A more realistic portrayal of spending an eternity in a repetitious cycle, as compared to "Groundhog Day" and other films of its kind. The thought of being in this situation is absolutely horrifying. Excellent performance by Kurtwood Smith.
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flipcritic9 September 1999
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ackstasis22 May 2007Imagine that, for some inexplicable reason, the entire Universe has been set to a continuous time loop. As soon as the specified time is over, everything in the Universe is reversed back to where it was, the loop restarts, and nobody even realises that this is happening over and over and over again except for you. If, in your mind's eye, you've already formulated a mental image of a frustrated-looking Bill Murray and a cute little groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil, then you can be forgiven for the oversight. I am not referring to the hit 1993 film 'Groundhog Day,' but to a fascinating short film from three years earlier entitled '12:01 PM.'
'12:01 PM' is based on a short story of the same name, written by Richard A. Lupoff and published in the December 1973 edition of 'The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.' The film stars Kurtwood Smith as Myron Castleman, a meek office worker who finds himself stuck in the aforementioned predicament. However, unlike Bill Murray, Myron is only afforded 59 minutes at a time before the inevitable loop repeats itself. Desperate to uncover an explanation for the maddening phenomenon, he eventually seeks the help of a physicist, Prof. Nathan Rosenbluth (Don Amendolia), who had predicted the "time bounce."
Stunningly acted by Smith, and astoundingly clever and original in its execution, '12:01 PM' is an intriguing science-fiction short, sometimes funny and sometimes terrifying. In 1993, it was remade as a feature-length television movie (called '12:01'), starring Jonathan Silverman and Jeremy Piven. 'Groundhog Day' was also released that same year, and it could be argued that Harold Ramis and his team stole the film's general concept, but Jonathon Heap and Richard A. Lupoff ultimately decided not to pursue legal action. -
MiataRoy29 April 1999The similarities between this 30 minute "movie" from 1990 and the feature movie "Groundhog Day" from 1993 are too similar for them to not be more closely related. The latter surely must have been influenced by the earlier movie.
The stories are very similar, but even more similar is the outstanding way in which both movies are directed. Even though the "same" timeframe is being repeated, the director shifts the camera perspective and dialogue encountered each time so neither film is boring. -
Infofreak19 December 2001The little-seen '12.01' is a real gem, and displays the beauty of short films. Just the right length to explore the intriguing premise without over staying its welcome. I wish more feature length movies showed the subtlety and invention of this one!
Kurtwood Smith (Verhoeven's classic 'Robocop', and Jennifer Lynch's absolute stinker 'Boxing Helena') has never been better as a meek office worker who finds that the world is caught in a time loop, and that he is the only person conscious of the fact. Smith is utterly believable as the bewildered and desperate man who frantically searches for some kind of explanation/solution for his extraordinary situation.
A classic of its kind. Try and see it! -
Emunah26 March 2009BLOWN-AWAY.
That was the result of watching this 25 minute short film made almost 20 years ago. Obviously, I'm another one of those Groundhog Day fans that, out of curiosity, wanted to see this movie. And I thought it was absolutely fantastic. It was like a true Shakespearean play; fascinating, and original story (it was adapted from a short story, but this was the first film of many that dealt with "time-loops" and "repetition of time"), as well as a tragic and profound end.
Interestingly enough, after watching the movie, I felt it was one of the best shorts I'd ever seen, and maybe only one or two were better, including "The Lunch Date", which I found out is the same short film that beat "12:01 PM" at the Oscars in 1991.
So, for those of you who are GH fans, this is a must, and for anyone who is looking for an amazingly unique film experience in only 25 minutes or less, this movie is for you. -
braininajar-122 September 2005I first caught this film in the same way as many of the reviewers here, by catching it as a featured film in the ":30 Minute Movie" segments on Showtime, hosted by Rob Reiner, back in the early 90's. My wife and I were both instantly captivated by the story, which was later remade into a terrible feature-length film, and later modified to become "Groundhog Day." Kurtwood Smith was an inspired choice to play the main character, and the limitations of the 59-minute time frame made his frenzied efforts to escape his inescapable fate all the more terrifying. The ending, while old hat now (since it's been remade again and again), was fresh and shocking for it's time. You ached for Smith's character. The ending haunted me for a long time.
This needs to be released as a special feature on an upcoming release of "Groundhog Day," or needs to be released in it's own right. What a fabulous piece of storytelling.- T
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Horst_In_Translation25 February 2016"12:01 PM" is an American short film from over 25 years ago that runs for slightly under an hour. It was written by Jonathan Heap and is probably still his best-known work today because of the Oscar nomination it scored. And even if it did not win, then the topic similar to "Groundhog Day" stays in people's minds, especially as this one came out 3 years earlier and is thus even more original. We follow a man who has to live through the exact same hour of the day again and again and, unsurprisingly, quickly descends into insanity, even if a beautiful woman makes things look good for a while. It's certainly much darker than "Groundhog Day", but if you loved the Billy Murray film, this one here is certainly worth checking out. i thought it was a pretty solid watch, especially the first half if the film. Thumbs up.
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bobpool012 April 2005The best short film I have ever seen, with more pathos and horror than in most full-length movies. In a way, its also the scariest film I've seen. The quality of acting and direction is such that you can really identify with the leading characters and are left wondering what the hell you would do in a similar situation. Without giving anything away, the ending is also brilliant.
I'm reminded of this film whenever I see that the time is 12.01, whereas I've basically forgotten the 2 full-length versions, although they are both reasonably entertaining (especially Groundhog Day). Hopefully, this film will be made available on DVD, possibly to accompany Groundhog Day?? -
mjposner-312 February 2007Saw this years ago on Showtime and have waned to see ever since. I love time travel/time bounce movies and books, especially Groundhogs Day (just watched again with my son, his first time). Anyway, great news, at least for now the short is on Google Video, so grab it if you can before the copyright police remove it.
Plot is simple, Myron Castleman - g-d - is trapped in a time bounce from 12:01 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Only his conscience doesn't reset, even his body reverts (if he eats at 12:59 he is hungry again at the bounce. He learns that a professor at the Tempus Institute (time in Latin)predicted that (i) matter and antimatter will collide causing the time bounce and that (ii) conscience is independent of the time bounce (but apparently for only some, or one person).
Seems to me that this may be a form of punishment, i.e. hell. Also, anyone who experienced this would likely go insane from lack of sleep. Kurtwood Smith gives a stellar performance as the "victim" and by the end you feel frantic and sorry for him wondering how anyone could survive. -
Gorge Hiker30 March 2002This is a great science fiction short story in the vein of Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, and Spider Robinson, with the science integrated in the storyline, and not in advanced technology.
Kurtwood Smith is excellent as a man caught in a 59 minute time loop. He slowly realizes what's going on, and tries to figure out how to stop it. Many have tried to equate this with Groundhog Day (another excellent film), but this story is much darker, where Smith is in a more dire situation as his character frantically tries to find a physicist who might be able to help. Can he escape? -
gialscmc17 November 2004This is a thirty minute film I saw years ago on Showtime. It was part of some kind of short film series hosted by Rob Reiner. This was the best of the three. It involved a man who is doomed to inhabit the same hour over and over. When we first see Myron Castleman he's standing in an intersection. He goes to the park to eat his lunch. He goes back to the office. Then Bam! He's standing in the intersection again. He tries to change things within the hour. But an hour isn't enough time; so he always ends up at that intersection. At some point he realizes that he may be able to do something. At this point everything takes on a frenzied urgency. Myron must race against the clock to find a way out. Kurtwood Smith plays Myron with so much depth and emotion. I can't imagine any one doing a better job. I'm glad I taped this; I've seen it several times. It is a haunting film; a minor classic.
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I originally saw this dramatic short as an interstitial subject on TMC in the early '90s and fell instantly in love with it.
The plot involves a mild-mannered businessman named Myron Castleman, played with exquisite pathos by Kurtwood Smith (That 70s Show). Myron is the only one who is aware that time keeps on bouncing back to 12:01PM after only an hour passes. Desperate to find an end to this, he seeks out a scientist who has predicted this phenomenon. Trying time and time again to contact him, Myron's worst fear is confirmed. It will never stop.
Kurtwood Smith's portrayal of the temporally doomed Myron Castleman is one of the best of his career. Smith is probably better known to cinephiles as the heartless criminal Clarence Boddicker from the movie Robocop. -
bradfordtom1018 June 2011Some TV and film you see stick in your mind. I watched 12.01 PM in the 80's on UK TV, and after talking about it years later with a friend realised that it'd not be too difficult to track it down.
Simply put, I'd say this is the best thirty minute story I've ever seen on the telly. I managed to track it down, and watching it again in 2011 it's just as good as it was all those years ago.
Kurtwood Smith is perfect and his performance is excellent. He manages to make the whole thing completely believable and terrifyingly sad. If you can get hold of a copy of 12.01PM, give it a try. As much as I love Groundhog Day, this is what it's all about.
Ray Bradbury would be proud if this were his tale (apologies to Ray if he's done one like this, if he has it's not one I've read!). Masters of Sci-Fi could only have hoped to produce a film like this. -
This short picture stars Kurtwood Smith as Myron Castleman, a drone in an engineering firm, who is so insignificant that even the office manager treats him like dirt. At the start of each repeated hour, Castleman finds himself standing on an island in the middle of a heavily traveled city street. He's carrying a briefcase. Apparently, he's out to lunch. A series of set pieces ensue: a man holds a wet bag of groceries that weakens and dumps its load, a man tells a lame joke while waiting for his "lunch" order at a hot dog stand in a park, a man sitting on a bench gets a fecal gift from a bird, and a pleasant woman sitting on another bench strikes up an acquaintanceship. There is an impressive audio and visual effect that signifies the moment that the hour is about to repeat. As in "Groundhog Day," it is entertaining to watch Castleman play with the unusual situation by putting himself in grave danger, knowing full well that any damage done will be erased when the hour repeats. The rude physicist at the Tempus Institute finally believes Myron Castleman because Myron describes the transition event, that only he can experience, which exactly corresponds to the physicist's predictions. Castleman is in quite a fix. Only he is able to perceive that time is repeating like a stuck record.
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This guy has shown up in so many things and perhaps best known from "That 70s Show", but if you ever saw 12:01 PM, you would have a new appreciation for his talent. This short is extremely well written about the frustrations of going through a time loop over and over for an endless eternity. In the process, he experiences so many things that we may take for granted. During one of his hours, he falls in love with a young lady in the park, then as his hours begins anew, she no longer knows him. During another hour, he helps needy person who others prefer to torment. Then during yet another, he sees a newspaper with an article that a scientist predicted this might happen. He calls him to discuss it, learns a little, then on the next loop he rushes to see him. When he finds that there is nothing he can do, he realizes there is no way out of his situation, so he wrestles a gun from a security guard and blows his own brains out only to find himself standing back on that same corner at the end of the hour as he has and always will. Kurtwood Smith delivers the pain and frustration like no one else could. This short made me a big fan of his. If you get a chance, watch this short! It's truly a 10.
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Woodyanders18 June 2019Fastidious and mild-mannered businessman Myron Castleman (an outstanding performance by Kurtwood Smith) finds out much to his horror and confusion that he's somehow trapped in a time warp in which he's doomed to repeat the same hour over and over again.
Director Jonathan Heap, who also co-wrote the clever script with Stephen Tolkin, relates the ingenious and absorbing story at a brisk pace, ably crafts a tremendous amount of tension, and ends the fascinating premise on a haunting tragic note. Smith, an excellent character actor who's often cast as hateful and heinous villains, makes the most out of a rare opportunity to display a more sympathetic and vulnerable side; he brings a wrenching pathos to Castleman's hapless plight that's truly startling to behold. Moreover, there are fine supporting contributions from Laura Harrington as the sweet Dolores Park, Jane Alden as snarky secretary Stephanie, and Don Amendolia as the knowledgeable Professor Nathan Rosenbluth. A terrific little gem. -
simonstudios30 May 2003This was a corker of a short SF film - highly intelligent writing, and loads better than Heap's full length remake a few years later - which had an unnecessary happy ending - and tons better than the (undeservedly) better known Groundhog Day.
Last seen on Channel 4 in the UK about 12 years ago, and never commercially released, as far as I can tell ... if anyone's got this on video please get in touch - maybe we can trade. Cheers -
Kurtwood Smith as Myron was amazing in 12:01. I first saw this over 20 years ago and I'll never forget it. The storyline was amazing and you could feel for the emotional despair of Myron, and kudos to Kurtwood for his bravura performance.
When watching 12:01 I wondered what could Myron do to convince everyone a new day started without everyone forgetting again? Not much really, but 12:01 makes you ponder the meaning of reality and the circumstances that define our reality. Could this really happen?
By the way, Groundhog Day was made a few years after 12:01 not vice-versa. 12:01 came first. -
DonDuke19 November 2016This Short Movie was Written and Directed by Jonathan Heap and Hillary Anne Ripps. It was Nominated for an Oscar as a Best Short Film, live action Movie. It is a Super Great Sci-Fi Flick that was Lensed in 1991. I am the Man Walking in the Park wearing a Brown Suit, with a Blonde Headed Lady. It was my very first Show and I sort of thought maybe it just might be a good film. I never did actually think that it would be Nominated for an Oscar. I think i was very lucky to have been in a Show for the first time, that got Nominated for an Oscar. I feel kinda Proud of being in it, even if you can only catch a Glimpse of me now and then walking round and round the Park. I was not Credited in it but i still Managed to have it Recorded in the Internet Movie Data Base. My Screen and Stage Name is Joe Casino. After this Short Film, i went on to make several other Flicks and they may be viewed on IMDb.COM (Joe casino)
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Kurtwood Smith is a really good actor and this is proof enough. The script is excellent and Smith's performance draws you right into what life has become for Myron Castleman. A living hell.
The idea of a time loop was later reused for Groundhog Day and by these same filmmakers 3 years after this came out. I vaguely remember seeing the feature length movie called 12:01 but the focus is not so much on the science behind the theory as it is in this. The theory is matter and antimatter colliding which causes a perpetual loop in time which was formed over the length of time of the collision. Everything made of matter relives the time in that loop and nothing more. Myron is one of the few (only one he meets anyway) aware of the fact that everyone is trapped reliving the same 59 minutes.
It's a dark sci fi story. No romance or comedy. More like Kafka. -
totex-116 August 2023I saw this many years ago and it really stayed with me ever since. Kurtwood Smith is excellent and it was his performance that left its mark on me.
I really enjoy the premise of the time loop concept as initially the idea sounds cool but the horrifying truth of repeating it for eternity is really unsettling as there is no end and no escape.
With the main character in the early stages of the time cycles, it's the growing desperation trying to find a way out frantically trying to do it before the time resets. The build to him finally getting the answers he seeks and what it means ensures a hopeless, unavoidable decent into madness and everyone around him just think he's a crazy person when he's lived it for millennia. -
Snowman-820 August 1999I remember watching this film when it was first broadcast on Showtime. I really liked it then, and still do now. Good writing and performances all around, especially by Kurtwood Smith who rarely gets a chance to play the lead in any project.
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mhargreaves9 December 2004Following the main character through his trials and investigations you really get a feeling of the horror and turmoil the simple every man is going through.
I also came away from this film with the quote "Consciousness is an independent variable".
Of the two 12:01 movies I consider this the more impressive. As other reviewers have mentioned the film focuses on a 59 minute loop, and shows that if you only have one hour to live over and over again then you can't achieve very much.
If you've seen Groundhog day and seriously got into the time loop, wanting to know more about why the main character was stuck then this movie might appeal as you here some science. -
If the premise of this little 25 minute short about a meek office worker caught in a time loop, doomed to live again and again the same one hour, sounds all too familiar, it's because it is. Harold Ramis had no moral qualms in practically lifting it wholesale and turning it into GROUNDHOG DAY three years later. But can anyone really blame him when that one is a modern classic of sorts and 12.01 is nothing more than a curio and a missed opportunity? That director Jonathan Heap's career sunk after this Oscar nominated short in a string of half-cooked, average action flicks reveals a lot of what is wrong with this one. Someone had the epiphany of the time loop idea but didn't really know what to do with it. Apart from the central premise, Ramis lifted quite a few things more: the protagonist trying to do the right thing, committing suicide in an effort to escape the loop, being angry, resigned etc. But he also wove the idea in the context of a meaningful story. 12.01 gets caught in the usual ludicrous sci-fi mumbo-jumbo trying to explain the loop, at parts it's clumsy, awkward, and shot in a very bland 80's way. It never really convinces it's anything else than a framework for a great gimmick. But it still has a great idea and you can't take that away from it. It just goes to show that the first flash of inspiration is only the tip of the iceberg.
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TxMike3 February 2014I found this one on youtube, parts 1, 2, and 3 posted separately. Apparently it had been shown as a half-hour movie on TV.
The story is very analogous to that of Groundhog Day. Instead of repeating the same day, starting at 6AM, in this one veteran actor Kurtwood Smith plays Myron Castleman, who repeats the same hour, starting at 12:01PM. But other than that, what he experiences is very close to the Bill Murray movie. You can do a lot less in 60 minutes! So the frustration builds up a lot quicker.
In the Murray movie eventually he finds a way out, quite passively simply by becoming a better person with a normal ego. In this one, with "only" about 40 repeats so far, we don't find out if there is a way out.
The other key difference is that an explanation of sorts is presented. Something about a collision between matter and antimatter, as predicted by a scientist who coincidentally works a very short distance from Myron.
Nothing really novel here, if you have seen Groundhog Day, and the acting and filming are of not particularly high quality. But for fans of Groundhog Day, as I am, an interesting film short.