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As his new film Thelma hits UK cinemas, the actor who is known for A Clockwork Orange, starring in South Park and killing Captain Kirk is taking your questions

In Thelma, out now, Malcolm McDowell does not play one of the dazzling antiheroes which either made his name – in If…., O Lucky Man! and A Clockwork Orange – or helped propel his turn-of-the-century career revival, with Gangster No 1 and 2003’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.

Instead, he plays the pitiful owner of a suburban bric-a-brac shop who, to keep the lights on, has a side hustle in swindling vulnerable pensioners out of large sums by pretending to be a lawyer who needs paying now for errant grandchildren’s counsel.

Over the course of "Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return of the Jedi," the masked character of Boba Fett only has four lines of dialogue and six and a half minutes of screentime. Add in "The Star Wars Holiday Special," and the character suddenly had 20 additional lines. Either way, he was not a major player in "Star Wars," and ultimately fell into the mouth of a Shai Hulud on Arrakis a Sarlacc on Tattooine. It wasn't until the decade-and-a-half following the release of 1983's "Jedi" that Boba Fett would come to be admired by Starwoids who watched the "Star Wars" movies dozens of times each. In the "Star Wars" prequel films released from 1999 to 2005, Boba Fett was given a mythic backstory, and in 2021, he became the star of his own TV series.

But for many years, outside of the old Expanded Universe, he was merely the "four lines...

Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange" is set in the not-too-distant future when roving British teenage gangs have mutated into bizarre, ultra-violent, morals-free hedonists who commit crimes to their hearts' content. The protagonist is Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) a 15-year-old punk who drinks drug-laced milk before taking to the street with his gang of droogs to savagely and gleefully beat and assault anyone who passes into their field of vision. Alex is eventually arrested and put into prison where the government subjects him to bizarre new rehabilitation techniques in an attempt to turn his mind away from violence. 

Throughout, Alex is depicted as clearly beyond redemption. He has no compassion and will never have compassion. When he reads about Jesus Christ being crucified, he imagines himself to be the Roman soldier whipping him. The government's brainwashing techniques only instill in him a...

With films such as O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital, the British auteur portrayed his country as a bleak dystopia in decline – what would he make of today’s Britain?

‘No film can be too personal,” declared Lindsay Anderson in the Free Cinema manifesto of 1956. A decade later he lived up to this slogan when he shot his elegy to youth rebellion If…. at his old school, Cheltenham College. Winning the Palme d’Or at the 1969 Cannes film festival, it was the first in a loose trilogy of films that held up a mirror to a contemporary Britain that Anderson considered to be in a state of moral decline.

O Lucky Man! followed in 1973. Malcolm McDowell, who had played the chief rebel in If…., returned as a modern-day Candide who discovers that 1970s society offers very little grounds for his natural optimism. A brilliant score from Alan Price underpins the film’s bleak viewpoint.

It’s a very musical episode! Director and Tfh Guru, Allan Arkush, returns to talk about his favorite rock and roll movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

No Nukes (1980)

Amazing Grace (2018) – Dennis Cozzalio’s Oscar nominee reactions

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Get Crazy (1983) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) – Eli Roth’s trailer commentary

Blackboard Jungle (1955) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Rock, Rock, Rock! (1956) – ​​Jesus Treviño’s trailer commentary

Mister Rock And Roll (1957)

Go, Johnny, Go! (1959) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Hail Hail Rock And Roll! (1987) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary

Hellzapoppin’ (1941)

Innerspace (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Almost Famous (2000) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Wayne’s World (1992)

The Graduate (1967) – Neil Labute’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Scorpio Rising...

Lindsay Anderson’s third ‘Mick Travis’ movie is a crazy comedy eager to overstep lines of cinematic decorum. Britain in 1982 is a country at war with itself, torn by elitist snobbery and working-class revolt. Union grievances cripple the functioning of a major public hospital, on a day when the Queen is set to visit. A huge comic cast grapples with satire that reaches beyond cynicism to express total dysfunction. And the comedy has a wicked sting in its tail: Graham Crowden’s mad-as-a-hatter scientist has diverted National Health funds into grisly experiments with human body parts. The ‘visionary’ maniac spills more blood than Peter Cushing and Sam Peckinpah, put together.

Britannia Hospital

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1982 / Color / 1:85 widescreen/ 117 (111) min. / Street Date June 29, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Leonard Rossiter, Vivian Pickles, Graham Crowden, Jill Bennett,

Marsha A. Hunt, Joan Plowright, Malcolm McDowell, Mark Hamill.

Cinematography: Mike Fash...

Malcolm McDowell will appear April 1 in the U.S. premiere of his one-man stage show Never Apologize, directed by Mike Kaplan at the Matilija Auditorium in Ojai, Calif., as a benefit for the Ojai Film Festival. The show, which had its world premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival, is a personal remembrance of director Lindsay Anderson, for whom McDowell starred in such films as If ... and O Lucky Man!...