A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

Criterion Corner: Yi Yi (#339) and A Brighter Summer Day (#804)

07/10/202607/10/2026MattLeave a comment

There are some filmmakers that pop up on your radar again and again – but it takes you a very long time to get around to watching any of their films. There are just too many interesting filmmakers and too many films to check out – and if you’ve got a great local repertory cinema with a well-curated programme, you may even think, “Hey, sooner or later they’ll get around to something by this director on their programme.” Or, indeed, Criterion releases some of the director’s films, so you order them, and once they’ve arrived you put them on your shelf, next to the other Criterion films you’ve not yet got around to watching.

And then years pass, because in the meantime there are so many other films to watch, other directors to check out, other Criterion releases to get excited about and other cinema programmes featuring yet more films and filmmakers to keep you busy.

Until, in this case, your favourite local repertory cinema puts on a series of films from the Taiwanese New Wave, and you finally get to see two films by Edward Yang (well, actually three, though one of these was one episode in the anthology film In Our Time) for the first time – not on TV, played from a Criterion disk, but on a movie screen, as the God of Cinema intended. So this is a bit of a cheat in terms of being a Criterion Corner entry – but I assure you, Yi Yi (2000) has been sitting on my shelf for a long time, and A Brighter Summer Day (1991) is on its way as I write this. And I am already looking forward to revisiting both films in their Criterion releases.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Would you say BOO to a goose?

04/10/202604/10/2026The 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.

It’s been a busy week at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, starting with Alan going to Manderley again, in the latest instalment of One Best Picture After Another. Just how well does Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) hold up?

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #109: I ain’t afraid of no ghost

03/10/202603/10/2026The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

It’s spooky season once again, which means that for our October podcast, A Damn Fine Cup of Culture turns to the creepier side of things. And what could be creepier than ghosts? Except: while the films we are talking about in this month’s episode are all about the ghostly, none of them are scary – and not because they mess up the frights, but because they aim at entirely different things, from laughs via romance to… existentialist musings? Join Matt, Alan and Sam as they talk about the 1937 comedy Topper, starring Cary Grant, Constance Bennett and Roland Young (spoiler: at least two of which spend most of the film being ghosts), the supernatural romance The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), and David Lowery’s A Ghost Story (2017), in which Casey Affleck spends 90% of the film wearing that most traditional of spectral outfits: a sheet with two eye holes cut out. Where do ghosts stand (or float?) in the rogue’s gallery of the supernatural? Do they scare us – and, if not, what is their storytelling purpose? How do our three films fit into all of this? And, last but not least: would you fall for the romantic advances of a character played by George Sanders?

P.S.: If you missed the scary dimension of cinematic ghosts, do stick around this month – because we may just have something more haunting for you as we get closer to Halloween!

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #306: Be more unhinged

02/10/202602/10/2026MelanieLeave 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’m a little jealous of all of you who misremember scenes in movies, because I have a hard time remembering detailed scenes of anything. It’s gotten particularly bad the older I turn. There are books I’ve enjoyed where, four months later, I can’t recollect whether I actually read them or was just planning to.

Apart from, you know, becoming decrepit, this is probably a function of how differently I approach reading. These days, I use books to complement and enhance how I feel. I read whodunnits* because I explicitly want to surround myself with mystery and light humour. I read sci-fi to be wowed by the infinite expanses of the universe. I read ‘found family’ stories to satisfy my craving for connection and so on. I regulate my mood with fiction, and I am very picky about what I choose. I’m no longer reading in order to be surprised.

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Shortcuts: September 2026

30/09/202630/09/2026The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Once again, it’s time for our Shortcuts: what has the crew at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture been watching recently? Take one look at this image and guess:

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One Best Picture After Another #13: Rebecca (1940)

28/09/202627/09/2026Alan Kuhl GrahamLeave a comment

Welcome to One Best Picture After Another – where I attempt to watch all the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, starting at the very beginning. And attempt to answer two simple questions – is the film still actually any good? And why did it win?

8/10

Any list of Best Picture winners is often defined by the list of absences. You can look through a list of all the great films from the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang and Howard Hawks: not one of them ended the night of the Oscar ceremony with the top prize.

Bizarrely, though, Alfred Hitchcock does have a picture on that list. Because of Rebecca. Or perhaps he should still be on the list, as the producer re-edited and reworked parts of the film after Hitchcock had delivered his final cut. Hitchcock was to subsequently disown the film, and so its status as his only Best Picture win feels like it needs a large David O. Selznick-shaped caveat.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The Box Office Number of the Beast

27/09/2026The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

In his zigzagging journey through the Criterion Collection, Matt arrived at release #1319: Martin Ritt’s Hud, a bleak revisionist Western starring Paul Newman in one of his darkest parts. Well worth watching – but the film couldn’t be further from a certain other Western featuring Newman.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #305: Movie scenes only existing in my head (I think..)

25/09/202602/10/2026samlinderLeave a comment

*The previous scene that never was: I must have dreamt that just before Bond (Roger Moore) discovers his contact (Maud Adams) is already dead, I had seen the story of her demise at the hands of* The Man With The Golden Gun.

Just like Alan described in last week’s post, there are movies I first saw long ago that I could swear turn out differently than on recent rewatches. At times, no matter how much research you do, the misremembered version cannot be unearthed: no Director’s Cut has since been released, nor have deleted scenes been found, nor is there footage of such scenes to be found in any image galleries. Nevertheless, I’m certain I’ve seen the scene. Or was it just in my head after all?

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Criterion Corner: Hud (#1319)

24/09/202624/09/2026MattLeave a comment

There is a certain thrill to seeing a movie star of tremendous charisma, a leading-man type we’re drawn to, play a character that is offputting. Certain stars we got to know as villains: Willem Dafoe, for instance, or Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman or Mads Mikkelsen. The beloved Gary Oldman arguably rose to stardom playing mostly bad guys, even if some of them were tortured and romantic. But there’s a difference when a leading man with leading-man looks appears on the screen – and does something horrible. Remember Henry Fonda’s introduction in Once Upon a Time in the West? Part of what makes that scene so effective is that the sadistic man we see murder a boy in cold blood is portrayed by the actor who played iconic paragons of integrity such as My Darling Clementine‘s Wyatt Earp or 12 Angry Men‘s Juror #8.