Six Damn Fine Degrees #275: Two visions of one city

MattLeave 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!

As a teenager, I read a lot of genre fiction – but, perhaps more importantly, I read a lot of bad genre fiction. Not only: I loved the likes of Lord of the Rings or the iconic novels of Arthur C. Clarke (mind you, his prose wasn’t always brilliant and his characters often paper-thin, but the ideas were fascinating), but I’d read whatever I could find at the library that had spaceships and aliens, or dungeons and dragons. I think that, even at the time, I was aware that much of what I read in the realms of fantasy and sci-fi was generic and derivative at best, pulp designed to be mass-produced and sold to kids like me who wanted their reading matter to transport them to other worlds. But, hey, those books did transport me to other worlds, even if those worlds seemed a lot like Middle-Earth or a galaxy far, far away, just with the serial numbers scratched off.

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Every time a bell rings…

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.

There are cities that were practically created to be on film: think London, think Paris, think New York. And definitely think Berlin, as Sam convincingly argues in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.

Continue reading →

A Damn Fine Espresso: February 2026

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

The show must go on: our recent podcast episode on Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead got Sam and Matt thinking. While there’s a long-standing link between the stage and the screen, theatre and cinema are nonetheless different forms of art. What makes theatre tick differently from film? What translates well from one format to the other, and what is lost in the process? Where could a lot of cinema perhaps learn from the stage? What films are there based on stage plays that survived the transition from one medium to another – and perhaps even benefited? And what movies escape the conventions of cinema and bring a dollop of theatrical magic onto the screen?

P.S.: For more theatre talk at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, make sure to check out last year’s March espresso, in which Sam talks to Julie about putting Clare Boothe Luce’s Broadway play The Women – famously made into a film by George Cukor in 1939 – on the stage. And for a discussion of Miloš Forman’s brilliant film adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, may we recommend A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #53: Exactly the right number of notes – Amadeus (1984)?

Continue reading →

Six Damn Fine Degrees #274: Berlin on film

samlinderLeave 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!

At first glance, Berlin hasn’t quite been as cinematic a city as, let’s say, romantic Paris, foggy London, cosmopolitan New York or sunny L.A. However, its tumultuous history during the first 100 years of cinema has made it an ideal space for movies that used it as more than just a postcard background. Arguably, the number of times Berlin’s cityscape felt like an active participant in the plot has to be significantly higher than the myriad establishing shots of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben or the downtown zoom shot of the Hollywood sign used elsewhere.

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Running in circles

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.

Remember the film that Tom Tykwer, who’d later go on to direct Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, co-direct Cloud Atlas and co-create the hit TV show Babylon Berlin, became famous with? Julie certainly does. Make sure to check out her Six Damn Fine Degrees on Lola Rennt.

Continue reading →

Criterion Corner: Brazil (#51)

MattLeave a comment

Here’s how you make a Brazil: You start with George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the iconic dystopian novel about totalitarianism and mass surveillance. You mix this with the monumental aesthetics of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Blend in some Franz Kafka, ideally The Trial. For flavouring, add a healthy dollop of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and a pinch or two of Federico Fellini and Jacques Tati, and finally sprinkle the resulting mess generously with bureaucracy. As the waiter might say: Monsieur, Mesdames: Bon appétit!

Continue reading →

Six Damn Fine Degrees #273: Lola Rennt (1998)

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!

Note: mild spoilers ahead. Though nothing of substance is spoiled in this post, you may want to see the movie first.

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The smaller they come

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.

In this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Matt revisited some of the time loop stories he’s enjoyed most.

Continue reading →

A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #101: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Heads. Heads. Heads. If you have a moment, why not join us as we flip coins and somehow always end up with the same result? In our February podcast, Julie, Sam and Matt remember the late, great Tom Stoppard, in particular his seminal play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) and especially Stoppard’s 1990 film adaptation of the same title, which starred Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss. How does Rosencrantz and Guildenstern land only a couple of months after Stoppard’s death on 29 November 2025? How does this quintessential piece of metatheatre translate onto the screen? Is it better to be alive or dead in a box? Can we give you love and rhetoric without the blood? And was there a moment, at the beginning, when they could have said no?

P.S.: For more on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (both the play and the film), and on why Roger Ebert was wrong about the screen adaptation, check out Julie’s Six Damn Fine Degrees #176 from way back in April 2024.

Continue reading →