Saturday 2nd February 10:30pm

Phil Connors (Bill Murray): Excuse me, where is everybody going?
Fan on Street: To Gobbler’s Knob. It’s Groundhog Day!

Groundhog Day is a popular annual tradition celebrated in Punxsutawney, western Pennsylvania. Groundhogs hibernate each winter. The superstition is that if the groundhog (Punxsutawney Phil) emerges from his burrow on February 2nd and sees a shadow due to clear weather, he will retreat into his den and winter will persist for six more weeks; and if he does not see his shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.

TV weather presenter Phil Connors, news producer Rita Hanson (Andie MacDowell) and camera operator Larry (Chris Elliott) have the task of covering the festivities for a Pittsburgh TV station. In Punxsutawney the Pennsylvania Polka is playing. The weather is extremely cold. And clearly a day in the little town of Punxsutawney is not Phil Connors’ idea of fun.

Phil: This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.

The film Groundhog Day is a popular romantic comedy set in a an attractive small town that is a character in itself (actual location Woodstock, Illinois).

But there’s a lot more to Director Harold Ramis’s film than that.

I expect you know already, so I’ll risk a spoiler. After all the film is largely responsible for popularising the phrase ‘Groundhog Day’ in the UK.

I expect you know already, so I’ll risk a spoiler: Some events in the film “are or appear to be continually repeated”, trapping Phil in a time loop that no one else is aware of.

Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?
Ralph (Rick Overton): That about sums it up for me.

Some viewers interpret the film according to their own philosophies, creeds and religions, with enthusiasts ranging from Buddhists, fundamentalist Christians, and Nietzschean nihilists, to transcendental yogis and Hasidic Jews. The film is called “Black Hole of Love’ In South Korea. Whether you’re looking for purgatory, reincarnation, mitzvahs, or karma, you will probably find what you seek.

Other fans may see echoes of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief and loss as Phil Connors struggles to come to terms with his situation.

And some of us will simply sit back with our popcorn to enjoy an excellent cast, a snowy festival, and a little food for thought. After all, if you could live forever, if your actions seemed to have no consequences, how would you change yourself over time? Would you live your life well? Could you find anything to make this seemingly never-ending daily routine stop?

Phil: Well, it’s Groundhog Day… again…

This year Groundhog Day will repeat itself at the Hyde Park Picture House on Saturday February 2nd at 10.30pm.

Showing Saturday 24th November 10:30pm

Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman) to the Blues Brothers: “You are such a disappointing pair. I prayed so hard for you. It saddens and hurts me that the two young men whom I raised to believe in the Ten Commandments have returned to me as two thieves, with filthy mouths and bad attitudes.
Get out, and don’t come back until you’ve redeemed yourselves.”

‘Joliet’ Jake Blues (John Belushi): “We’ll put the band back together, do a few gigs, we get some bread. Bang! Five thousand bucks.”

Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd): “We’re on a mission from God”.

The Blues Brothers takes us into the world of Joliet Correctional Center, honky-tonks and sleazy backstreets, the “L” train, shopping malls, the Chicago Cubs, gas stations, Bob’s Country Bunker, the Palace Hotel Ballroom, and Chicago City Hall; a world of music, carnage and mayhem,  not to mention a varied diet of soul food, prawn cocktails, beer, dry white toast, cocaine, and Cheez Whiz.

Theirs is a world populated by nuns, gospel choirs, Holiday Inn resident musicians, Illinois Nazis, Good Ol’ Boys, and jilted sweethearts. The music and dance numbers are fabulous and fun. Get rocking with the Blues Brothers band, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and John Lee Hooker, amongst others. There’s country and western too (“We got both kinds”).

But Elwood has run up 116 outstanding parking fines and 56 other traffic violations. The authorities are after them. Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers HAS been approved. But the cops haven’t reckoned with the Bluesmobile (an ex-police Dodge Monaco).

Elwood: Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don’t fail me now.

The car chases involved more than 40 stunt drivers, plus many stunt pedestrians. 103 cars were wrecked during filming (a world record at the time).

Bill with the Bluesmobile in Illinois

So can Jake and Elwood outwit the cops, the SWAT teams, Sherman tanks, helicopters, the Nazis, the mystery woman (Carrie Fisher), and the Good Ol’ Boys and accomplish their mission?

The Lord moves in mysterious ways!

This cult film was made for the big screen. So dig out your trilby fedoras and  Ray-Ban Wayfarers, and get yourself down to the late night screening of The Blues Brothers at 10.30 pm on Saturday November 24th.

Creatures of the Night, Saturday 18th August 18th 10:30pm

Mister Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L Jackson): Whoa. Y’all take a chill. You got to cool that shit off. And that’s the double-truth, Ruth.

Creatures of the Night: Saturday 5th May 10:30pm

Barbarella (1968), based on the French comic series of the same name (by Jean-Claude Forest), is a cult classic for a reason. Several reasons really.

We (the audience) follow the beautiful space adventurer Barbarella (Jane Fonda) on her mission to retrieve the scientist Dr. Durand Durand, to stop his super weapon, the positronic ray, falling into the wrong hands.

The opening scene, iconic and eternal,  Barbarella, floating around her ship, undressing. It just gets better and better. The Sci-Fi adventure is a product of its time, Jean-Claude wanted Barbarella to be representative of a free and liberated woman. This was the 60’s, and it was all about free love. Barbarella faces numerous perils in her journey to find Durand Durand, discovering sex and pleasure along the way. One early sequence, Barbarella is taught what “actual” sex is, as opposed to what has developed on earth in the future (taking pills and touching hands), far from the natural way of doing things. You can really see the films influence on future sci-fi film’s tackling of sex ( see Demolition Man).

From start to finish, the film is steeped in eroticism, fashion and far out ideas. To compare it to another cult classic, 2001:A Space Odyssey which came out the same year, a cold realistic view of space and humanities future. Barbarella came out of the psychedelia of  the 1960s, one of the most striking aspects of the film is the bizarre scenery that the titular character crashes into from scene to scene. It’s far out maaaaan.

Dealing with a chaotic, bizarre and weird worlds, we follow Barbarella on her weird journey of her mission to save the universe, and her own personal sexual exploration. Barbarella’s use of sex is inherent to film and its plot.

The film doesn’t feel hemmed in by tropes or rules, and because of this, we get an enjoyable, if not a little chaotic film. Some aspects of it may seem dated, but that comes with any piece of cinema.

If you are in the mood for a weird sci-fi space adventure with erotic overtones, Barbarella is the film for you.

You may also like these non-erotic recommendations;

• Logan’s Run
• Demolition Man
• Flash Gordon

Henry Stocks-Fryer