Popcorn: Fifty Years of Rock 'n' Roll Movies
The first and last word on the rock movie
Garry Mulholland
Popcorn is no straightforward 'best-of' list; rather it is part serious critical appreciation, part celebration of perceived B-movie trash. Garry Mulholland is equally at home deconstructing the likes of Performance, Gimme Shelter and Jubilee as celebrating Grease, Footloose and Glitter. Along the way, classic of the genre, such as Quadraphenia, Easy Rider, Saturday Night Fever, Expresso Bongo and Slade in Flame are revisited. Turkeys - Purple Rain, Ray - are disinterred. Forgotten gems like Privilege and Beat Girl are dusted down and re-examined; cult classics, including Babylon and Wild Style, unearthed for a new generation.
The main aim is to get to the essence of the film and why it matters ... or perhaps doesn't. In doing so, Popcorn reminds the reader why they might have entered the cinema in the first place. As with Mulholland's previous books on singles and albums (This is Uncool and Fear of Music), and as with all great criticism, the reader will unquestionably return to the source galvanised, searching out old, new and classic films on DVD.
First published March 2010.
Includes a chapter on Abba: The Movie
