The Projector #63: Some Quick News Items (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

A quick one this week since you’re probably as exhausted by this week as I am. Here’s a few bits of business:

ITEM! Patreon Major Supporter subscribers now get ad-free episodes. You asked. We delivered! Well, one of you asked anyway, but that was enough to make us realize it was a pretty easy perk to provide.

ITEM! Does anyone know how to keep a website from disappearing? I ask because, as I write this, The Dissolve has disappeared. In the past I’ve reached out to Pitchforkians we still know on staff and they’ve switched a magic switch and two years’ of our lives reappeared. But natural attrition is starting to thin the ranks of people at Pitchfork who even know who we are. So this is me crowdsourcing to see what it would take, assuming this is even possible, to acquire and maintain a dead-but-not-forgotten movie site. Would it be expensive? If we crowdfunded it could we pull it off? We’d love for The Dissolve to have a permanent memorial somewhere.

ITEM! Has anyone looked at the weekend box office lately? It’s really weird to see a movie like Let Him Go in the number one spot. (It looks pretty good, too, not that I’m going to brave going to a theater in a pandemic to see it.) Last week’s other Top 5 included Come Play (?), The War with Grandpa (De Niro’s back, baby!), Honest Thief, and Tenet, which is still hanging in there. I’m still convinced that theaters shouldn’t be open, especially given the current surge, but if nothing else this will leave behind a bizarre history.

ITEM! Scott and I are talking about Fargo’s fourth season soon. Are there any other shows you’d like us to take on? (Not Scott and me exclusively. Just some combo of our hosts.)

That’s all I’ve got. Please enjoy our current episode, the second half of a double feature on David Byrne, this one focusing on American Utopia. And remember: you can skip right past Scott’s singing with the fast-forward 15 seconds button.

Finally, some weekend reads for you.

• Want to think about Jan de Bont’s The Haunting? Before you answer, consider these two neat de Bont interviews, one from Matt Patches at Polygon and another from Mike Ryan at Uproxx.

• More from Polygon Patches: An interview with the legendary Werner Herzog.

• Who is Borat 2 star Maria Bakalova? The New York Times has some answers.

• Never heard of The Outpost? Vulture explains the pandemic’s secret movie hit.

• Also, what’s the deal with Netflix anime? Wired ponders the question.