By Matt Neglia 

For Episode 149, Michael Schwartz, DeAnn Knighton, Casey Lee Clark & myself are joined for the first time ever by two of Next Best Picture's newest contributors: Bianca Garner & Lauren LaMagna. Together, we all recap our Top 10 films of 2019 so far as we enter into the second  half of the year. We also go over the polls and discuss the trailers for "Queen & Slim" and "The Good Liar."

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Matt Neglia 

For this week's main podcast review, Nicole Ackman, Josh Parham, Danilo Castro and myself discuss the latest film from director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Richard Curtis titled "Yesterday." Starring newcomer Himesh Patel, Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Kate McKinnon and packed with surprises, the film is a love letter to life, love and the music of The Beatles. Does this crowd pleasing film live up to the hype? We give our wide range of opinions in this week's review which you can listen to down below. 

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Casey Lee Clark 

​​As the first half of 2019 is winding down, there appears to be plenty of discussion on what some of the best films and performances of the year have been so far; what performances make people’s personal line-ups, what has actual Oscar chances, etc. While some have described this as a weak year so far, I have noticed an overwhelming amount of acclaimed lead female performances, and by extension great female-led films. More often than not and across all genres, 2019 has churned out a plethora of fantastic and critically lauded films with strong female lead performances.

By Matt Neglia 

For this year's Oscar off-season, we are taking a look back on the 2015 film year which was right before Next Best Picture launched. We asked the NBP Film Community to vote on 5 films nominated for Best Picture and 5 films nominated for Oscars other than Best Picture from that year to be reviewed on the podcast, exclusively for our Patreon subscribers. We already reviewed "Brooklyn," "Sicario," "Ex Machina," "Room," "Spotlight," and now, we are reviewing the Best Animated Feature winner of 2015: "Inside Out."

One of Pixar's most brilliant, creative and thoughtful ideas for a movie, if not ever, "Inside Out" stunned critics and audiences in 2015 with its imaginative production design, meta concept, excellent voice acting and more! How has it held up in the year's since its release and how does it stack up against other Pixar movies which have come out before and after? We go into all of this and more as our trip through 2015 continues. Joining me for this 2015 retrospective review I have Josh Parham, Daniel Bayer, Casey Lee Clark, Tom O'Brien and Patreon supporter Ryan Fecskovics.
​
This is a preview of the podcast, the full version of which is only available to those who subscribe to us on Patreon. For the small price of $1 a month, you can receive this review along with other exclusive podcast content, so be sure to subscribe here.
​
Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. ​​

​By Danilo Castro 

​When it comes to popular culture, there’s the Beatles and then there’s everyone else. To merely call them influential would be to downplay the ways in which they’ve shaped our current world. Their innovative approach to songwriting and recording changed the way we listen to music, while their dry wit and willingness to challenge social norms ushered in the era of the postmodern celebrity.

It doesn’t stop there. In between their droll press conferences and chart-topping singles, the Beatles also found time to innovate on film. They starred in five releases between 1964 and 1970, and with each, they managed to break down cinematic barriers, create entire subgenres, and co-opt techniques that would later become industry standard. Danny Boyle’s new film “Yesterday” shows us a world where the Beatles’ music never existed; but as the group’s resume proves, a world without their film work would be just as bleak. ​

By Matt Neglia 

Our second podcast review for this week is the remake/reboot of the 1988 horror film "Child's Play" starring everyone's favorite killer doll: Chucky (this time voiced by the legendary Mark Hamill). With a cast that includes Aubrey Plaza and Brian Tyree Henry and an updated plot premise to fit a 2019 landscape, what did the Next Best Picture team ultimately think? Tune in below to hear thoughts from ​Josh Parham, Dan Bayer, myself and our special guest: now writing for Jumpcut Online & Awards Circuit, the returning Jessica Peña.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Dan Bayer 
​
There was a moment, back in the mid-90s, where it seemed like gay cinema was going places. After years of LGBTQ stories being relegated to independent and foreign films that only played art houses, there seemed to be a turning point. In 1995, “To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar” was the number one film in the country for two weeks, earning the equivalent of $61 million in today’s dollars. Then the very next year, Mike Nichols’ “The Birdcage” was the number one film in the country for three weeks, eventually earning the equivalent of $202.5 million in today’s dollars. And then the very next year, the Kevin Kline-starrer “In & Out” also opened at the top of the box office charts and earned the equivalent of $101.9 million in today’s dollars. Just to put those numbers in further context, “The Birdcage” would have been last year’s 15th highest-grossing film, placing above hits like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “A Quiet Place,” “Halloween” and “Mary Poppins Returns.” “In & Out” would have been the 32nd highest grossing film of last year, and “To Wong Foo…” would have been the 47th highest. The point being: These films made money.

By Daniel Howat

We’re pretty much halfway through 2019, and we’ve seen plenty of great films so far. In four out of the last five years, we saw a major Oscar contender release in the first half of the year. Have we seen any Best Picture nominees yet? Let’s dive into the potential contenders of 2019 so far.

​By Cody Dericks 

​We all know that Netflix is not the place to go if you're looking for older movies. They seem to have an aversion to any film from before 1985. So imagine my surprise when I saw that just a few weeks ago they added "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" to their rotation! Mike Nichols's masterpiece was made all the way back in 1966, so I never expected to see it on a streaming platform that seems to be more interested in functioning as a "Friends" re-run machine than as a way to expand peoples' film knowledge (and I say this as a fan of "Friends"). While it's available for however long it is on Netflix, I thought this might be a good time to do a little overview of this film's importance and impact on the film industry.

By Matt Neglia 

For Episode 148, Michael Schwartz, DeAnn Knighton, Cody Dericks, Casey Lee Clark, Tom O'Brien & myself talk about the Oscar contenders from the first half of 2019, the trailer for "The Peanut Butter Falcon," the polls, recent film news and more!

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Matt Neglia 

Our main podcast review for this week is the sequel we didn't ask for and we thought we didn't need but now that it is here, we all realize just how wrong we all were and how we should once again, trust that Pixar knows what they are doing. "Toy Story 4" took a big risk in potentially tarnishing a universally beloved trilogy of films but Pixar has delivered once again, bringing about our favorite characters, introducing new ones and telling a story that needed to be told, closing out the story of Woody and the gang of toys once and for all(?). Tune in below as DeAnn Knighton, Josh Parham, and myself give you our full review plus a bonus spoiler section towards the end.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Tom O'Brien 

The biggest story in the past few weeks among Hollywood industry watchers has been the soft summer returns at the box office (though that's about to change with another Disney release this weekend), a complaint that seems to come up in some form year after year. What is different about this summer, however, is that the major disappointments so far have been with sequels to previous hits, usually the most reliable tentpoles on which a studio can rely. Week after week this summer, sequels to such box office winners as "Godzilla," "X-Men," "The Secret Life of Pets" and just last week, "Men in Black" and "Shaft," each of which opened at least 50% lower than their predecessors. The only spectacular exception is "John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum" which has already grossed more than the previous "John Wick" films combined.

Yet, underneath the headlines of "sequelitis" lies an equally disturbing box office story, one that may have far more disturbing ramifications as to what kind of films get green-lit in the future. Comedies made for adults, a summertime staple often used as successful counter-programming for grown-ups who have little interest in seeing a prehistoric monster stomp around Boston, are suffering the same box-office fate as the blockbuster sequels: far fewer people are going to see them.

By Matt Neglia 

Jessie Buckley is a 29 year old actress from Ireland who made her on-screen debut in Michael Pearce's film "Beast" in 2017. She was last seen by most viewers in HBO's "Chernobyl" in a supporting role but now with "Wild Rose," she gets the chance to show everyone the range of her talent playing an ex-convict who is struggling to balance raising her two children and pursuing her dreams as a country music star. Jessie was kind enough to chat with Next Best Picture about her promising career thus far, what it was like working on "Wild Rose," her upcoming projects and more! Take a listen down below.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Michael Schwartz 

We've taken a look at Best Comedy Series and Best Limited Series. Now, it's time to take a look at the shows which will be competing this year at the Emmys for a nomination in Best Drama Series.

Before "Game of Thrones" even returned to HBO to air its final season, the blockbuster series already had another Emmy win for Drama Series locked down and ready to go....or it seemed. While the final season was met with a divisive reaction, we still think it holds the top place at the moment based on the hype alone. However, with its momentum fading and the uncertainty surrounding whether the complaints from the fandom reached the ears of the Academy, we are starting to wonder if there is another show out there that can beat the HBO goliath.

​Let’s dive into the eight non-"Game of Thrones" series that will be competing for a nomination slot.​

By Matt Neglia 

Our second podcast review for this week is the A24 critically acclaimed drama "The Last Black Man In San Francisco" which won two awards at this year's Sundance Film Festival for Best Directing and a Special Jury Prize for Creative Collaboration. Starring newcomer Jimmie Fails, along with Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover, Rob Morgan and more, the film introduces us to a new and distinct voice from filmmaker Joe Talbot. But what did the Next Best Picture team ultimately think? Tune in below as Josh Parham, Cody Dericks and myself break it all down for you.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Matt Neglia 

The NBP Community is a strong one that we are very proud to have seen grown over the years. We love and appreciate your voice so much that we thought it would be a fun idea to go back in time before the creation of the site in 2016 and provide you with some retrospective podcast reviews, culminating in fan voted NBP Film Community Awards for 2015.

That time is now, for below we have the official 2015 nomination ballot, completely blank and waiting to be filled out with movies, performances and techs from a stellar year of film. Ballots must be submitted before July 1st so please don't hesitate to let us know what were your own personal lineups for 2015.

Click below to fill out your form and help create the nominations for the 2015 NBP Film Community Awards.

By Matt Neglia 

For Episode 147, ​Josh Parham, Dan Bayer & myself talk about the recent financial disappointments of the 2019 summer blockbuster season and what does it all mean, our favorite movie dads of 2019 so far for Father's Day, the trailer for "Doctor Sleep," the polls and we answer your submitted questions! 

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Matt Neglia 

For this week's main podcast review, Kt Schaefer and I discuss the reboot to the "Men In Black" franchise with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson re-teaming from "Thor: Ragnarok" for "Men In Black: International." With a new cast and setting, does the "Men In Black" formula still work for a 2019 audience? Listen down below to find out.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

​By Ryan C. Showers ​​

​Despite my intense studying, following, and analyzing the Emmy awards for the past six years, I have never held the limited series/TV movie categories to the same standard which I do the Drama and Comedy races. When I really began to become invested in the Emmys to a similar degree as my investment in the Oscars and film awards, many called it the “golden age” of television, when “Mad Men,” “Game of Thrones,” “Homeland,” “The Good Wife,” “House of Cards,” “Downton Abbey,” and “Breaking Bad” were all fighting for the golden trophies from the Television Academy at full throttle. Heck, during this time, when Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson’s first season of “True Detective” set the world on fire, HBO made the strategic decision of entering the seven-episode narrative in the Drama series categories, rather than Limited/Miniseries. “True Detective” would have had a guaranteed sweep of every category that year had it proceeded as limited series, instead of only winning the directing achievement in the drama series category. Due to this decision, McConaughey lost to Bryan Cranston in a stunning upset. In my view, HBO made this decision because they didn’t want their prized possession winning the second fiddle, small potatoes, less prestigious categories at the Emmys.

My, how times have changed.

By Matt Neglia 

For this year's Oscar off-season, we are taking a look back on the 2015 film year which was right before Next Best Picture launched. We asked the NBP Film Community to vote on 5 films nominated for Best Picture and 5 films nominated for Oscars other than Best Picture from that year to be reviewed on the podcast, exclusively for our Patreon subscribers. We already reviewed "Brooklyn," "Sicario," "Ex Machina," "Room," and now, we are reviewing the Best Picture winner of 2015: "Spotlight."

We have now come to the point in our 2015 retrospective review series where we are talking about the Best Picture winner "Spotlight," which also went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. With a celebrated ensemble cast which includes Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and more, "Spotlight" follows the Boston Globe's investigative reporter division as they uncovered the Catholic Church priest sex scandal of the early 2000s. Joining me for this 2015 retrospective review I have Josh Parham, Daniel Bayer, and Patreon supporters Jeffrey Kare and Charles Bright.
​
This is a preview of the podcast, the full version of which is only available to those who subscribe to us on Patreon. For the small price of $1 a month, you can receive this review along with other exclusive podcast content, so be sure to subscribe here.
​
Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. ​​

By Matt Neglia 

Our second podcast review for this week is the Sundance hit comedy "Late Night" starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling which she also wrote the screenplay for. Set in the frantic and wild world of late night talk tv, this female led comedy tackles many issues about the workplace, the current state of television, gender politics and more! Here to help me break it all down is Tom O'Brien and guest Rosa Parra from rosasreviews.net.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Michael Schwartz 

The 2019 Tony Awards are in the books now and the big winner was "Hadestown" taking 8 awards including Best Musical. But what did we think of the show? The other winners? Host James Corden? Here to break down the show, the presentation, the musical numbers, the winners, the speeches and everything in-between from Sunday's celebration of theatre arts I have Nicole Ackman, Dan Bayer, Cody Dericks and Casey Lee Clark. Just like with our previous two episodes, there is no Patreon exclusive for this recording but we will be returning to shortened preview episodes after this one in the off-season, so if you like what you are hearing from us and want to hear more, be sure to subscribe on our Patreon for more Next Best Theatre content over the coming months.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Theatre Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Nicole Ackman 

​​The Tonys sometimes feel like the purest of the televised award shows. They’re a celebration of the Broadway community and everyone seems legitimately thrilled to be attending. Their most important feature is that they provide a glimpse into a very hard-to-access art form by showing off the Broadway season’s offerings to people across the country who might not be able to afford a trip to New York and the steep and ever-rising Broadway ticket prices. 

This year’s Tony Awards certainly exuded that warm and friendly feel that the Tonys are known and loved for. James Corden returned to host and delivered some very funny sketches while never making the award show feel like an extension of “The Late Late Show” (not a carpool karaoke session in sight!). His genuine love for Broadway was very clear and he managed to walk that tricky line of being a presence without making the show seem all about him. ​

​By Edward Douglas 

While everyone else is busy writing about whatever movie is being released into thousands of theaters across the nation this weekend, one of Canada’s national treasures, Denys Arcand, has released his first movie in many years. It’s called “The Fall of the American Empire,” and if that name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because in 1985, he made a movie called “The Decline of the American Empire.” “Fall” isn’t a sequel to that movie, as that was the 2004 Oscar-nominated film “The Barbarian Invasions.”

Arcand’s latest film stars Alexandre Landry as Pierre-Paul, a philosophy student working as a courier to make ends meet, who comes upon a robbery gone wrong and suddenly finds himself with two bags full of unmarked cash. The only thing is that others are looking for that money from the person responsible for laundering it to the corrupt police who take a cut of any found cash. 

As might any young single guy, Pierre-Paul decides to use some of the money to hire a classy escort, but when “Aspasie” (Maripier Morin) finds out about the money, instead of robbing Pierre-Paul, she decides to help him, as does an accountant just out of prison for laundering (Arcand regular Rémy Girard).  Things seem to be looking up for Pierre-Paul, although he still has to figure out how he can benefit from his windfall without getting himself killed.

By Matt Neglia 

For Episode 146, ​Michael Schwartz, Nicole Ackman, Dan Bayer, Cody Dericks, Casey Lee Clark & myself go over our first Oscar Predictions of 2019, plus we discuss the trailers for "Ad Astra," "Ford v Ferrari," "Luce" and more!

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.