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, […]
Pop Screen
U2 in Rattle and Hum – Pop Screen 98
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 […]
Martin Kemp in Embrace of the Vampire – Pop Screen 97
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 […]
Motley Crue in the Dirt (2019) – Pop Screen 96
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 […]
Run DMC in Tougher Than Leather – Pop Screen 95
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 […]
The Undertones in Good Vibrations (2012) – Pop Screen 94
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 […]
Adam Ant in World Gone Wild – Pop Screen 93
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 […]
The Who in Tommy (1975) – Pop Screen 92
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 […]
The Dandy Warhols in DiG (2004) – Pop Screen 91
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 […]
Johnny Cash in a Gunfight – Pop Screen 90
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 […]