Cinema Eclectica

On this week's Pop Screen, Graham has a very important and special guest: Mark's dog! And, fine, yes, also Mark, with our favourite quizmaster and Film Stories writer coming back to talk about Russell T Davies's most personal drama. Set across the early years of the AIDS crisis, It's a Sin has a cast full of breakthrough young stars, memorable cameos from acting veterans, plus Olly Alexander, whose day job in Years and Years allows us to cover the show. Not that we need much of an excuse to talk about it, or indeed Davies's day job showrunning Doctor Who for its imminent 60th anniversary specials. There's also space for digressions on Prime Ministerial cameos, the real-life inspirations behind the central characters, an appreciation of Erasure and why Russell T Davies must be hopping mad at Stranger Things right now. The T stands for "Thatcherism has left a legacy of death and division", by the way. If you want to fund our dreams of leaving the Isle of Man and becoming an act

Our Halloween special is over and done with, but this week Graham faces his most terrifying challenge yet - enjoying a film about jazz. If you're going to watch one film about jazz, though, Bertrand Tavernier's 'Round Midnight is the one to watch. Its bona fides are impeccable: named after a Thelonious Monk song, starring Dexter Gordon, with a score by Herbie Hancock and inspired by the lives of Lester Young and Bud Powell. That's a lot of jazz, and fortunately Aidan is back on the show to help Graham navigate it. But there's more to Tavernier's film than its music. It's a profoundly cinephilic film as well, with a memorable late appearance by notable Letterboxd user Martin Scorsese. Graham also gets to venture his classification system for 1980s French cinema, which won't be approved by Cahiers du Cinema any time soon but eh, it just about works. If you want to help us manage our tormented yet strangely stylish alcohol addictions, you can donate to our Patreon where we're

Oh god, Graham's shining the spooky light under his face again - sounds like time for a Halloween special. And it is, with Mark Cunliffe of We Are Cult joining the show once again to talk about The Haunted House of Horror, a 1960s British horror movie with an all-bases-covered title. It's the familiar tale of a group of horny and stupid teens who go to an old house for a seance and end up beset by entities even older and more sinister than Frankie Avalon, the Beach Blanket Bingo star who plays a character described as the essence of Swinging London. So, not entirely persuasive casting in the lead role, but there's an impressive supporting cast including Jill Haworth and Get Carter's George Sewell, who does not play one of the teens, as he was never young. Aside from exploring the varied CVs of cast and crew, Graham and Mark also appreciate the movie's surprisingly nasty kills, the reshoots that led to the ending making no sense at all, and the time when Mark accidentally went to a Chesney

Don't call it a comeback! Literally, given the number of alternative titles Pete Walker's 1978 chiller goes under. Best-known as The Comeback, stars crooner Jack Jones as crooner Nick Cooper - a stretch, then - who is all fresh from a stay in rehab and ready to record his comeback album. The process is interrupted by artistic conflicts, record industry politics, scary ghosts and a hag-masked killer armed with a sickle. Not necessarily in that order. The first in Pop Screen's 2023 Halloween month sees Robyn Adams rejoin the show to talk about the genius of Sheila Keith, Walker's gift for an outrageous title - including some contradictory advice given to his female protagonists - and the sheer weight of classic comedy connections in this ostensibly straight-faced horror film. If you've ever wanted a slasher featuring the stars of This Is Spinal Tap, Not the Nine O'Clock News and Last of the Summer Wine, this is for you, you absolute weirdo. If you'd like to help us detox from heroi

When we announced a month of Madonna-themed movies, we could have just looked at her acting performances, maybe a documentary or two. Instead, we felt like it was our journalistic duty to blow the lid off her steamy affair with 'Weird' Al Yankovic. That's just one of the extremely accurate facts contained in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a merciless lampoon of biopic cliches which Weird Al superfan Jeff is back on the podcast to discuss with Graham. The film immediately received attention for Daniel Radcliffe's insanely committed lead performance, but there's more - and not just Evan Rachel Wood's superb turn as Madonna, either. Jeff and Graham discuss which of the film's cavalcade of cameos they'd like to see a full biopic about, the film's long gestation period and how the rock biopic changed (or didn't) during production, and the critical importance of preserving the Quibi archive for future generations. If you'd like to help us dare to be stupid, you can donat

This week, Pop Screen is showing you Dick. As part of our ce-e-le-bration of the fortieth anniversary of Madonna's breakthrough single Holiday, we're taking you back to 1990, when Warren Beatty became one of the few men to ever tell her what to do as he directed his then-partner in the comic book hit of the summer, Dick Tracy. Obviously, the landscape of comic book adaptations has changed since the days when a 1930s detective strip was a box office smash and Captain America was the subject of a cheap B-movie. But has it changed for the better? This question can only be answered by bringing back Andrew of Behold! podcast, who revisits his childhood favourite film to ask: does it hold up, and why isn't it set on the moon? Plus vital detours to discuss the film's excellent make-up, Al Pacino's, uh, high-intensity villain performance, the documentary Six by Sondheim and the insane excess of a film that can afford to get Kathy Bates for, essentially, one great sight gag. If you'd like to he

Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but Pop Screen says: welcome to our episode on Poly Styrene: I am a Cliche! Co-directed by Celeste Bell in collaboration with Paul Sng, it follows Bell's journey to explore her late mother's iconic time with the punk band X-Ray Spex, as well as her troubled life and - more important than it sounds, this - her one-of-a-kind fashion sense. The documentary is based closely on the book Day-Glo, by Bell and Zoe Howe, and on this episode We Are Cult's Mark Cunliffe joins Graham to discuss what was left out from that text, as well as appreciate Poly Styrene's classic work with X-Ray Spex, her distance from the mainstream British punk scene, the afterlife of her band and her still-underrated solo career. We also pitch an ITV1 detective series starring Kate Bush, although we're still unsure why. The free episodes are only part of our identity: subscribe to our Patreon and you'll also get a bonus episode on Barbie, as well a

This week, Mark Harrison from Film Stories rejoins Pop Screen to taunt Graham about one of his most extravagantly failed predictions. Remember our The Dead Don't Die episode? Where we looked at that film's star Austin Butler's upcoming movies and decided there was no way an Elvis biopic was going to make bank in 2022? WELL... Actually, the strangest thing is not that it made money, but that we enjoyed it. Join Mark and Graham as they discuss their mixed feelings towards Baz Luhrmann, the "crisis in media literacy" and the many ways in which Colonel Tom Parker could have been a better mother to Elvis. There's also room to talk about Parker's role in the birth of PR, the changing image of Elvis following his death in 1977, and why this was the best superhero movie of 2022. Thank you - thank you very much! There's much more than a one for the money over on our Patreon - as well as Mark and Graham reuniting for a Patreon exclusive Pop Screen episode on Greta Gerwig's Barbie

It's our 100th episode! And what better way to celebrate than to look back at one of the great musical flops of all time, 1980's Xanadu. Starring Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly and a guy from The Warriors, it's the story of a Greek Muse sent to Earth on a mission to inspire. If she knew she was going to inspire him to make a swing dancing/roller disco fusion club, she'd have stayed on Mount Olympus. One of the films that led to the foundation of the Golden Raspberry awards, Xanadu nevertheless has a devoted cult following, two members of which - previous co-hosts David and Jeff - are here to guide Xana-newbie Graham through this bewildering film. Is it bad? Good? So bad it's good? Only the 100th edition of Pop Screen can solve the mystery! Making content is not quite as lucrative as this film suggests, so if you want us to keep creating you can donate to our Patreon, where you'll get a monthly bonus episode of this show, our film and TV miscellany Last Night..., From the Video Aisle&

After last week's voyage into self-importance courtesy of U2, Pop Screen tackles a film that couldn't possibly be more lightweight - the 1965 teen comedy Beach Ball. Strange, as it features one of the most tortured souls in '60s pop - Scott Walker - and one of its defining divas, Diana Ross. But this is an entry in the brief but prolific fad for beach party movies, in which mysteriously parent-free teenagers meet on the shore to date and do nothing that threatens a U certificate while listening to the drumming stylings of... exploitation film stalwart Sid Haig?! Yes, there's some stuff that needs unpacking in here alright, and Mick from our sister podcast Behold! is on hand to help Graham unpack it. Join them as they run through the now-forgotten history of the beach party movie, discuss which of this year's summer blockbusters is most inspired by it (a clue: it's not Oppenheimer) and work out how this stacks up against the genre's avant-garde masterpiece Gonks Go Beats. It's l

It's a story we keep running into here on Pop Screen: a band are so big, so acclaimed, that they think "We could make a film, how could that go wrong?" and the universe then demonstrates exactly how that could go wrong. Coming just one year after their worldwide smash The Joshua Tree, U2 decided to make Rattle & Hum, a documentary about their American tour. It earned them their first negative reviews, and caused people to reflect - for the first time, if you can believe it - that Bono was quite annoying sometimes. And yet... you might like it all the same. Joining Graham this week, Joe from Dreaming Machine talks about his complex relationship with U2 after a mammoth revisiting of all their albums. They discuss the failures and the less-heralded triumphs of Rattle & Hum, also finding space to wonder about the Manic Street Preachers' album reissues and tell a delightful anecdote about Joe's old alarm clock. You've given us love, now give us money money money over

Vampires! Undead creatures of the night who people also find really hot! If you think fancying a walking corpse is #problematic, wait until you see the actions of Vampire, the imaginatively-named vampire played by Martin Kemp in 1995's Embrace of the Vampire. In Anne Goursaud's film, he's looking to get his fangs on an underage girl before she's legal, just like [NAME REDACTED ON LEGAL ADVICE] There are more tangents than usual on this episode, possibly so Graham and guest host Robyn Adams don't have to spend any more time talking about this deeply gross central plot. Aside from the cult-icon-heavy cast including Jennifer Tilly, Rachel True and Alyssa Milano, there's also room for conversations on Ace of Base, Charles Band's financial woes and the sex lives of the Blind Dead. You are not ready for this episode. If you don't want us to end up living in a derelict church, you can donate to our Patreon where you get an exclusive episode of this show every month, as well as Graha

Pop Screen doesn't cover much metal, and a cynical listener might counter that we're not about to start now, as we look at the 2019 Netflix film The Dirt. A biopic of Motley Crue, it offers a visceral look at sex, drugs and rock and roll, but maybe not enough into why hair metal (the stuff Americans heretically call "glam rock") remains so divisive. To address this and so many other questions, Graham is joined by Kat from The Hollywood News to talk about their mutual soft spot for the much-maligned rock biopic genre, our feelings on the Crue and the grunge scene that essentially ended their career, and how well the film handles its many darker strands. We are gentler on Machine Gun Kelly than you might think, though there's a good Eminem diss if that's your thing. If you want to give us a slice of your pie, you can donate to our Patreon where all sorts of things are going on - Graham is winding down his Doctor Who reviews and starting on The X-Files, Rob is championing Asian films

How do you weather the changes in a genre your band helped define? It's tricky. Run-DMC tried to rebrand with Tougher Than Leather, the title of both an album and a film directed by their producer Rick Rubin. A tough yet strangely naive premonition of the gangsta rap years to come, it also features one of Rubin's other proteges, The Beastie Boys, just as their career took off. It's got serious time capsule value, then, so it's no wonder it prompts hosts Graham and Jeff to reflect on the odd experience of being a white hip-hop fan in the late 1980s and 90s, a time when the genre was subject to both fetishisation and moral panic from our fellow honkies. We also discuss the unexpected links this film has to movies by James Grey and Jonathan Demme, formative 'adult' cinema and the parallel universe where this film was directed by Spike Lee. Turns out we can, in fact, rock it like this. Send your checks, thugs and, indeed, rock and roll over to our Patreon, where we have a massive bounty

If there's one thing pop music needs almost as much as it needs musicians, it's people who won't hear the words "Actually, that's a really bad idea". Terri Hooley was one such man. Record shop owner, record label owner and focal point for Belfast's punk scene, what he lacked in business sense he made up for in passion. Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros d'Sa's biopic Good Vibrations tells his unbelievable story. We've got an expanded cast on the show to celebrate the film, too, with Graham joined by Directors Uncut's Rob and another regular co-host, Mark from We Are Cult. As well as the film, they also describe the odd experience of actors you love starring on shows you don't care about, discuss the films that did - and didn't - get punk right, and invent at least one new musical genre. There are some bad impersonations again, but it's definitely within the spirit of the film this time. If you'd like to give us five hundred pounds and a photo of The Sha

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of, which is probably for the best, as Adam Ant earned a fair bit of it for his role in this post-apocalyptic action movie. The product of veteran journeyman director Lee H Katzin, it also stars Bruce Dern in a role he literally does not remember filming as the last hippie, fighting against the diminutive Man and his army of bad choirboys. No, really. This week we're joined by the Cymreig Samurai himself, Ben Jones, as we discuss how Adam Ant's cult nearly had a very different book as their inspiration, and get the idea for a guaranteed smash-hit range of action figures. Ben also astonishes Graham with a pop movie even he hasn't heard of, and we discuss the intimate secrets of Pinocchio's anatomy. The film sends you down some strange paths, OK? If you want to help us survive the coming apocalypse, you can donate to our Patreon where you get all kinds of goodies - a whole other movies and TV podcast, Last Night..., plus Graham's twice-weekly Doctor Who revie

See it! Feel it! It's finally time for Pop Screen to scale the all-time summit of the rock opera form - Ken Russell's Tommy, based on the album by The Who. Pete Townsend's achingly personal tale of a traumatised kid mistakenly hailed as a messiah, it's got a soundtrack of some of The Who's most indelible tracks and a visual style that is one hundred per cent pure, uncut Uncle Ken.This week, Graham is joined by Mick from Behold! podcast to discuss this absolutely singular work, with its eclectic cast that includes everyone from the star of Just Good Friends to the star of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. We also discuss the real-life Acid Queen Russell would meet some years later, the possibility of a spin-off about Oliver Reed's Butlins years, and whether Rupert the Bear is friends with a wood sprite. One of those weeks, clearly.If you want to help us afford five-foot high platform boots like Elton John's, you can donate to our Patreon. We're about to release an exclusive e

This episode of Pop Screen is about the rivalry between '90s psych-rock revivalists The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre - and if you think that's a niche subject for a film, that's how Ondi Timoner's DiG! came across before its premiere in 2004. Yet it was immediately and rightly hailed as a classic film about rock music, the nature of genius and selling out, becoming a cult classic for audiences far outside the two bands' pre-existing fandom. This week, Ewan from (Don't) Listen to This returns - you have to remind him about his own podcast, he does forget things - to discuss Timoner's fascinating career, how the film's take on the record industry holds up in a very different landscape nearly twenty years later, and whether it's so bad to sell out anyway. We also talk about the differences between American and British memories of the 1990s, and indulge in a treasonous fantasy about the upcoming coronation. It's all here! If you want to help finance repa

Some pop stars like to take the easy route into acting by starring opposite lightweight co-stars. And then there's Johnny Cash, whose acting debut in 1971's A Gunfight sees him playing alongside no less than Kirk Douglas, with Karen Black, Jane Alexander and a young Keith Carradine in support. It wasn't a big hit - largely because calling a Western A Gunfight is like calling an action movie A Car Chase - but it's well worth a look for fans of the Man in Black. And you have seen one bit of it, even if you don't realise it... The man Aidan comes around to our podcast again to talk about the film's left-field ending, the state of the Western as Hollywood entered the '70s, and other Cash-centric films and TV shows, from Walk the Line to that episode of The Simpsons where Homer eats a hallucinogenic chilli. In your face, space coyote! If you don't want to see us forced into a duel to the death to earn money, you can donate to our Patreon. We're just about to release our new Patreon exclusive episode of Pop Scree

The shocking death of Terry Hall at the end of 2022 sent Pop Screen back to this document of him in his prime: Dance Craze, a relentlessly energetic concert film showcasing all the greats from the first wave of British ska. As well as Hall with The Specials, there are classic performances from Madness, The Beat, The Selecter, The Bodysnatchers and Bad Manners: an unmissable line-up by anyone's standards. Neglected for decades, Dance Craze is about to get a spiffy BFI Blu-Ray release, but before that Mick and Graham are here to discuss the legacy of Hall and The Specials, as well as this era of ska in general. We also find time to explain why 2-Tone Records was the exact opposite of Apple, imagine a parallel universe version of this film where Rhoda Dakar makes a big alteration to the set list, and explain why The Beat are kind of like a Portuguese Man o' War. Enjoy yourself, it really is later than you think. We don't have to work, 'cause there's no, no work to do, but we do provide an awful lot of content