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.
For this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Melane swerves towards the East, introducing us to two Chinese series she’s been enjoying – The Untamed and The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty – and their fan translations, showing us once again that there’s a wealth of stories many of us aren’t even aware of.
Matt’s also been to East Asia in his latest Criterion Corner post, having just seen his first film by Yasujiro Ozu: Good Morning. Come for the pillow shots, stay for the flatulence humour.
And what else do we have on offer this week?
Matt: One Battle After Another may just be the film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson that I’ve enjoyed most since Boogie Nights. I love Magnolia more, and There Will Be Blood and The Master may be more monumental, but Anderson’s latest is a great time, and one of the rare films that, at 161 minutes, feels shorter than some two-hour movies. It’s also a surprisingly timely film that has something to say about the insanity of the present day, and while this may not be the kind of escapism people want at this time, there is some great catharsis to be had in its conclusion. Just don’t forget your code phrase!
Matt: And finally: lovers of sci-fi spectacle have some things to look forward to in the coming months. If you’re into the po-faced epics of James Cameron, the latest instalment in his Avatar series, Fire and Ash will be out just in time for Christmas. If you’re more interested in pulp that embraces its pulpiness, The Mandalorian and Grogu are making their big-screen debut in May 2026. I respect the technical prowess of Cameron’s Avatar films, and he still knows how to stage spectacular action – but I find the characters of the series pretty unengaging and the stories derivative and generic. The Mandalorian and his don’t-call-him-Baby-Yoda companion appeal to me more, though the series has suffered from trying to pander too much to what fans might want, and I’m not sure the stories that serve these characters best are suited to the cinema: part of The Mandalorian‘s original appeal was its small-scale nature and its embrace of a old-school, proud-to-be-cheesy seriality. At least the trailer definitely gets that particular tone right. Still, more than happy to give both of these a chance once they arrive on our screens!
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 