Filmspotting

With the fall film festival season (mostly) in the rearview and release dates set through the end of the year, Adam and Josh hold a Fall Movie Preview Draft that sees them largely ignoring obvious picks like Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three in favor of battling over some of the most intriguing indies still to come. Plus, a review of Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning and Massacre Theatre. This episode is presented by⁠ Regal Unlimited⁠⁠, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Use code FILMSPOT26 to take 15% off. (Timecodes will not be precise with ads.) Intro (00:00:00-00:02:25) ‘26 Fall Preview Draft (00:02:26-0:25:19) Filmspotting Family (0:25:20-00:31:25) Preview Draft, cont. (00:31:26-1:02:41) The Social Reckoning (1:02:42-01:30:58) Massacre Theatre (01:30:59-01:36:46) Credits / New Releases (01:36:47-01:44:01) Notes: -Refocus Film Festival https://refocusfilmfestival.org/ Feedback: -Email us at feedback@filmspotting.net⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠-⁠Ask Us Anything⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠…

Primetime is a far-from-straightforward take on a true story, using the mid-aughts TV phenomenon To Catch a Predator and especially its host, Chris Hansen, for a darkly comic exploration of the morally murky place where ambition and justice overlap. It’s a tonal high wire act that gets a lot of mileage out of Lance Oppenheim’s expressively stylized direction and strong performances from Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, and Skyler Gisondo, but whether that all adds up to a satisfying film is up for debate this week. Then we bring 1957’s Sweet Smell of Success back in for Connections to discuss how it and Primetime both navigate protagonists who punch down from their moral high ground, and the bygone media environments that enable them, all while maintaining a sense of humor. Then, for anyone looking for a fuller picture of To Catch a Predator’s rise and fall, we offer a Your Next Picture Show for David Osit’s 2025 documentary Predators. Please share your thoughts about Sweet Smell of Success, Primetime, or…

Hasta la vista, baby.

Mike Flanagan’s limited series adaptation of the King classic.

Saving Hollywood (Again)

Iñárritu and Cruise’s ambitious new film.

Alexander Mackendrick’s blisteringly cynical 1957 film.

He'll be your wing man anytime.

Don’t have a baby in the Evil Dead cabin.

Teenage sex and death in the suburbs.

Way before Rudy, there was Speedy.

How many drivers does a buggy have?

Deals with the devil.

Avenge the fallen.

Zero Divided by Zero (Dark Thirty)

Truth in performance.

Kind of a big deal.

William Friedkin’s 1977 cult favorite.

Get off the train with me.

Pitch Perfect: Bollywood

God is in the details.

PV & FRANNY A girl with a glockenspiel. A boy with a guitar. A high school full of weirdos, mascots who may or may not be unhinged, and a mystery that isn’t what anyone thinks it is. A dead-serious love story… that refuses to behave like one. One flier turns into a band. One band turns into obsession. And before they ever play a real set, everything is already ridiculous. ACT TWO If Act One is about starting a band, Act Two is about what happens when everything immediately gets in the way. Franny does what any rational person would do. He writes a love song. Which would be fine… except for the rule. No romance. Ever. And PV means it. What follows is a series of perfectly logical decisions that somehow make everything worse. A love song that says too much. A date that shouldn’t exist. A plan to fix things that only complicates them further. Because if PV won’t date a bandmate, there’s only one solution: Make the competition part of the band. Which works. Until it doesn’t. As alliances shift, rules get…

It’s a strange world.

Alexander Ullom's It Ends is a daring little piece of microbudget drama about four friends at transition points in their lives, who find themselves in a place where life and death no longer hold any meaning. Whether it’s a film about despair, about the afterlife, about the human condition, or all of the above, is up for discussion this week, as well as how It Ends fits into this current moment in independent horror cinema. After that, we bring Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris back in for Connections to discuss these two films’ respective existential journeys, the baggage their characters are bringing with them, and how each movie uses its genre premise to explore a big central metaphor. Then for Your Next Picture Show, we take a quick look at how Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 version of Solaris compares to Tarkovsky’s. Please share your thoughts about Solaris, It Ends, 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)…

This is the girl.

Pop, lock, laughing stock.

Sex and danger.

Looney Tunes resurrected.

In space, no one can hear you philosophize.

Play the hits.

A Cold War comedy from the makers of "Game Night."

Burning down the house.

Alien or Blade Runner?

Like tears in rain.

The universal human desire to not get eaten.

Anthony Mackie and Ben Kingsley take a payday in the Saudi-set epic.

Every movie is saying something.

Location: Music Shop, Vienna.

Would you like to hear some music?

Litmus configuration.

Spielberg's 9/11 movie.

Sunny Sandler takes the lead.

How much is too much?

Gotta get back in time.

Avoiding the Walk Hard trap.

The dawn of the KStew-aissance.

When high concepts stop making sense.

The art of adaptation.

Favorite performances, scenes, films, and more, from the Dissident Cinema Marathon.

Jane Schoenbrun’s meta-slasher is the film of the year so far.