A funny thing happened to me as I watched Groundhog Day last night.

I noticed something new.

I think that I may have seen the movie ten times by now. I really like it, and I highly recommend it to anybody who hasn’t seen it (or who hasn’t seen it in a while).

Last night I decided that a moment in the movie, that I had dismissed as irrelevant before, is probably significant. The point is when Bill Murray’s character gets hit in the head with a shovel. I now think that this triggered the events that make up most of the movie (perhaps his exposure to the cold on the highway had an effect as well).

This is interesting to me because it points out how even though we seem to be watching the same movie over again, we really aren’t. Each time we are more familiar with the movie and are able to focus on different aspects; like anticipating great lines/scenes, looking for continuity issues, thinking more deeply about how certain aspects relate to other things that come up later.

I’ve heard many parents complaining about how annoying it is to them that their small children like to watch videos over and over again. The thing that they should realize is that it’s a different experience every time, because their knowledge of it (and other things) is different every time.