Pop Screen

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 classic performances from Madness, The Beat, The Selecter, The Bodysnatchers and Bad Manners: an unmissable line-up by anyone's standards.

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, one of a series of star-studded flops produced by British TV mogul Lew Grade - and this one has an ace up its sleeve in the form of future Rambo: First Blood Part II director George P Cosmatos.

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 rock documentary and more a fable about life, death and the creative spirit - a typically modest affair, then, from Julien Temple.

Temple, perhaps the ultimate Pop Screen director, is not new to these shores, but our hosts quickly discover this might be the Julien Tempest film ever made. Along the way, we unpick the film's myriad allusions to cinema, poetry and astronomy, as well as discussing Temple's previous attempt at chronicling Dr Feelgood in Oil City Confidential. It's a magical film that definitely isn't just for Wilko fans.

Look, the film's about cancer so I'm not going to make a joke here, I'll cut to the chase - you get so much more on the Geek Show Patreon, from our brand new movie miscellany podcast Last Night..., to two classic Doctor Who reviews a week from Graham. There's also Unseen Asia, in which Rob champions Asian films that lack a UK distributor, and a monthly bonus episode of this very show - the last one, a spoiler special on Glass Onion, may be our best yet. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for more.

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 PI Doc Sportello, and features suitably ethereal narration from the world's coolest harpist - again, not much competition - Joanna Newsom.

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.

You can find Directors Uncut here

Pop Screen has crossed over with our sister podcast, Directors Uncut, for an epic review of 2022. You can already find part a bonus to these bonus episodes for free on our PATREON. The snake truly is eating itself with that one. This is part two of said coverage, which looks at the 10-6 from this lovely bunch of people - besides Graham and Rob, there is Naomi, Kat, James, Vincent, Oliver, Cliff and Andy. And you better believe there are a lot of films from all over the movie map up for discussion, maybe too many? No, that'd be a ridiculous thing to say in a show description. So I better not be caught saying that. 

Part two of this coverage and the finale of our 2022 in-review coverage can be found on the Directors Uncut feed tomorrow. Normal service resumes on this next episode of Pop Screen.  

You can donate to our Patreon, where you'll get a monthly bonus episode of this podcast. The next one is a spoiler-packed, Janelle Monae-worshipping chat about Glass Onion. Patreons also get Rob's articles on overlooked Asian films, Graham's Doctor Who reviews, and a brand new podcast called Last Night... plus more. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for more information.

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 anecdotes about how their black-clad smack-addled racket played with California's hippie scene. (Spoiler alert: badly!)

This week, Graham is joined by Left Lion's Oliver Parker to discuss Haynes's unusual swerve into documentary, the legacy of Lou Reed, the, uh, distinctive singing voices of Reed and Nico, and the film's portrayal of New York and Andy Warhol's Factory. They also agonise about what the best Velvet Underground album is - don't lie, you've struggled with the answer yourself - and get a sly diss at Drake in somehow. We're still not sure how that got in there, but it was worth it.

If you want to give us The Gift - eh? eh? - of support, you can donate to our Patreon, where you'll get a monthly bonus episode of this podcast. The next one is out in a fortnight, and it's a spoiler-packed, Janelle Monae-worshipping chat about Glass Onion. Patreons also get Rob's articles on overlooked Asian films, Graham's Doctor Who reviews, and more. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for more information.

[drum hit] AND IIIII-EEE-AAAYYY... Yes, some songs are born Christmassy, some achieve Christmasiness, and some have Christmas thrust upon them, as is the case with Whitney Houston's cover of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You. Arguably the best-remembered Christmas number one of the nineties, it prompted us to make a festive episode about The Bodyguard, the Lawrence Kasdan film whose soundtrack it graces.

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 enough to send Graham into a journey into the heart of Blobbyland. But there's also the film's main star to reckon with - Toyah Wilcox, captured here just before her punk makeover, committing the ultimate sin of singing with a band called Bilbo Baggins.

Second City Firsts also dipped its toe into the pop pond with Squire, an excellent, magic-realist tale of a working-class dreamer played by Lindisfarne's Alan Hull. Which of our two hosts - the North-Easterner Graham, the North-Westerner Mark - is a Lindisfarne fan? The answer may surprise you! We also discuss the many, depressingly business-related reasons why the single television play fell from fashion, the recent British film that reminded us of Squire, the mystery of the leaping dog, and why Graham is a capitalist [EXPLETIVE DELETED].

If you want to keep us in the capitalist pig lifestyle we're accustomed to, you can donate to our Patreon, where you'll get Rob's reviews of unjustly overlooked Asian films, Graham's classic series Doctor Who reviews, and a monthly bonus episode of this very show - listen to the end of this episode to find out what the next one is, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for more news.

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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 Man - this was Al's only major motion picture. But that still leaves decades of recordings to discuss, and that's why Al superfan Jeff Pizek is back on the podcast to help bewildered Briton Graham get to the meaning of Al.