We Belong Together

As part of the coffee table film book project I'm working on I'm dreaming up a list of double feature recommendations. I haven't written my justifications for pairing these films yet, but here I'll try to provide a quick and tidy reason why these films complement each other as deliciously as cranberry juice and orange sherbert (you should try that combo if you haven't yet!).

The Bicycle Thief & Pee Wee's Big Adventure: Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealism classic and Tim Burton's campy road movie were made nearly 40 years apart and couldn't possibly differ more in tone, but both plots center on the devastating effects of bicycle theft. Remember to keep yours chained up tight!

Citizen Kane & Velvet Goldmine: Todd Haynes based the narrative structure for his glam rock odyssey on Orson's Welles's classic.

Airport 1975 & Airplane!: Airport 1975 is worth the price of a rental for the sight of Karen Black as a stressed-out stewardess piloting a plane. When you watch Airplane! afterwards you realize that David Zucker and Jim Abrahams didn't have to come up with any original jokes for the movie. They just had to exaggerate the ridiculous spectacles from the Airport movies.

Vertigo & Tony Takitani: Like Hitchcock's masterpiece, Jun Ichikawa's underrated 2004 gem is about a lonely and obsessive man. Tony Takitani is not a thriller like Vertigo, but it features an extended scene in which Tony hires a woman to dress in his dead wife's clothes, recalling Jimmy Stewart's manipulation of Kim Novak in Vertigo.

Billy Budd & Beau Travail: Claire Denis's spellbindingly beautiful tale of sadomasochism and homoeroticism in a French Foreign Legion camp is based on Herman Melville's short novel Billy Budd. Peter Ustinov directed the 1962 film adaptation starring Terrence Stamp in the title role.

Capote & Infamous: A lot of people dismissed Infamous because thought it was just a rip-off of Capote, which came out a year earlier. In fact it was just a matter of bad timing for Douglas McGrath, who came up with the concept before he knew about Bennett Miller's Capote with Philip Seymour Hoffman. To my mind Infamous is much more fun and moving, and much more honest and explicit in depicting the author's homosexuality.

If you'd like more suggestions, rest easy knowing that my list keeps a-growin' and I'll post some more double features in the near future.