Pop Screen is going a bit off the beaten track this week, but rewardingly so. Peter Watkins is a maverick British director whose previous film The War Game was banned on the instruction of then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson, so when he was hired by Universal to make a teen-focused rock […]
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Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow and Dolemite is my Name)
In our latest edition of bobbing for Patreon episodes, we happen upon Craig Brewer our first real flirtation with the more mainstream side of cinema. Rob is joined by Graham (Pop Screen) and Andrew (Behold) to talk about his 2005 hip hop breakout, Hustle and Flow. Following that up is […]
Daft Punk & Interstella 5555 – Pop Screen 59
Can you believe this is Pop Screen’s first animated film? Better late than never, as Gav Smith of My Favourite Film rejoins us to talk about Interstella 5555 – The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. A story as epic as its frankly overlong title, it was created by Daft Punk as […]
Alexandre Aja (High Tension, Switchblade Romance & Crawl)
The effort to make the leap fully of Patreon continues, this time it’s the turn of Alexander Aja. We recorded this before our episode(s) on Wes Craven – so this was technically our first-ever pure Horror Episode. To talk about Aja, Rob is joined by Graham Williamson (of POP SCREEN). Together […]
Cher & Moonstruck – Pop Screen Episode 58
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s a-Moonstruck, a film which is not exactly subtle in its depiction of Italian-American culture but is at least witty, well-written and full of heart, thanks to its script by John Patrick Shanley. This week, Pop Screen closes out […]
Jacques Audiard (Read My Lips & Rust and Bone)
The podcast is going through a bit of a change in that we are becoming a 100% free deal. This means we have to increase the releases to weekly until we’ve cleared our backlog. So between now and 1st July, every Friday is Directors Uncut day. This week, Graham (Pop […]
Queen Latifah & Chicago – Pop Screen 57
Pop Screen’s Oscar month continues with one of the 21st century’s biggest collectors of little bald gold men – Rob Marshall’s Chicago. Among its twelve nominations and six wins was a Best Supporting Actress nomination for 1990s hip-hop stalwart Queen Latifah, who gets a solo number crammed with innuendo, but […]
Wes Craven – Part Two (Scream & New Nightmare)
First-ever two-parter here on Directors Uncut, so, welcome back Wes Craven! In the last episode, we looked at two outliers in Cursed & the Last House on the Left, now we get real up close and personal with two of his most well-regarded films – New Nightmare (1994) and Scream […]
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – Pop Screen 56
Pop Screen’s Oscar month goes back to, er, 2021 with the film widely predicted to win Chadwick Boseman a posthumous Oscar – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Less a biopic of the titular blues singer and more a drama about temptation and (often racial) exploitation adapted from August Wilson’s play, it […]
HAIM & Licorice Pizza – Pop Screen 55
Licorice Pizza (2021) Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson March is Oscar month on Pop Screen, and as luck would have it one of this year’s frontrunners is absolutely made for us. A goofy, shaggy 1970s coming-of-age comedy featuring a Tom Waits cameo, the entire band HAIM and their parents – seriously, […]