Author: samlinder

Six Damn Fine Degrees #210: The Little Vampire (1985)

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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 wonder whether director Jim Jarmusch was aware of TV’s The Little Vampire, which I watched ferociously growing up in the mid-’80s. Weren’t the slim-hipped goth vampires in his Only Lovers Left Alive (whom Julie described so well in last week’s piece) potentially inspired by this definitely goth-rock take on vampirism in the present-day world? It would be too interesting to ask and find out!

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #204: The Best of Maggie Smith in two Christies

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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!

The passing of Dame Maggie Smith in late September has caused an outpouring of appreciation and love by film critics, movie buffs and the stage aficionados alike. Rarely has there been in the loss of an actress such a display of a wide-ranging fan base, from the Harry Potter kids to the Downton Abbey addicts and from silver-age Hollywood connoisseurs to the West End audiences and independent cinemagoers, everybody seems to have harboured a deep respect and admiration for her unique talent. Channels and feeds were crammed full of shorts and reels for days, with no real end in sight.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #199: Parental Guidance Suggested?

samlinder3 Comments

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!

What was the first film your parents ever took you to see at the cinema? I’m sure the latest Disney production, for many, were frequent firsts. Or even the myriad of family comedies just in time for the Christmas season? I remember it well and it was pretty standard: my parents took me to see Disney’s The Lady and the Tramp at Bern’s ABC cinema. I must have been around six. This led to more, obviously, with Astrid Lindgren’s Ronja rövardotter (1984) a particular favourite of mine.

So far so good.

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Our Summer of Remakes: An Epilogue

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It seems there is just as much finger pointing at movie remakes as there is in this memorable image from Hitchcock’s original The Man Who Knew Too Much. Pointing out strengths and weaknesses of originals and remakes and debating the actual point (if any) of why movies need to be remade, apart from obvious box office profit, is a staple among film enthusiasts and general audiences alike. In our four-part Summer of Remakes podcast series, we tried to dig a little deeper into the question of what remakes can and should be.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #195: Rear Window as my ultimate cinematic experience

samlinder3 Comments

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!

As Alan describes so well in last week’s post on seeing Memories of Murder as his perfect post-pandemic return to the cinema, the question about what we love most about movies can reveal itself within just one such film: a fantastically involving plot, equal levels of suspense and amusement, inspiring visuals and soundscapes, carefully fleshed-out characters and themes, as well as a totally satisfying ending. With a different film at hand, I just felt the same again with Hitchcock’s Rear Window, the film I always describe as probably the best cinematic experience ever made.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #190: The Better Stranger Things

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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.

Reading Mege’s critical reappreciation of all Stranger Things from last week, I became aware of how much I had loved that show’s first season. It not only made me a first-time Netflix subscriber but also truly excited me and my friends, leading to numerous binge parties with all the hairs on our necks standing up for most of it. I found the little-boy-lost storyline heartbreaking, the unfolding monstrosities riveting and the bond between the group of friends heartwarming. The ’80s references seemed loving but not overdone and the show came to an almost perfect conclusion.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #187: The Alien in the High Castle

samlinder3 Comments

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.

Inspired by Alan’s Scavengers Reign review in last week’s post, and his observation that the series looks as if Swiss Alien designer HR Giger had joined Studio Ghibli in the 1980s, I decided to follow the trail that Giger left behind since his untimely death ten years ago in his and my home country. It quickly turned out that the mothership of his creations these days is, fittingly, a museum in eerie Medieval castle St. Germain high on top of Gruyères, home of one of Switzerland’s most famous cheeses.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #183: The Forever Supporting Ones

samlinder5 Comments

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.

Reading Matt’s latest piece on discovering film stars in their early performances before their eventual breakthrough, I was wondering how many actors actually never really got to that point yet still remain so easily recognisable. You know the ones I’m talking about: the instantly familiar faces that are hard to place but that you’ve seen repeatedly in films or on television; the staple supporting cast of many well-known directors from Alfred Hitchcock to Blake Edwards or Mel Brooks to the Quentin Tarantino; the returning characters in any franchise from Bond to Marvel and long-running series like The Avengers or Sex Education.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #174: Walking into Game of Thrones in Croatia

samlinder3 Comments

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.

Just like Mege confessed in last week’s post, I also stopped watching Game of Thrones after few seasons, not because I hadn’t initially found it riveting and exciting, but because the rampant sex, violence and surprise deaths had taken away pretty much all the characters I cared for by just the end of season 3 (especially in the infamous ‘Red Wedding’ episodes). My nerve-rattling and character-investing had largely been in vain, and so my friends and I called it quits.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #170: Whatever happened to Nastassja Kinski?

samlinder3 Comments

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.

These days, with director Werner Herzog still nourishing his infamously conflicted yet cinematically so fruitful relationship with Teutonic titan Klaus Kinski (even spoofed in Documentary Now!, as described in last week’s post by Matt), it is an almost forgotten fact that for a while, some forty years ago, a very different Kinski made her way into the audience’s consciousness: his daughter Nastassja.

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