Projector #41: When Two Isn’t Better Than One (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

Our most recent episode looks at Bad Education, a film we all admired quite a bit. And somehow we got through the whole episode without discussing its biggest problem: there’s already a pretty great movie called Bad Education. To be fair, Pedro Almodovar’s 2004 film was originally called La Mala Educación and there’s a little bit of wordplay in that title since “mala educación” also means “bad manners” in Spanish. But in the English-speaking world, it saw release as Bad Education and was a pretty big deal at the time. It also has nothing to do with the 2020 film, but from now on we’ll all have to clarify what we’re talking about when we talk about Bad Education.

It’s not the first film to cop a title from another film. Bad Boys could refer either to a gritty 1983 movie starring Sean Penn or the 1995 Michael Bay action movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Kicking and Screaming is the title of both Noah Baumbach’s memorable 1995 debut and a semi-forgotten Will Ferrell comedy from 2005. The latter’s a clear case of a bigger, but lesser, film almost overwriting the existence of a smaller, better film. The most egregious case of this: Crash, a less-than-beloved Best Picture winner released in 2004 and a challenging David Cronenberg film from 1996. (I think “challenging” is the word. My wife would choose others.)

It’s annoying. But it’s a bit more than that, unnecessarily drawing together movies that have nothing in common. From the nearly infinite possible combinations of words that could be a title, why choose one that’s already been used? With a remake, you can at least say “Do you mean the old version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three or the one in which John Travolta has a ridiculous goatee?” With overlapping titles, there’s not even that tenuous connection.

All of which is to say that a better title for Bad Education would obviously be Bad Teacher. Wait? Has anyone used that one before?

Finally, we’re a little light on new stuff to read this week. But don't miss this remarkable Spike Lee film from the streets of 2020 New York:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_6DwoVnz0u/?igshid=yys819oduj0d