Popcorn Culture

Fair warning: a tangled web of spoilers lies ahead! In this special Spideycast of Popcorn Culture, we review and geek out over every amazing plot twist and turn of Spider-Man: No Way Home. We discuss the Spider-Verse, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and what the future might hold for our friendly neighbourhood webslinger. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It might just be the most awaited Marvel release of the year, with months of teasers and rumours and leaked images heightening the buzz. With Spider-Man’s identity now revealed, Peter Parker finds his normal life in disarray, and his loved ones bearing the brunt of it. But when Peter turns to Doctor Strange for help, all hell breaks loose. We review the movie and talk about how it is a love letter...

After the bombshell finale of the previous season, our third outing with the Roys sees the family split into various scheming factions - and as machinations and manipulations heighten, so do the emotional stakes. And through it all, the lingering question of, does bulldozing patriarch Logan still have what it takes to run the family’s billion dollar empire? We review the latest season. See omnystu...

Cue finger-snapping. 1961's West Side Story is an iconic film by any standard, so it was always going to take a master filmmaker like Steven Spielberg to successfully remake the musical for a new audience. Set in 1950s New York, West Side Story is a tale of Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler), two kids who instantly fall in love at the school dance. However, their romance escalates the r...

On this episode, we review the new Western drama that's being hailed as a frontrunner for Best Picture at the Oscars, The Power of the Dog. If you've always wanted to see actor extraordinaire Benedict Cumberbatch chew scenery as a rude, domineering rancher in 1920s Montana, then The Power of the Dog is nothing short of a treat! Based on the 1967 novel of the same name by Thomas Savage, the film al...

32 years after the release and events of Ghostbusters II, Ghostbusters: Afterlife picks up the threads of the story far from the skyscrapers of New York - exploring instead how the estranged family of Egon Spengler reckon with the legacy of being a Ghostbuster... and of course, begin fighting supernatural forces. Starring Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, and Paul Rudd, the film is also d...

Disney's latest (and the 60th film from the studio!) tells a story of the Madrigal family, living in an enchanted house in the mountains of Columbia - and how Mirabel, the only child in the family who doesn't have magical powers, has to save the people, and the home she loves. Featuring the voices of Stephanie Beatriz and John Leguizamo, and songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Encanto has all the...

Seven actors, (nearly) six decades, 27 movies, and countless vodka martinis (shaken, not stirred) later, Bond still remains one of cinema’s most fascinating characters. As we come to the end of Daniel Craig’s iteration, and await the announcement of the next name, we celebrate the legacy of this complicated screen hero, and discuss how he’s evolved with the times. At the very lea...

After months of delays, it’s finally here: the last of the Daniel Craig James Bonds! And it seems like Bond is… retired? But then, there’s a kidnapped scientist! A mysterious villain! Really, do we even need the plot? Directed by Cary Fukunaga and co-starring Rami Malek, Lea Seydoux, and Lashana Lynch, this latest outing looks to be everything we’ve come to expect from Cra...

Often hailed not just one of Stanley Kubrick’s best films, but one of the greatest films of all time, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, satirises fears around the Cold War that swirled in the 1960s. Featuring a stellar turn by Peter Sellers in multiple roles, the 1964 movie is set during a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the US. We review the...

On this episode, we review Jai Bhim - a Tamil film that has been garnering stellar reviews and simultaneously stirring intense controversy thanks to its sociopolitical themes. Based on a landmark court case in 1995, Jai Bhim tells the story of a woman (Lijomol Jose) from the Irula tribe who desperately searches for her husband (K. Manikandan) who is missing from police custody. Chandru (Suriya), a...

Squid Game may be 2021's most popular show and a certified pop culture phenomenon, but would you believe that it wasn't unanimously celebrated in South Korea? As streaming services continue to capture the industry and as Hollywood makes an effort in terms of representation, we're seeing a lot of cultures represented on our screens. And while a lot of them work, many don't, and the rest are lost in...

Squid Game may be 2021's most popular show and a certified pop culture phenomenon, but would you believe that it wasn't unanimously celebrated in South Korea? As streaming services continue to capture the industry and as Hollywood makes an effort in terms of representation, we're seeing a lot of cultures represented on our screens. And while a lot of them work, many don't, and the rest are lost in...

On this week's episode, we check out Netflix's latest foray into big budget Western cinema with The Harder They Fall. After discovering that his enemy is coming out of prison, an outlaw by the name of Rufus Black (Idris Elba) gets the old gang back together to finally have his revenge. The film's stacked cast also includes Zazie Beetz, Regina King, Jonathan Majors, and LaKeith Stanfield. We discus...

There's a specific pleasure built into bad films - not all bad films, just the ones that push the boundaries so far that they almost circle all the way back to being good... perhaps even great? In this Supercut, we discuss the specific formula that's needed for a bad movie to transcend itself and become deeply enjoyable. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Take Tom Hardy's second outing as Eddie Brock and his extraterrestrial frenemy, Venom, and add bonus Woody Harrelson on-screen and Andy Serkis behind the camera and you get Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The first film didn't fare well with critics, though audiences enjoyed it - so we discuss whether this sequel is more successful than the original. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio...

Bringing together 3 major headliners, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, Red Notice is one of Netflix's biggest releases this year. Taking place in the world of heists, elite criminals, and stolen art, and marking the third collaboration between The Rock and director Rawson Marshall Thurber, it also promises to be a classic action comedy - so in this review, we talk about whet...

Sure, we all love the intensity and drama of a critically acclaimed film, but there’s nothing quite like a movie that is just simply… fun! Whether that involves gigantic kaiju battling robots, a wild spin in car with a headphones-sporting driver, or an animated princess who suddenly comes to life, we all love having a roaring good time at the movies. So this week, we celebrate the thi...

Marvel’s unveiling of Phase 4 has thus far been a wild ride, and The Eternals adds a whole new bunch of personalities to it - specifically, a race of immortal beings with superpowers, who have secretly lived on Earth for thousands of years. Oh, and they’re played by people like Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, and Kumail Nanjiani. To up the ante, the movie is di...

Is there a movie more emblematic of childhood friendships in the 1980s than The Goonies? A group of kids attempting to save their homes from developers discover an old map that takes them on an adventure to discover pirates’ treasure - but a family of criminals are after the treasure too! Featuring early appearances of some very well known faces - Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, and Corey Feldman a...

On this week's Throwback, we're revisiting one of the most influential comedic crime capers in Hollywood history, The Italian Job (1969). A British crook named Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) is fresh out of prison when he comes up with a plan to steal gold ingots by conjuring a traffic jam in the streets of Turin. Like all good heist films, the Mafia is also involved. We discuss the way this class...

With Halloween right around the corner, we're taking a walk down Fear Street, and dissecting all things horror! From horrifying monsters and ghouls, to fears that are based in things that are all too real, we discuss what makes for an effective horror movie or show, and what doesn't work. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Directly following on the ending of A Quiet Place, Part II follows the Abbott family in their continuing quest to survive a world that's been overrun by sightless aliens, who hunt based on sound. Emily Blunt, Milicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe reprise their roles, and this time are joined by Cilian Murphy, as a conflicted, mourning neighbour. We discuss whether or not this film lives up to the lean,...

An atmospheric, arthouse horror film, Roh tells the story of two children and their mother, living in a shack deep in the woods, visited by mysterious signs and figures. While it was released back in 2019, we never got the chance to review it - and when better than Halloween week? In this episode of Throwback, we take it back a mere two years to revisit this local gem and talk about whether it liv...

From Orson Welles to Steven Spielberg, Akira Kurosawa to Jordan Peele, Federico Fellini to Greta Gerwig, directors are very often the engine that drives movies. Many outshine onscreen stars, with particular styles and themes associated with them, and often go on to shape entire genres of filmmaking. In this Supercut, we look at the person behind the curtain, so to speak, and talk about our favouri...