The WTF Moment In A Comedy Screenplay by Steve Kaplan

[@howardkoor2796]

Well explained 🙏🙏🙏

[@howardkoor2796]

Ground Hog day is so instructive

[@howardkoor2796]

Steve knows comedy!

[@TheFlatypus]

really useful, keep them coming!

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

Groundhog day... okay... been a couple years, so bear with me... It' could be argued that the "all is lost" moment comes with Murray's character starting the suicide string. There with the toaster in the bath, hot-wiring the taxi to run the wrong way down the train tracks... and just the whole series of efforts montaged (there were a lot of montage-moments in this movie) to end his life. Collectively, or individually it could be argued that here or there was that great loss of faith... faith in the almighty, faith in self, faith in anything...so you could say this was a sort of collective all is lost moment. Frankly, I'm not buying that. There's a little more humanity to Murray's character... creatively the "asshole weatherman from hell" at the beginning. I think, personally, that if you really want to see that point where "it's worthless" and "all is lost" comes slamming home, it's the series/montage about the homeless man. "Sometimes people just die" said the nurse. "Not today", responded Murray's character. The whole film up to that point, had been entirely ego-centric. His cameraman/tech' called him a "premadonna", and every scene from the start of the movie had established the indisputable fact tht he was self-absorbed. Even later with the series of dates with Andy MacDowell's character, he was more selfish and self aggrandizing than much of any other aspect... with lines like, "I never said midnight", when the stereotypical time-stamp was obvious. Everything about him just smacked the whole story long that he was taking advantage, every single time...BUT there's that place with the homeless man, and every effort that Murray's character could put forward, the old man died. THAT (as I would argue anyways) is the great "break"... that point where Murray is forced to face mortality and the eventuality of ruin. There's the "all is lost" moment, and that's when he starts to find real humility in his character. It's the turning point of the movie, when for every resource he can muster, and every possible comfort he can afford, one way or the other, Death (capital letter and all) comes in as the ultimate equalizer and proves he is still just a man. :o)

[@howardkoor2796]

Great

[@MorbidVortex]

I didn't know J.K. Simmons was a screenwriter.

[@JN-ox2yd]

It'd be more helpful if he'd refer to the characters by their names instead of the actors.