101 Reasons (One Per Minute) To Love “Groundhog Day”

26. “What if there is no tomorrow — there wasn’t one today?” If you are every trying to break up with someone, make it easy on yourself and just say this. You also might get committed to the local nut house.

27. The breaking-the-pencil trick. Most of us wouldn’t be as smart as either Phil or screenwriter Danny Rubin were.

28.Chris Elliot as Murray’s punching bag. You can’t help but think that someone had this honor back in grade school.

29. Rick Ducommun, aka that guy from The Burbs, aka the poor man’s John Candy “Like the Groundhog Phil?”) . They both are/were even Canadian. You have to think that this guy was constantly sitting around, getting bad news from his agent, cursing the name of Candy.

30. Harold Ramis trying to figure out Murray’s head. You get the feeling he’s done that a few times before.

31. The douchebag shrink who asks if Phil can come back the next day.

32. The sex-on-the-beach story. I think all of us re-live a day much like that over and over, even if it is less glamorous. No? Step away from the computer, please.

33. “I’m not gonna live by their rules any more.” Many of us have uttered those very words. Few of us have acted on them. So punk rock.

34. Ordering food from the cops. I doubt they serve flapjacks in jail. Well, unless you are talking about Bubba the 300-pound black man’s titties.

35. Waking up not in jail. It’s like life if Monopoly’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card was real.

36. The order-everything-on-the-menu scene. Pigging out minus the self-imposed guilt trip…and love handles. Just imagine.

37. That it only took Phil until his third re-run of Groundhog Day before he first tried to exploit his situation for sexual purposes…

38. …and that Phil actually succeeds in using his situation to get laid on the fourth “extra” day.

39. Phil calls Nancy the wrong name during foreplay, fixes it by recklessly proposing to her, calls her the wrong name again, but the bullshit marriage proposal carries him through. What more can you even say about that sequence?

40. “10…9…8…car…6…5…quarters…” We’ve all said we’d rob a bank if we could. This scene is even more gratifying today after we all bailed out the banks.

41. Bill Murray as Clint Eastwood. “Call me Bronco.”

42. Phil says that his old fiancée doesn’t remember him, then ponders whether his blonde date is an adult or minor. He does that in about, oh, a 10-second span.

43. “Me, me, also me.” What an apt choice of words, considering that Murray single-handedly carried the second-best diner scene of the 90s. (The best was the De Niro-Pacino scene in Heat.)

44. How many guys, or girls, would love to have multiple do-overs at that bar pick-up line? The “sweet vermouth” scene is like the Super Mario Bros. of dating, except you are always 1-up.

45. Phil laughing in Rita’s face when she tells him she studied 19th Century French poetry…

46. …then rebounding with some perfectly spoken French poetry. Franc! That’s what money is called in France, or was at the time of the movie. Stupid Euros.

47. The snowy-gazebo-dance scene. My mom’s favorite. She says it’s purdy.

48. Andie MacDowell’s vest. My mom was also fond of that…17 years ago.

49.The “it’s gotta be tonight” scene. Fellas, we’ve all been in that place where we just can’t stop trying. Most of you ladies have likely been on the other end of the stick, literally. We’re sorry. We were made that way.

50. The premature “I love you.” No matter how desperate you get during your No. 49 moments, don’t go here if you don’t mean it. Take it from Phil.

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