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.
2021 has done funny things to time – sometimes it feels like it’s both speeded up and come to a complete standstill. Well, at least that’s our excuse for the longish break between the previous instalment of The Compleat Ingmar (on The Seventh Seal) and the most recent one, on the small but sweet The Devil’s Eye. Unfortunately it seems that YouTube doesn’t have any useable trailers for that one, just for some little-known horror film called Devil’s Eye – so instead here’s Criterion’s trailer for its wonderful box set Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema. Did we mention that we like Criterion here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture?
That’s not all this week had to offer, though: on Friday, Sam wrote about the Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway classic The Thomas Crown Affair, focusing on the way Michel Legrand’s score really ties it all together. Warning: the trailer could be accused of mistaking visual flair for inducing epilepsy…
And, to follow up, we published the latest episode of our podcast on Saturday, dedicated to post-pandemic (well, we hope) cinema. Which makes it a bit difficult to pick one trailer to work with… so how about this one?
And to finish off with, here’s a trailer that’s unconnected to any of this week’s posts – and it isn’t even about a film, strictly speaking!
Matt: I was in two minds about Quentin Tarantino’s most recent film, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (which we discussed, together with the rest of Tarantino’s oeuvre, in a 2019 podcast episode). Actually, I was probably in seven or eight minds about the film, enjoying some of it tremendously, finding other parts more uncomfortable than I think the film wanted me to feel. One of the things I liked, though, was the director’s obvious love for the period and films he’s riffing on, and I can absolutely imagine this carrying over in the Tarantino-penned novel of the film. There’s a lot of parody and pastiche to mine in the style of old-school movie novelisations. Obviously it might be too much Tarantino – but then, if you’re not into the man and his movies, this is obviously not for you. P.S.: Over the last week or so, Quentin Tarantino’s version of Bruce Lee was the subject of much discussion again, and as much as I’ve enjoyed a lot of the director’s work, he’s definitely not beyond criticism… added to which, Tarantino isn’t exactly the best advocate for his own work. My impression? Sometimes the good man should just shut the f*** up.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 