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The Next Picture Show

Author: Filmspotting Network

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Looking at cinema's present via its past. The Next Picture Show is a biweekly roundtable by the former editorial team of The Dissolve examining how classic films inspire and inform modern movies. Episodes take a deep dive into a classic film and its legacy in the first half, then compare and contrast that film with a modern successor in the second. Hosted and produced by Genevieve Koski, Keith Phipps, Tasha Robinson and Scott Tobias.

424 Episodes
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Like the Wachowskis’ BOUND before it, Rose Glass’ new lesbian crime thriller LOVE LIES BLEEDING is playing with the tropes of noir and pulp, but it is also very much a love story between women who are trapped by their pasts and see in each other a way out. This week we’re joined once again by writer and friend of the show Emily St. James to talk through the unique, memorable way in which LOVE LIES BLEEDING balances those elements and tones, before bringing BOUND back into the discussion to consider the parallels between these two narratives’ respective interest in bodies and gender performance, trust and transactional sex, and finding escape in another person. And in Your Next Picture Show we enthusiastically recommend Glass’ debut feature SAINT MAUD as the bellwether of a filmmaker who’s proven herself one to watch.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about BOUND, LOVE LIES BLEEDING,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Radu Jude’s DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD and Robert Altman’s THE PLAYER. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Rose Glass’ new lesbian crime thriller LOVE LIES BLEEDING takes the neo-noir in a bold and unexpected direction, one that the Wachowskis first pointed the genre toward in 1996 with BOUND. While the sisters’ stylish debut first premiered amid a wave of “sexy thrillers,” it exists today in a significantly different context. We get into that shift this week with the help of returning guest Emily St. James, to discuss how BOUND subverts, even transcends, viewer expectations of noir, gender roles, and hot lesbian sex. And then we take a break from Feedback to continue the conversation about revisiting classics in a contemporary context, in a talk with Emily about her upcoming book, LOST: BACK TO THE ISLAND. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about BOUND, LOVE LIES BLEEDING, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email or voice memo to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is box-office disappointment DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS destined for the sort of belated appreciation eventually received by the Coen Brothers’ sophomore feature, 1987’s RAISING ARIZONA? That’s up for debate in our discussion of Ethan Coen’s latest comedy collaboration, this time with his wife Tricia Cooke, a crime caper in theory that acts more like a sex romp in practice. Nonetheless, we consider how certain Coen crime signatures — ill-considered schemes executed by duos who are the opposite of pros, one of whom is comedically verbose — play out in both films, as well as how the films’ respective MacGuffins function as comedic objects. And in Your Next Picture Show we offer an alternate-universe version of this pairing built around the recent French release THE TASTE OF THINGS. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about RAISING ARIZONA, DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Rose Glass’ LOVE LIES BLEEDING and The Wachowskis’ BOUND Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
While DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS is technically the first narrative feature for which Ethan Coen has taken a solo directing credit, in practice the new comedy is as much a collaboration, here with his wife and co-screenwriter Tricia Cooke, as the films he made with brother Joel before their current hiatus. So in honor of Coen’s commitment to collaborative comedy, we’re revisiting 1987’s RAISING ARIZONA, the film that established the brothers’ comedic voice following their neo-noir debut BLOOD SIMPLE, and whose madcap escapades and MacGuffin-chasing foreshadow Coen’s latest cinematic caper. And in feedback, a returning favorite offers up a connection we missed in our recent pairing of THE LAST DETAIL and THE HOLDOVERS. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about RAISING ARIZONA, DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature HOW TO HAVE SEX takes place more than six decades after 1960’s WHERE THE BOYS ARE, but as our discussion of the two films illuminates, frustratingly little has changed in that time when it comes to the blurred lines around consent, particularly in situations involving teenagers, alcohol, and social pressure around sex. We’re joined once again by Marya E. Gates to discuss HOW TO HAVE SEX’s deft navigation of that context before bringing WHERE THE BOYS ARE back in to discuss what has and hasn’t changed about the desires and dangers of being a student on unchaperoned holiday. And in Your Next Picture Show, we offer up a film that could form a triple feature with this week’s pairing, Céline Sciama’s GIRLHOOD. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about WHERE THE BOYS ARE, HOW TO HAVE SEX,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Ethan Coen’s DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS and the Coen Brothers’ RAISING ARIZONA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The new British coming-of-age film HOW TO HAVE SEX follows a group of girlfriends on a post-exam holiday into an environment where peer pressure, alcohol, and coercion can erode the boundaries of consent. But these problems aren’t unique to the film’s contemporary setting, as we’ll see in this week’s companion film, the seemingly frivolous 1960 spring break romp WHERE THE BOYS ARE. Special guest Marya Gates brings us some historical context about the film’s place in the continuum of “beach party” movies, and the degree to which audiences still a few years out from the sexual revolution would be receptive to the film’s relative frankness about sex. And in Feedback we continue the debate about the usefulness of film ratings, and respond to the charge that a recent pairing was our worst-ever choice of new film. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about WHERE THE BOYS ARE, HOW TO HAVE SEX,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A road trip through a chilly New England winter represents only one section of Alexander Payne’s THE HOLDOVERS, but the film’s overlap with Hal Ashby’s THE LAST DETAIL goes beyond that narrative echo. As in Ashby’s 1973 film, one of the examples of 1970s cinema Payne drew on for the look and feel of THE HOLDOVERS, a central triumvirate of two adults and their younger charge have a funny but imperfect bonding experience that avoids simplistic found-family conclusions. We talk through the ways THE HOLDOVERS finds nuance in its different permutations of that trio before turning back to THE LAST DETAIL to compare these films’ versions of “showing the kid a good time” in spite of bitter cold and absent parents. And in Your Next Picture Show we stick up for LAST FLAG FLYING, Richard Linklater’s little-loved “spiritual sequel” to THE LAST DETAIL. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE LAST DETAIL, THE HOLDOVERS,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Molly Manning Walker’s HOW TO HAVE SEX and Henry Levin’s WHERE THE BOYS ARE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Alexander Payne has cited Hal Ashby’s THE LAST DETAIL as one of several 1970s movies informing the look and feel of THE HOLDOVERS, but there’s narrative resonance there as well, particularly in the films’ central threesomes: two disaffected older adults and their troubled teenage charge, each navigating a chilly East Coast winter, a road trip, and a series of disappointments and discoveries. We begin this week by focusing on THE LAST DETAIL’s trio of military-prison-bound sailors: what defines and distinguishes each of them, how their relationships change over the course of the movie, and whether the lack of resolution the film provides them is a feature or a bug. And in Feedback we respond to some alternate readings of a couple of our other favorite films of last year, BARBIE and MAY DECEMBER. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE LAST DETAIL, THE HOLDOVERS,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We return to the arena of comedic deathsport via Jake Johnson’s new debut as a writer-director, SELF RELIANCE. Despite a high-concept premise, it’s a film that seems most comfortable in the realm of hangout-slash-romantic comedy, but is that a satisfying approach when dealing with an ostensible story of life and death? That’s up for debate in our discussion of the film, which extends into Connections when we bring Elio Petri’s 1965 cult oddity THE 10TH VICTIM back into the conversation to compare these two films’ bloodless approach to gamified murder. And in Your Next Picture Show we offer up a recommendation for a real-life televised murder game in which no blood gets spilled and Alan Cumming is having the time of his life. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE 10TH VICTIM, SELF RELIANCE,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Alexander Payne’s THE HOLDOVERS and Hal Ashby’s THE LAST DETAIL.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jake Johnson’s new directorial debut SELF RELIANCE draws from a deep well of “Most Dangerous Game” storytelling, but its interest in murder-for-sport as televised entertainment combined with its rom-com underpinnings put us most in mind of 1965 cult oddity THE 10TH VICTIM. Elio Petri’s film functions as a piece of pop art first, a satire second, and a romance a distant third, and this week we’re attempting to parse it on all three levels, when we’re not getting sidetracked by the many incidental details comprising this inconsistent, perhaps incoherent, but always interesting film. And in Feedback, a listener prompt about whether movie ratings are a net negative for film culture inspires us to do a little self-reflection, and institute a new (temporary) NPS ratings system.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE 10TH VICTIM, SELF RELIANCE,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
THE IRON CLAW is about a wrestling dynasty, not an organized-crime one, but Sean Durkin’s new biopic makes the family business seem just as dangerous as the one at the heart of Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER. We’re joined once again by guest and wrestling aficionado Siddhant Adlakha to talk through THE IRON CLAW’s approach to said family business and the trauma it inflicts on both its characters and viewers. Then we bring THE GODFATHER back into the conversation to compare how these two family businesses and their respective succession drama are shaped by the American Dream, toxic masculinity, and the women on the sidelines. And then we keep it in the ring with some Your Next Picture Show suggestions for some complementary IRON CLAW viewing.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE GODFATHER, THE IRON CLAW, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Elio Petri’s THE 10TH VICTIM and Jake Johnson’s SELF RELIANCE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A dangerous family business, an imposing, aging patriarch, and a group of brothers with varying aptitudes vying to succeed him: Sean Durkin’s wrestling-family biopic THE IRON CLAW and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 mafia epic THE GODFATHER chart a very similar narrative within two very different worlds. Will THE IRON CLAW also shape how we talk and think about other wrestling films for decades to come? That remains to be seen, but this week we’re joined by freelance film critic Siddhant Adlakha to mull THE GODFATHER’s impact on the gangster movie as we know it, consider which set pieces and characters take on new shading in repeat viewings, and unpack the Corleone family dynamics that lie at the heart of this pairing. Plus, we’re keeping the 2023 film conversation going with a listener recommendation for an underseen favorite from last year. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE GODFATHER, THE IRON CLAW,  or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2023 was an idiosyncratic yet satisfying year for movies and the audiences who watch them, as reflected in the combination of across-the-board crowd-pleasers and one-off favorites comprising our Top 10 lists of the year’s best films. As per tradition, Tasha, Scott, and Keith convened to compare their respective lists and examine the points where they converge and diverge, and celebrate the high points of another year that supports the idea that every year is a good one for movies.   Please share your thoughts about and own picks for the best movies of 2023, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next pairing: Sean Durkin’s THE IRON CLAW and Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Yorgos Lanthimos’ POOR THINGS is many things, among them a whimsical retelling of the story of Frankenstein’s monster as codified in James Whale’s iconic 1930s classics FRANKENSTEIN and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. But there’s a lot of other stuff animating POOR THINGS’ surface pleasures and just-below-the-surface ideas, which we parse before moving into Connections to compare these three films’ depictions of playing God and twisted parent-child relationships; mad science and the mad scientists who practice it; and stylized, unnatural versions of reality as perceived by stylized, unnatural creatures. And in Your Next Picture Show we give a brief nod to two other POOR THINGS pairing possibilities, Francois Truffaut’s THE WILD CHILD and Werner Herzog’s THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about FRANKENSTEIN, BRIDE OF, POOR THINGS or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Yorgos Lanthimos’s POOR THINGS is so open in its allusions to Frankenstein — both scientist and monster — that it inspired us to stitch together our first dual pairing, of James Whale’s 1931 classic, which established the on-screen language of Mary Shelley’s monster, and his 1935 follow-up THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, which set up nearly a century of expectations for sequels in Hollywood. But despite many commonalities, chief among them a literally iconic Boris Karloff performance, these films are two distinct creatures, so we’re dissecting them both to talk through their different tones, relationships to their source material, and legacies.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about FRANKENSTEIN, BRIDE OF, POOR THINGS or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Like Chihiro in SPIRITED AWAY, the protagonist of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, THE BOY AND THE HERON, is drawn into a fantastical world populated by strange creatures that help usher him through a coming-of-age journey — but Mahito is a very different protagonist, and his journey unfolds in a very different way. We’re joined once again by Vulture editor and animation expert Eric Vilas-Boas to unpack the imagery and ideas populating Miyazaki’s latest wonderland, and debate the animation auteur’s feelings about birds, before bringing SPIRITED AWAY back in to compare these films’ depictions of children and parents, villains and allies, and “weird little guys.” And in Your Next Picture Show, Eric offers a recommendation for another film that joins BOY AND THE HERON on his list of the year’s best animation for Vulture. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about SPIRITED AWAY, THE BOY AND THE HERON, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Yorgos Lanthimos’s POOR THINGS and James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN & BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Studio Ghibli's latest, THE BOY AND THE HERON, is unmistakably a Hayao Miyazaki creation, drawing multiple specific elements from the animator’s life and past work — most conspicuously 2001’s SPIRITED AWAY, another film in which a sad young person is whisked away to a wondrous-slash-terrifying realm filled with memorable creatures and its own dream logic. Before we venture into Miyazaki’s latest idiosyncratic, shifting world, we’re joined by Vulture editor and animation reporter Eric Vilas-Boas for a look back at what makes Miyazaki’s earlier adventures in the spirit realm simultaneously sticky and slippery, and what primed SPIRITED AWAY for crossover success. And in Feedback, we continue the discussion of how we’re meant to read KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON’s ambiguous ending.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about SPIRITED AWAY, THE BOY AND THE HERON, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As biopics go, the new PRISCILLA is decidedly less rambunctious than the 2006 provocation MARIE ANTOINETTE, but each of these intimate, sympathetic portraits of a woman who lived in a man’s shadow and under his control are unmistakable as the work of Sofia Coppola. This week we get into how our reactions to PRISCILLA — both positive and negative — were affected, even shaped, by its place in Coppola’s filmography, and whether the film’s compressed third act is a feature or a bug. Then we head into Connections, which is stacked with comparison points between the two films’ ideas about power and identity as expressed through fashion, sex, physical vulnerability, and inappropriate puppies. And in Your Next Picture Show, we give the spotlight to another film that’s currently in theaters and was in contention for this week’s pairing: Alexander Payne’s THE HOLDOVERS. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about MARIE ANTOINETTE, PRISCILLA, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Might the response that greeted MARIE ANTOINETTE in 2006 have been warmer if audiences at the time had the context of Sofia Coppola’s latest, PRISCILLA, which takes a similarly unconventional narrative and musical approach to a famous marriage? Both films are biopic-shaped containers for Coppola’s now-well-established thematic obsessions, with little interest in the details of history that fall outside that purview, making for one of the more direct one-to-one pairings we’ve done in some time. We kick it off this week with a discussion of the ways time has been kind to MARIE ANTOINETTE’s elision of history and narrowness of focus, how the anachronistic music and performances express the film’s rebellious spirit, and what exactly we’re meant to make of these bumbling teen royals. And in Feedback, a reader broaches another recent film for inclusion on our informal list of the best science-fiction of the 21st century, and in the process reopens our discussion of the many thematic nuances in AFTER YANG. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about MARIE ANTOINETTE, PRISCILLA, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Martin Scorsese’s new KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and the 1950 Delmar Daves Western BROKEN ARROW are both films made by non-Native filmmakers seeking to confront stereotypes about Native Americans, but they are reflective of two distinct cultural moments separated by decades of change when it comes to representation in Hollywood storytelling. This week we spend some time wrestling with the characters, contradictions, and compartmentalization in FLOWER MOON before bringing BROKEN ARROW back in to see how attitudes have progressed when it comes to correcting the historical record and shaking viewers out of their assumptions, how the two films intersect and diverge in their depictions of white outsiders and cross-cultural marriages, and to what degree each embodies the limitations of Indigenous stories told from a non-Indigenous perspective. And for Your Next Picture Show we take a brief look at Michael Apted’s 1992 Sundance sensation INCIDENT AT OGLALA, another film we considered for this pairing that takes a documentary approach to a different true-life story of crime and culture clash on a Native American reservation.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about BROKEN ARROW, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Sophia Coppola’s PRISCILLA and MARIE ANTOINETTE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Comments (8)

Ryan Hopkins

this is the moved I've been by a Miyazaki film

Dec 12th
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stephen carter

I'm a "black" conservative, who enjoys listening to your podcasts, and let's face it, had you succumbed to bringing someone on to give "the black point of point of view", you would have chosen some "black" feminist writer from 'The Root' or some such publication. You would have had no more insight into what the collective "black" people thought of 'Malcolm X', than four "white" folks alone who enjoy talking about movie.

Oct 18th
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stephen carter

#148 "Black" people are waaaaay too diverse for four "white" people to get caught up in "the black point of view" . For example, If you had brought on a "black" feminist to give her perspective of 'Malcolm X', I would have been turned off.......big time! "Blacks" and "Whites" are NOT that different.

Oct 18th
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Rruben Rrz

los grey

Oct 7th
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Nunia Bizzness

dont even know how I ended up with this app. it, and this podcast sucks donkey balls

Oct 4th
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Mathew Moody

An aspect to the Coens that one of you very briefly touched on, but seems glaring to me, is their absolutely relentless use of religious symbolism. In A Serious Man, we have a modern version of a Job-esque story. In Hail, Ceasar, we can see a clear Christ figure in Eddie Mannix. Whether he is taking orders from an unseen boss somewhere unknown, fixing the lives of those put under his care, or having to choose the studio, i.e. fasting for forty days and forty nights, instead of choosing to give all that up and work for Lockhead, i.e Satan, to the literal mount of transfiguration in the studio amongst the set for Hail Ceasar, the Coens are using religious symbolism as one of the sharpest tool of their craft. I believe they had religious upbringings that lend a very clever and deep pengant for telling stories that everyone can relate to, in one way or another. Thanks for making a binge-worthy podcast for me to start from the beginning :)

Sep 30th
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Safiullah Sarwari

India

Sep 27th
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Sackman

I really like this podcast!

Sep 21st
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