The Projector #23: Home for the Holidays (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

Hey, the holidays are almost here so we’re going to be honest: We’re all a bit tired and have our doubts that anyone wants to read the newsletter during the next couple of weeks. So we’re going to make this the final installment of The Projector for 2019 then come back strong in January 2020 (a year that still looks unreal to me.) But The Next Picture Show will still be chugging along at the usual schedule. Next week will see the release of our Knives Out episode, the second half of our Rian Johnson double feature that kicked off with today's episode on Brick. Last night we recorded our pairing on The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Uncut Gems, and we’ve got more exciting stuff ahead. That includes bonus episodes about the end of Watchmen and, in just a few hours, Scott Tobias and I are going to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which we’ll follow up with one of our parking lot-recorded specials. Exciting! 

Have a happy holiday season and a happy new year. And thanks, as always, for supporting us. It’s meant a lot to know there’s interest in the show and it’s helped us expand what The Next Picture Show is via this newsletter and our bonus episodes, both of which have been fun to do. See you next year!

But first, here’s some suggested reading:

• For The Ringer, our own Scott Tobias went all the way to Texas to lift the curtain on a daring new venture by Cinestate, the independent studio behind Dragged Across Concrete and more (soon, a lot more)

• Speaking of Scott Tobias, he also wrote about Marriage Story, and how its divorce story fits into Noah Baumbach’s career, for the New York Times.

• For Mel, Keith Phipps wrote about the state of the director's cut, with some thoughts on the five-hour cut of Until the End of the World and, sorry, The Snyder Cut.

• For Polygon, Tasha Robinson offered an appreciation of Steven Universe Future.

• At Rolling Stone, David Fear conducted a long interview with Steven Soderbergh that starts with his 1999 masterpiece The Limey and fans out from there.

• For Indiewire, Kate Erbland talked to Sophia Takal about updating the slasher classic Black Christmas to comment on the times around her. 

• At Uproxx, Mike Ryan talked to C-3PO himself, Anthony Daniels.

• For ScreenCrush, Matt Singer reflected on The Mandalorian as a show about single parenthood.

• How did the Hallmark movie become so inescapable? Sarah Larson investigates at The New Yorker.