Pop Screen

After last week's voyage into self-importance courtesy of U2, Pop Screen tackles a film that couldn't possibly be more lightweight - the 1965 teen comedy Beach Ball. Strange, as it features one of the most tortured souls in '60s pop - Scott Walker - and one of its defining divas, Diana Ross. But this is an entry in the brief but prolific fad for beach party movies, in which mysteriously parent-free teenagers meet on the shore to date and do nothing that threatens a U certificate while listening to the drumming stylings of... exploitation film stalwart Sid Haig?!

It's a story we keep running into here on Pop Screen: a band are so big,

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Vampires! Undead creatures of the night who people also find really hot! If you think fancying a walking corpse is #problematic, wait until you see the actions of Vampire, the imaginatively-named vampire played by Martin Kemp in 1995's Embrace of the Vampire. In Anne Goursaud's film, he's looking to get his fangs on an underage girl before she's legal, just like [NAME REDACTED ON LEGAL ADVICE]

There are more tangents than usual on this episode, possibly so Graham and guest host Robyn Adams don't have to spend any more time talking about this deeply gross central plot. Aside from the cult-icon-heavy cast including Jennifer Tilly, Rachel True and Alyssa Milano, there's also room for conversations on Ace of Base, Charles Band's financial woes and the sex lives of the Blind Dead. You are not ready for this episode.

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Pop Screen doesn't cover much metal, and a cynical listener might counter that we're not about to start now, as we look at the 2019 Netflix film The Dirt. A biopic of Motley Crue, it offers a visceral look at sex, drugs and rock and roll, but maybe not enough into why hair metal (the stuff Americans heretically call "glam rock") remains so divisive.

To address this and so many other questions, Graham is joined by Kat from The Hollywood News to talk about their mutual soft spot for the much-maligned rock biopic genre, our feelings on the Crue and the grunge scene that essentially ended their career, and how well the film handles its many darker strands. We are gentler on Machine Gun Kelly than you might think, though there's a good Eminem diss if that's your thing.

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How do you weather the changes in a genre your band helped define? It's tricky. Run-DMC tried to rebrand with Tougher Than Leather, the title of both an album and a film directed by their producer Rick Rubin. A tough yet strangely naive premonition of the gangsta rap years to come, it also features one of Rubin's other proteges, The Beastie Boys, just as their career took off.

It's got serious time capsule value, then, so it's no wonder it prompts hosts Graham and Jeff to reflect on the odd experience of being a white hip-hop fan in the late 1980s and 90s, a time when the genre was subject to both fetishisation and moral panic from our fellow honkies. We also discuss the unexpected links this film has to movies by James Grey and Jonathan Demme, formative 'adult' cinema and the parallel universe where this film was directed by Spike Lee. Turns out we can, in fact, rock it like this.

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If there's one thing pop music needs almost as much as it needs musicians, it's people who won't hear the words "Actually, that's a really bad idea". Terri Hooley was one such man. Record shop owner, record label owner and focal point for Belfast's punk scene, what he lacked in business sense he made up for in passion. Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros d'Sa's biopic Good Vibrations tells his unbelievable story.

We've got an expanded cast on the show to celebrate the film, too, with Graham joined by Directors Uncut's Rob and another regular co-host, Mark from We Are Cult. As well as the film, they also describe the odd experience of actors you love starring on shows you don't care about, discuss the films that did - and didn't - get punk right, and invent at least one new musical genre. There are some bad impersonations again, but it's definitely within the spirit of the film this time.

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Ridicule is nothing to be scared of, which is probably for the best, as Adam Ant earned a fair bit of it for his role in this post-apocalyptic action movie. The product of veteran journeyman director Lee H Katzin, it also stars Bruce Dern in a role he literally does not remember filming as the last hippie, fighting against the diminutive Man and his army of bad choirboys. No, really.

This week we're joined by the Cymreig Samurai himself, Ben Jones, as we discuss how Adam Ant's cult nearly had a very different book as their inspiration, and get the idea for a guaranteed smash-hit range of action figures. Ben also astonishes Graham with a pop movie even he hasn't heard of, and we discuss the intimate secrets of Pinocchio's anatomy. The film sends you down some strange paths, OK?

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See it! Feel it! It's finally time for Pop Screen to scale the all-time summit of the rock opera form - Ken Russell's Tommy, based on the album by The Who. Pete Townsend's achingly personal tale of a traumatised kid mistakenly hailed as a messiah, it's got a soundtrack of some of The Who's most indelible tracks and a visual style that is one hundred per cent pure, uncut Uncle Ken.
This week, Graham is joined by Mick from Behold! podcast to discuss this absolutely singular work, with its eclectic cast that includes everyone from the star of Just Good Friends to the star of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. We also discuss the real-life Acid Queen Russell would meet some years later, the possibility of a spin-off about Oliver Reed's Butlins years, and whether Rupert the Bear is friends with a wood sprite. One of those weeks, clearly.
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This episode of Pop Screen is about the rivalry between '90s psych-rock revivalists The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre - and if you think that's a niche subject for a film, that's how Ondi Timoner's DiG! came across before its premiere in 2004. Yet it was immediately and rightly hailed as a classic film about rock music, the nature of genius and selling out, becoming a cult classic for audiences far outside the two bands' pre-existing fandom.

This week, Ewan from (Don't) Listen to This returns - you have to remind him about his own podcast, he does forget things - to discuss Timoner's fascinating career, how the film's take on the record industry holds up in a very different landscape nearly twenty years later, and whether it's so bad to sell out anyway. We also talk about the differences between American and British memories of the 1990s, and indulge in a treasonous fantasy about the upcoming coronation. It's all here!

If you want to help finance repairs to our sitar collection, we've got a Patreon where you can get a monthly bonus episode of this show - listen to the end to find out what the next one will be - plus exclusive content like Rob's reviews of Asian films that want for a UK distributor, our everything-and-the-kitchen-sink podcast Last Night..., and Graham's weekly Doctor Who reviews. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to find out more.

Some pop stars like to take the easy route into acting by starring opposite lightweight co-stars. And then there's Johnny Cash, whose acting debut in 1971's A Gunfight sees him playing alongside no less than Kirk Douglas, with Karen Black, Jane Alexander and a young Keith Carradine in support. It wasn't a big hit - largely because calling a Western A Gunfight is like calling an action movie A Car Chase - but it's well worth a look for fans of the Man in Black. And you have seen one bit of it, even if you don't realise it...