Author: The Barista Collective

A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #110: Guillermo del Toro

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

October is over, Halloween has been and gone – but the spooky season never really ends. Following neatly from last month’s episode about cinematic ghosts, we’re finally getting around to talking about a ghost story on film that is close to our hearts… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Our November podcast is dedicated to that Mexican master of the macabre, spooky and fantastic: Guillermo del Toro. And, in true Damn Fine Cup of Culture fashion, we’re approaching this director, who has often been labelled “visionary”, by taking a closer look at three of his films. Starting with Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), continuing with what is perhaps the greatest success so far in del Toro’s career, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), and then circling back to his Gothic ghost story The Devil’s Backbone (2001), we look at what we love about the films of del Toro, but also what we find frustrating about his brand of storytelling. Which del Toro is the real deal: the one that makes films about big-fisted demons who hunt other demons and fantastic beasts of all shapes and sizes? Or the one that tells stories about historical trauma and the fight against fascism through the lens of genre fiction?

P.S.: Since The Orphanage (2007), another spooky tale about Spain’s dark history which was co-produced by Guillermo del Toro, gets a shout-out on the episode, you may also want to check out our 2025 Halloween episode on horror films whose title begins with the ominous word “The”.

P.P.S.: And, seeing how Matt likes the Hellboy comics a lot more than the Guillermo del Toro adaptations (he hasn’t seen the more recent movie takes on the character), here’s a blog post almost 20 years old about the joys of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy comics.

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Minivers and Minions

The 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.

This week, Alan arrived in 1942 with his series of One Best Picture After Another: who still remembers Mrs. Miniver? And, perhaps as importantly, should the film be remembered better than it is?

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: A sky the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel

The 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.

Remember when the future was neon and everything was cyber? Matt has spent much of the last couple of months in Night City, the exhausting but fascinating virtual world in which Cyberpunk 2077 is set.

Continue reading →

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Lazy Sunday, wake up in the late afternoon

The 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.

When people think of John Ford, they mostly think Monument Valley and the like – but, in the case of one film that is perhaps unfairly remembered most for beating Citizen Kane to the Best Picture Award at the 14th Academy Awards, Ford told a story set in a Welsh mining town. Check out Alan’s entry on How Green Was My Valley in his One Best Picture After Another series.

Continue reading →

A Damn Fine Espresso: October 2026

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

For our main October podcast episode, we focused on films featuring ghosts that, contrary to tradition, aren’t supposed to be scary – except, perhaps, to the kind of side characters you get in 1930s screwball comedies or to estate agents worried they’ll never manage to get rid of that haunted seaside cottage. But where does that leave us for Halloween, without a single genuine scare to curdle our blood? Thus, Sam and Matt get together for this month’s espresso podcast to remedy this and talk about two movies about ghostly goings-on that are clearly designed to frighten their viewers. First of these is The Changeling (1980), directed by Peter Medak, in which George C. Scott faces up against a haunted mansion and the kind of crime that tends to raise the spirits of the dead to bring about justice, or, barring that, vengeance. How well do its very traditional scares hold up almost 50 years later? Then, changing both century and continent, Sam and Matt talk about Pulse (2001, also known as Kairo) by expert frightener Kiyoshi Kurosawa, in which the dead begin to spill out into our world through the conduit of a still relatively new technology: the internet. Is this the kind of ghostly horror to dedicate your bandwidth to this Halloween? And, in general, what makes for an effective ghost story, and what tends to dampen the spirits in more ways than one?

Continue reading →

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

The 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?

Continue reading →

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

The 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!

Continue reading →

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

The 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.

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.

Continue reading →