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Get out your spreadsheets fellow film nerds, this episode is dedicated to you!

It will for once be decided if the answers are truly written in the stars, or if the good old 10/10 system is more than enough.

In our effort to discover the best rating systems and make sense of some of the universe's greatest questions we will also, of course, insult every fan of Rotten Tomatoes and At the Movies.

IMDb's 10/10 scale vs. Letterboxd's 5/5 scale will be examined, and hell, even good old Criticker will get a mention.

We will also discuss some of the rarer and dear systems, such as the classic Norwegian die role, and ask: just extreme can we be.

Don't be surprised, some of us have used the 100/100 scale, and there are still active promoters of 20/20.

Above all though, we will ask the key question: Are ratings actually a worthwhile form of communication?

In this episode we sit down with independent Japanese cinema producer and distributor Adam Torel, the Head of Third Window Films, to hear about his upcoming films, his work with Shinya Tsukamoto and Sion Sono, and what it takes to get people to watch independent cinema in Japan. The answer to the latter in particular may both shock and entice you.

Get your battle helmets on - we're doing this.

2001 vs. Solaris.

Kubrick vs. Tarkovsky.

Oh, and ... all of cinematic history, well ... in space anyways,

Yes, that's right - in this glorious two-part episode (did we mention that were will be a follow-up?!) we will look at ALL of space exploration history - going all the way back to A Trip to the Moon.

Early films excluded, which, can almost be seen as fantasy as opposed to science fiction - we have a bold proclamation to make - and that is that 2001 and Solaris exemplify the two clear paths most late space exploration films take.

Essentially, there is the idea - and within this episode we may get closer to figuring out if it is true - that great films of space exploration do one of two things:

1. Use space exploration to explore grand themes and concepts.

2. Use the idea of space exploration to discover truths about the human psyche.

And of course - as always, there is an overlap.

In this episode, we will cover the early days of Space Exploration, and the debate itself.

And for a quick sneak peek - in the next episode we will essentially dive into all the major space exploration films that came later - and not only talk through them - but see them in the context of 2001 and Solari - and discuss which path they chose to follow, and which, if any, break free from this binary.

Happy listening, and please join in the discussion at ICMForum.com.

Is it easy to rank your favourite directors? It can be a daunting task! How can we for instance even begin to compare directors who made 50+ films with directors who made 5? How do we compare studio directors to arthouse auteurs? Oh, and is it just a matter of how great the films are, or do we look for something else, such as personal style and artistic impact?

In this episode, we will look at the 4 most common ways of ranking directors:

• Average rating
• Number of favourites
• A personal/intuitive connection
• An assessment of their career and impact

Lean back as we try to poke holes in each other's systems, or perhaps even attempt to dismiss helpful systems altogether, and ponder the big questions related to what truly makes one director better than another.