Popcorn Culture

Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf, Lucille Ball, and a Parisian showgirl. Christian Bale as a haunted machinist and a balding boxing trainer recovering from addiction. Andy Serkis as Gollum and Caesar. There has been a whole buffet of amazing on-screen transformations, aided by prosthetics, special effects, and sheer force of will. In this episode of Supercut, we discuss some of our favourites, and...

I Love Lucy was a game-changer for modern television and the syndicated sitcom, and also made its stars and creators Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, abidingly beloved and famous. Being the Ricardos takes a (mostly true) peek into a particularly stressful week during the show's production, in which jobs, marriages, and friendships were all tested. Directed and written by Aaron Sorkin, and featuring Ni...

A coming-of-age comedy drama, CODA focuses on Ruby (the eponymous child of deaf adults) - the only hearing member of a culturally Deaf family, and the push and pull between her desire to help her family with their business, and forge her own path. With a cast including deaf actors playing deaf characters (Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant) and a focus on inclusivity, CODA has been getti...

From the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Universal's Monsters to The Witcher saga, everything seems to be part of a pop culture universe these days. And sometimes, we just want to watch a movie that stands on its own - with no prequel, reboot, or video game in sight! For this week's Supercut, we look at the pleasures and pains of having too much of a good thing versus being left wanting more. See omn...

Based on the wildly popular video game of the same name, Uncharted sees Tom Holland (sans Spidey costume!) playing Nathan Drake, an intrepid treasure hunter on a dangerous quest along with his mentor Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg). Along the way, there's action and adventures galore, and a long-lost brother to locate. We review the film and talk about whether it brings anything new to the...

Serena and Venus Williams are sports legends - this biopic looks at how their father Richard made and executed a brazen plan to earn his daughters a place in history. The film has garnered numerous Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Will Smith, and Best Supporting Actress for Aunjanue Ellis. We review the movie and discuss whether it's a grand slam. See omnystudio.com/listen...

Mamma Mia. Roman Holiday. The English Patient. Who doesn't love an exotic escapade in search of drama, adventure, and maybe a bit of romance? Now more than ever, movies are able to transport us to far-off lands and scenic locales to give us that perfect dose of escapism. But while exotic locations are fun, good movies set themselves apart by turning those locations into living, breathing character...

After two years of delays due to Covid, controversy and then some, Hercule Poirot is back in 'Death On The Nile' to solve a murder mystery aboard a river steamer. Played to campy perfection by Kenneth Branagh, Poirot must sift through an ensemble of characters (including Gal Gadot as Linnet) in order to find the culprit! In this review, we discuss if this expensive mystery was worth the wait, our...

Zombies, mayhem, and teenage melodrama! When a school becomes ground zero for a zombie outbreak, a group of students must find a way to escape... after they learn how to coexist. In this episode, we review Netflix's latest extremely gory hit series, All Of Us Are Dead, and discuss if the streaming giant has bitten off more than it can chew. With so much zombie content in the last decade, does All...

There's just something about watching monuments and skyscrapers fall, and forests and cities burn.... at least on-screen, or at least so the box office would suggest. But what is actually so appealing when it comes to disaster movies? What makes them tick? In this episode of Supercut, we get into it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Very few directors can rival Roland Emmerich's catalogue when it comes to destroying the world in a series of increasingly inventive ways. Moonfall is his latest installment, involving not just the destruction of the Earth, but also our moon, setting the two on a collision course. We discuss whether this is a fun watch, and whether that 146 million dollar budget (one of the highest for an independ...

Duncan Jones's directorial debut, Moon, follows the personal crisis of a man nearing the end of a three year solitary stretch on the moon, accompanied only by a robot, GERTY. Starring Sam Rockwell as the man in question, this 2009 film had a modest budget but received critical acclaim - 13 years on, we revisit Moon and discuss how it's held up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Powerful. Boring. Thought-provoking. Slow. Confusing. When it comes to art house productions, sometimes all these words can be used to describe a single film. They may be an acquired taste, but many art house films allow actors and filmmakers to deliver some of their greatest work while telling bold, unorthodox stories. On the flipside, many moviegoers consider art house to be pretentious films th...

The Tragedy of Macbeth has all the makings of a film that's going to dominate at this year's Oscars. It's produced by A24 and is hosted by Apple TV+, the most prestigious of the streaming platforms. It's a black and white film shot in the unorthodox 1.37:1 aspect ratio, just to keep things classy. It's directed by Joel Coen and stars Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, three Hollywood heavywe...

Ironically, there are more than ten things to absolutely love about 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), a movie that many consider to be the most genre-defining romcom of its generation. From Julia Stiles and Joseph Gordon-Levitt delivering some of their most memorable performances, to Heath Ledger's iconic song-and-dance number, 10 Things continues to be one of the most rewatchable movies of all t...

A genre that is deeply specific in its intent, and requires precision in its execution, psychological thrillers have long been a popular genre - after all, we got the term 'gaslighting' from 1946's Gaslight by George Cukor. In this Supercut episode, we discuss what makes for a truly successful psychological thriller, and what it takes to pull it off. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informa...

The latest from Guillermo Del Toro, Nightmare Alley is a psychological thriller based on a William Lindsay Gresham book from 1946 - which is also the era it's set in. Circling a tale of grifters and cons, it also boasts a huge cast, including Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette and Willem Dafoe. We get into whether this film works for us, and got under our skin. See omnystudio.com/listen...

It’s tough to describe, but you know it when you see it: the movies that are slightly odd or awkward, the shows that lean into the weirdness, the stories that sit somewhere between laughter and seriousness. Whether it’s Wes Anderson and Tim Burton to Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry, off-kilter, quirky films sit in a funny category all of their own. We share our favourites, and discuss whether th...

This might be as Wes Anderson as it gets: an anthology of wry, comedic stories that are all structured as articles written and published in the final issue of the fictional newspaper, The French Dispatch. Featuring a huge ensemble cast of Anderson stalwarts, the movie is expectedly a visual treat. But how does it fare overall? We discuss. Image Source: Courtesy of 20th Century Studios See omnystud...

Directed by Ridley Scott, this epic film of historical fiction takes on a difficult and complex tale: in medieval France, a knight named Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), challenges his former friend Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) to a duel to the death after Jean's wife, Marguerite (Jodie Comer), accuses Jacques of raping her. We review the movie, and discuss the ways in which the story plays around...

It may not have been the best year for cinemas and studios worldwide, but that didn't stop us from watching, bingeing, and enjoying an irrational amount of content over the last twelve months. While not every show was a resounding success, many had us geeking over them to no end. From pop culture sensations like Squid Game to box office phenomenons like Spider-Man: No Way Home, here's a rundown of...

Director Adam McKay's ability to curate an unbelievably stacked cast for his movies is something else. His latest offering, Don't Look Up, brings together heavyweights Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, Timothée Chalamet, and Meryl Streep (among others!) in a story about a comet that's about to destroy planet Earth. In this episode, we talk about what we loved (or hated) about Don't...

You can call her iconic, legendary, or incomparable, but the truth is there isn't an apt enough word to describe the kind of career Betty White had in Hollywood. She may be best known for playing the beloved Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls, but Betty was also an author, animal rights advocate, and winner of seven Emmys, one of which was for hosting Saturday Night Live in 2010 at the age of 88! She...

Almost twenty years on from The Matrix Revolutions, we return to the world of Neo and Trinity and the Matrix, with all its attendant questions about reality, illusions and love. We discuss what it's like to watch this film so many years after the original trilogy launched, and how its themes and technology have aged over time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The brainchild of Issa Rae, for five seasons, Insecure has by turns been sparkling, funny, and smart, as well as deeply felt and (sometimes) deeply awkward. As we bid farewell to the show with Season Five, we talk not just about the season itself, but about the experience of watching the show, and why we'd recommend it. Image Source: Courtesy of Netflix + Netflix See omnystudio.com/listener for pr...