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 […]
Pop Screen
Sonny Bono in Escape to Athena – Pop Screen 88
Can you believe Telly Savalas, Claudia Cardinale, David Niven, Richard Roundtree, Sonny Bono and Mr Bronson from Grange Hill were in the same movie once? We can’t – and this is before you get to lovely old Roger Moore playing a Wehrmacht captain! It can only be Escape to Athena, […]
The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson – Pop Screen 87
Wilko Johnson, the Dr Feelgood guitarist with the eyes of a killer and the legs of a Riverdancer, died last November, which sent Aidan and Graham back to his previous obituary. Made as the pub rock pioneer fought an apparently terminal cancer, The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson is less a […]
Joanna Newsom in Inherent Vice – Pop Screen 86
Hey you! Pop Screen welcomes in 2023 with a dose of los paranoias as Graham and Rob tackle Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice. The only adaptation – and likely to remain that way – of a Thomas Pynchon novel, it has an all-star cast headed up by Joaquin Phoenix’s stoner […]
Directors Uncut’s Best Movies of 2022 (Part Two)
2022 is done and dusted, and with that comes the inevitable best-of-the-year show. But this time, things have taken a turn of the behemothic. This is part two, you can find part one featuring the 10-6 picks on our sister podcast, Pop Screen. On this huge lad of 2022 coverage, […]
Pop Screen’s Best of 2022 (Bonus)
This week on Pop Screen there’s a new Sherrif in town. Well, just for this one single episode, anyway. This is Rob of Directors Uncut typing right now. Pop Screen has crossed over with our sister podcast, Directors Uncut, for an epic review of 2022. You can already find part […]
Lou Reed in Velvet Underground – Pop Screen 85
The year is nearly done, but Pop Screen lingers on with an episode about Todd Haynes’s documentary The Velvet Underground. Covering the turbulent career of one of the most confrontational yet influential bands of the 1960s, it’s a film that’s got everything from deep discussions of minimalist composition to amusing […]
Toyah Wilcox in Second City Firsts – Pop Screen 83
Pop Screen has confronted some horrors in its recent Halloween month, but nothing like what Graham and Mark come up against this week: Noel Edmonds. The DJ-turned-mystical guru pops up in Glitter, one of two episodes of the 1970s anthology series Second City Firsts that feature pop stars, and it’s […]
Weird Al Yankovich in UHF – Pop Screen 82
This week, Pop Screen is taking you to Spatula City with this episode about America’s pre-eminent polka-crazed pop parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic and his 1989 film UHF. Prior to this month’s parody biopic Weird – in which he’s played by Daniel Radcliffe, in Radcliffe’s second era-defining role after Swiss Army […]
Sinead O’Connor in the Butcher Boy – Pop Screen 80
Listeners, are you aware that Shuhada Sadaqat – or Sinead O’Connor, as she was – once played the Virgin Mary? If that sounds like a provocative idea, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Neil Jordan’s The Butcher Boy is one of the darkest and most mordantly funny entries in a directorial […]