This week’s pairing is brought to you by: space bugs! Specifically, space bugs as a metaphor for a fascistic society’s disregard for any perceived-to-be-lower life form, human or otherwise. Inspired by the clear satire of Bong Joon Ho’s new MICKEY 17, we’re revisiting Paul Verhoeven’s STARSHIP TROOPERS, whose satirical intent was less clear to some audiences when it hit theaters in 1997. Today, while we’re on the same page as far as what Verhoeven was going for with his propagandistic display of...
Mar 18, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 466
Carson Lund’s feature debut EEPHUS moves at the same deliberate pace as the trick pitch for which it’s named, leisurely unfolding over the course of a season-ending game between two small-town recreation leagues that’s also probably the last time many on the field will ever play. This week we’re joined again by film critic and baseball lover Tim Grierson to discuss how EEPHUS approaches that sense of finality with low-key humor and a subtle sense of nostalgia, before bringing Ron Shelton’s BULL ...
Mar 11, 2025•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 465
Quietly observing as a small-town recreation league plays out their last game of the season, and likely ever, the new EEPHUS is a feature-length subversion of “the big game,” simultaneously embracing and rejecting such baseball-movie cliches in a manner that reminded us of 1988’s BULL DURHAM. We’re joined this week by pinch-hitter Tim Grierson to discuss all the ways Ron Shelton’s classic, often cited as the best baseball movie ever, throws out the sports-movie playbook, from its multiple protag...
Mar 04, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 464
The story of two journalists reporting on a common cause despite their vastly different backgrounds is what gives NO OTHER LAND its narrative shape — and is what inspired us to pair it with 1984’s THE KILLING FIELDS — but the Oscar-nominated documentary is at heart a story about activism, and the weight of maintaining hope amid a generations-spanning conflict with no resolution in sight. We’re joined again this week by Slate culture writer Sam Adams to discuss how NO OTHER LAND makes the politic...
Feb 25, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 463
Intro & Oscars Chitchat: 00:00:00-00:08:52 Keynote: 00:08:53-00:13:50 The Killing Fields Discussion: 00:13:51-44:37 Feedback & Outro: 00:44:38-end Summary: The Oscar-nominated documentary NO OTHER LAND, a collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers whose common cause and eventual friendship does not change the stark contrast in their political status, brought to mind another story of two journalists from strikingly different backgrounds who bond in the midst of a geopolitical hotspo...
Feb 18, 2025•55 min•Ep. 462
Steven Soderbergh’s new PRESENCE flips the typical haunted house narrative inside out, but unlike the other film in this pairing, THE OTHERS, it makes its point of view clear from the opening frames. But that POV doesn’t slide fully into focus until PRESENCE’s final-act reveal, which left us with some questions, both critical and metaphysical, to dig into this week. Then we bring THE OTHERS back into the conversation to discuss how these two very different takes on the haunted house — one classi...
Feb 11, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 461
Steven Soderbergh’s new PRESENCE is an unconventional haunted house story with a twist that reminded us of 2001’s THE OTHERS, though to say exactly why risks spoiling how Alejandro Amenábar performs his own twist on a comparatively traditional haunted house story. That twist forms the foundation of our discussion this week, which freely roams spoiler territory as we consider how the ending revelation shapes our understanding of THE OTHERS' perspective on religion and the afterlife, and how the f...
Feb 04, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 460
Given their shared source material, Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU and Francis Ford Coppola’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA understandably have a lot overlap in terms of plot and character, but the two films are miles apart in their interpretation of that source material, particularly as applied to its titular vampire. We’re of split opinions on Eggers’ bleak, monster-forward characterization of Orlock, especially how it plays against NOSFERATU’s ideas about female desire and sexuality, but agree it provides ...
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 459
The heightened gothic sensibility of Robert Eggers’ new NOSFERATU recalls — in its intensity if not its precise contours — BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, Francis Ford Coppola’s feverish 1992 horror-romance that follows the same story from a markedly different perspective. This led us to reconsider Coppola’s flawed but fascinating DRACULA as a film that, even if it arguably never achieves greatness, inarguably leaves an impression. Yes, Keanu Reeves’ accent is part of that impression, but so is the film’...
Jan 21, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 458
Hey Next Picture Show listeners, sorry there’s no new episode in your feed today. Real life got in the way of podcast life and prevented us from recording our next pairing in time to release it this week. But we will be back next Tuesday with part one of our double feature comparing Robert Eggers’ new Nosferatu with Frances Ford Coppola’s own take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula from 1992. If you’re playing along at home, the former is in theaters now, while Coppola’s Dracula is digitally rentable from...
Jan 14, 2025•37 sec
With the beginning of a new year comes our customary look back, as Keith, Scott, and Tasha gather once again to compare their personal lists of the best films of 2024. While there is some crossover among their picks — particularly when it comes to films that have been discussed in-depth on this podcast — there is much more variance, reflective of a movie year that was light on prestige-season heavyweights, and full of memorably idiosyncratic, personal projects that will stick with us long past y...
Jan 07, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 457
The moments in NICKEL BOYS that nod to 1958’s THE DEFIANT ONES are less direct citations than stylized invocations by director RaMell Ross, who incorporates a number of abstractions and flourishes into the film’s visual language. Chief among those stylistic gambits is the film’s use of first-person perspective, which kicks off our discussion of NICKEL BOYS’ uniquely textured take on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel. From there we consider the deeper meaning and intent behind NICKEL BOYS...
Dec 24, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 456
Stanley Kramer’s 1958 feature THE DEFIANT ONES, a film very much of its time, makes multiple on-screen appearances in RaMell Ross’ new NICKEL BOYS, a film about the way the past haunts the present. Both movies take place in the Jim Crow-era South and engage with that setting’s lopsided ideas about justice, but THE DEFIANT ONES does so from a much more straightforward approach, operating as both a stylish thriller about two escaped prisoners, one black (Sidney Poitier) and one white (Tony Curtis)...
Dec 17, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 455
The antagonist becomes the protagonist in Jon M. Chu’s WICKED, which adapts a stage musical — the first act, anyway — which adapts a novel that flipped the script on 1939’s THE WIZARD OF OZ (itself an adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s novel). So while there are plenty of narrative and character parallels between the two films, they often run perpendicular to each other in their respective notions of good and wicked. But the two films are certainly aligned in their aim to be big-screen spectacles of ...
Dec 10, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 454
The new movie musical WICKED, along with the Broadway show and novel that preceded it, is specifically out to subvert the version of the magical land of Oz that was codified in 1939’s THE WIZARD OF OZ, making it the perfect time to consider what made that film a phenomenon to be subverted in the first place. So this week we wade into the vast, varied legacy of THE WIZARD OF OZ to discuss why it overcame its initial box-office failure to become a perennial family classic; which of the film’s endu...
Dec 03, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 453
Sean Baker’s ANORA takes the fairy-tale premise of 1990’s PRETTY WOMAN as its starting point, but ends up on a very different route to a very different sort of happy ending. It’s also a best-of-the year contender for most of us, so we spend some time discussing what makes it so before bringing its romcom predecessor back in to consider how these two films about sex workers falling for their wealthy clients are in conversation when it comes to classicism and social hierarchies, conspicuous consum...
Nov 26, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 452
Sean Baker’s new ANORA takes its initial cues from 1990’s PRETTY WOMAN, but its story of a sex worker who develops romantic feelings for a client in spite of class difference and social stigma soon peels off in a vastly different direction. So this week we’re focusing on that shared starting point to determine what makes PRETTY WOMAN both a deeply weird depiction of sex work and a resoundingly successful romcom — and no, it’s not just Julia Roberts, though it’s hard to imagine us discussing PRET...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 451
Edward Berger’s new CONCLAVE is a low-key, intimate political thriller full of unexpected reveals, but fundamentally about power, purity, belief, compromise, perception, and committee decisions. This week we share our thoughts on CONCLAVE’s insular focus and messaging around religion and politics before considering how its power brokers and kingmakers compare to those found in the 1964 presidential-candidate drama THE BEST MAN, and the two films’ overlapping ideas about whether politics demands ...
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 450
While the new CONCLAVE concerns the election of a new pope, its intrigue, backstabbing, and backroom deals have many echoes in secular politics, in particular those found in 1964’s THE BEST MAN. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and written by Gore Vidal adapting his own stage play, the film’s depiction of the behind-the-scenes machinations involved to secure an unnamed party’s nomination for the presidency is relevant both to its era and our current political moment, albeit in different ways. B...
Nov 05, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 449
In its attempt to capture the chaotic comedic alchemy leading up to the first-ever SNL broadcast, Jason Reitman’s SATURDAY NIGHT is carrying the weight of the show’s nearly 50-year legacy and its personification in protagonist Lorne Michaels. Whether it manages to get off the ground despite that is up for debate in the first half of this week’s discussion, before we bring in another tense evening in ’70s New York to see how ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM: COMPANY compares in its depiction of a late-night h...
Oct 29, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 448
Capturing the tense hours leading to a pivotal moment in live TV history, the new SATURDAY NIGHT is defined by a looming deadline that reminded us of another New York-based all-nighter captured on film: D.A. Pennebaker’s 1970 TV pilot turned documentary film ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM: COMPANY. Despite being less than an hour long, the fly-on-the-wall document of Stephen Sondheim and company recording the definitive version of their Broadway hit in a single night provides no shortage of nuance to dig i...
Oct 22, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 447
The new Dreamworks animated feature THE WILD ROBOT is partially about the struggles of parenthood, partially about the joys of community, and the larger idea bridging those two parts — that of being more than you were “programmed” to be — is also what links it most directly to Brad Bird’s THE IRON GIANT. But there’s a lot more going on in THE WILD ROBOT besides that, arguably too much, which forms the central debate of the first half of this week’s discussion. Then we bring THE IRON GIANT back i...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 446
It’s understandable that new Dreamworks feature THE WILD ROBOT pulls some of its source code from THE IRON GIANT, considering the latter’s towering reputation as one of the greatest animated films ever, robot protagonist or otherwise. But the enduring legacy of Brad Bird’s debut feature was far from assured when it blipped through theaters back in 1999, so this week we’re examining what’s behind the film’s upgrade from box-office flop to stone-cold classic, one known for its ability to reduce vi...
Oct 08, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 445
Azazel Jacobs’ HIS THREE DAUGHTERS is, like Tamara Jenkins’ THE SAVAGES, a film about the heartbreaking experience of caring for an aging parent, but even more so it is, also like the other film in the pairing, about adult siblings reuniting and renegotiating their relationships under those fraught conditions. We’re decidedly more mixed on Jacobs’ film, however, which often plays like a stage adaptation — at times that works, at others it doesn’t, and we talk through both in the first half of th...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 444
Caring for an elderly or infirm parent is a common experience that is less commonly depicted on screen, particularly with a comedic bent, which is why Azazal Jacobs’ new HIS THREE DAUGHTERS inspired us to revisit the 2007 dramedy THE SAVAGES, which writer-director Tamara Jenkins drew from her own experiences dealing with a father with dementia. Much of the film’s success lies with the performances of Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as siblings whose estranged father’s deteriorating condi...
Sep 24, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 443
Jeremy Saulnier’s REBEL RIDGE puts a distinctly 2020s spin on the one-man army formula established in the era-defining ‘80s action hit FIRST BLOOD, resulting in a film with more nuance, less firepower, and equal amounts of ass-kicking. We parse that equation a bit more in-depth in our spoiler-light discussion of REBEL RIDGE, before bringing back FIRST BLOOD to see how the decades between the two films shape their respective ideas about escalation of force, small-town policing, and genre politics...
Sep 17, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 442
Genre specialist Jeremy Saulnier’s latest banger, REBEL RIDGE, owes an obvious debt to the film that kicked off Sylvester Stallone’s second long-running franchise, 1982’s FIRST BLOOD, but the two films are of very different eras with very different core concerns about policing in America. So this week we’re focusing on the shadow of Vietnam that falls over the Pacific Northwest in the form of John Rambo, digging into the deeper themes that lie beneath the proverbial pissing contest between FIRST...
Sep 10, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 441
Fede Álvarez’s ALIEN: ROMULUS is at its core an act of homage to the larger franchise, but is that a feature, a bug, or both? That’s a question we attempt to reconcile in our discussion of Álvarez’s acid-blood-soaked film, before comparing how this late-stage sequel compares with the franchise’s original sequel, James Cameron’s ALIENS, in iterating on the corporate meddling of Weyland-Yutani, the evolving nature of artificial humans, and comedy as characterization. And for Your Next Picture Show...
Sep 03, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 440
Fede Álverez’s ALIEN: ROMULUS is so reference-packed that an argument could be made for pairing it with just about any ALIEN film, but since we’ve already discussed the 1979 original, and because the Next Picture Show bylaws state that if an opportunity to discuss ALIENS arises we must take it, we’re digging into the first of the many sequels this franchise has spawned. Thanks to writer-director James Cameron’s economy of storytelling, there are so many iconic moments, characters, and lines to d...
Aug 27, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 439
Is it a bit unfair to compare M. Night Shyamalan’s new grip-it-and-rip-it thriller TRAP to Fritz Lang’s 1931 cinematic landmark M? Sure, but that’s the name of the game here on The Next Picture Show, and for all of TRAP’s faults — which we try not to take too much glee in enumerating in this discussion — it does work, however awkwardly, as an extrapolation of the ideas and narrative techniques first established in Lang’s film. From its interest in exploring the mind of a serial killer to its dep...
Aug 20, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 435
