Broad Appeal

Tension. Psychological pressure. Chaos in the streets. DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975) isn't exactly your typical holiday movie, but in retrospect it seems a fitting way to close out the sh*tshow that has been 2016 (as well as our mini-series The Male Gayz). Having started the season cruising with killers, Al Pacino finishes it by robbing a bank -- in one of the most high-wire performances he ever gave. He's a 70s "everyman" caught between two lives, two very different wives, and more social and sexual pressures than any psyche can possibly contain. Just before they head off for a New Year's respite, Seán and Brian give their rapt attention to this unclassifiable masterpiece of 70s filmmaking, with its incredible ensemble performances, taut editing and surprisingly modern plot twists. "I'm dying here!" says Pacino, but this movie is undeniably alive. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

Tension. Psychological pressure. Chaos in the streets. DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975) isn't exactly your typical holiday movie, but in retrospect it seems a fitting way to close out the sh*tshow that has been 2016 (as well as our mini-series The Male Gayz). Having started the season cruising with killers, Al Pacino finishes it by robbing a bank -- in one of the most high-wire performances he ever gave. He's a 70s "everyman" caught between two lives, two very different wives, and more social and sexual pressures than any psyche can possibly contain. Just before they head off for a New Year's respite, Seán and Brian give their rapt attention to this unclassifiable masterpiece of 70s filmmaking, with its incredible ensemble performances, taut editing and surprisingly modern plot twists. "I'm dying here!" says Pacino, but this movie is undeniably alive. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

The holidays are here! And Seán in his kerchief and Brian in his cap will soon settle in for a long winter's nap -- of reading! They've got some tantalizing news about exciting developments in the New Year. If you're in need of some holiday reads (or gift ideas for your actress-loving loved ones) then get out your notepads and write down the titles of the Broad Appeal....Book Club?! It's all explained within. Ho ho ho.

IRISH GAY BOY OVERLOAD. On this Very Special Broad Appeal™, Brian and Seán are joined by writer and all-round babe Alan Flanagan to discuss Neil Jordan's BREAKFAST ON PLUTO: glam rock, Irish Catholicism, magic, music, the IRA and gender identity. We follow Cillian Murphy as Patrick "Kitten" Braden on her journey from parochial Ireland in the height of the Troubles to the lights and smog of London as she hopes to find her mother, herself, and a whole variety of episodic adventures. Alan and Seán reflect (at length!) on the motherland, giving you a heavily accented history of post-Good Friday Ireland as well as their own journeys from parochial Ireland to the heady delights of where they are today: a flat in Brixton! With love to Brian, who had to edit all of this. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

IRISH GAY BOY OVERLOAD. On this Very Special Broad Appeal™, Brian and Seán are joined by writer and all-round babe Alan Flanagan to discuss Neil Jordan's BREAKFAST ON PLUTO: glam rock, Irish Catholicism, magic, music, the IRA and gender identity. We follow Cillian Murphy as Patrick "Kitten" Braden on her journey from parochial Ireland in the height of the Troubles to the lights and smog of London as she hopes to find her mother, herself, and a whole variety of episodic adventures. Alan and Seán reflect (at length!) on the motherland, giving you a heavily accented history of post-Good Friday Ireland as well as their own journeys from parochial Ireland to the heady delights of where they are today: a flat in Brixton! With love to Brian, who had to edit all of this. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

Remember when Tim Burton & Johnny Depp actually made good movies? None of them was ever better than ED WOOD, about a real-life transvestite filmmaker who made movies so bad they're actually amazing. Confused? Just put on a pink angora sweater and cuddle up with someone you love for the next installment of our Male Gayz miniseries, one of the weirdest, most touching Hollywood biopics ever. Although sci-fi tends to leave Brian cold (cf. the previous episode), Ed's earnestness and creative passion have always made this film one of his favorites. Continuing in the vein of camp and cross-dressing, he tries to recruit Seán into the cult. Will he succeed? As Bela Lugosi would say, PULL THE STRINGS! Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

Remember when Tim Burton & Johnny Depp actually made good movies? None of them was ever better than ED WOOD, about a real-life transvestite filmmaker who made movies so bad they're actually amazing. Confused? Just put on a pink angora sweater and cuddle up with someone you love for the next installment of our Male Gayz miniseries, one of the weirdest, most touching Hollywood biopics ever. Although sci-fi tends to leave Brian cold (cf. the previous episode), Ed's earnestness and creative passion have always made this film one of his favorites. Continuing in the vein of camp and cross-dressing, he tries to recruit Seán into the cult. Will he succeed? As Bela Lugosi would say, PULL THE STRINGS! Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

In dark days, when the values of democracy and equality seem threatened who doesn't want to don some fishnets and dance the Time Warp? Who wouldn't rather blast off to the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania? Why not construct a blond, tanned muscle god who exists solely for the purpose of 'relieving our tension', as we fuck indiscriminately in a bacchanalian orgy? We didn't get to THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW at Halloween but in our post-Election daze perhaps Dr. Frank N. Furter is exactly the presiding spirit we really need right now. For Seán, the film was a seminal adolescent text: introducing him to queerness, camp, and the possibility of a life lived in the company of weirdos. For Brian, it was a cult classic that he never got around to seeing. In this next installment of our miniseries THE MALE GAYZ, we debate the film's merits as well as its representation of sexual fluidity. (SPOILER ALERT: We don't agree.) Even if the contentiousness seems to reflect the current global mood, hopefully we can all remember that there's still a light over at the Frankenstein place... DON'T DREAM IT, BE IT! All hate mail can be addressed to: Brian A. Mullin Flat 4, Grump House Elitist Drive, Snobville Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

Guns, Boys, and Beef. We had to cover a Western in our Male Gayz series... and that Western had to be RED RIVER (1948). John Wayne is the ultimate American capitalist hero/villain, building his commercial empire through the theft of indigenous lands and the exploitation of low-wage laborers. Monty Clift is his adopted son, transitioning from homosocial gunplay with his fellow cowpokes into full-fledged Oedipal revolt. Howard Hawks's multilayered masterpiece will convince even the most Western-phobic viewer to embrace the genre (as well as to give Monty a much needed cuddle). Straddling the transition from frontier to civilisation, as well as Classical Hollywood acting to the Method, the film has enough generational conflict to fill out an entire lifetime of Freudian analysis. Plus you get to hear Seán and Brian's patented John Wayne/Walter Brennan double act. Saddle up, pardners, and let's hit the trail. All clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

Before Trump, there was Kyle Hadley -- the spoiled, insecure narcissistic billionaire of WRITTEN ON THE WIND. Kyle (Robert Stack) and sis Marylee (Dorothy Malone) are troubled oil brats, whose lives of decadent luxury are just not enough! Kyle loves Lucy (Lauren Bacall), but Lucy probably loves sexually passive Mitch (Rock Hudson), who is idolised but hated by Kyle who is truly hated by Marylee, who also hates Lucy but definitely loves Mitch. Got it? For the next installment of The Male Gayz, we bring you Douglas Sirk's story of oil, emasculation, and bongo drums. Sumptuous Technicolor can't bring warmth to these characters, but knockout performances, broiling tension and burning desire make this 1956 melodrama into a tour de force of masculinity in crisis. Who else but Sirk? All clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

Get your ass into cruise control, boys. Seán and Brian are back with our new miniseries - Broad Appeal: The Male Gayz. We've ditched the chicks and are hanging back with the brutes for seven whole episodes. We kick off with a re-evaluation of sleazy, sketchy and sloppy(?) sex-sesh CRUISING (1980), directed by William Friedkin who having dealt with the devil in The Exorcist, confronted audiences with something much more demonic: LEATHER. Al Pacino plays an undercover cop who huffs too many poppers in his quest to find a killer at large on the gay S&M scene. It's explicit, it's weird, it's QUEER. But is it any good? Grab your chaps and let's find out. All clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

Emma Thompson AND Kathy Bates?? Now there's a ticket that would truly make America great again! Your two favorite superdelegates can now make it official: the final film of this Broad Appeal Season is Mike Nichols's Clinton-era political satire PRIMARY COLORS (1998). John Travolta gets top-billing for his Bubba impersonation but Emma brings her trademark wry soulfulness to the role of "Susan Stanton", the much put-upon political spouse who may or may not resemble a certain presumptive 2016 nominee. And Kathy Bates shines bright, delivering big laughs and ultimate heartbreak as a gun-totin', foul-mouthed lesbian driving a pickup truck. No film could match the absurd laughability of our current political climate, but join us as we filibuster our way through an extra-long discussion of women in politics (and film) from the 90s to today. We're With Her!! All clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

A film about sexual sublimation, religious fervour, sisterhood and starring Winona Ryder... how has Brian never seen MERMAIDS (1990)?! Seán has, of course, because Cher. Winona is Charlotte Flax, the Jewish girl with a flare for romantic Catholicism who desperately tries to be the responsible one, sandwiched between her aquatic kid sister Christina Ricci and her nomadic, flirtatious mother, Cher. MERMAIDS may have the cheese factor of a ripe Taleggio, but this coming-of-age story is bolstered by the gorgeous and warm performances of these three gifted women. Seán had forgotten how much this film impacted his adolescence, and is ready to dive back in. But is Brian willing to put down his Proust and Shoop, Shoop? Warning: Contains sexualised Bob Hoskins references. Listener discretion is advised. All clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

What's worse than a treacherous tramp with a peroxide dye-job? Two of them! Especially when one is your girlfriend and one is your mother. John Cusack faces that exact situation as he's caught between two "A-list" actresses (Annette and Anjelica) in Stephen Frears's con artist neo-noir THE GRIFTERS (1990). Adding to the doppelganger action, it turns out that a certain leading lady is also the spitting image of one of your intrepid podcast hosts... While Brian guides Seán through the twists and turns, these two powerhouse dames steal everything in sight -- including the picture. Trust no bitch. All clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)

We don't know about you, but at Broad Appeal we think that if you don't recycle, you deserve to die. And what a shame that this is the one murder that the brilliantly villainous Kathleen Turner doesn't get to commit in SERIAL MOM (1994)! Turner stars as wife, mother, and murderess, Beverly Sutphin, whose love of Barry Manilow is matched only by her lust for blood and common courtesy! Honestly, what kind of monsters don't rewind their VHS tapes? Is Beverly an Avenging Angel, or Ted Bundy's suburban concubine? Brian has managed to live his whole life without being exposed to the filth of John Waters, while his brand of self-aware-trash was what a young Seán lived on. Will they get a kick out of this highly quotable, tongue-in-cheek camp satire...? All clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks)