About the Blog

Beyond the Popcorn is a blog about film, both auteur/arthouse and mainstream.

I'm Huncrweo, the sole writer for this blog. You may know me from Letterboxd (where you'll be able to see my hot takes on all the films I watch) or from Twitter, where I often post about movies and other pop culture things. I started this blog for a couple of reasons. A) I just wanted to write about films and throw my hat into discussions in a way I can't really do on Letterboxd, and B) although I'd rather be a filmmaker (specifically a screenwriter) as a career, it'd be pretty great to be a film critic and so this website helps as a sort-of portfolio. I want to write a little bit about movies, once a week, every week, in the hope that one day I might be good at it.

Let's clear some things up:

My favourite film of all time is Jurassic Park (1993). It's whimsical, it's down-to-earth, it's scary, it's funny, it's thrilling. All of the character arcs are great, the twenty-six-year-old effects hold up better than most of the CGI from even last year, and Jeff Goldblum's in it. It's also intensely quotable. I reckon if you were to study every single thing I've said out loud from when I first saw the film until now, I've probably quoted 80% of the lines, just in my daily life. Here's the rest of my top ten:

2. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
3. Back to the Future (1985)
4. 12 Angry Men (1957)
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
6. Mulholland Drive (2001)
7. Rear Window (1954)
8. The Dark Knight (2008)
9. Schindler's List
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey

To counteract this, here are a few films I embarrassingly haven't seen.

Seven Samurai
Spirited Away
The Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
Goodfellas
There Will Be Blood
The Silence of the Lambs
The Shining
City Lights
M
Lawrence of Arabia
Singin' in the Rain
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Taxi Driver
Casablanca
Fight Club
Se7en
Citizen Kane

To name a few. Some of my favourite directors of all time include Hitchcock, Lynch, Coppola, and Spielberg. As for those still pumping out great films, I'm really appreciating the works of Cuarón, Fincher, Tarantino, Kaufman, Chazelle and Waititi.

Enjoy the blog!