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.
Is it 2026 already? Where did the time go? One of our last posts in the year that was had Matt remembering the films, series and games he enjoyed best over the last 12 months – starting with a very memorable scene in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. You’ll find that scene in the post itself, but here’s a trailer for the film, for those who are more spoiler-averse.
Meanwhile, Melanie got us looking outside the usual cinemas and streaming services for @ShawnatheMom, a YouTube series about, as she puts it, “the real holiday horrors”, namely the portrayal of a family in which “everyone slowly realises they’re dealing with a narcissistic family member”.
And then we started the new year with a fitting occasion: the one-hundredth main episode of our podcast – and we got Mege back in front of the mic for the first time since 2020 to reminisce about the early days of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture… such as our podcast episode on Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas.
And what other previews do we have to ring in the new year?
Matt: I sometimes wonder if there’s something I missed about Peaky Blinders. Having seen the first two seasons (I think), I simply didn’t feel much like continuing. It’s obviously well done, and you can’t complain about a cast led by Cillian Murphy, but while Steven Knight has written films I liked a lot (such as Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises and Locke), in Peaky Blinders I found the ‘hard men and women doing hard things’ act tiresome. But, who knows? Perhaps I shall return to the series at some point, since I never even got to see Adrien Brody or Anya Taylor-Joy in it.
Matt: Okay, if the MCU won‘t take itself seriously anymore, such action comedies are the result. Most of them are not very funny, and it will only undermine such end-of-days endeavours like Avengers: Doomsday. I am probably too old to go see both, or either.
Matt: Is The Muppet Show a thing very much of its time, or can it work just as well in (checks the calendar yet again) 2026? I like the idea of it, but I’m not sure it’s a concept that can just be done over and over again – and I’m not sure what Kermit & Co would have to change to fit the times. But then: who wants to fit these times? Perhaps the gentle anarchy of Jim Henson’s felt menagerie is one of the safe spaces we need.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 