Writers on Film

Joseph McBride has been a veteran critic, a teacher, the screenwriter of (among others) Rock n Roll High School. He's acted for Orson Welles and campaigned for John F Kennedy. A fearsome intellect and a great film scholar, this is a mammoth episode for a legendary man. His new memoir/interview book with Danny Peary I Loved Movies But... is available here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

YouTuber Thomas Flight has amassed over 1 Million subscribers to his YouTube Channel and offers in depth visual essays on everything cinematic. He is also a documentary filmmaker and writes for many publications including his own Substack Seeing Through Film is available here. His YouTube channel is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The western in all its forms is the subject of Jem Duducu's new fascinating book. Even while the frontiers of the Wild West were being fought over, its myth was being forged. Sometimes this was in the form of incredibly popular pulp novels, on others the likes of the hugely successful Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show that even toured Europe and delighted monarchs. By the turn of the 20th Century, just as the era was being consigned to history, motion pictures began telling these stories in a new medium. Some of the early films were supervised by the very legends of the old west the movie was about. The era of the western was born.Some of the most important films of the 20th century were westerns. Many of Hollywood’s brightest stars regularly played cowboys and for decades, the simple western was a guaranteed way to make money and fill a movie theatre.Like every art form, over the years the western evolved. At times it was as wholesome as apple pie. There were times when it redefined cinema in terms of scope and storytelling. In other decades it created great anxiety about levels of violence and moral nihilism. The genre has been used to entertain, reveal the plight of indigenous peoples, explore racism, sexism and even homophobia. There have been westerns that have been analogies for the perils of McCarthyism. A few have been heaped with awards and critical acclaim, others were reviled by critics (and sometimes even their own studio) only to go on and be massive box office successes. Lines, images and scores from westerns have seeped into pop culture.Today the western no longer dominates cinemas as it once did but they are still hugely popular. Once again they have evolved with the times, becoming hit video games or massively popular shows on TV or streaming services. Buy here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top author and friend of the podcast Tom Shone returns to talk about his new book The Greengrass Papers which gets up close and personal with one of the most influential film directors of our time Paul Greengrass. From The Murder of Stephen Lawrence through the Bourne films and Captain Phillips to his latest The Last Bus, we go through it all. The book is available here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Arthur Penn's neo-noir thriller Night Moves, starring the late Gene Hackman, Alan Sharp's novel based on his original screenplay – out of print since its first publication in 1975 – is presented here in a stunning new paperback edition, with exclusive cover art by the legendary Tony Stella, an introduction by Matthew Asprey Gear (author of Moseby Confidential) and an afterword by David Manderson (author of The Anti-hero's Journey: the Work and Life of Alan Sharp).  Out of print for 50 years, this special edition is strictly limited to 1,000 copies, and exclusively available from Plumeria here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another chance to hear the episode on the Kraszna- Krausz Moving Image Book Award Winning Screen Deep by Ellen E Jones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talk to Ellen E Jones the winner of the Kraszna- Krausz  Moving Image Book Awards 2025. The event at the Barbican to celebrate Ellen's win is on 27 October - https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/imitation-of-life-12-with-introduction-reception Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Though it was not to acquire its definitive name and identity until the following year, the Giornate del Cinema Muto can date its first edition to 9 to 11 September 1982. Jay Weissberg is the current director of the festival. I spoke with James Harrison from South West Silents. And musician, dramatist and expert Neil Brand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get the book here. The definitive, in-depth look inside the making of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window—the all-time classic of voyeurism, paranoia, and murder that became one of Hollywood’s greatest achievements and turned generations of viewers into “a race of Peeping Toms.” . . .Before the internet and social media offered voyeuristic glimpses into the lives of others, the acclaimed Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, exposed the dangers and delights of looking—and knowing—too much in his 1954 masterpiece Rear Window. Widely hailed as one of the greatest films ever made, it stars James Stewart and Grace Kelly at the top of their game but, in an unusual gamble, is shot entirely from within a Greenwich Village apartment . . .Using this limited point of view, Hitchcock forces his audience to participate in his protagonist’s voyeuristic impulses and darkest obsessions—a bold move in the era of the Hollywood Blacklist and restrictive Hays Code. But the gamble paid off, and Rear Window became a timeless classic.This eye-opening book goes straight to the source of Rear Window’s genius by mining the original papers of Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, and Thelma Ritter, revealing little-known facts behind the Why taking the role of Lisa Fremont was one of the toughest decisions Grace Kelly ever made; How Hitchcock intertwined suspense and romance with inspiration from Ingrid Bergman; How he used a topless scene to distract the censors from other scenes to which they may have objected; and how Hitchcock crafted the film’s unforgettable villain, Lars Thorwald, by modeling him on a producer he loathed—the infamous David O. Selznick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I talk with Tom Shone about Terrence Malick's first film Badlands (1973), a true crime drama that introduces a new talent and vision to seventies cinema and the world. You can buy the biography of Terrence Malick here The music is Camille Saint Saens - The Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium and is performed by pianos: Neil and Nancy O'Doan and orchestra: Seattle Youth Symphony, conducted by Vilem Sokol. It is reproduced via the following license. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julia Seabaugh is a writer who has covered the comedy scene for years. She has written A Tight Twenty and Ringside at Roast Battle and has produced a new documentary on Marc Maron, of WTF Podcast fame called "Are We Good?" Find out more about her work here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buy Caroline's book here. The Blurb: From the single ladies of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift songs to Phoebe Waller-Bridge's irreverent television series Fleabag (2016–2019) to as far back as Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, the stereotype of the damaged single woman has long pervaded music, books, television, and Hollywood movies. Spinster tropes, witch burnings, and nineteenth-century diagnoses of hysteria have reflected and continue to inform the stories told about society's singletons, most notoriously in the original bunny boiler, Fatal Attraction (1987), and popularized in Single White Female (1992) and Promising Young Woman (2020). In Single & Psycho, author Caroline Young explores how broader social trends such as the antifeminist backlash of the 1980s, contemporary debates about tradwives and childless cat ladies, and the absence of single women of color on-screen shape the way women are (mis)perceived and (mis)treated. Young weaves the history of a stereotype with her own fight against stigma as a single woman as well as her struggles with infertility, infusing incisive analysis with personal experience in this approachable, savvy exposé of one of mainstream media's most enduring clichés. Single & Psycho: How Pop Culture Created the Unstable Single Woman is a dynamic addition to the ongoing dialogue surrounding the #MeToo movement and societal expectations of women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buy the book here: Explore behind the scenes of the greatest monster movies ever made! What makes a great movie monster? Academy Award-winning make-up effects artist Howard Berger and acclaimed journalist Marshall Julius have spoken to dozens of film industry legends to find out. A celebration of monsters, monster movies and monster movie makers, Making Monsters delivers an illuminating, entertaining and accessible oral history of the genre, gathering an enviable array of A-list talent from make-up and digital effects legends (Tom Savini, Phil Tippett) to directors (John Carpenter, Ti West), actors (Simon Pegg, Barbara Crampton), composers (Michael Giacchino) and writers (Russell T Davies). Packed with hundreds of images, from film stills to personal, behind-the-scenes pictures from dozens of interview subjects - many never before published - Making Monsters is a treasure trove of monstrous creations, and the stories behind them, that is sure to make fans jump, scream and howl with delight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For generations, Ed Wood has been known as “the worst director of all time.” This sympathetic critical study repositions the director of Plan 9 from Outer Space as a maverick independent whose work challenges the boundary between “bad” and “good.” The subject of a Tim Burton biopic, Will Sloan reappraises Wood as a more interesting and disruptive figure. You can buy his book here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of my favourite film critics Bilge Ebiri from Vulture joins me to talk about Olivier Assayas' The Wizard of the Kremlin, Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite, and Kaouther ben Hania's The Voice of Hind Rajab. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nicholas Bell from IONCINEMA joins me to run down the films we've watched so far at the 82nd Venice Film Festival. We talk La Grazia, Frankenstein, After the Hunt, Bugonia, No Other Choice and The Smashing Machine. We probably talk about even more in this bumper Lido fuelled edition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Available HERE. Blockbuster box office. Critical acclaim and Oscars recognition. From Get Out and M3GAN to The Substance and Sinners, the horror genre is enjoying a glorious–and gory–golden age. Screaming and Conjuring details the films and frights that led to this extraordinary renaissance, from the release of the groundbreaking Scream in 1996 to the arrival of 2013’s The Conjuring, which spawned a multi-billion dollar franchise. Written by entertainment journalist Clark Collis (author of You’ve Got Red on You: How Shaun of the Dead Was Brought to Life), this exhaustively researched book is the first in-depth examination of a remarkably fertile and influential time for big screen horror. Wes Craven’s Scream was followed by a flood of classic terror tales such as The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, Final Destination, The Others, Pan's Labyrinth, 28 Days Later, Resident Evil, Saw, Hostel, Paranormal Activity, and Insidious. This comprehensive history covers the often difficult and tortuous making of all these films (and many more), giving readers the exclusive lowdown on productions which were often as intense as the horrifying sights that ended up on screen. Screaming and Conjuring features recollections from a host of genre icons, including actors Jamie Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell, directors Eli Roth and Sam Raimi, and legendary makeup effects artist Greg Nicotero. The book also includes 200 production stills, film posters, and rarely seen images. Blood. Sweat. Tears. More blood. Clark Collis takes you behind the scenes, and the scares, with this fascinating history of the modern horror movie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New book Darkness Visible, available from Sticking Place Books. Jonathan Glazer has created some of the most unforgettable images in twenty-first-century cinema. From the dreamlike menace of Sexy Beast to the haunting abstractions of Under the Skin and the chilling banality of evil in The Zone of Interest, his films blend surreal intensity with razor-sharp formal control. But Glazer’s world doesn’t stop at the cinema screen-it extends into commercials, music videos and short films that have redefined visual storytelling. In Darkness Visible, critic and author John Bleasdale guides readers through the full scope of Glazer’s career, offering a vivid, provocative and deeply informed portrait of a filmmaker who resists interpretation even as his work demands it. With chapters on each feature film, along with Glazer’s groundbreaking work in advertising and video, this is the first comprehensive account of a visionary whose cinema explores the dark undercurrents of modern life-and leaves audiences changed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Edition available here. 'A fascinating, tragic and instructive story, vividly told' Sunday TelegraphRoger Lewis, in his no-holds-barred biography, exposes a Peter Sellers the world little knows. Recognized as the greatest British comic since Charlie Chaplin, Sellers was the grand master of fifty-five films - from Dr. Strangelove, to Being There and the Pink Panther hits.But shadowing his phenomenal career was a history of increasingly bizarre behaviour involving psychotic violence, compulsive promiscuity, drug abuse and humiliating self-destructive obsessions with people including Princess Margaret, Sophia Loren, Liza Minnelli and each of his four wives (Ann Hayes, Britt Ekland, Miranda Quarry and Lynne Frederick). He alternately showered his wives and children with gifts and then threatened to kill them. Sellers' fluidity as an actor made for a terrifying madness that grew like a slow metastasizing cancer throughout his adult life.The Life and Death of Peter Sellers concludes with his premature death at the age of 54, 'sick at heart and alone in those sunless hotel rooms', so recoiled from intimacy that no one really knew him anymore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices