Author: James Ruzicka

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. […]

So about half of all films are based on pre-existing works, be they books, plays, magazine articles or toy cars that turn into robots. But how have we approached the task of turning some other thing into a movie script? What films do we think did it well? And what does Aphex Twin have to […]

We take two trips to Hell at the Two Reel Cinema Club this episode, and emerge bloody, traumatised, and hungry for croissants. Netflix’s current release is the third time All Quiet on the Western Front has been adapted into a film, and this time it’s a good one, reversing the recent trend of disappointing original […]

Big hair! Shoulder pads! Day-go jumpsuits! But enough about us, what about the cinema of the 1980s? After watching David Bowie’s 80s incarnation recently, we trawl through the 80s’ biggest movies with a quiz, and then search for common motifs. We visit Project Fear, look at solving problems with guns, and have a strange Leonard […]

We have some pretty well developed theories on how characters have got their names in films, based partly on our own experience, and partly on wild and unsubstantiated conjecture. Find out the ‘truth’ about R2D2 and Obi Wan, plus a brief meditation on how your name determines what career you’ll follow in medical school…

There’s a Starman waiting in the sky this episode, as we watch the new David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream, and then leave the planet for an orbital rendezvous with the original Ziggy Stardust, 1976’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. There’s no shortage of entertainment, with ‘milk-sex’, an electrifying performance of Heroes and a waltz […]