That's MISTER Punxsutawney Phil To You

Rating: 10/10 (29 March 2012)

A newscast weather reporter wakes up in a small sleepy town of Punxsutawney on February 2nd (a day like today) to see whether the groundhog will forecast whether winter will last much longer or not. Except that he will be reliving the same day over, and over, and over, and over That's the premise of one of the best comedies I've ever seen: Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray and Andie McDowell. At first it might have seemed an ordinary comedy but when things started getting real weird and absurd is when Groundhog really takes flight and becomes an extraordinary story of perseverance, love and redemption. The reason I love Groundhog Day is that you start with a cynical and arrogant character named Phil (Bill Murray here at his very best) who unwillingly goes out on this special report about the Groundhog Day traditional annual event but would much rather be elsewhere. He's such a big city guy that he can't barely stand having to spend his precious time in this town, doing this silly report that he'd much rather not do at all, accompanied by his news crew of Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot). His day's experience is detailed extensively and it may seem that it's going nowhere until Phil wakes up the next morning to Sonny and Cher's I Got You Babe on the alarm clock. From then on it's as if he was having a déjà vu moment except that he's reliving the same day all over again. At first, he brushes it off as coincidental but as the day progresses he realizes that every event during his day in Punxsutawney is repeating itself and he can foresee every single thing that's about to happen beforehand. In the following days after his initial surprise Phil feels invincible, able to do and say things in a perfected way and hoping that "doing it well" is good enough for him to allow him to see the "next day" but, regardless of what he does, he wakes up to I Got You Babe every morning, in the same room, having to co-exist with same locals and visitors that come to see the groundhog predict the weather.
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