A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #103: Second Chances – Hail the Damned!

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Another year, another Second Chances episode: in this month’s podcast, Sam and Alan get together to revisit two historical pieces, though they couldn’t be much more different – one has decadence, deviance and Nazism, the other offers Hollywood mystery, Communists and dancing sailors. Yes, we’re taking a second look at Luchino Visconti’s 1969 film The Damned, the cause of something of a memorable, and traumatic, early movie memory of Sam’s, and at the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016) (which we also wrote about here), generally one of the less-appreciated films of the writer-director siblings – but perhaps one that is unfairly maligned?

And if Alan and Sam’s chat about fascists, fixers, murders and musical numbers has got you in the mood, why not check out these earlier Second Chances episodes?

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #280: Running in the family

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Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

Myself, I’ve never been to Sarajevo. In fact, I’ve not been to much of the East of Europe. I’ve been to Bratislava, which has the coolest little pancake place. And I’ve been to Prague – which is almost a bit of a cliché, at least for my generation (which, as you may have guessed, lies somewhere between W and Y). At Swiss grammar schools, classes would go on what is called a ‘Matura trip’ (the Matura being the final exam), which teachers would try to make as educational as possible, while students would try to make sure would provide ample opportunity for partying, and pretty much the generic destination for a Matura trip in the early to mid-’90s was Prague. Plenty of education, plenty of culture, plenty of beer.

However, that’s not the trip to Prague I remember most fondly. Even though I did get my CD of the Blade Runner soundtrack there.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear

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Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Another month is close to passing, which means: another Shortcuts. Including, among other things, a few thoughts on the strange, delirious The Testament of Ann Lee, Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, and last year’s Dust Bunny, which may deserve more attention than it got at its release.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #279: Sarajevo, my love

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Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

It’s one of those cinematic moments in history classes that high school students almost get to know by heart: on the morning of 28 June, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand wakes up to meet with officials at the Sarajevo city hall on a tour to convince the sceptical Bosniaks that being freshly annexed by Austria-Hungary is actually a good thing. 28 June happens to be a doubly important date for both the next-door Serbs, who commemorate the defeat against the Ottoman Empire in 1389, and for the Archduke, heir to the throne, who celebrates his wedding anniversary with wife Sophie, who has joined him on the trip to Bosnia.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The History Boys

MattLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

In this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Julie wrote about the kind of narratives that history lends itself to, for better and for worse. One of the books that gets a mention is Dan Jones’ The Hollow Crown – so here’s a trailer for BBC’s The Hollow Crown from a while back.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: March 2026

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It’s the Return of the Wuthering Brides! For this month’s espresso, Alan and Sam got together to discuss two recent cinematic riffs on classics of 19th-century literature, with both books penned by, and both films directed by, women: Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” (apparently the quotation marks are an integral part of the title, based on Emily Brontë’s novel, and The Bride!, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, which builds on both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and James Whale’s iconic 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein. How do the two films succeed, as adaptations and in and of themselves? Where do they come alive, reinvigorating the original material, and where are they haunted by the ghosts of what could have been? So join us as we run across the wily, windy moors with Cathy (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) in order to do the Monster Mash with Frank (Christian Bale) and the Bride (Jessie Buckley)!

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #278: The Sleepwalkers

JulieLeave a comment

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

Like Alan, I read a lot of histories. Well. Narrative histories. Unlike Alan, who seems to have a theme and some actual focus to his reading, I’m an inveterate magpie and will flit from medieval England (Helen Castor’s books The Eagle and the Hart and She Wolves, are particular favourites), to a biography of J. Edgar Hoover (G-Man, Beverly Gage won a Pulitzer for that one), to the magnificent Höhenrausch by Harald Jähner (evoking, unforgettably, the interbellum in Germany), and many more. No obligation for me to go through a formal curriculum and do things like put in the actual, systematic, scholarly work. There are fantastic, conscientious writers who have done it all for me, and whose books I will happily, and gratefully, devour.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Shock and awe

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Origin stories are all over cinema – but what about the origin stories of nations? That is the topic that Alan wrote about in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees. Which does make it a challenge to find a trailer to post, especially if we want to avoid the overly obvious D.W. Griffith reference for, oh, lots of reasons. So here’s a trailer about the origin story of modern Italy instead – and it has Alain Delon, Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale too.

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Still raining: Sátántangó (1994)

MattLeave a comment

How do you begin with a film like Sátántangó? If you commit to its seven hours and 19 minutes, how much can you trust your own impressions at the end, and how much is the combination of Stockholm Syndrome and Sunk Cost Fallacy talking? There are films where I would say I liked them, possibly a lot – but would I recommend them to anyone else?

What I can say for certain is this: if this film is showing anywhere near you, if you have the time to go and see it, and if you are the least bit curious – go and see it. There are few experiences I am aware of in cinema that are like it, and that includes the other Béla Tarr films I’ve seen. (We were lucky – if that’s what you want to call it, seeing how the occasion was the recent death of the director – to catch Sátántangó as well as The Werckmeister Harmonies and The Turin Horse at the best local cinema over a couple of weeks.) If your experience is anything like mine, the length is the least of your worries. Worry more about the extended scene in which a child tortures and finally kills a cat. I will absolutely defend the scene… and I hope not to see it, or anything like it, in a long, long time.

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