The Projector #15: When The Movie Never Ends… (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

Does anyone want to reopen the Martin Scorsese-doesn’t-like-Marvel-movies controversy now that Francis Ford Coppola has weighed in that he, too, does not like Marvel movies? No? Yeah, me neither. I’m not sure who’s shocked by this admission. I’m also not sure why anyone would want it any other way. I recently saw (with our own Scott Tobias) a concert/Q&A session with Nick Cave in which he more or less admitted he doesn’t know any new music and doesn’t much care for what he has heard. And that’s fine. Do you want Nick Cave bopping his head to K-Pop? You don’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t like both.

Anyway, lately I’ve been thinking about how the cold demands of commerce have their own value when it comes to movies, after watching 15 Godzilla movies for a soon-to-run piece about the Criterion box set, Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954–1975. Like the title suggests, it offers more than 20 years' worth of Godzilla films. Some are great, some not-so-hot, but they all double as a snapshot for a changing world and a changing Japan. The series runs from the grounded depiction of post-War Japan in the original film (which we recently discussed on the podcast) to the optimistic space age Japan of the boom years in the 1960s to the grittier ’70s movies, made after the bottom fell out of the Japanese film industry and tastes turned toward genre films with a little bit of grit in them.

It’s a fascinating experience watching the franchise evolve, and sometimes branch into dead ends, like the borderline psychedelic, ecologically minded Godzilla vs. Hedorah (released in the West under the accurate name Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster). And that’s not really an experience you can get outside of film series that stack one entry on top of another. You can learn a lot about the changing ’80s, for instance, by working your way through the Friday the 13th series, which begins with a lot of unpolished young actors (including Kevin Bacon) engaging in all the sex and drugs a film from the post-Halloween slasher glut could get away with, and ends the decade with a relatively slick entry that suggests what happens once the studio tries to protect a successful formula. Someday, others will use the Fast and the Furious series as objects of cultural archeology. (You already can. Remember that the now comparatively realistic first movie involves heisting a truck full of DVD players.)

Which is a long way of saying that time has a way of making every kind of movie take on weight and significance that weren’t always apparent at the time. It’s also a way of saying that not every movie has to be for everyone. If the thought of watching Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, sounds unappealing, that’s legit. It’s okay to opt out, and everyone made hysterical by Scorsese and Coppola’s comments (and, yeah, I guess we are still talking about that after all) should probably remember that nothing they say will make those movies disappear or matter less to those who love them.

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Want stuff to read written by us and others? Well, we’ve got some options for you!

For The Guardian, Scott Tobias wrote about Drugstore Cowboy at 30 and about Fight Club at 20.

For Mel Magazine, our pal Noel Murray wrote about Kevin Smith and what happens when fandoms change and filmmakers don’t.

 For The Ringer, Elizabeth Nelson unpacked the enduring appeal of Stop Making Sense.

Keith Phipps had a busy work and is embarrassed to self promote. But nonetheless, you can read pieces on Ang Lee and high-frame-rate filmmaking at The Ringer and the bittersweet optimism of the Adam Sandler film You Don’t Mess with the Zohan at Decider.

Keith also wrote a bit about Watchmen, reviewing the show for TV Guide, about how the original series works as an ’80s artifact for Polygon, and attempting to answer some first-episode questions for Vulture.

And regarding Watchmen, we’re all pretty enthused about the show, so enthused we’re thinking about doing an episode about it, a kind of bonus episode that will run in the main Next Picture Show feed. You can also read Scott Tobias’ recaps of it at The New York Times, and our friend Angelica Bastien’s recaps at Vulture. Vulture also has an excellent interview with the self-effacing show creator Damon Lindelof.