Groundhog Day showing at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway

Friday, February 1 – Thursday, February 7, Late Night Cult Classics, 10 p.m. nightly in the new stadium seating theater #3

General Admission: $6 • Loft Members: $5

Groundhog Day is Saturday, Feb. 2nd, and we’re celebrating all week long with this hilarious comedy classic … if you see Bill Murray’s face pop up on our screen this week, it means you’re in for a good time at the movies!

Bill Murray is at his wisecracking best in this high concept romantic comedy (a somewhat twisted variation of Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life) about a self-absorbed TV weatherman caught in a personal time warp on the worst day of his life. Teamed with a relentlessly cheerful producer (Andie MacDowell) and a blissfully clueless cameraman (the great Chris Elliott), weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities. But on his way out of town, Phil is caught in a giant blizzard, which he failed to predict, and finds himself stuck in small-town hell. Just when things couldn’t get worse, they get worse; Phil wakes the next morning in a bizarre time warp in which it’s Groundhog Day all over again…and again…and again. No matter what he does, he’s stuck in February 2, 1992; neither imprisonment nor attempted suicide nor kidnapping the groundhog can get him out of the loop. But the more Phil relives the same day, the more he’s forced to look at other people’s lives, and something very unusual happens: he starts to become a better person. Who would have guessed? (Dir. by Harold Ramis, 1993, 101 mins., Rated PG) Digital

Like in the movie, if you want to keep seeing Bill Murray over & over wake up on Groundhog Day February 2nd, here’s your chance to see it seven times from Feb. 1 to Feb. 7.

Happy Groundhog Day tomorrow, fans of Punxsutawney Phil.

Has famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania seen his shadow today?

Will it be another 6 weeks of winter or not? I’m not telling. I did wake up early this morning to watch the live cam cast (EST) from Gobbler’s Knob. Temperature was 36 degrees F.

Click on their official website to find out:

http://www.groundhog.org/

Also check out that website for lots of great photos of their annual Groundhog Day event as well. Wish I could attend someday….but how do you get to Punxsutawney?

From their press kit:

BACKGROUND
European Roots
• The custom dates back to the early days of Christianity in Europe and grew out of a winter festival called Candlemas Day, a day for clergy to bless and distribute candles. According to legend, clear skies on Candlemas Day meant an extended winter.
• The Roman legions, during the conquest of the northern country, brought this tradition to the Germans, who concluded that if the sun made an appearance on Candlemas Day, a hedgehog would cast a shadow, thus predicting six more weeks of bad weather or “Second Winter.”
• In Germany, the hedgehog became part of the legend. The German twist was that on a clear, sunny day, the hedgehog would cast a shadow.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Note: If you feel like you’ve read this blog before, guess what? — you have. I’m just exactly republishing my Feb. 2, 2011 blog here again — in keeping with the Groundhog Day movie starring Bill Murray!

Visiting Gobbler’s Knob this morning was PA Governor Tom Corbett, and the Groundhog King and Queen (for a year). 18,000 people were in the crowd, waiting for Phil to predict the weather. And he’s done it for 126 years!

Groundhog Day is celebrated on February 2 in the United States (most notably Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania) and Canada. “According to folklore, if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on this day fails to see its shadow, it will leave the burrow, signifying that winter will soon end. If on the other hand, the groundhog sees its shadow, the groundhog will supposedly retreat into its burrow, and winter will continue for six more weeks.” (from Wikipedia)

So what do we do here in Arizona in the great Southwest, watch the prairie dog or the ground squirrel emerge from their burrows today?

prairie dog emerging

I grew up in Hawaii where we had no groundhogs, or prairie dogs, or ground squirrels either for that matter. We didn’t even have cute squirrels. All we had (and still have) were fierce mongoose (mongooses?), which had no burrows.

The first time I ever heard of a groundhog animal was from that popular and hilarious 1993 movie, “Groundhog Day”, where the main character Bill Murray keeps repeating February 2nd over and over and over…

Happy Groundhog Day anyway!

And to repeat myself, Happy Groundhog Day today.

movie poster