The Projector #86: Some Films We Wanted to Pair With Something But Couldn’t… Yet (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

It’s probably no surprise that we spend a lot of time discussing what films to cover on the podcast. Our Slack history is littered with discarded pairings that might have been and dead-end ideas. (Cruella and The Devil Wears Prada? But is really a classic? Etc.) But we’ve also all have movies we’re dying to cover on the show but have never found a proper pairing for. We ended up doing a special episode on The Fall, Tasha’s gotta-do film that never really paired well with anything coming out, so I asked Genevieve and Scott to share theirs, and here’s what they said:

Genevieve: My ideal podcast pairing actually presented itself in the fairly recent past, but didn’t work out for various reasons, not least among them the pandemic upending both moviegoing and our standard podcast operating procedure. I’ve spoken on the podcast before about how 2020’s Emma (no I will not include the superfluous period in the title) was the last film I saw in theaters pre-Covid, and while it’s a film I would have checked out regardless, at the time I was seeing it with a mind toward pairing it on the podcast with the film I typically cite as my favorite movie when pressed (rudely, imo) for such information: Clueless. As anyone who’s been following us since the Dissolve days may remember, we did the film as a Movie of the Week back then, so it’s not like I haven’t had the opportunity to talk (well, write) about the film before, and Tasha even wrote a secondary essay as part of that MOTW package about a different Emma, the Gwyneth Paltrow-starring one from the 90s. But 2020’s Emma has so much more of the bright, poppy sensibility that distinguishes Clueless, and I think would have given us opportunity to dig into the look and style of these films in a way we didn’t with Clueless back in the Dissolve days. Oh well, maybe in another couple decades when the next Emma movie rolls around.

Scott: The death of great Charles Grodin last week once again reminded me that one of his best films, Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid, hasn’t been available on DVD or streaming for a very long time, despite its obvious brilliance and despite a renewed enthusiasm over May’s work. Any time a black comedy about a fraught romantic relationship might surface for The Next Picture Show, we might have turned to The Heartbreak Kid and its uncompromising story of a newlywed (Grodin) whose eyes wander away from his new bride (Jeannie Berlin) on their Miami Beach honeymoon. It might be the case of a remake pushing the original out of existence: The Farrelly brothers did a watered-down version of the film in 2007 with Ben Stiller and Malin Akerman. But I’ll forever be impressed by how hilariously caustic The Heartbreak Kid is, and how little either Grodin or May seem to care about winning the audience’s affections. I’d love a chance to see it again period, and it’d make for a lively discussion on the show.

True story: I once had a DVR with a TCM broadcast of The Heartbreak Kid on it that I only reluctantly parted with when we cut ties with our cable company. Someday I’ll see it again.

As for me, there’s always something I’m dying to get on the show but can’t make fit. Most recently, I proposed pairing Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead with Night of the Comet, a cult-favorite film from 1984 about a pair of Valley Girls who survive the apocalypse and take of residence in a mall. It’s got it all: fun protagonists (played by Catherine Mary Stewart and Kelli Maroney), Eating Raoul / Star Trek: Voyager star Robert Beltran, Geoffrey Lewis and Mary Waronov, old video games, zombies… Now I’m determined to get this one on the show somehow. If you feel the same, let my co-hosts know in the comments.

Meanwhile, we’re hope you’re enjoying our episode on Rear Window ahead of part two, which pairs it with Woman in the Window. (Spoiler: we liked one a little better than the other.) And if you’d like to do some reading, here are some options for you:

• For The Guardian, Scott Tobias looked at Pearl Harbor at 20. (And loved it? Read to find out!)

• Also on the anniversary front, Bilge Ebiri praises Mission: Impossible’s first entry as its best for Vulture.

• For Slate, Dana Stevens spoke to Amy Heckerling about Fast Times at Ridgemont High’’s difficult journey to the screen,

• For The New York Times, friend of the show Josh Rothkopf wrote about the weirdness of returning to the movies.

• For Vulture, Keith Phipps explored the British Film Institute’s new streaming service and found a bunch of gems. (This was a super-fun assignment and I could have kept going.) Also on the Keith Phipps front: a look at pandemic movie releases you might have missed for GQ and a review Netflix’s upcoming (and terrific) Sweet Tooth for TV Guide.