The Next Picture Show

Kitty Green’s new THE ROYAL HOTEL follows two women stranded amid the oppressive masculinity of a rough-and-tumble Australian mining town, a purposeful gender subversion of Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 Australian cult classic WAKE IN FRIGHT. We begin our two-week journey through the fringes of civilization with a trip to WAKE IN FRIGHT’s “the Yabba” to discuss how the film’s more harrowing elements, includ...

It’s perhaps a bit unfair to compare the new NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU to UNDER THE SKIN, a film widely considered (by us) to be one of the best science-fiction films of the last 20 years, but at least one of our co-hosts was taken by Brian Duffield’s virtually dialogue-free story of a solitary woman fending off extraterrestrials. In the first half of this week’s episode, they get into it with the rest...

The new NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU follows a lonely, socially isolated woman through an alien invasion, a narrative it shares with UNDER THE SKIN, though in Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 instant classic, said woman also happens to be the invading alien. Both protagonists are enigmatic in their own way, and the films around them follow suit, with heightened tones and minimal dialogue providing two distinct take...

Pablo Larraín has approached the legacy of Augusto Pinochet from several angles over the course of his filmography, but never quite as directly as in his latest, EL CONDE. And yet even when casting the Chilean dictator as his protagonist, Larraín seems less interested in the real man — who, as far as we know, is not an undying vampire — than what he represents about power, manipulation, and histor...

Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile as a dictator for nearly 20 years and left behind a complicated legacy, one Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín has approached sideways in various ways over the course of his career. His new EL CONDE, which renders Pinochet a literal vampire, is a more fantastical expression of that approach than 2012’s NO, a behind-the-scenes dramatization of the marketing campaign that h...

HEATHERS is just one of many reference points at work in Emma Seligman’s new BOTTOMS, but the two films taken together illustrate just how differently the “dark comedy” designation can be applied to high-school movies. So after searching for meaning in BOTTOMS, and coming to terms with the idea that meaninglessness may actually be its point, we compare how these two expressions of high-school hier...

Almost immediately after BOTTOMS premiered at this year’s SXSW, the heightened mix of satire and violence in Emma Seligman’s new film drew comparisons to Michael Lehmann’s HEATHERS, which in 1989 set a new high-water mark for upending the high-school movie tropes of the day through a darkly comedic lens. How does a movie that turns teenage suicide (don’t do it) into a punchline fare by today’s sta...

Ira Sachs’ new PASSAGES centers on a relationship broadly similar to the one at the center of SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, but approaches it with a different level of intimacy and intensity (one that earned it an NC-17 rating before the filmmakers opted to release it unrated). We’re joined once again by freelance critic and friend of the show Noel Murray to talk through the different points of characteri...

Ira Sachs’ new PASSAGES is treading ground that was broken in part by John Schlesinger’s 1971 British drama SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, which also concerns the tortured intimacies of an MMF love triangle, albeit with a bit more reserve. We’re joined by freelance critic and friend of the show Noel Murray to talk over our responses to that reserved approach in relation to SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY as a product...

Did ENCHANTED walk so that BARBIE could fly? Or is Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster, which has us wondering if it might actually change the world, operating on a satiric level the 2007 Disney-princess pastiche could only dream of? Our panel, joined once again by Vulture/New York Magazine critic Jen Chaney, is divided on that point, but in agreement that BARBIE gives us much more to discuss in its nuance...

Greta Gerwig’s mega-hit BARBIE is both a satirical sendup of and a loving tribute to the titular fashion doll, which is a not-unheard-of storytelling approach, though few stories attempting to strike the balance have done so with such direct involvement of the corporate entity responsible for their existence. That element of Mattel’s BARBIE is what led us to Disney’s ENCHANTED, Kevin Lima’s 2007 l...

Like its obvious predecessor WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, the new THEATER CAMP is an improv-heavy mockumentary about a cash-strapped theatrical operation — but in this case at least there’s real talent in the mix, thanks to the many gifted child actors populating the AdirondACTS summer program for aspiring young performers. This leaves THEATER CAMP’s adult cast, some of them former child actors themselves...

The new Sundance favorite THEATER CAMP, which uses the mockumentary format to lovingly skewer amateurs pursuing their theatrical dreams, is clear in its homage to WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, a comedy whose own skewering of wannabe actor types is somewhat less loving. Our revisitation of Christopher Guest’s 1996 film considers GUFFMAN’s tricky tonal balance of satire and sincerity, along with the benefits...

Celine Song’s new slow-burn drama PAST LIVES is an unrequited-love story in the same way John Carney’s slow-burn musical drama ONCE is — that is, just on the surface. But each film’s central would-be romance is a delivery device for deeper ideas about the weight of carrying nostalgia for past relationships and always wondering “what if?”. We’re joined once again by David Chen of DecodingEverthing....

Celine Song’s feature directorial debut PAST LIVES   follows two not-quite lovers through different points in their lives as they figure out how to move past the possibility of romance, a story of low-key longing and bad timing that reminded us of the serendipitous musical relationship at the heart of John Carney’s 2007 arthouse hit ONCE. So before taking up the multiple timelines of PAST LIVES, w...

As filmmakers, Wes Anderson and Charlie Kaufman have distinct styles without a lot of obvious overlap, but Anderson’s new ASTEROID CITY and Kaufman’s 2008 directorial debut SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK share a central concern — the struggle to create art — that invites a degree of self-awareness and metatextuality that plays well with both of those distinct styles. So after attempting to pull apart the la...

Wes Anderson’s new ASTEROID CITY is a self-aware film about making art from a director of exacting control, which put us in mind of Charlie Kaufman’s 2008 directorial debut, SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, a self-aware film about making art from a director of exacting chaos. Kaufman is one of our most-discussed filmmakers on this podcast, as both a writer and a director, but that doesn’t make parsing the im...

Nicole Holofcener’s new YOU HURT MY FEELINGS finds its characters grappling with many of the same issues as those in 2001’s LOVELY & AMAZING, but with a couple more decades of personal growth informing how they let outside criticism inform their own self-worth. It’s a more mature, less prickly film, and whether that’s an asset or a liability is up for debate in our discussion of YOU HURT MY FE...

Indie writer-director Nicole Holofcener’s observational comedies eschew high-concept hooks in favor of burrowing deeply into a theme from many different angles. Her new YOU HURT MY FEELINGS spells out its intersecting thematic interests right there in the title — criticism, insecurity, and the need for validation — and reminded us of the multigenerational study in low self-esteem that is LOVELY &a...

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 director James Gunn has been open about the various reference points dotting his final entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but none are as extended or explicit as the one informing the film’s primary antagonist and his history with Bradley Cooper’s Rocket, which draws directly from H.G. Wells’ deranged scientist Dr. Moreau and by extension 1932’s ISLAND OF LOST S...

James Gunn’s new closing entry in his GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY trilogy for Marvel revolves around a tragic backstory for Rocket-don’t-say-Racoon that draws from a history of creation-vs.-creator narratives that stretches back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But Gunn himself has cited the cruel experimentations of H.G. Wells’ Doctor Moreau, and specifically the 1932 film adaptation ISLAND OF LOST SO...

Kelly Fremon Craig’s winning new adaptation of Judy Blume’s ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET is as gentle and good-natured as the other film in this pairing, Todd Solondz’s WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, is acerbic and off-putting. But both films are frank in their own way about a stage of life that cinema often ignores, so after talking through MARGARET’s warm and welcoming 1970s vision of suburba...

Inspired by the new adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic coming-of-age novel ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET, we’re beginning this pairing by looking back at another rocky journey through adolescence in the New Jersey suburbs — though Dawn Wiener’s journey in Tom Solondz’s 1995 indie WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE is considerably rockier. Where MARGARET is gentle and warm, DOLLHOUSE is as prickly as...

The first few months of the year have a reputation — arguably an unfair one — as a dumping ground for films unlikely to draw blockbuster crowds or notice from awards-giving bodies. Here at The Next Picture Show, we don’t subscribe to the idea that no movies of value come out during these months, but we will acknowledge how rarely one of these films makes it onto our final Best of the Year lists. S...

Like Cameron Crowe’s JERRY MAGUIRE, Ben Affleck’s new AIR takes place in the world of sports but is more concerned with matters off the playing field. In the case of AIR, those matters ultimately come down to a triumph of capitalism and marketing, leaving us all a little confused about the film’s rooting interests, but nonetheless entertained by its confident showmanship. But is that enough for th...