The Projector #57: Unstuck in Time (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

First off, thanks again to my lovely wife Stevie for filling in last week. Just a few show notes from old familiar me this week, I’m afraid. First off, we haven’t seen Tenet yet, but we’ve been involved in a little of our own time-loopery thanks to the ever-shifting release schedule. (See, now that header image makes sense.) You probably noticed that our announced pairing of Dogtooth and Kajillionaire didn’t run this week. That’s because Kajillionaire, though released in some theaters, won’t be available for home viewing for a couple more weeks. It’s good, and worth the wait, but we also feel like we need to stick with quarantainment selections for now. (As listeners and readers of this newsletter know, we’re all dying to get back into theaters, just not yet.) Instead we dropped a bonus episode on Mulan, which you can currently enjoy on Disney+ (for a not-that-small surcharge). That was originally intended just for you, our loyal Patreon supporters, but we didn’t want to skip another week in the main feed.

That means we’ve been busy recording other episodes. So, next week look for the first of our next pairing, which will be dedicated to Orson Welles’ F For Fake (historically a divisive film and a divisive film for your hosts as well, as it turns out) and Dick Johnson is Dead, which will premiere on Netflix on October 2. (That one: less divisive.) And if you haven’t seen Johnson’s Cameraperson, that one’s on the Criterion Channel and well worth your time.

And that may have to do it for this week’s newsletter. It’s nearing the end of the day but I still have to watch another movie to feel like I’ve come close to accomplishing what I need to accomplish this week. (Before you start thinking that doesn’t sound like work, said movie is the Nicolas Cage-starring remake of The Wicker Man.) We’ve got some fun bonus episodes coming up, too, one we’re so excited about we might have to drop that on in the main feed too. It involves a special guest star and a movie one of us talks about a lot on the show.

Before I go, a few things to read.

• For The New York Times, our Scott Tobias explored the new series A Wilderness of Error, a documentary adaptation of an Errol Morris that sometimes seems to be at odds with Morris. 

• Since coming to YouTube, Brie Larson has kept it casual. The trolls aren’t happy, but that’s part of the point, Kyndall Cunningham concludes in a piece for Polygon.

• Should we call Tenet a flop? Maybe, maybe not. Chris Lee investigates for Vulture.

• And, one more Vulture item, this from our pal Rachel Handler: a talk with Gugu Mbatha-Raw about Beyond the Lights.