12:01 PM

This 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

I 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.

This 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.

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.

The 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.