Author: James Ruzicka

For a film all about time loops, the new Indiana Jones picture Dial of Destiny sure seems interested in repeating the past. Harrison Ford returns for the fifth Indy movie, which is filled with daring chases, speeding trains, mysterious artefacts and troublesome Nazis. But how much does the film owe to its 1981 predecessor Raiders […]

If we got a dollar every time someone asked us where we get our ideas, we’d have eight dollars. Everyone seems to have a great idea for a movie, but what does the process of converting that idea into a hundred page script look like? This episode we talk at the popcorn counter about what […]

There’s a new Wes Anderson film out! Is it very different to the last Wes Anderson film? Good question… This episode we watch Asteroid City and compare it to Anderson’s sophomore picture Rushmore from 1998. The new film is certainly starrier, with the kind of cast that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars on […]

The 1970s is often called the last Golden Age of Hollywood, with big stars and auteur directors making challenging and experimental films aimed at an adult audience. Join us as we relax in the sticky, grimy foyer of our local repertory cinema for our longest Popcorn Counter yet, where we try to come up with […]

Some movies are ‘ripped from the headlines’ but new HBO feature Reality has been literally transcribed from the headlines, using the text of a publicly available FBI interview as its script, word for word. It’s a mesmerising tale about espionage, betrayal and the US intelligence services, and this episode we put it in a locked […]

Brevity is famously the soul of wit, but exactly how short can a film be to still get classified as ‘feature length’? We looked it up and the answer is probably shorter than you think (and more than four times shorter than Avatar: The Way of Water…) Join us at the Popcorn Counter this episode […]

It’s back to the first year of Junior High this episode, with two preteen dramas that both perform well in their midterms. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is a heart warming family story that’s witty, fresh, sweet and more moving than we expected, while 1995s Welcome to the Dollhouse is its antimatter equivalent, […]

French actor Adèle Haenel, best known for Portrait of a Woman on Fire, published an incredible letter about her retirement from the film industry a couple of weeks ago. This episode at the Popcorn Counter we read the letter and talk about some of the issues she raises. What are our responsibilities as writers and […]

We’re still trying to recover from the trauma of watching Beau Is Afraid for this episode. Ari Aster’s new Freudian ‘comedy’ horror movie feels like a three hour nightmare that left us begging to wake up. Happily, we’re comparing it to Tom Hanks’ 1994 Oscar winner Forrest Gump, which is just the right film to […]

Welcome to the ‘urban planning’ section of the podcast, as we meet at the popcorn counter this week and talk about why the inner city gets such a bad rep in cinema. Who is London’s most famous inner city resident? What does ‘NF’ stand for in the world of Shane Meadow’s ‘This is England’? And […]