Cinema Eclectica

The 1960s were, depending on your viewpoint, either the best or the worst time to release a film about political assassinations, and there weren't many wilder examples than John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate. A wildly paranoid tale of a returning military veteran convinced that one of his brothers-in-arms is now a brainwashed Communist assassin, it essentially created the conspiracy thriller as we know it, and had a knockout cast including Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury and - the reason we are gathered here today - Frank Sinatra. Geek Show head honcho Rob Simpson joins the podcast again to talk to Graham about Sinatra's legacy, his Vegas residencies and his Rat Pack friends, including much praise for Sammy Davis Jr.'s wardrobe in Sweet Charity. There's also some discussion of the very unexpected actress who could have taken Lansbury's role, the Jonathan Demme remake and its political inspirations, and the vexed question of what, exactly, this film is saying about the Cold War. Sadly, we can't r

Looky looky at our black booky: this week Pop Screen is looking at an artefact of the utmost early '90sness, Vanilla Ice's first and only starring vehicle Cool As Ice. Deeply influenced by the teen rebel films of the 1950s and shot by Spielberg's future DoP Janusz Kaminski, these classy influences sit uncomfortably with a story in which Kristin Minter falls in love with the Iceman after he nearly gets her killed in a horse fall. This week, first-time host Jeff joins us to unpick the layers of this profound work of cinema, including its unexpectedly Malick-influenced romantic montage, its puzzling attitude towards the conflict of witness protection, and the clash of tones which leads to cartoon sound effects being dubbed over Ice's big action hero moment. We also discuss Vanilla Ice's brief time in the spotlight and long career tail, including his many reality TV appearances and the remarkable speed with which his record company overhauled his image into something more pop-friendly. Stop, collaborate and list

Pop Screen is 50 episodes old! To celebrate, we've got Gav Smith from the My Favourite Film podcast back in to cover one of the big names (in terms of profile, if not in height) that we haven't covered so far - Prince, and his blockbuster first movie Purple Rain. Gav is a Prince superfan, Graham a Prince ignoramus - can he be converted? More a vehicle for the extraordinary album accompanying it than a narrative movie, Purple Rain nevertheless maintains a cult following, thanks in part to encapsulating the fascinating contradictions that Prince embodied. He could be macho and androgynous, collaborative and singular, spiritual and pervy - all of these aspects of the man are discussed on this week's show, along with digressions about Tipper Gore, the rival band in School of Rock and Morris Day's superb chat-up lines. Sadly, we don't have Morris's silver tongue, so we're going to ask you straight up - donate to our Patreon. (Why, what did you think we meant?) You'll get a monthly bonus episode of this show, unr

Pop Screen makes another foray into the documentary realm this week, with Aidan rejoining regular host Graham to look at Brett Morgen's Kurt Cobain documentary Montage of Heck. An ambitious film rooted as much in its subject's imagination as it is the facts of his life, it was highly acclaimed as a portrait of the late Kurt Cobain, even as its strict factual accuracy was debated. As well as Morgen's film, we'll also be discussing Nirvana's legacy across the decades, and how Cobain and the wider grunge scene reacted to his sudden megastardom. There's also choice cuts about Cheap Trick and Eels, as well as the possible world-first of a nuanced perspective on Cobain's widow Courtney Love. If you enjoyed this podcast and want to help us avoid selling out to The Man and accepting advertising, you can donate to our Patreon, where you'll get full access to our other podcast Directors Uncut, as well as an exclusive monthly episode of Pop Screen and written classic Doctor Who reviews from Graham. Don't forget to fol

A pop movie is normally a chance to consolidate, rather than destroy, an image, which is why the Monkees' sole trip in front of the camera is such a strange affair. Produced by BBS Productions at the same time as they were making Easy Rider - and with the Dennis Hopper cameo to prove it - 1968's Head is a freeform collection of surrealist sketches, musical numbers and anti-war agitprop, shot through with a viciously sarcastic take on the band's status as a consumer product and co-written by Jack Nicholson. Yes, that Jack Nicholson. It flopped hard before accruing a devoted cult following, but as The Dreaming Machine's Joe and Graham discover on this week's show, it isn't all that different to the Monkees' extremely meta television series. Along with the events of a film its director Bob Rafelson described as "fifty movies in one", there are detours to discuss how and when "manufactured" became pop's gravest slur, the extraordinary career of choreographer Toni Basil, and the film production career of the late

After making one of the definitive rock biopics with Sid & Nancy, Alex Cox was hired to document The Pogues, Joe Strummer and Elvis Costello as they toured Nicaragua. When it was decided that sending a bunch of rock stars to tour a country which had recently been at war was a bad idea, Cox made Straight to Hell instead, a spaghetti Western parody with Strummer as the leader of a group of bank robbers whose attempted getaway lands them in a sinister town ruled by a coffee-addicted bandit gang played by the Pogues. It sounds like... well, it sounds like something, god knows what, and this week Mark Cunliffe of We Are Cult joins Graham to pick over the aftermath. As well as the surpassingly silly film that resulted from all this chaos, there's also room to talk about the hard-drinking British character actor Dudley Sutton, Kathy Burke's position as Greatest Living Englishwoman, and the changing fortunes of British film magazines as measured through the quality of their classified ads. If you want to help u

Cum on Feel the Podcazt! This week Pop Screen celebrates the festive period with a band who, without a sleigh bell in earshot, conjure up the spirit of Christmas. It can only be Slade, who got debutant director Richard Loncraine to make their one and only feature film, the oft-mistitled (not least by us) Flame, in 1975. Despite being released at the height of their popularity, it wasn't a hit - so much so that Mick, this week's co-host, heard the album a ridiculous 46 years prior to actually sitting down and watching the film. Flame, though, has found plenty of keepers since that initially unsuccessful release, not least Mark Kermode, who described it as "the Citizen Kane of rock musicals". On this episode of Pop Screen, we discuss all aspects of the film, including its position as yet another unexpectedly downbeat 1970s British rock movie, Slade's relationship to glam rock as a movement, the fact that this was very nearly going to be a spoof of a classic science fiction franchise, the multiple comebacks Sla

Pop Screen is going all topical this week, eschewing our usual cult classics and reviewing a film released this year - so be warned, there are spoilers! It's Annette, an extraordinary, divisive musical by extraordinary, divisive director Leos Carax, with a full original score by extraord... you get the picture, it's Sparks, the score is by Sparks. Join Graham and Mark as they examine this surprisingly linear but deeply eccentric film from the director of Holy Motors. Among other issues, you'll hear about the time when Rihanna was going to be in this movie, the other Sparks movie of 2021, the Mael brothers' chances at the Oscars and the unexpected autobiographical elements that we also discussed when we last talked Carax. So - may we start? If you don't want to see us reduced to managing a singing puppet baby in order to make ends meet, you can donate to our Patreon, where backers will get a monthly bonus episode of this very show, as well as our other movie podcast Director's Lottery, Graham's twice-weekly

We hope all our American listeners had a happy Life Day recently - if not, let this week's Pop Screen put you in the party mood. In 1978, just one year after A New Hope was released, the stars of George Lucas's original blockbuster reconvened for a bizarrely misconceived variety show that's never been officially re-released. They were joined by guests including Art Carney, Jefferson Starship and Bea Arthur in an officially licensed production that nevertheless has the same relationship to the main Star Wars universe as one of those knock-off toys you get from a dodgy market called something like Space War: Return of the Empire. In this week's Pop Screen, glutton for punishment Archaeon returns to discuss with Graham such pressing matters as Carrie Fisher's somewhat medicated performance, the origins of the special's inexplicable focus on unsubtitled Wookie grunting, the unexpected connection to legendary country singer Gillian Welch and the justly notorious scene where Diahann Carroll turns up to provide som

Shahid Mohammed, cut it with precision: this week Pop Screen is going back to the Daisy Age of hip-hop with Michael Rapaport's documentary Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest. Somewhat incredibly the first ever documentary about a hip-hop band, this warts-and-all look at Tribe's history annoyed Q-Tip by focusing on the tensions between him and the late Phife Dawg. But the film as a whole is fonder and more sensitive than Rapaport's career as a social media nuisance would have you believe. This week, My Favourite Film's Gav Smith joins us for the first time to discuss Tribe's vast musical legacy, as well as the golden age of semi-legal sampling, the film's evocative portrait of East Coast hip-hop back when it was an underground scene, and Graham's slightly delusional belief that The Love Movement isn't that bad. There's also room for digressions on The Source magazine's fall from grace, Manic Street Preachers song titles and Spike Jonze's Beastie Boys documentary. Podcasts to go: if

Pop Screen is back, back, back with Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan (x2) as Cult Following's Ewan Gleadow rejoins Graham to talk about I'm Not There, Todd Haynes's surreal anti-biopic with six different stars embodying different aspects of Dylan's persona. There's Cate Blanchett as the controversially-electrified superstar Dylan, Christian Bale as protest-singer Dylan, Richard Gere as enigmatic roots weirdo Dylan, as well as Heath Ledger, Marcus Carl Franklin and Ben Whishaw as the other Bobs Dylan. Graham and Ewan's first task is to unpick all this madness, as well as discuss Dylanological topics such as whether the Christian rock years are underrated or not, and why you should never, ever call him the Voice of a Generation. Somehow we still find time for digressions on Haynes's career from Poison to Dark Water, the legacy of Mike Myers and controversial opinions about Paddington Bear. Admit it, you've missed this. If you really have missed this, you can get more of it by donating to our Patreon, where you

Hey you! It's time for Pop Screen to tackle one of the earliest, most expensive and most flamboyant product of the 1980s crossover between music video and cinema: Pink Floyd - The Wall. Based closely on Roger Waters's semi-autobiographical songs, director Alan Parker and animator Gerald Scarfe produced an epic fantasy of isolation, trauma, totalitarianism and grief that caused no less a figure than Steven Spielberg to mutter "what the f*** was that?" at its Cannes premiere. This week, we're bringing the boys back home as Graham and Aidan reconvene to tackle this iconic and iconoclastic work. Topics include the album's original reception, Pink Floyd's status in the post-punk era, the unexpected cameos in the 'Young Lust' scene and the influence of Syd Barrett on the film's central character Pink, played by Bob Geldof. If you listen all the way through, there's even a cliffhanger ending... Pop Screen is taking a fortnight's break from free episodes, but you can catch our next Patreon exclusive episode by dona

It's the most wonderful time of the year - Halloween, obviously - and Pop Screen is convening Graham, Rob and Mick to discuss one of the all-time great horror movies featuring a pop star - David Cronenberg's Videodrome, featuring Blondie's Debbie Harry as a media psychotherapist who discovers a conspiracy to use video signals to suppress the new flesh. And what is the new flesh? We've all watched this film more than once and we're still not sure. It might want for a coherent narrative, but it's damn good at basically everything else - not least the gore, which practically requires us to sing the praises of the film's genius make-up designer Rick Baker. Listen to the show to find out how Baker became perhaps the only person to gross out David Cronenberg, as well as what our favourite Cronenberg movies are. We also find time to discuss the movie's censorship history, praise Debbie Harry's performance, and roast her character's frankly sub-par therapy skills. If you want to help us build a Brian O'Blivion-scal

Since its premiere at Chicago's Cinepocalypse festival, Glenn Danzig's directorial debut Verotika has gone down in legend. Not a good legend, but then as Countess Elizabeth Bathory would tell you not all legends are good. This week on Pop Screen, Ewan Gleadow from Cult Following rejoins us to discuss Danzig's three-part magnum opus, based on stories from his own Verotik comics imprint. Along the way we discuss the first story's strange Los Francegeles setting, the challenges of writing Tales from the Crypt-style horror shorts, Danzig's comments at the film's premiere and the diminishing returns of Satanic shock tactics. We also discuss the real body horror that's just off-screen, namely whether Glenn Danzig can escape his fate of becoming more meme than man. If you don't want to see us reduced to starring in Verotika 2 in order to pay the rent, you can donate to our Patreon, where you can get a monthly bonus episode of this show, exclusive access to our other movie podcast Director's Lottery, Graham's twice

Well, we're certainly not pro-bellum. This week Mick from Behold! pod joins us again to look at a film that seems to have everything going for it: a pair of hotly-tipped debuting directors, a provocative, mind-bending premise, and a quality cast. Even more promisingly, that quality cast is headed up by Janelle Monae, who Graham cites as the only musician capable of filling the void left by Prince and David Bowie. And yet Antebellum received a tepid reaction on release, and Graham and Mick are here to figure out what went wrong. Among the suspects: its gorgeous but showy visual style, its absolute forehead-slapper of a twist and - the ultimate sin - not doing right by Janelle Monae, and what she means to the culture. Yet there's also room to talk about the film's positive elements, as well as an extended detour around the Wikipedia page for the short-lived 1970s band The Normal. For some reason. We can't possibly segue from that, so let's cut to the chase: we've got a Patreon, and if you donate to that Patre

A trilogy of Black horror and science fiction tales, hosted by the disembodied floating head of funk legend George Clinton? It happened! Kicking off Pop Screen's Halloween month, Geek Show kingpin Rob joins us once again to look at one of the stranger products of HBO's post-Tales from the Crypt hunt for a new anthology series - Reginald D Hudlin's Cosmic Slop. Quickly forgotten, it was edited into a three-part feature for the home video market, and was rediscovered in the run-up to Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone reboot. Rob and Graham discuss how Cosmic Slop matches up to more modern attempts at racial commentary in genre film, as well as the lost world of pre-Sopranos HBO, George Clinton's unforgettable - no matter how hard you try - role in Flying Lotus's film Kuso, the folk horror themes of the haunting middle section and the unexpected role the first story played in the 2012 American election. Thanks, Obama! If you want to help us keep exploring films that are every bit as obscure and whacked as Cosmic Sl

This week, Pop Screen has been thinking about a line drawn in the sand: specifically, a line drawn between the reasonable criticisms of PJ Harvey's 2016 album The Hope Six Demolition Project, and the ones that took her to task for not working out a viable model for bringing stable democracy to Afghanistan. (Yes, really) 2019's Seamus Murphy-directed documentary A Dog Called Money reopened the controversies, and it is this film that Aidan and Graham have gathered to discuss this week. On the way, we also consider the always-surprising career of Harvey, as well as  our favourite albums by her. We talk about Hope Six's status as an album that feels eerily predictive of 2016's political turmoil, and the many bizarrely-titled offcuts from the record that appear in this film and nowhere else. It's the closest we've ever got to a polemic: we really love this album, we really love this film, we really love PJ Harvey and we're sure we can convert you too. If we were a bit savvier, we'd expend all this persuasive pow

Oi! I said oi! Pop Screen has its hardest-hitting episode this week - yes, perhaps even grittier than Spice World - with Ben "Plan B" Drew's directorial debut Ill Manors. A multi-stranded tale of drug-dealing, deprivation and all-round dodginess in Forest Gate, it has its roots in Drew's 2008 short film Michelle. On release, however, it became an unexpected talking point thanks to the then-recent English riots - enough of a hot-button release for the Observer to get Lethal Bizzle and Edwina Currie to share their thoughts on it, anyway. Since then, the film has somewhat faded from view, which is why it's our pleasure to be joined by Cliff from the Devil Times Five horror podcast to make the case for it as a great movie. Along the way we consider the film's well-chosen cast, from rising stars like Riz Ahmed and Ed Skrein through non-professionals and even a cameo from John Cooper Clarke. Graham and Cliff also chat about their divergent thoughts on British kitchen sink cinema, the age at which it becomes imposs

Once a reviled commercial disaster, today David Lynch's Dune is... a tolerated commercial disaster? It has its fans, it has its naysayers, so before Denis Villeneuve launches his much-anticipated adaptation of (the first half of) Frank Herbert's novel Graham and Archaeon are convening to deliver the final verdict on a film Lynch hated so much he asked for the extended cut to be credited to "Judas Booth". Topics include Dino de Laurentiis's surprisingly decent history shepherding art-house directors into big-budget genre pieces, the film's curious position in Lynch's directorial canon, the peculiar preponderance of pug dogs, casting comparisons between Lynch and Villeneuve's Dune, and Alejandro Jodorowsky's infamous 1970s attempt to get a movie version of Herbert's novel off the ground. And, because this is Pop Screen, we also talk Sting. The podcast empires are now divided between rival royal dynasties, so if you want to help plucky young Fremen like us make a go of it you can donate to our Patreon, where y

Best remembered for containing Damon Albarn's one film acting performance, as wet-behind-the-ears aspiring gangster Jason, this week's Pop Screen argues that Antonia Bird's 1997 movie Face deserves more credit. A British gangster movie made in that brief moment before Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels inspired every screenwriter in the country to write a gangster movie, it's a brutal postmortem on eighteen years of Conservative government disguised as a brutal heist-gone-wrong thriller. Those unexpected political grace notes - including an eyebrow-raising opening cameo! - are among the topics discussed by Mark and Graham in this episode, along with the film's savvy use of genre icon Ray Winstone, the rise and fall of the Blair-era London gangland thriller, and the baptism of fire Albarn received at the hands of Quadrophenia's Phil Davis. We also praise the late, much-missed Bird and her writer Ronan Bennett, and if that sounds like we've not left much room for discussion of Blur... ...well, you're right