Author: James Ruzicka

It’s not an episode for those with claustrophobia this week, as we get stuck in the elevator on the way to the Popcorn Counter for the second time. At least we have our microphones, so we take the opportunity to practice our best elevator pitches. With Joker: Folie à Deux fresh in our minds, are […]

When Joker made nearly $1.1bn at the box office, a sequel was more or less assured. But who expected a musical? Join us this week as watch Joaquim Phoenix and Lady Gaga in Joker: Folie à Deux and ask: is it possible to turn a comic book movie into anything? What does the film say about […]

Join us at the Popcorn Counter this episode, where we ask: where now for the film industry? You, like us, may have read recently about the current contraction of Hollywood and the collapse of streaming. Is cinema’s obituary mere alarmism or an uncomfortable truth? What will happen to the small and mid sized movies? Where […]

We’re not entirely sure which of us is which this episode, as we stagger out of the new queasy feminist body-swap horror epic The Substance, and into John Woo’s classic body-swap action adventure Face/Off. These two have plenty in common, with actors chewing the scenery and flesh and blood everywhere. But which film is the […]

Everyone loves a ghost story … but gather around in the darkest, quietest corner of the popcorn counter this episode as we tell you a strange and chilling story about how EVERY film is really a ghost story. Well, kind of. We try our theory out on not just The Sixth Sense and Ghost, but […]

Everyone loves a ghost story … but gather around in the darkest, quietest corner of the popcorn counter this episode as we tell you a strange and chilling story about how EVERY film is really a ghost story. Well, kind of. We try our theory out on not just The Sixth Sense and Ghost, but […]

This episode we’re descending into hell and watching Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, confirming that ‘belated sequels to hits from the 80s’ looks like it’s going to be a thing… Most of the cast is back, as are a number of the same gags. But instead of comparing it to the 1988 original movie, Beetlejuice, we’ve spread our […]

You may think you’ve heard some nerdy podcasts in the past, but we’re going to ask you to buckle up your space suits and accelerate away from the Earth with us into the nerdiest possible sector of the whole galaxy this episode. We’ve seen a few films set in the deepest reaches of space recently […]

It’s all scary monsters and super creeps at the Popcorn Counter this episode. Join us as we shelter from a storm and count down our 13 favourite scary movies. (Please note, however, that ‘scary’ doesn’t always mean ‘good’.) Including a French film we wish we’d never seen, a Richard Burton film we probably didn’t see, […]

If there’s one thing we know about the xenomorphs in the Alien films, it’s that they’re very, very good at reproducing themselves…  Join us this episode as we watch the new sci-fi horror picture Alien: Romulus and its 1979 sci-fi horror granddaddy, Alien, and ask ourselves: is it possible we might have watched the same […]