If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now.

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With people flying home for the holidays, now would be a really terrible time for ne'er-do-wells to smuggle a mysterious and dangerous package onto a plane by threatening a hapless TSA agent.

Taron Egerton stars in this Jaume Collet-Sera film with Jason Bateman playing the unnamed man threatening him.

But it all takes place on Christmas Eve, so it's technically a Christmas movie and inside the purview here on Bah Humbug, so your host Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara) has invited film experts Chris Hewitt (@ChrisHewitt) and Amon Warmann (@AmonWarmann) along to assess airport security and how best to handle Christmas terrorism...

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now!

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a movie based on the old joke, about a dyslexic who sold his soul to Santa. This time, however, it's a kid (Robert Timothy Smith) who writes his letter to Santa with a crucial piece of misspelling, so that the devilish Jack Black turns up that night offering him three wishes in return for his soul.

But is it worth eternal damnation to watch this one? Well, to find out, your host Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara) sits down with author and comedian Marc Burrows (@20thCenturyMarc) to talk demons, wishes and what exactly this film could have done better. 

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK .

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An unconventional and fresh-feeling Christmas movie, Tyler Taormina's Christmas Eve In Miller's Point recreates a family get-together in a small town in the early '00s with painstaking attention to detail and more than a little comedy.

To get the lowdown on this atmospheric tale, your host Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara) talked to writer-director Tyler Taormina and guest Laura Venning (@LauraVenning) about what it takes to make a real family Christmas. Christmas Eve In Miller's Point is on digital platforms now, and will play in Picturehouse Cinemas this Christmas Eve...

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK .

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This British Christmas animation is based on a series of books by Richard "Love Actually" Curtis, so you know it's going to be quirky and Christmassy and British, and stars a comedy who's-who of talent, including our guest this time, Rhys Darby! But did our panel love it?

To find out, your host, Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara) talks to Charlotte Harrison (@sometimesmovies) and Tom Beasley (@TomJBeasley) to find out if it's THAT good or THAT bad before talking to Rhys himself.

That Christmas is was in cinemas on November 29, and will now be on Netflix.

Your host, Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara) sits down with stand-up comic and former MC of Magic Mike Live, David Morgan (@ThisIsDavid) to talk about the difference between chiselled and too chiselled, and what exactly is going on in these small towns...

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK .

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Think Christmas, think perfect chiselled abs. At least, that appears to be the message from Netflix's Hot Frosty and The Merry Gentlemen.

The former sees Schitt's Creek's Dustin Milligan play a snowman come to life to fall in love with Lacey Chabert's cafe owner. The Merry Gentlemen, meanwhile, sees Britt Robertson's dancer turn Chad Michael Murray and friends into a topless dance revue to save her parents bar.

Your host, Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara) sits down with stand-up comic and former MC of Magic Mike Live, David Morgan (@ThisIsDavid) to talk about the difference between chiselled and too chiselled, and what exactly is going on in these small towns...

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK .

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the biggest Christmas film in years, with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Chris Evans leading a starry cast and a massive budget. But is Red One actually any good? This year's first Bah Humbug episode, with Amanda Keats (@filmvsbook) and Kelechi Ehenulo (@specialKWrites), join your host, Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara), to dissect a wannabe Christmas classic, that puts the four quadrant into for he's a jolly good fellow. Or something.

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK .

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's not often that you see a Christmas film with Oscar buzz, nor one that the studio for some reason decide to release in the second half of January. Yet here we are, with the excellent cast and crew of The Holdovers. The reunion of Sideways' director and Star, Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti respectively, sees them tackle the story of a depressed teacher left looking after outcast students at a boy's boarding school over the holidays, which is no-one's idea of fun. Joining your host, Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara) to talk about it is Radio One film critic and host of Radio One’s “Screen Time” Ali Plumb (@AliPlumb), here to dissect perhaps the best Christmas movie of the decade...

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK and comes out on 16th December in the USA and Canada.

Helen O'Hara is also on the Empire podcast every week and hosts the Podcast "His Darker Materials" to coincide with the BBC/HBO TV drama "His Dark Materials".

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SHOW BLURB

Welcome to Pop Culture, the podcast that puts soft drinks at the top of the menu. Helen O'Hara and Kat Brown are arts journalists who don’t drink: Helen's a life-long teetotaller, and Kat is four years sober. Join us as we explore the culture lifting soft drinks out of the dark ages, hear from guests about their favourite non-booze options, and meet the people making things delicious. If you’re fed up of being given elderflower cordial at weddings, this is the pod for you. Send us your non-booze drinks obsessions (and good/bad/tedious soft drink menus) to [email protected] and see what we've been drinking lately on Instagram @popculturedrinkspodcast.

EPISODE BLURB

What's it like growing up teetotal in Northern Ireland? Or studying (and working) in England with booze everywhere you go? In our second bonus episode before the series launches on New Year's Day, Helen tells Kat about her background with not drinking alcohol, having your drink spiked "for a laugh", secrets to getting through boozy celebrations without being told you're boring, and how her attitude to soft drinks is expanding beyond water as the options improve.

Navigating university and media careers amid social pressure. 4:00

Drink preferences and options for non-sugar and non-caffeine drinkers. 8:31

Restaurants and bars not having soft drinks menus 12:45

A listener writes in about verdita 18:14

Episode transcript

If you’ve got a favourite drink you’d like to share with us or any other non-booze-related gossip, then email us at [email protected], and you can see what and where we've been drinking lately on Instagram @popculturedrinkspodcast.

Pop Culture is on Bookshop.org! Read books by us, our guests, and others we like, while helping to support the show at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/pop-culture-soft-drinks-podcast

Artwork: Ilutaka

Music: HoliznaCC0

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK and comes out on 16th December in the USA and Canada.

Helen O'Hara is also on the Empire podcast every week and hosts the Podcast "His Darker Materials" to coincide with the BBC/HBO TV drama "His Dark Materials".

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folklore: not just a Taylor Swift album. In this Norway-set horror / comedy, an enraged barn elf just ruins a family Christmas in revenge for being fed fish instead of cookies. It may be a relatable beef, but it's taken to extremes in a sort of Gremlins-esque romp through Norwegian folklore. Director Magnus Martens joins us to talk about the levels of horror and humour involved, and then your host, Helen O'Hara (@HelenLOHara) is joined by film journalist Tom Beasley (@TomJBeasley) to discuss the best way to survive a Scandinavian Christmas...

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK and comes out on 16th December in the USA and Canada.

Helen O'Hara is also on the Empire podcast every week and hosts the Podcast "His Darker Materials" to coincide with the BBC/HBO TV drama "His Dark Materials".

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices