The centrepiece of Pop Screen’s Bowie month could only be one thing: David’s first, extraordinary lead role, as the alien Thomas Jerome Newton in Nicolas Roeg’s trippy science fiction masterpiece. For those unfamiliar with the film, Bowie plays an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to bring water back to his home […]
Pop Screen
David Bowie in Baal – Pop Screen 68
Yeah, when we announced a month of David Bowie movies, you weren’t expecting this one, were you? An adaptation of an obscure early Berthold Brecht play that Bowie recorded for the BBC in between Scary Monsters and Let’s Dance, Baal is quite probably the most challenging artefact in his screen […]
David Bowie in the Prestige – Pop Screen 67
Pop Screen kicks off a special month dedicated to the films of David Bowie with perhaps his last great role, as the enigmatic inventor Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s equally enigmatic thriller. A story of magic, revenge and dead wives (look, we said it was a Christopher Nolan film), it […]
Die Antwoord in Chappie – Pop Screen 66
We normally use a still from the film for our episode image, but who could resist this photo from the premiere of Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie? It perfectly encapsulates the bizarre appeal of the film, which assembles an enviable cast of blue-chip movie stars and reliable character actors, then has them […]
Lulu in Gonks Go Beat – Pop Screen 65
It’s no surprise that Pop Screen keeps going back to the 1960s – in many ways, that decade saw the birth of the pop movie as a recognisable genre. That doesn’t mean that every film became a classic, although the film we’re looking at today became a cult classic of […]
Sharon Van Etten in Never Rarely Sometimes Always – Pop Screen 64
When Graham and Sarah decided to do an episode on Never Rarely Sometimes Always, it was not a topical film. Its storyline, about a young girl crossing state lines in order to get an abortion, now puts it at the forefront of a major American news story, but there’s much […]
Iggy Pop & Selena Gomez in the Dead Don’t Die – Pop Screen 63
Can you believe this is our first Jim Jarmusch episode? The white-haired director’s habit of casting musicians means pretty much all of his films qualify for this show, with regular collaborators including Tom Waits, Iggy Pop and RZA. All of them turn up in this, his ensemble zombie comedy from […]
Kelly Clarkson & From Justin to Kelly – Pop Screen 62
We’re returning to the pop landscape of the early 2000s this week, a pop landscape that had your host Graham wondering whether there was any point being a pop cartographer any more. The dominant feature of said landscape was TV talent shows, usually run by either Simon Cowell or his […]
Barbara Streisand & The Prince of Tides – Pop Screen 61
Pop Screen is going into hardcore auteur territory this week, with a film directed by and starring the one and only Barbara Streisand. A story of hidden family secrets, illicit affairs, licit affairs, quasi-licit affairs – look, there’s a lot of affairs, alright? – it was nominated for Best Picture […]
Manfred Mann & Privilege – Pop Screen 60
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 […]