John Rain is the host of the cult podcast Smersh Pod and the author of Thunder Book, SuperBook and Explodobook. Smersh Book is available here.

Connery A Novel is available here. 

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One of the greatest films never finished. One of Hollywood’s most dangerous alliances. One enduring legend.

In the late 1920s, at the height of silent cinema’s reckless glamour, three formidable figures set out to make an impossible film. Gloria Swanson, the era’s most dazzling star. Erich von Stroheim, cinema’s most obsessive and uncompromising auteur. And Joseph P. Kennedy, a ruthless financier with ambitions far beyond Hollywood. The result was Queen Kelly — a production so extravagant, scandalous, and volatile that it collapsed before completion, leaving behind fragments, myths, and a curse that would haunt everyone involved.

Buy your copy HERE.

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Although Alfred Hitchcock was notoriously dismissive of actors, Victoria Lowe (University of Manchester) and Adrian Garvey have edited a collection of essays which argues that acting played a key element of his work. Films discussed include Notorious, Stage Fright and Strangers on a Train. The book provides detailed analysis of some exceptional performances by major stars – from Ivor Novello to Tippi Hedren – and considers performance as a theme across Hitchcock’s oeuvre.

I talk to Adrian and Victoria about their work and Hitchcock more generally.

The Book is available Here.

Connery: A Novel by John Bleasdale is available here.

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Filmmakers Thinking begins from a simple premise: that we do not take the ongoing reflections of filmmakers about their medium, their art and their craft, seriously enough. Every day, everywhere, filmmakers are asked to talk mainly about themselves and their own works. Yet their vocation springs from a deep engagement with the history and possibilities of cinema as a whole. Going beyond the usual, oft-cited sources, Filmmakers Thinking delves into a vast archive of writings (public and private), interviews, talks, and anecdotes to discover what filmmakers think about how to create cinema – and what cinema is, or could be.

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Connery A Novel by John Bleasdale is available here.

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Stephen Volk is a Welsh screenwriter, who wrote the screenplays for numerous horror films, including Ken Russell's Gothic (1986), The Kiss (1988), and William Friedkin's The Guardian (1990). In 1992, Volk wrote the teleplay for the BBC pseudo-documentary Ghostwatch. Other screenwriting credits include Octane (2003) and The Awakening (2011).

Stephen Volk's website can be visited here.

Buy John Bleasdale's Connery here.

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Irish actor and writer Gabriel Byrne talks about writing his memoir Walking with Ghosts, available here.

Buy John Bleasdale's Connery here.

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DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His latest novel, Angel Down, was a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2025. His novel Whalefall won the Alex Award, was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR, The New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more. With Guillermo del Toro, he cowrote The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film.

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“Most dyed-in-the-wool film buffs nurture their own private lists of movie directors they feel have been underappreciated, neglected, and/or underrated,” Joe Dante writes in this book’s Foreword. “But very few of us are moved to write an entire book about them.” Beyond mere appreciation, however, author Daniel Kremer presents a philosophy and a guiding principle for venerating the undervalued or forgotten. Buy the book here.

Buy John Bleasdale's Connery here.

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The World of Black Film is an entertaining, informed, and thought-provoking survey of important and influential Black films from around the globe. Available here.

The recommended book is African Cinema: Politics & Culture by Manthia Diawara.

Meanwhile my novel Connery is available here.

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As a film critic and disabled person, Kristen Lopez speaks with particular authority on how disability is represented-and too often misrepresented-in movies. Popcorn Disabilities is her impassioned but nonetheless fun and engaging survey of how Hollywood has dealt with disability over the last century.

Buy Kristen's book Here.

Connery: a Novel by John Bleasdale is available here.

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