Mark Kermode must have loved his debut at the Oxford Playhouse last year so much that he’s back for more, and bursting at the seams with new opinions he just can’t keep to himself.

Except this time, as well as the Q&A session, which has film-lovers drowning in their own drool, Mark is also introducing one of his all time favourite films The Ninth Configuration.

If, like me, you have never heard of it, apparently it’s based on “a mysterious psychiatrist who tries to analyse why Scott Wilson’s lunatic astronaut won’t go to the moon”.

A straightforward plot then. But here to tell us all about what the evening has in store is Mark Kermode himself, firmly ensconced on a very large soap box spitting questions like bullets.

They include ‘How can 3-D be the future of cinema when it has been giving audiences headaches for over a hundred years?’ ‘Why pay to watch films in cinemas which don’t have a projectionist but do have a fast food stand?’ ‘And, in a world in which Sex and the City 2 was a hit, what the hell are film critics for?”

And however overenthusiastic Mark is about topics like this, let’s face it, when he talks, the nation listens. As the UK’s best known film critic, one half of the outspoken Radio 5 Live Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review programme, the 47 year-old father-of-two has made a career out of saying what he thinks, and it’s held him in good stead.

However, he has still managed to find the time, between film watching and ranting, to write a book called The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex in which he takes us “into the belly of the beast” to ask: ‘What’s wrong with the modern movie business – and how can we make it right?’ another question that’s obviously been keeping him awake at night.

“Hollywood producers seem to believe” says Kermode, relaxing back happily into his favourite pastime – sounding off – “that the amount of money a movie makes is inversely proportional to how intelligent it is. Their assumption is that mainstream audiences are stupid, and the only way to entertain them is to be as dumb as possible.

“Hence, we get abominations like Transformers 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 4 – movies which wear their awfulness almost as a badge of pride. Yet then along comes a smart blockbuster like Inception and it makes a fortune. Which raises the question; if being clever doesn’t damage your box office, why be stupid? Why be Michael Bay when you could be Christopher Nolan?

“Yes, movies have always been there to make money, but today perhaps more than ever, films are financed on the basis of computer-generated spreadsheets, distributed according to first-weekend box-office figures, and projected by robots.”

Hmm good point Mark. Anyway... back to the film The Ninth Configuration, not a surprise for a self-confessed Exorcist freak. “It’s a genuine cult classic,” Mark enthuses without even drawing breath, “written and directed by Exorcist creator William Peter Blatty, who picked up a Golden Globe screenplay award for the film. Many view it as Blatty’s finest, and certainly his strangest, work. The plot resembles a cross between Shock Corridor and The Last Temptation of Christ with a hint of Spellbound thrown in for good measure.

“It’s set in a remote, gothic asylum in the Pacific Northwest and it’s an extraordinary work, by turns hilarious and outrageous, with visions of Christ on the moon, Superman in Dracula’s Castle, and the plays of Shakespeare adapted for dogs. Really! I first saw it at a late night screening at the Phoenix Cinema in East London, one of the oldest cinemas in the UK, and I’ve never tired of its bizarre, anarchic charms.”

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 anyone?