Pop Screen

The prospect of a Frank Zappa episode of Pop Screen is likely to get you either cheering or groaning, which is of course why we're doing it. This week, confirmed Zappa obsessive Aidan Fatkin joins regular host and Zappa dunce Graham to talk him through the jazz-rock-classical-comedy titan's career - his epic discography, exhaustive production techniques, ribald wit and many, many, seriously many battles with the forces of censorship.

We're also here, of course, to talk about his 1971 film 200 Motels, a plotless mix of skits, musical performances, animation that might be too weird for cult status. Full of sex, lies and videotape - hey, that's a catchy title! - it can be hard work but, like Zappa himself, it's a true one-off. We discuss the career of co-director Tony Palmer and his influence on rock-doc history, as well as Keith Moon playing a sexy nun, a bizarre misunderstanding over the word "pad" and Danny Baker for some reason.

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Today we know Morrissey as a character on The Simpsons, but are you aware he also taught Villanelle how to do local government admin? This is just one of the revelations in Mark Gill's 2017 film England is Mine, a film about Morrissey's early life starring Jack Lowden as the indie icon-in-the-making. Released just as Morrissey exhausted the patience of his remaining fanbase by threatening to sue Der Spiegel for accurately reporting his terrible opinions, it vanished quickly - but did it deserve better?

This week, Mick Snowden of Behold! podcast joins Graham to mull that question over. They also discuss their shared love of The Smiths, including the evergreen hobby of picking out the references to old films and girl-group hits the band's lyrics and record sleeves are studded with, and share theories about why Morrissey's official Facebook page is so very, very strange.

"I've never had a job/ Because I'm too shy", and if you want to help me maintain this unsupportable lifestyle you can donate to The Geek Show's Patreon, where you'll find exclusive bonus episodes of Pop Screen, our other movie podcast Director's Lottery, the best damn Doctor Who reviews on the internet and more. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to hear about what we've got coming up next.

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It's the film that's so punk, it annoyed even the punks - Derek Jarman's Jubilee, with its motley cast including Toyah Wilcox, Rocky Horror legend Richard O'Brien, a pre-fame Adam Ant and at least one former tightrope walker, is our subject of discussion this week. Join We Are Cult's Mark Cunliffe and regular host Graham Williamson as they discuss Jarman's influence as a film-maker, a gay rights advocate and even a gardener, as well as the film's fascinated yet critical overview of Britain's first wave of punk.

There's also room to consider the divergent careers of the film's stars, from the hugely influential original punk scene kid Pamela "Jordan" Rooke to Ian Charleson and Karl Howman: incestuous brothers in Jubilee, but the actors went on to have very different later careers. We also talk about punk's questionable, semi-ironic use of fascist and serial killer iconography, as well as the vexed question of why the British scene burned out so quickly - albeit leaving some tremendous music.

Obviously money is a deeply un-punk statist control system created by the Man to keep us down, but we still need it. If you donate to our Patreon you can get a monthly Pop Screen bonus episode, as well as access to our other film podcast Directors Lottery and Graham's classic Doctor Who reviews. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to keep up to date with everything we've got coming in the future!

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It would be fair to say that Battleship, Peter Berg's $250 million dollar Hasbro adaptation, does not arrive with the greatest of advance press. And yet, on this week's Pop Screen, our hosts are still astonished at how much goes wrong. Join Graham and Andrew (from Behold! podcast) as we anatomise the film's scanty, mostly burrito-focused characterisation, its unfortunate obsession with the acronym "RIMPAC", its unexpectedly cute alien baddies and its truly beyond-parody choice of end credits song.

But because this is Pop Screen, we talk about more than the movie. This was an inauspicious screen debut for Rihanna, so we also take some time to discuss the Barbadian R&B superstar's ability to expertly ride the wave of cultural changes, as well as her little-heralded role in putting British indie-pop out of its misery. We also wonder what she's been doing since the release of her last album in 2016, and discover a new way in which that infamous year is cursed.

Rihanna can afford to sit around posting on Instagram for five years, but we can't, which is why we genuinely appreciate your support on our Patreon. We also reciprocate your pecuniary affections with exclusive Pop Screen episodes, exclusive access to our other film podcast Director's Lottery, Graham's Doctor Who reviews and more. Check Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for more.

#popscreen #moviereview #battleship #rihanna #peterberg #liamneeson #action #sciencefiction #alexanderskarsgard

Brian De Palma is not a name commonly associated with campy rock-opera frivolity, but his 1974 film Phantom of the Paradise is closer to Rocky Horror territory than you'd expect from the Carrie auteur. A gonzo melange of Gaston le Roux, the Faust myth and the 1970s music scene before it figured out how to be cool, it's like nothing else you've ever seen before, and this week Graham joins his Directors' Lottery colleague Rob Simpson to figure it all out.

Along the way, we discuss De Palma's career, its roots in experimental hippie-era satire and its many highs and lows. We also discuss Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow's 2015 documentary about the director, and how it affected our understanding of this film. There's also room for some consideration of the film's star, singer-songwriter Paul Williams, a delightful anecdote about a young Guillermo del Toro and a quiz about the many, many lawsuits this film unexpectedly faced.

If you don't want to see us reduced signing our life's work away in blood to make money, you can donate to our Patreon. Donors will get exclusive access to bonus episodes of Pop Screen, Graham's Doctor Who reviews and the aforementioned Director's Lottery. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes if you enjoyed this show.

#popscreen #moviereviews #phantomoftheparadise #briandepalma #phantomoftheopera #faust #musicals #jessicaharper #1970s #paulwilliams

Before we find out if Chadwick Boseman is going to win a posthumous Oscar for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, let's take a look back at Get On Up, his previous brush with the Academy's sweet tooth for musical biopics. Widely predicted to be a frontrunner in the 2015 Oscar race, the Mick Jagger-produced biopic of James Brown walked away empty-handed. It would be one thing if it was a competitive year, but this was the year when the big winner was The Revenant, so, y'know.

What went wrong? Well, as Ben and Graham discover on this week's episode, it certainly isn't any fault of Boseman's. They anatomise his remarkable performance as the Godfather of Soul, and examine the themes and strengths that run through the actor's tragically short career. There's also room for discussion of James Brown's turbulent life, ranging from his legendary work ethic to his infamously contradictory political stances, as well as his monumental influence on hip-hop.

Showbusiness is a fickle mistress prone to wild mood swings, so if you want our eventual biopic (it's coming, right?) to be a bit more harmonious than this you can donate to our Patreon and get loads of goodies like our other movie podcast Director's Lottery, Graham's Doctor Who reviews, a monthly bonus episode of this show and more. Don't forget to follow on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook too.

#popscreen #moviereview #getonup #funk #jamesbrown #chadwickboseman #tatetaylor #biopic #oscars #maraineysblackbottom #danaykroyd #octaviaspencer #violadavis

Pop Screen roars back, like an army of mods on scooters, with Quadrophenia. One of the definitive British cult movies, a peerless translation of an ambitious concept album and a loving tribute to a scene that, in its era, was so dangerous that the term "moral panic" was coined to describe the press reaction. It's the film that made Brighton rock.

But even this is selling Frank Roddam's film short, as Mick and Graham discover. It worked in the 1970s because it tapped into the disaffection and rage of late '70s Britain, it worked in the 1990s as part of the mass Sixties revival of Britpop, and it works now because - hey! - it's a good film, got some good tunes in it and that. All of these topics will be discussed, as well as Roddam's links to everything from one of Hollywood's legendary unproduced screenplays to Masterchef, the film's early roles for Sting, Ray Winstone and Timothy Spall, and the bit-part actor whose name had to be redacted from a song by Iggy Pop.

Want to support this non-stop flow of solid gold trivia? You can donate to our Patreon and get an exclusive bonus episode every month, as well as our other movie podcast Director's Lottery, our Doctor Who reviews and more. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to keep up with what we've got coming up!

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What better time for a mockumentary than April Fools Day? The history of  music industry mockery is long and storied, but Graham, Sarah and Mark went for a recent example - Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a note-perfect spoof of the early 2010s style of pop-promo documentary. A flop on its initial release in 2016, time has shown that ever since this film was born, it was dope.

Join our trio of reviewers as we consider the career of The Lonely Island, the comedy hip-hop trio who created and star in the film, as well as the real-life inspirations behind some of the film's funniest jokes, how its cavalcade of cameos - everyone from Nas to Mariah Carey to Ringo Starr - matches up to real-life music documentaries, and the reasons why this film couldn't beat out the Ninja Turtles at the US box office. We also have a dramatic reading of the press release for Justin Bieber's new album, which could be taken straight from Conner4Real's dialogue.

If you want to help us earn Patrick Stewart money, you can donate to our Patreon. In return, you'll get a monthly bonus episode of Pop Screen - there's one about the Style Council out tomorrow! - as well as our other movie podcast Director's Lottery, weekly Doctor Who reviews and lots of other bonus content. Also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

#popscreen #moviereview #mockumentary #thelonelyisland #popstarneverstopneverstopping #andysamberg #saturdaynightlive

Pop Screen continues its dive into the strangest products of the 1980s trend towards long-form music videos with a lost gem of British pop surrealism - Jack Bond's It Couldn't Happen Here, starring the Pet Shop Boys. Arguably the first stumble in the relentless upwards trajectory PSB were enjoying, it's been disowned by the band and archly reappraised by Bond as "the first post-Brexit movie".

After joining Graham to review Spice World in Episode 2, Ewan Gleadow makes his Pop Screen return for this utterly befuddling film, which sees Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe embarking on an epic road trip involving existentialist ventriloquist dummies, burning men walking calmly through Kings Cross and Barbara Windsor. We also discuss the label of "irony" that hung around the band's necks for much of their early careers, their unfortunate habit of releasing anti-consumerist songs whose messages went over the heads of Thatcher's Britain, and the vexed question of what the best Pet Shop Boys album is.

If you want to help us make lots of money, but in an ironic way obviously, you can donate to our Patreon - backers get exclusive access to our other movie podcast Director's Lottery and a bonus Pop Screen episode every month. For more news about upcoming shows, follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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We have taken out our Invisalign, and this is the podcast: Mick Snowden of Behold! rejoins Pop Screen to review Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry. It's basically a piece of embedded journalism from the household of a very 21st-century pop star, from the day she first uploaded 'Ocean Eyes' to being tapped to write a Bond theme at the age of eighteen. 

Along the way, Graham and Mick will debate whether 140 minutes is the right length of time to document a career that's still only one album long, as well as pondering the mysterious name of Billie's no-mark boyfriend "Q", appreciating the convenience of having a mother who doubles as a masseuse, sharing a personal anecdote about a Radio 2 DJ and delineating the difference between a guy who has a car and a Car Guy.

Alas, we have yet to achieve the level of success that might make Katy Perry pay attention to us, but if you want to help us get there you can donate to our Patreon and get yourself an exclusive bonus episode every month. You can also keep up to date on our plans for our future (can't wait to meet her!) on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

#theworldsalittleblurry #popscreen #moviereviews #billieeilish #jamesbond #documentary #appletv #oceaneyes