Author: James Ruzicka

Man cannot live by popcorn alone (and God knows we’ve tried) so this episode sees us drinking deeply from the cup of culinary cinema. The Menu boasts a high concept story, a starry cast and a considerable body count, but is it a comedy or a horror movie? And how does it measure up against […]

Ah, the water: clear, blue, enveloping. And also cold and airless and deadly. Do we have any favourite films set on or under the water? You bet we do. From Moana’s beautiful vistas to Jaqueline Bisset’s effect on an impressionable eight year old, we look back at half a lifetime at sea in the cinema. […]

Avatar The Way of Water is dominating screens all over the world, closing in on two billion dollars at the box office as we record. But it’s not the first time James Cameron has been on a diving holiday – and we’re not talking about Titanic, either. 1989 sci-fi swimathon The Abyss was the superstar […]

We’ve been doing this podcast for a whole year now, and we’ve seen some astonishing and remarkable movies. We’ve seen some dreadful clunkers, too. So join us for our inaugural award ceremony, celebrating the best of the best in six categories, while not forgetting the awful films, which get an award all of their own.

There’s a whole channel of Christmas movies now, a whole channel! Why? This episode at the popcorn counter we ask how come there seems to be such a wealth of Christmas movies, but not nearly so many Easter movies or Thanksgiving movies or Harvest Festival movies. And seeing as there is such a glut, we […]

It’s that time of year again, when Christmas movies come to our screens thick and fast. But do either of those adjectives describe the new Amazon original, UK-based, rom-com feature Your Christmas or Mine? And how does it compare to the eternal yuletide classic It’s a Wonderful Life? We examine both films in depth, including […]

We’ve got it bad, got it bad, got it bad at the popcorn counter this episode. Teachers appear in so many films, but how often do they get it right? What does Matthew Broderick do to convince us he knows what real teaching is like? And has anyone in the US ever heard of Grange […]

We’re travelling through time this episode, back to the podcast we missed last summer, and back to school. Acclaimed Scottish 90s teenager doc My Old School has arrived on streaming platforms, meaning we can at last watch it and draw parallels with Ken Loach’s 1969 classic Kes. Two films about struggling youths, one doing everything […]

Haven’t we been here before? We bump into screenwriter Inês Braga at the popcorn counter this episode, where we talk about that rarest of beasts, the sequel that’s not equal: second films that are better than the first film. Yes, they exist! We nominate some of our favourites, mention a few sequels that went totally […]

Screenwriter Inês Braga is our guest on the show this week, and she schools us on our Portuguese pronunciation as we compare the monolithic new MCU picture Wakanda Forever with 1984’s Brazilian take on very similar themes, Quilombo. We find epic battles, extravagant costumes, warehouses rammed with gear, and awkward diving suits full of melons. […]