Popular Nostalgia

Some movies mark decades. Some disappear into the ether. Remember them all here – the hits and the misses. The great successes and the catastrophic failures.

Jaws was one of the funniest villains in the James Bond film series along with Oddjob in “Goldfinger” and Irma Bunt out of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”. He starred in “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977) and “Moonraker” (1979). He was played by Richard Kiel who, at 7ft 2 inches, towers over all the [...]

Q was wonderful – fulfilling the dreams of every man and boy. Cars with machine guns, oil slicks, bulletproof windscreens, smoke screens and, most importantly, ejector seats. Watches with ziplines, compasses, plastic explosive detonators, magnets and more. Anything you could dream of was somewhere in the depths of Vauxhall Bridge being worked on by Q [...]

In 1962, the first Bond girl was deemed racy for stepping out of the sea in a tiny bikini. Sales of the new swimwear item went through the roof and the Bond girl genre was established. Fifty-four Bond girls have since graced our screens but Ursula remains the icon of what it means to be [...]

Mona Lisa the film was nominated for an Oscar and Bob Hoskins performance won many other awards. It tells the tale of a man released from prison who is given a job as a driver for an up-market prostitute. It’s very London – though, the seedy side thereof. The film is well shot and shows [...]

Trainspotting was incredibly famous for being really disgusting and nearly getting banned. You get to see Ewan McGregor’s tackle and a baby’s head spinning round like on the exorcist. It was like gold dust to young teens at the time – the most horrifying film available. My friend managed to one-up us all by reading [...]

I watched “How to Get Ahead in Advertising” for the first time last night. Everything about it is so Eighties – the discontentment with the rat race, the power-suiting secretary, the smoking indoors and the Range Rover in the middle of London. Richard E. Grant plays the madman very well indeed and that boil is [...]

Several hundred thousand boys have spent several hundred thousand hours rewinding this scene to check whether you actually see anything. Stupid, really, considering they could just go out and get a girlfriend, but this scandalous moment made Basic Instinct and Sharon Stone’s career (and confirmed my suspicion that Michael Douglas is creepy). Stone plays a [...]

Moonwalker was released in 1999 as a strange way of linking together a string of Michael Jackson’s songs. It was a success and feature in a number of Christmas repeats to this day. All I really remember about this film is the scene where Michael Jackson takes on the now embattled Wesley Snipes in a [...]

Christmas would not be complete without repeats of this fantastic series of films. There are so many memorable moments, the Chinese orphan, Short Round, driving a car with boxes tied to his feet in Temple of Doom, the fight next to aeroplane propellers in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the infamous Venice boat chase [...]

George Formby was born George Hoy Booth on 26 May 1904 in Wigan, Lancashire. He started out as a professional jockey because his father didn’t want his son to follow him into showbusiness. Once his Father died, George went into stand-up. He bought a ukelele from an actor for £2.50 with a bet that he [...]

The pythons were: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin and they broadcast on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their madcap approach to comedy broke all the boundaries and they were as controversial as they were successful. If I could, I would play every Python episode and film [...]

The first James Bond film to hit the screens, Doctor No changed the course of movie-making for the rest of the century. Unutterably cool, calm and collected, the gentleman killer-spy was to cultivate a generation of admirers. Here is the first use of those famous words: “Bond. James Bond”.

Enter the Dragon was almost as life-changing for 70′s kids as James Bond. Dangerous, exotic and full of epic fight scenes, Bruce Lee’s films marked a new era for the West -martial arts had arrived. Everyone wanted to learn Kung-Fu or Karate. Kids all over Europe and America sought the secrets and mastery of Chinese [...]

“Flash! Flash! I love you! But we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!” Biggest, best, camp intergalactic quest -ever. Squeaky rubber outfits, flying hawk-men led by Brian Blessed, Ming the Merciless, monsters, green blood, ladies in outrageously skimpy get-ups -Flash Gordon has it all. Most famous for two things: the fight for the [...]

Remember the fighting skeletons? The Hydra guarding the Golden Fleece? The Crashing Rocks that threaten to smash Jason’s boat to pieces and the giant sea monster that holds them apart? Christmas repeat classic -Jason and the Argonauts was always on. Despite the fact it was made in the 60′s and has wierd, shaky, stop-motion special [...]