Great movie. Great song. Great exposition.

I needed this today. Thanks, Gerard.

I love that movie. I sum it up in one word: purgatory.

Would Purgatory be "learning to love"? Or would it be "learning to embrace and (finally) accept the love which was there for you all along?" (God's love)

Great commentary on one of my all-time favorite movies. I just re-watched it tonight, and at the end I was struck by the parallels with "A Christmas Carol" -- a story of redemption and change of heart through seeing the pain we cause others and learning to love those we shut out. That immediately made me wonder if Hollywood at some future date will try to remake the film.

I hope not. ..bruce..

You beat me to it, Joan. This day has been tough, and this post was good medicine. Thank you once again, Gerard.

JWM

ditto Joan and jwm.

Phil couldn't leave Punxsutawney until he lived the Day right. This meant renouncing his former post modern hipster indulgent self. Halfway through the film, he appears to get it until he veered too far to the saintly side and tried to play God. At that point he got it and began living the day as if it didn't matter whether he would be released or not; because he had learned to love the time and place where he was.

And maybe that's what happened. Punxsutawney itself held onto Phil and wouldn't release him until he loved Punxsutawney, and by extension, the America that was there before the changes of the last 40 years.

Every once in a while, you really get the wood on it.

My favourite film, judging by the number of times I have watched it. The DVD commentary by Harold Ramis is excellent.

No matter how many times we ignore the knock at the door, God will keep pounding until we let him in. If only real life was the movies; then all our days in the wilderness of the soul wouldn't count against our fourscore and ten.

Guy S (comment #3)... The answer to your question is "yes".

Old knocks can become new knocks if only in passing

He learned not to be selfish. That is the great thing the commandments all say obliquely. Do not be selfish - give as much as you can give - and give it voluntarily.

And on this day, AMC TV plays a huge joke on its viewers.

Just had this very conversation at work, drawing the parallel to Christmas Carol, to the universal appeal of the second chance and chances to make things right.

But it strikes me that nobody quotes lines from it, like they might Princess Bride. It's a movie of moments...

And then at night when people have time to watch, they put on some awful made for tv bs

Take another walk on the weird side with Murray's 1984 cult classic "The Razor's Edge" movie.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1017238-razors_edge

It's a remake of this 1946 classic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Razor%27s_Edge_(1946_film)

I kinda like Citizen Kane.

Life is too long to be Selfish, and too short for Love.

In the Transcendental Limit Equation of Life, only love does not reduce to '0' when 't' ---> infinite.

As seen in Groundhogs Day, only Love is worth doing forever in this land of the gift (and into eternity and beyond). All the rest is nihilistic (Null) vanity which inevitably turns to dust (zero).

www . youtube . com/watch?v=cf6WH8zYmO0#t=2m30s

Love is eternal.

There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. 9 For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; 10 but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear.

When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child; now that I am an adult, I have no more use for childish ways. What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete—as complete as God's knowledge of me.

Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love;

and the greatest of these is love.
.
~1Corinthians 13:8-13.