A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Love and Death in the Middle Ages

Aug 1, 2021The 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.

If a week begins with Stanley Kubrick, it can’t be all bad: Matt started the Criterion Corner, a new feature exploring his Criterion back catalogue, starting with Kubrick’s The Killing. Again, not a bad start for anything.

Continue reading →

Six Damn Fine Degrees #39: The Final Scene in The Lady Eve

Jul 30, 2021Aug 1, 2021Alan Kuhl GrahamLeave 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!

Ever since the invention of the motion picture, there’s been an audience appetite to watch hot couples getting it together. You want people to pay money to go see your movies, you can’t go wrong with putting a gorgeous man and an attractive lady in front of the camera and let the audience know they’re into each other.

Continue reading →

Criterion Corner: The Killing (#575)

Jul 27, 2021Jul 26, 2021Matt1 Comment

While I’ve enjoyed the Stanley Kubrick films I’ve seen, I couldn’t say that I have a clear idea of what makes a Kubrick film. I recognise certain aspects or qualities, certain directorial quirks, but I couldn’t say that I recognise a red thread going from Paths of Glory, Spartacus via Lolita and Dr. Strangelove to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon and finally Eyes Wide Shut, to name just a few. Every now and then there are scenes that remind me of the other films, such as 2001‘s notorious stargate sequence and Strangelove‘s aerial photography – but tonally, I couldn’t claim I have much of a grasp of who Kubrick is as a director, if he even has a typical tone. If anything, I would say there is a drily, drolly, sometimes even bleakly ironic streak that I’ve found in several of his films – but not in all.

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: I heard a Fly buzz –

Jul 25, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

There are a number of companies that still deliver great physical media for films – Arrow Films and Kino Lorber come to mind, for instance, companies that care about curation and quality. Here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, we’ve obviously entered the 21st century and we stream films and TV series, but we nonetheless like a good Blu-ray edition or boxset, and few do this as nicely as Criterion. Late this week, Matt announced a new feature that will have him working off his Criterion backlog – which should start next week with a Kubrick classic. So, while it’s not quite a trailer, here goes…

Continue reading →

Six Damn Fine Degrees #38: Out of Sight and George Clooney

Jul 23, 2021Jul 20, 2021Matt1 Comment

The first time I was exposed to Elmore Leonard (I make him sound a bit like a virus, don’t I?) was probably when Get Shorty came out in 1995 and was a big hit. I didn’t see it at the cinema, but I caught it on TV a while later. I have to admit that there’s pretty much nothing I remember about Get Shorty, so the first time I actually registered that this Elmore Leonard cat might be someone to look out for was when I went to see Out of Sight, in 1996, and fell for the film. I fell for the characters, the writing, the direction, the editing, the feel. And, obviously, I fell for Jack Foley (George Clooney), gentleman bank robber, for Marshall Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez), and most of all for their car trunk, whirlwind romance.

Continue reading →

Introducing the Criterion Corner

Jul 23, 2021Jul 25, 2021Matt1 Comment

Over the last few years, I’ve stopped buying as many DVDs and Blu-rays as I did in previous years. In part, that’s simply for practical reasons: my wife and I live in a flat that, while it’s absolutely fine in terms of space, is close to reaching the Billy Singularity. There are only so many bookshelves, IKEA or not, that I can conceivably put up in this place and stack with films, books and the like. There’s also the fact that we have subscribed to a number of streaming services, but we’re also still subscribed to regular TV, which includes a number of channels that have a pretty good selection of films. Lastly, I’ve come to realise that I had been buying so many films that, while they were well-reviewed and sounded good, ended up being the kind of films that I’d happily watch once – but I would just as happily leave it at that. No need to buy something that I’m fairly certain to begin with I would watch the one time only.

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Spice in the desert, blood on the dashboard

Jul 18, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Are we post-wave, pre-wave or both? Sometimes it’s difficult to imagine a future without the pandemic, and everything – including the culture we watch, read, listen to and play – is tinted, not to say tainted, by COVID-19. On Thursday, Matt tried to put his thoughts on the whole Groundhog Day-ness of it all into words. And mention Dune yet again. Obviously

Continue reading →

Six Damn Fine Degrees #37: Elmore Leonard

Jul 16, 2021Mege2 Comments

I don’t care how many movies you own, if your bookshelf doesn’t contain at least one single Elmore Leonard novel, there is a gap in your collection. There are very few novelists whose prose is already so close to a screenplay; in fact, if you, like me, imagine something very much alike to a movie scenes while reading a novel, you have it easy with Leonard, because his writing is, in the best sense of the word, graphic.

Continue reading →

The Corona Diaries: The beginning is the end is the beginning

Jul 15, 2021Matt1 Comment

For a while it looked like we were over the worst. Well, when I say “we”… Let’s put it like this: in many places, numbers were going down, cinemas were opening up, people were wondering if we were returning to something akin to normalcy. I mean, I’ve been back to the Best Little Cinema in the World often since it opened its doors again in May. Work colleagues are going abroad on vacation. Isn’t this what normal looks like?

Remember when Mege posted this photo in his Corona Diaries entry in May 2020?

Or is this just what it looks like when people decide, as the finishing line comes into view, that they’ve had enough, and it’s the last bit that sucks the most, so why don’t we skip it?

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Don’t stop–

Jul 11, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Matt may not be as big a fan of Anthony Hopkins as many people, but he definitely liked The Father a lot, a film that’s worth seeing for more than just its acting. Check out his thoughts on Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his own play, Le pêre.

Continue reading →