10Apr

Reyner Banham loves Los Angeles

posted by Steve Bowbrick

In heated staff meetings here at Watchification HQ, usually over custard creams in Charlie Drake (we’ve named the conference rooms after TV stars of old), we’ve been wondering how to develop the site. We’ve been talking about looking beyond iPlayer for full-length programmes to embed here. It’s tricky because the other mainstream broadcasters haven’t got [...]

22Mar

White Gospel

posted by Steve Bowbrick

Beautiful, moving Southern voices, two-hundred year-old harmonies, fire-and-brimstone (including a sixteen-foot wooden Satan), racial harmony (and disharmony)… and Elvis. Absolutely lovely middle-of-the-night music doc from BBC4.

05Mar

Film 2008: Hollywood and the presidential race

posted by Steve Bowbrick

There’s a really good bit towards the end of this episode of Film 2008 (did I ever tell you I knew someone who went to school with Barry Norman’s daughter?) about Hollywood’s involvement in the US presidential race (it would evidently be career suicide for a movie star to endorse a Republican). Nice bit of [...]