Pop Screen

It's a slow news week because Cannes has rolled around again, but we give it the old college try anyway. In "Off the Shelf" we discuss Fritz Lang's silent classic Frau Im Mond before discovering the strange wonders of Second Run's Polish Cinema Collection Volume 3. We also try to navigate Juno Mak's conflicted and slightly confusing Rigor Mortis, but things definitively head to weirdsville in our Minority Report - Sion Sono's baffling Bollywood-style Hip-Hop Yakuza musical Tokyo Tribe.

We round things off with our Film of the Week - Brad Bird's science fiction yarn Tomorrowland: A World Beyond.

This week we're pondering the ultimate question - should we do a version with just noises and sound effects? In "Off the Shelf" we take a look at Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace, Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep and the Shaw Brothers historical fight-'em-up - King of Fists and Dollars. All of that is little more than foreplay though, as we heap universal adulation upon our Film of the Week - Mad Max: Fury Road.

This week we change all of the roles, but still, somehow manage to do … stuff. Our featured home entertainment releases in Off the Shelf are Down by Law, Fellini's Satyricon, The Railway Man and Playing It Cool. We also have a rare "Minority Report" review from Graham about Far From The Madding Crowd before ending proceedings with our Film of the Week - Chris Rock's Top Five.

On this week's episode, there are some dark, disturbing revelations. In our Off the Shelf section, we take a look at Sidney Lumet's 1970's classic Network, a box set featuring the work of Chris Marker, the rather alarming soap-opera-like Be My Baby, and the silent movie icon Intolerance. Our Film of the Week this time is Unfriended (spoiler - nowhere near as bad as we dared imagine).

This week's episode features one of the most anticipated releases of the last few years - which means heated and very divisive opinions are on the cards. With a full cast of unsupportive characters, Off the Shelf enjoys Nikkatsu in Massacre Gun, glam-rock musicals in Phantom of the Paradise, classic Brit gangster flicks in The Long Good Friday, and a surprising found footage piece with Afflicted. 

Our film of the Week is Joss Whedon's [The] Avengers: Age of Ultron.

We have all the pronunciations this week - including the good, the bad and the …? Nope, can't finish that sentence. In our Off the Shelf section, we take a look at The Offence from Masters of Cinema, Some Beasts - the highly anticipated critical darling of the festival circuit, and A Good Marriage - the latest in a never-ending line of Stephen King adaptations. Our Film of the Week is a Danish western called The Salvation which stars Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green and former football star Eric Cantona.

On this episode, we find our best idea for a fantasy movie yet and launch a new occasional feature. All in a day's work for us here at Geek Show Towers. We also take a look at the surprising trio of Kon-Tiki, Fruit of Paradise and The Last Horror Movie, before settling down with the Film of the Week - John Wick.

Confusion is in the air this week on Cinema Eclectica with the announcement of a Play-Doh movie and the existence of the Zombie Chicken sub-basement genre. We take a look at The Duke of Burgundy, Mark of the Devil and Day of Anger in Off the Shelf, and as a special treat, we dive into Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema.

Ryan takes a few minutes to talk about Fast & Furious 7 before we discuss the winner of that particular honour - Noah Baumbach's While We're Young.

On this week's episode there are some verbal fisticuffs for the trailer of the week, and we discuss Kevin Smith's Tusk, Himizu, The Killers, Like Water for Chocolate and the irreplaceable Werner Herzog's Invincible in Off the Shelf. For our film of the week, we opted for the small indie sci-fi hit The Signal starring Laurence Fishburne and a boatload of wibbly shenanigans (and thereby avoiding the most racist film of last week).

This week we go rogue once again, featuring not one but two trailers of the week (how crazy are we!). In Off the Shelf we take a look at The Manchurian Candidate, Han Gong-Ju and A Most Violent Year, and we close the show with our Film of the Week - The Voices.