This episode we discover the playful (yet terrifically black) comedy The Death of Stalin from director Armando Iannucci. 

This is a fantastic piece of political satire that challenges the safe revisionism of historical dramas onscreen through the choice to have the actors use their actual accents. 

We also talk about the Marimekko exhibition currently on at Bendigo Art Gallery and Altered Carbon on Netflix.  

Also - let us know for an upcoming episode what films personally disappointed you. Email hopfriday@gmail.com, or drop us a line on social. 

And we're back - Hopscotch is now a fortnightly podcast, giving us more time to do this whole 'life' business we've heard so much about.

This episode we talk Ladybird and Black Panther. 

Emmet attempts to link the two by arguing that Ladybird, directed by Great Gerwig, occupies the position of 'sensitive young person comes of age' vacated by male film-makers - who are now applying that model to superhero films. 

But is the quickly becoming familiar Marvel model holding back film concepts like the rich world of Wakanda in Black Panther? We discuss. 

A series of mortals travel to a land of Faerie - and things go bad. 

This is the substance of Jason Franks's novel, a wickedly inventive take on fantasy fiction, or "C.S. Lewis with curse words" as Emmet puts it. 

And if you are in Melbourne on Thursday 15 February at 6.30, come along to the launch at Readings Hawthorn, 701 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122 to meet the author (and you can check out the book itself here). 

Margot Robbie and Allison Janney are receiving Oscar attention for their daughter/mother roles in I, Tonya. 

But does Craig Gillespie's film play too loose with facts, or is the approach he takes an astute method of confronting audiences too willing to look the other way to stories of domestic abuse? 

Also - from next week Hopscotch is going fortnightly. 

Neevon Mohtaji joins the show to discuss The Post, starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks as owner Kay Graham and editor Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post during its transformation into the paper of record.

Is this another Oscar contender for Spielberg given its themes of the importance of the Fourth Estate - or a formulaic 'prestige picture'?

Emmet and Neevon discuss. 

Driven to his sickbed by a nasty bug, Emmet decided the only thing for it was to read Michael Wolff's surprisingly slim cause de célèbre Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. 

Then we talk Guillermo del Toro's aquatic romance The Shape of Water starring Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon and Octavia Spencer, with Doug Jones as the underwater lover. 

Finally the gig that Godspeed You! Black Emperor just hosted in Launceston for MOFO, in partnership with dance troupe The Holy Body Tattoo - which simply had to be seen to be believed (we try to talk about it anyway). 

It was very loud. 

Next week Neevon returns to discuss Spielberg's The Post. 

Is pop culture something we're passionate about - or something we're told to be passionate about? 

That's the question we're asking ourselves with this episode, which turns into a recommitment to what Hopscotch Friday was meant to be from the beginning, a show about the things we love. 

This week we talk the backlash against critics, toxic fandom and the PR media cycle, as well as:

• Bright
• The Babysitter
• Black Mirror - USS Callister
• The Phantom Unmasked by Kevin Patrick
• Just to be Sure (dir Carin Tardieu)
• Shadow of Mordor Youtube scandal