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In part three of the podcast’s series exploring the work of the extraordinary UK band Prefab Sprout, I am joined by Atlanta-based critic and theatre scholar Brice Ezell to discuss the band's most commercially successful album: 1988’s From Langley Park to Memphis.

Following the critical acclaim of Steve McQueen, frontman Paddy McAloon aimed for a glossy, broadly commercial sound this time. With full label support, no expense was spared on production, a sweeping, cinematic soundscape that blends sophisticated synthesizers and polished studio techniques with full orchestration, gospel choirs, and even a guest appearance from Stevie Wonder.

Heavily influenced by Barbra Streisand’s The Broadway Album, McAloon goes full Theatre Kid on this record. The project employed multiple producers (including the returning Thomas Dolby) and experimented across genres from arena rock to Broadway show tunes and adult contemporary. This approach generated two enduring UK radio hits: “The King of Rock ’n’ Roll” (their only Top Ten single) and “Cars and Girls” (a subtle critique of Bruce Springsteen’s persona).

Brice and I dive deep on Langley Park, offering track-by-track analysis. We explore the album's surprising global footprint, tracing its influence from Norwegian singer-songwriters to Japanese City Pop, anime scores, and video game music. And we zero in on the album's central theme: an epic statement where Paddy deconstructs the American mythmaking machine from the vantage point of Northeast England, all while processing his band’s sudden success and grappling with an uncertain future.

My thanks to the Sproutology website, the ultimate online resource for the band.

Follow Brice Ezell on Bluesky.

The King of Rock ’n’ Roll - from the Dutch music show TopPop, 1988

Nightingales - Paddy McAloon on piano, from KCRW, 1988

Mashup of Prefab Sprout’s Knock on Wood and a track from the Japanese anime High School Aura Buster.

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On the second episode of our Prefab Sprout series, I am joined by Vanity Fair staff writer Erin Vanderhoof for a detailed discussion of the band’s second album, Steve McQueen.

Released in 1985, Steve McQueen was produced by a fan of the band, Thomas Dolby, who handpicked a selection of Paddy McAloon's older songs (some dating back to his late teens). The goal was to create a commercially appealing, modern pop record that still captured McAloon’s idiosyncratic brilliance. The critically-acclaimed album was a modest hit in the UK but made little splash in America, where it was released as Two Wheels Good to avoid issues with Steve McQueen’s estate.

Forty years later, it is amazing how fresh this distinctly '80s album still sounds. It’s a rich blend of rock, jazz, country, adult contemporary, and show tunes, finished with a beautiful electronic polish. Dolby’s perfect production showcases McAloon's sophisticated songs about heartbreak and complicated feelings, alongside the masterful musicianship of the band, notably featuring the key arrival of drummer Neil Conti.

During our track-by-track discussion, we reveal how we each got Sproutpilled, debate whether the band deserved the UK "Sophisti-Pop" label, explore their notable popularity in Italy, and share our hopes for a future Spike Lee Prefab Sprout movie musical.

Follow Erin Vanderhoof on Bluesky and follow her work at Vanity Fair.

My thanks to the Sproutology website, the ultimate online resource for the band.

"Thriller in England: Steve McQueen by Prefab Sprout at 40" by Fergal Kinney, for The Quietus, June 10, 2025

Live performance of When Love Breaks Down from The Old Grey Whistle Test, 1985

Live performance of Goodbye Lucille #1 (aka Johnny Johnny), from The Tube, 1986

Appetite from the 1986 Sanremo Music Festival

London in Love, from a series of Burberry 2025 adverts soundtracked by When Love Breaks Down.

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https://www.patreon.com/posts/224-brian-de-hi-144418287

The actor and writer Mike Mekus returns to the show from Brooklyn to discuss Brian De Palma’s third feature, the vicious satire Hi, Mom! (1970). The film features a breakout performance by Robert De Niro as a young man back from Vietnam who is hoping to convert his voyeuristic tendencies into a career as a pornographer with artistic pretensions, but who ultimately winds up playing a cop in a revolutionary theatre troupe’s new underground experimental play, “Be Black, Baby!”

This anarchic comedy serves as a time capsule of late 1960s NYC. De Palma uses it to show off his craft and his enthusiasm for the full potential of cinema—specifically, the possibilities for an American political cinema—demonstrating that Godard was just as much of an influence on his style as Hitchcock.

Mike and I discuss how incredibly prescient De Palma was in Hi, Mom!, as he sends up incels, computer dating, the entire Dimes Square style art scene, and New York’s guilty white liberal community. This is highlighted by the incendiary film-within-a-film, “Be Black, Baby!”, the first great cinema sequence in De Palma’s long career full of them, all of this barely contained within an 87-minute film that possesses a surprising New York Dirtbag Cinema energy still detectable today.

Follow Mike Mekus on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.

“Landlord” - the 1969 commercial by the New York Urban Coalition that Hi, Mom!parodies at the very beginning

Trailer for Hi, Mom! (Brian De Palma, 1970)

The film writers Robert Rubsam and Corey Atad join the show for a discussion of two apocalyptic nuclear thrillers, Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe (1964) and Kathryn Bigelow’s brand new Netflix production A House of Dynamite.

Both Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe were released by Columbia Pictures within months of each other in 1964 (as the result of a lawsuit stemming from the respective novels the films were based on). The two films depict an accidental nuclear crisis from the perspective of command-and-control rooms helpless to prevent the impending bombing but Lumet’s version is a serious critique of Game Theory from a humanist perspective, with the participation of creatives who had been caught up in the Hollywood Blacklist during the Cold War.

Bigelow’s modern version of such a tale of nuclear crisis, by contrast, has a lot less to say about the subject. We compare its structural shortcomings to Lumet’s stark masterpiece, a film more plugged in to its zeitgeist than this new Netflix production is.

Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Corey Atad on Twitter and Bluesky and visit coreyatad.com

Follow Robert Rubsam on Twitter and Bluesky and visit robertrubsam.com

Tony Schwartz’s “Daisy” commercial for LBJ’s 1964 Presidential election campaign

Trailer for Fail-Safe (Sidney Lumet, 1964)

Promo for the live tv broadcast on CBS of Fail-Safe (Stephen Frears, 2000)

Trailer for Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, 2024)

Trailer for A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow, 2025)

Will Sloan returns to the pod to discuss his new monograph Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA, which provides fresh insight on the legendary “bad” director by considering his entire body of work.

For this episode we focus on the final frontier for Ed Wood fans, the pornographic films and books he produced in the twilight of his life.

We discuss in detail 4 of his XXX features: Take It Out in Trade (1970), Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love! and The Only House in Town (both 1971) and his final film, The Young Marrieds(1972). These films (most shot in vivid colour) reveal a dark truth about the Hollywood dream factory, reflecting both the desperation of Wood’s final years and his absolute commitment to his artistic vision no matter the circumstances.

Plus: RIP Diane Keaton.

Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Will Sloan on Twitter and Bluesky and subscribe to his substack and his podcasts The Important Cinema Club and Michael and Us.

Will’s new book Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA (OR Books) is now available through the publisher or in fine bookstores. 

AGFA trailer for the restored Take It Out in Trade (Ed Wood, 1970)

Access this entire 109-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/posts/221-prefab-swoon-141013448

Writer, filmmaker and co-host of the Box Office GROSS podcast Rob Stammitti joins me from Pittsburgh to begin a miniseries on the UK cult band Prefab Sprout, a critically acclaimed band that sold millions of albums and yet didn’t become as huge as they deserved to be. They were hard to categorize, barely toured outside of continental Europe and were somewhat out of step with prevailing trends in popular music in their day and still left behind a fascinating body of work that more people should be aware of.

In part one we discuss arriving late to the game in discovering Prefab Sprout and the long shadow Paddy McAloon casts on modern music before returning to the origin story in County Durham, England, their attention-getting early singles and then track-by-track on their 1984 debut LP Swoon (Songs Written Out Of Necessity). McAloon throws down the gauntlet here, combining post-punk with Bacharach and Broadway influences to create a stunning set at odds with the commercial trends of the era, songs about hard-to-express emotions presented in complex arrangements, which also served as a portrait of the artist as a young man and his declaration of intent, which included projecting an insane youthful self-confidence in his own greatness and great scorn for his contemporaries, wanting to be compared to Sondheim, not Spandau Ballet.

Along the way we discuss the importance of Wendy Smith’s voice, the Steely Dan factor, Paddy’s “Shots Fired” diss tracks, and some of our favourite moments from Swoon that we hope will Sproutpill the uninitiated.

Follow Rob Stammitti on Bluesky, subscribe to his Substack, visit his YouTube page and listen to his podcast with Brian Schmid, Box Office GROSS.

“Side by Side with Sondheim – Swoon and the Great American Musical”, from the Sproutology website, a great resource for the Sproutpilled.

Music video for Don’t Sing, Prefab Sprout, 1984

CW: Spoilers for 28 Days Later and discussions of disturbing subject matter.

Jacob Dallas and Lenore Olson of the literary podcast The Socialist Shelf join me from Atlanta for a discussion of Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later.

Set a couple of decades after the UK was consumed by the Rage Virus of the first film and is now a nation isolated from the rest of the world, 28 Years Later takes place on a small island community in Northern England that has in turn isolated itself from the mainland, and depicts the rituals of this broken society where the surviving men are the hunter gatherers and the women are the providers.

28 Years Later also operates as a metaphor for the UK in the shadow of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, with a society that has forgotten the details of the past but carries on. We discuss some of the provocative ideas 28 Years Later puts forward, including some sympathy for the infected, some contempt for the surviving human race, and the disturbing (and unexpectedly comedic) coda that marks this film as Extremely British, which may not have been clear to international audiences (and indeed enraged some British viewers), while setting up next January’s sequel.

Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Jacob Dallas and Lenore Olson on Bluesky and visit The Socialist Shelf’s website.

Jacob’s upcoming novel They Called Her Rebel (Collective Ink) is now available for pre-order!

Trailer #1 for 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2025)

Trailer #1 for 28 Days Later: The Bone Temple (Nia DaCosta, 2026)

CW: Spoilers for Eddington and discussions of cinematic violence and sexual abuse.

The film writer Del Winters joins me from Philadelphia for a deep dive into Ari Aster’s contemporary Neo-Western/Comedy/Horror hybrid Eddington, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone.

Set in a fictional small town in New Mexico during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eddington depicts a showdown between the liberal mayor Ted Garcia (Pascal) who takes public health measures seriously and the town’s conservative sheriff Joe Cross (Phoenix) who resents the mask mandates and warps an existing personal grudge against Garcia into a campaign to defeat him in the upcoming election, spewing internet-borne conspiracy theories that pit neighbour against neighbour in an escalating situation that may threaten the planned construction of a new data centre.

Eddington has divided audiences along political lines, mirroring what the film has to say about how the pandemic exacerbated already existing problems in how we communicate with each other, how online communities have people now preferring to live in their own realities that reinforce their own beliefs, and the shadowy corporations that shape these divides through the use of technology and social media towards their own purposes.

Del and I discuss how Eddington has been mistaken by some as an “equal opportunity satire" or one with a centrist or even MAGA agenda, the skill in which Aster blends various genres of filmmaking and how it moves from reality to hyperreality, and our responses to some of the most provocative ideas Aster puts forward in this pitch-black satire about modern, broken America.

Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Del Winters on Bluesky and Twitter.

More of Del’s film writing can be found at MovieJawn and the Absolute Reality blog.

Trailer #1 for Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025)

Access this entire 84-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/posts/218-fantastic-136977726

My first twin guests for the show, the film writers Adam and Liam Quane, join the podcast from the Liverpool region for a discussion of the new MCU attempt to adapt the Fantastic Four for the big screen, but our conversation focuses on how blockbusters have used colour coding to convey ideological ideas, particularly in the last decade or so. 

The Quanes think American electoral anxiety and an overall Hollywood Liberal fear of the future in the Trump era play a role in the blockbuster semiotic rules of Blue meaning “the good guys”, Red being “the bad guys” and Purple meaning “the bad guys who could potentially be good guys or at least have good ideas”.

We explore this idea by applying it to recent superhero movies in general and finally how it can apply to the new Fantastic Four, which has been a financial disappointment but like the new Superman, was more entertaining than the three of us expected it to be and despite some quibbles we may have about it, points the way to how to fix these endless comic book movie franchises.

Follow Liam Quane on Bluesky, Facebook and VERO.

Follow Adam Quane on Facebook.

Liam’s novel Road to Juneau (Beaten Track Publishing) is available in Kindle and paperback!

Original teaser for The Fantastic Four: First Steps (Matt Shakman, 2025) that briefly features John Malkovich (who was cut out of the finished film)

This episode contains spoilers for Superman.

The film writer Jessica Ritchey returns for a look at James Gunn’s hard reset of the DC cinematic universe starting with his new  Superman, starring David Corenswet as the Last Son of Krypton, with Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor.

After a decade of Henry Cavill’s Übermensch Superman, Gunn has returned to the original idea of the Man of Steel as a kind and decent protector of the planet. incorporating elements of the character from the last 90 years of comic books, radio, tv, cartoons and cinema, while also plugging the idea of Superman into modern life, where real life supervillains like Trump and Elon Musk seem to have the upper hand. Gunn’s Superman contends with techbros and oligarchs who use other metahumans to inspire fear and social media to corrode the public discourse while running private prisons and engineering global conflicts for profit.

Jessica and I discuss what we appreciate about Superman as a light and goofy movie that holds up kindness as a virtue and goodness as a choice one can make, including the gentle rebuke of Man of Steel in the main plot twist, and how it has enraged the Snyder Bros and conservatives who confidently predicted this movie would fail, but we also eat our words about how sure we were this movie was not going to meet the moment.

Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Jessica Ritchey on Bluesky, and support her work on Patreon.

Pre-release teaser for Superman (Richard Donner, 1978)

Trailer for Superman (James Gunn, 2025)