Joel McHale sure is good at that character, isn't he?

I like the fact that he has more layers on Community (as is appropriate), but yes, indeed he is really good at that type.

My annual activity on watching "Groundhog Day" just finished. My how I love that movie. I am continually amazed at how well constructed it is and how you can follow Phil Connors' thinking as he relives the day over and over: a) I'll trying to use this to my own advantage; b) that didn't work, fuck it, I'm going to take out the groundhog; c) I'm going to kill myself; d) none of that worked - now I need to find purpose; e) I guess I'll try to spend all this time learning something and saving those I can save.

Just fantastic.

I'm amazed at how much I can like that movie and Andie McDowell is still, you know, in it. Every time I look.

The whole montage where he keeps killing himself is pretty fabulous.

I know. I adore that movie and you think that it would wear with repetition, since the whole thing is repetition, but it's totally rewatchable.

We do the thing with the hands in the suicide montage all the time. We also invoke, "Uh, Phil, that happens to be one we agree with," often.

Does anyone want to explain to me what I was supposed to like about Silver Linings Playbook?

I'm normally a huge defender of David O Russell's work, but this was just bad. I can see why the performances got some critical acclaim, but WOW what a sanctimonious cliched piece of crap was the plot and script. I kind of can't believe this is the same guy who brought us I Heart Huckabees and Three Kings.

ha! I was entertained by it and I thought the acting was pretty good. I did not find it particularly sanctimonious. I also liked how mental health was generally approached: the characters (and should we say MOST of the characters, not just the two main) had problems and they seemed to be in the process of working things out - as imperfectly as it may be.

I guess I didn't remember that it was a David O. Russell thing, but you just reminded me how long it's been since I saw Three Kings, which I adored.

Part of my problem with it is, I don't like football movies, dance movies, or romantic comedies. So in the normal course of things, I would never ever have picked this movie up. But since it's an Oscar nominee and it's David O Russell, I figured it must have some twist that none of the trailers hinted at. But no...it's a football/dance rom-com. It hits every stupid cliched rom-com beat there is. They instantly don't like each other but there's an absurdly contrived reason why they have to hang out all the time! And then they have to do something to save the day but they almost don't because FEELINGS and MISCOMMUNICATION! But then it works out anyway at the last minute because FATE!

I mean, I don't get it. Did he lose a bet or something?

Jessica,

technically, they did not instantly hate each other. Not sure what his feelings were, but she liked him at the first meeting. She tracked him down to happen upon him while he was jogging. I could be wrong, but I thought the screenwriter was kind of setting up their relationship to be a "healthier" version of the stalking behavior the man had engaged in with his wife.

What was not clear to me, that I wish the script had done a bit better, is establish approximately when his feelings changed. I probably could read something in the script, but it wasn't as clear as it needed to be.