts. And then they also will do bonus episodes, talking about the upcoming releases that have been announced. So it's a really cool show if you want to know what's current. They do an amazing job because there's so much, it's so easy, if you want to be involved in comics, to feel like it is overwhelming and hard to track what's going on. And they do a really good rundown of it.

01:27:07
Case
So if you need your reader's digest version, they got you covered. So check that out. It's at certainpov.com. You can also find a link to our Discord server. I wish were having this call on Discord right now.

01:27:17
Sam
Me too.

01:27:19
Case
But we decided to try a different thing and it didn't work so well. Today's weird, but it's for everyone but.

01:27:28
Sam
Me, so it might just be my.

01:27:29
Case
Fault, but come join us on Discord. We're having a great time sharing memes, talking movie spoilers. It's a really good community we've been building out, so if you have nerdy interests of any kind, you can find us there. Sam, take us home.

01:27:41
Sam
Next time on another path. We'll be doing highlight to the quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on before I fade away.

01:27:56
Case
Thanks for listening to certain point of view's another pass podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com. We've also lost Sam, by the way.

01:28:27
Mel Patterson
Oh, no. Did we lose her again?

01:28:28
Case
Yep.

01:28:29
Mel Patterson
Oh, my goodness. Wow. Well, let's hope she is living groundhogs. She's like really actually reliving the Groundhog day movie.

01:28:43
Case
When she rejoins, we'll do the same thing.

01:28:45
Sam
Oh, gosh, this is ridiculous. You can't hear me, but I am shouting on this end.

01:28:57
Case
Video games are a unique medium. They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day, video games are fun. Whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan. And I am Matt, aka Stormageddon. And on fun and games, we talk about the history, trends, and community of video games. It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them. And there's so many more games out there, so we hope you'll share in that conversation with us. Fun and Games podcast with Matt and Jeff. Find us on certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts and happy gaming.

01:29:35
Sam
Damn it. I'm gone.

01:29:38
Mel Patterson
Are you serious?

01:29:43
Sam
I am sorry.

01:29:44
Mel Patterson
I can't anymore. This is the worst. Oh, gosh, this is awful. It's funny, though. It's so funny.

01:29:55
Case
Cpov certainpov.com.

AI meeting summary:

●      The meeting started with a detailed discussion on the movie "Groundhog Day," analyzing its themes, characters, and production challenges. Participants highlighted character development, existential themes, nostalgia, and casting choices. They explored script nuances and emotional scene crafting, touching on Bill Murray's performance, Harold Ramis' direction, and Andy McDowell's portrayal of Rita. Insights were shared on how different actors might have impacted the film's dynamics.

●      Subsequently, the conversation delved into the intricacies of filming "Groundhog Day," focusing on maintaining scene consistency amidst **Phil's** evolving reactions daily. Actors mentioned **Stephen Tobolowsky's** portrayal of Ned Ryerson, speculating his role as a devil influencing Phil's life. They discussed **Bill Murray's** on-set struggles and his unexpected support for future adaptations. The team tackled filmmaking challenges like continuity editing and production issues caused by weather.

●      Furthermore, thematic elements were explored, such as time loops, personal growth through repetition, and authenticity in acting performances. Discussions included social media's influence on documentary-style content and trends in entertainment consumption. Anecdotes about poster design flaws, family dinners, cultural sensitivity talks were shared. Reflections encompassed nostalgia, mental health in isolation periods resembling film plots, and modern content creation dynamics.

●      In the final segment, hosts seamlessly transitioned from industry insights to casual exchanges and promoted other podcasts under CertainPOV network. They acknowledged technical difficulties in recording sessions, maintaining a playful tone. Snippets showcased engaging interactions between hosts and guests, creating a blend of professional and personal aspects in the discussion.

Notes:

●      🎬 **Discussion on Movie Structure**

●      **Repetition in urban settings throughout human history**

●      **Religious services and their repetitive nature**

●      Studio notes on the meta structure of the repeating day

●      📅 **Repetition and Routine**

●      Difficulty in memorizing scripts with subtle variations

●      Importance of strong, distinguished characters for repetitive interactions

●      🎮 **Video Game Dialogue**

●      Interaction with characters following similar dialogue trees

●      Rapid progression through conversations

●      📽️ **Documentary Production**

●      Creating a documentary about a city for a day

●      Social media presence and content focus

Action items:

●      **Case Aiken**

●      Review the structure of a play with reset scenes (55:31)

●      Share insights on directing and resetting scenes in theater (55:37)

●      Choreograph the Sound of Music in Maizeville, Kentucky (01:24:44)

●      Follow on Instagram at melpatters and Facebook as Melissa Patterson (01:25:29)

●      **Sam Alicea**

●      Discuss the significance of music choices in film intros, like "I Got You Babe" in Groundhog Day (46:34)

●      Analyze how music sets tone for character emotions and story themes (47:50)

●      Find Sam here for now but might be a figment of Case's imagination (01:26:05)

●      **Melissa Patterson**

●      Choreographing the Sound of Music in Maizeville, Kentucky (01:24:44)

●      Follow on Instagram at melpatters and Facebook as Melissa Patterson (01:25:29)

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Introduction to the Podcast (00:11 - 00:28)

●      The podcast "Another Pass Podcast" is introduced, with a call to subscribe, rate, and review on iTunes.

●      Chapter 2: Discussion on Podcast Structure and Storytelling (08:20 - 13:34)

●      The structure and storytelling approach of the podcast are deliberated, emphasizing the importance of clear signifiers and time markers.

●      Mention of reshoots and changes made to enhance the audience's understanding of the narrative.

●      Chapter 3: Character Development and Filming Challenges (31:21 - 57:40)

●      Insights into character development and the challenges faced during filming, including the difficulty in maintaining continuity and tracking scenes.

●      Discussion on the nuances in interactions and the efforts to ensure consistency in performances across repeated scenes.

●      Chapter 4: Representation of Time and Emotional Impact (1:14:56 - 1:16:06)

●      Exploring the mental breakdown caused by the monotony of reliving the same day repeatedly.

●      Consideration of representing time loops and focusing on emotional aspects such as romance.

●      Chapter 5: Documentary Style Approach and Directorial Decisions (1:19:47 - 1:23:57)

●      Comparing a documentary about a city for a day to the podcast's focused storytelling.

●      Mention of specific scenes and aspects that could be highlighted in a documentary series format.

●      Chapter 6: Conclusion and Podcast Promotion (1:26:21 - 1:29:55)

●      Discussion concludes with a mention of finding the podcast on Twitter and promoting upcoming episodes.

●      Promotion of other shows on the network and a preview of the next episode on "Another Path."

●      This outline captures the essential points and decisions made throughout the podcast, providing a structured overview of the key topics discussed.