In my office, the cry frequently goes up "it's groundhog day!". Well, if you spend hours writing and rewriting technical documentation, only to start on it all over again you too would start thinking about robbing banks aided solely by a North American rodent.

The Observer | Review | Ryan Gilbey celebrates the phenomenon that is Groundhog Day includes the stunning quote "And when I say the groundhog is Jesus, I say that with great respect".

There's the odd bit in the article I disagree with: the idea of the recursive day, whilst doubtless entering Xena and the X-Files via Bill Murray, does exist in earlier forms. At least, I think it does. I can't remember any specific examples off hand, but certainly when I first saw the film (in the cinema, with a helpful audience member three rows in front explaining the plot loudly) I recognised the structure and I'm fairly sure not just for its Buddhist parallels. Any help on that would be appreciated. Oh, and they missed out the obvious homage to it in Buffy season 6 (Life Serial) where they did it as a single act of the episode and ellisped events even more than the film did.

It's not the notion of repetition which has turned the film's title into a phrase: it's the notion of being both aware and deeply frustrated by the repetition.