Bow before the mighty Thor! That's Jon Mikl Thor, obviously, the musclebound Canadian hard rocker whose mix of riffs and strongman stunts never quite led him to rock Valhalla. Not that it stopped him trying, and Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare was his biggest swing at the big leagues. On paper, it's a canonical hard rock horror movie, right down to the not-exactly-a-stretch casting of Thor as the frontman of a rock band. In practice, it is far, far stranger than that. Join Graham and Jeff as they...

Phoebe Bridgers! Snail Mail! Fred Durst?! The list of Pop Screen-qualifying cast members is only the beginning of the weirdness in Jane Schoenbrun's sophomore film I Saw the TV Glow. Released in the UK after a wait almost as punishing as the film's devastating time-jumps, it's the story of two kids who really, really like a TV show. That is, if you're satisfied with a surface-level reading. If you're not, allow Graham and Robyn to take you through the film's multitude of trans and queer...

It's time for Pop Screen's Halloween month, and as luck would have it one of the biggest new horror films of the year has plenty of pop connections. The final instalment in a trilogy which started with X, MaXXXine takes the story of Maxine Minx through to the '80s, and finds Halsey and Moses Sumney waiting for her there. Join Graham and Andrew from Behold! podcast as they dive into the film's period detail, which of its supporting actors get away with their outrageous accents, and the magic...

On 13th September 1996, Tupac Shakur died in a still-unexplained killing (well, unless Eminem just blew the case wide open). It left a lot of things in limbo, including Vondie Curtis-Hall's spiky, charming directorial debut. Nobody wanted to see a crime comedy starring someone who'd just been the victim of a horrific crime, even if - as Graham and Mark unpack on this week's episode - the crime in Gridlock'd is rather more small-time than the web of corruption that got Tupac...

Outside of documentaries and one unforgettable appearance on The Simpsons, The Ramones only made one film appearance - but what an appearance! Allan Arkush's chaotic, Joe Dante-scripted Rock 'n' Roll High School wasn't even meant to star da brudders, with Todd Rundgren and Cheap Trick considered for the film's musical guests. Then, one of the film's stars told producer Roger Corman there was a much hipper band whose asking price was much lower - and Corman, as ever, was sold on the second...

When David and Graham are on the show together, you should be on high alert for a camp catastrophe, and lord do we get it in the form of Ken Hughes's Sextette. An innuendo-stuffed sex farce starring Mae West, it could have been a smash hit if it was made in the 1930s, when she was in her forties. Instead, it was made in the 1970s, when she was 84, and the result is the vanity project to end all vanity projects. Join us as we discuss the star-studded cast, including a relentlessly hammy...

What was the British pop movie like before The Beatles? They were quite a lot like What a Whopper, as Graham and Mark discover this week. A featherweight farce in which a struggling writer and his bohemian friends try to fake a Loch Ness Monster sighting - just go with it, OK - it features a plethora of British comedy legends, a script by Dalek creator Terry Nation, and, as its lead, one Adam Faith. It's easy to forget what a massive name Faith was in his heyday, and our hosts examine every...

Get your motor running, head out on the highway... wait, it's not that Peter Fonda-starring 1960s biker movie. No, The Wild Angels came a few years before Easy Rider, and it centres around a noticeably less idealistic group of bikers. Director Roger Corman hired several real Hell's Angels to serve as extras in his film, and if you're thinking there's probably stories from that set, you're right. Let Ben and Graham tell you them: from Corman's sociological reasons for having Bruce Dern's...

What do you get if you combine the most divisive woman in 1970s America, the least divisive woman in modern America, and a comedy legend? You get an absolute treat, at least if it goes as well as Nine to Five did. Colin Higgins's film brings together Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin in a class-conscious romp about three women who kidnap their sexist pig of a boss and find the office runs a lot better without him. It's basically The Communist Manifesto with a thumping C&W theme...

Ladies and gentlemen, The Weeknd. To celebrate - 'celebrate' - the first anniversary of one of the defining pop star ego trips of our age, Graham and Robyn have reconvened to look at all six - no, wait, all five - episodes of Sam Levinson's disasterpiece. If you're wondering why we won't get a third season of Euphoria until the cast are in a retirement home, forget the writer's strike - this is why.From the twisted minds of Robyn and Graham, please enjoy discussion of: the Weeknd's remarkable...

Back with a vengeance! Yes, ahead of the release of Furiosa, we're looking at the Mad Max movie that features the most legendary pop star in the whole series (well, apart from the Doof Warrior): Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Initially reviled for its lighter tone and child sidekicks, the film now feels like a stepping stone to the operatic excesses George Miller has taken the franchise to in the 21st century - and Tina Turner as Aunty Entity is a piece of stunt-casting that truly works. This...

We've covered plenty of biopics of musical legends on this podcast, and one word has hovered unspoken in the background: Cox. Dewey Cox, that is, the legendary rocker played by John C Reilly in Jake Kasdan's Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. A musical innovator, a tortured genius, a tireless advocate for small people's rights... he didn't exist, of course, but this spoof is so beautifully observed it doesn't really matter. Let's duet! This week, Mark Harrison of Film Stories rejoins Graham to...

John Singleton was 21 - 21! - when he made one of the most acclaimed debuts of the 1990s, one which led to him becoming the first African-American to get a Best Director nomination at the Oscars. It would be the perfect punchline if it was bad, but annoyingly for this deeply unserious podcast it's great: a frontline dispatch from a world plagued by violence and poverty that still feels vital, and also finds room for more humour and tenderness than you might expect. Join Rob and Graham as...

Sam Taylor-Johnson is about to release Back to Black, her second music biopic following 2009's Nowhere Boy. So naturally Pop Screen decided to review... her EL James adaptation? Yeah, why not, it's got Rita Ora in it. Returning co-host Joe did a lot of Ritasearch for this podcast and was delighted to remember that she only has about a minute of screentime. Not that there's any shortage of other things to talk about when it comes to 50 Shades of Grey. Its status as a cultural phenomenon, its...

There are some pop movies that capture the appeal of an entire genre. Such was the case with Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come, a crime drama that was such a hit it essentially popularised reggae in the United States. Such things are possible only with a star of the calibre of Jimmy Cliff, plus soundtrack and screen appearances from the likes of Toots and the Maytals and Prince Buster. This week, Aidan rejoins Graham to talk about Henzell's film, and uncover the reason why he might be...

In 2024, Pop Screen is spending a month in Jamaica, hailing the island's mighty presence in the field of music. And to kick off, we're talking about... er, 10cc? Yes, when they said they don't like reggae, they love it, few could have expected that love would manifest itself in multi-instrumentalist Lol Creme directing a 1991 Jamaican comedy about a small-town eccentric who thinks he can talk to trees, cows and cricket balls becoming involved with a lusty German photographer. As you...

In 2004, the veteran Welsh rock band The Alarm pulled off an audacious hoax, releasing their single '45 RPM' under the alias of The Poppy Fields. The Poppy Fields were supposedly a new band of teenage rock stars in skinny jeans, as was the style at the time. As the song ascended the charts, Alarm mainman Mike Peters revealed the deception, kicking off a debate about ageism in the music industry. It's a fascinating story, so fascinating that Mick has dragged himself out of his sickbed to talk...

Good vibes only this week, as Mark Cunliffe of We Are Cult rejoins the podcast to talk about Cyndi Lauper's lead role in the 1988 supernatural comedy Vibes. A film so inspired by Ghostbusters that Dan Aykroyd was briefly attached to star, it has an enviable cast fronted by Lauper, Jeff Goldblum and Peter Falk. And yet, somehow, it tanked. On this episode of Pop Screen, then, we attempt to solve the timeless Fortean mystery of why people didn't watch this at the time, taking detours to talk...

Memo to you: Pop Screen is back for 2024 and we're covering one of the wildest, most controversial and most ambitious rock movies of the 1970s. Starring Mick Jagger among a motley cast of models, gangsters, boxers and one father of a national embarrassment, Performance saw Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell join forces for a joint debut like no other. On this episode, Rob and Graham reunite to talk about the film's turbulent production, its difficult journey into a form Warner Brothers - who...

Last week, our sister podcast Uncut took you through January through to June in our two-part review of 2023. Now, Pop Screen takes up the reigns with Vincent, Naomi, Rob, Graham, Kat, Simon, Mike, Oliver and James all returning to give their favourite films of the second half of the year - culminating in that all-important top ten. What will make the cut? Who did Barbenheimer on the day of release? How many diverging opinions on Saltburn can we get? And who put the Puss in Boots sequel above...

Pop Screen finishes 2023 with a movie that could not be less stock to our ears - Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Granted unprecedented levels of access to the world's biggest heavy metal band, the directors of the Paradise Lost trilogy made a raw documentary about a band somehow staying together and making an album despite unprecedented personal turmoil. The punchline: the album they make is St. Anger, perhaps the most reviled album in their back catalogue...

All we want for Christmas is this: Mariah Carey's notorious film vehicle is the subject of Pop Screen's festive episode. Equally reviled and unfortunate, it's the tale of a foster child who grows up into an aspiring singer, and whose rise to fame is, shall we say, subtly patterned on Carey's own career. Its soundtrack album was released on 9/11, which stymied its commercial potential. That inspired a #JusticeforGlitter campaign many years later; the film was less fortunate. On this year's...

Get ready for (a) love (-in): Graham is joined once again by the Uncut Network's Rob for a look at Iain Forsythe and Jane Pollard's massively acclaimed sort-of documentary about Nick Cave. As well as providing an intimate look at the Australian legend's creative process and history, it also features appearances from his deeply unexpected celebrity friends: Ray Winstone and Kylie Minogue, together at last! Along the way, there's time to consider the idiosyncratic concert demands of Nina...

On this week's Pop Screen, Graham has a very important and special guest: Mark's dog! And, fine, yes, also Mark, with our favourite quizmaster and Film Stories writer coming back to talk about Russell T Davies's most personal drama. Set across the early years of the AIDS crisis, It's a Sin has a cast full of breakthrough young stars, memorable cameos from acting veterans, plus Olly Alexander, whose day job in Years and Years allows us to cover the show. Not that we need much of an excuse to...