Six Damn Fine Degrees #272: Live, Die, Repeat

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!

Time loop narratives are almost always power fantasies. Sure, there’s a comical element about them, but that’s part of the fantasy: the protagonists of time loop stories are caught in an existentialist Looney Tunes short, but whenever they step on a rake or have a bomb blow up in their faces, they go back to start with added knowledge: if they cut this wire instead of that one, if they push this button rather than pulling that lever, if they jump to the right two seconds after they hear the car horn, they’ll survive. And thus, step by step, they master their situation.

In that sense, time loop narratives are the kind of power fantasies that are typical for video games.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: V for Vigilante

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.

This week, we launched our new monthly feature: Shortcuts. Once a month, we will post quick write-ups about what the gang at A Damn Fine Cup has been watching, reading, listening to or playing. Our first Shortcuts took us from the poetic Silent Friend to the “chemistry and crass jokes up the wazoo” of goofball superhero game Dispatch.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #271: Boom ⇒ Snooze ⇒ Boom

MelanieLeave 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!

Bai Jing Ting (left) and Zhao Jin Mai (right) star as soulmates in an endlessly harrowing meet cute

Last week, Mege hit us with “I didn’t like Oppenheimer. That’s largely because I didn’t understand the second half of the movie.” In its bluntness, this is one of my favourite Six Degrees posts so far, and Mege is spot on. The funniest thing (to me) is that he went right back to watch it again and still didn’t get it, and now he’s apparently seriously contemplating watching it a third time. Noooooo. Cut your losses, Mege!

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Shortcuts: January 2026

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Considering how much we watch, read, listen to and play in any given month, it’s almost a bit sad that we only write about a fraction of these. So, starting this month, we’re trying a new monthly format: on the last Wednesday of each month, we will release a few shortcuts: quick impressions of films, series, books, albums, games, or any other damn fine cups of culture that we’ve enjoyed this month, whether they are new or we only just got around to them now.

So, with no further ado, here are our first Shortcuts. Enjoy!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: By the power of nostalgia!

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.

Even a couple of years after its release, not everyone has seen Oppenheimer – and some who are now remedying this aren’t necessarily enjoying it as much as most have. Check out Mege’s Six Damn Fine Degrees for an instance of this.

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The Five Stages of Backlog Anxiety

MattLeave a comment

There was a point in my mid-40s where I realised: I have so many games purchased on Steam, I will not live to play all of them, at least not unless I start going through them one by one… and not unless I stop buying a single additional game.

And, looking at my collection of films on physical media? The same may be true. I have a bit more of a fighting chance: my library of games on Steam is in part so large because once a game I’m even just mildly interested in is on sale for US$10 or less, I tend to buy it. Films still cost more, especially those highly addictive Criterion releases I can’t seem to do without. Still: I buy films at a higher rate than I watch the films I’ve bought. The same is definitely true for books.

And, frankly: when I realised the extent to which my backlog would survive me? I felt an unsettling sense of vertigo. (And, embarrassingly, I briefly hoped that by the time I’m old, there’d be a way to upload my consciousness into the cloud, where I would then spend eternity working off my backlog.)

This is fine.
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Six Damn Fine Degrees #270: Oppenheimer

MegeLeave 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!

I didn’t like Oppenheimer. That’s largely because I didn’t understand the second half of the movie, wherein, somehow, Oppenheimer gets the upper hand over Strauss. I didn’t understand what was there for the getting, nor did I understand what the bone of contention was. To the very small extent that I got the situation between them, I didn’t much care. As I understood it, it took a smallish statement by the Rami Malek character during the hearing to push Strauss off his pedestal. And that was it. What had just happened?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: All singing, all dancing

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, Sam wrote about Netflix’ adaptation of Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper books – and the importance of normalising LGBTQI+ romance that doesn’t need to adhere to limiting tropes and clichés. You’d think that we’d be further in 2026, but, sadly…

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A Damn Fine Espresso: January 2026

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In our main podcast for the month, we celebrated our one-hundredth episode with Matt, Julie and original co-podcaster Mege, talking about the beginnings of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. For this month’s espresso episode, we’re continuing the story: Matt, Alan and Sam met up in real life to record their first ever live podcast episode together. Join the three of them in their conversation about 2020, the year they joined A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, and their experiences since. How have they changed as podcasters? How do they keep things fresh and interesting, even after five years of podcasting? What are the episodes they remember best? And what are the topics they hope to do an episode about in the next five years?

P.S.: A big shout-out to the wonderful REX cinema in Bern, Switzerland for letting us meet up at their bar in early January (you can hear the gentle noise of other cinemagoers, glasses and espresso cups in the background) to record our conversation!

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #269: Heartstopper!

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!

When Nick and Charlie touch, little squiggly cartoon flashes of electricity appear around them and you can literally feel the sparkles going off between them in the air. What seems just like an original reference to its graphic novel source material, Alice Oseman‘s Heartstopper series, proves to be symbolic for the runaway success this Netflix show has enjoyed far beyond the queer community: its truly feel-good approach is heartstoppingly essential for the present moment.

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