The Barista Collective

A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2023

Dec 24, 2023Dec 24, 2023The Barista Collective1 Comment

As the sheer Ho-ho-honess of the season descends on us, here’s a little something for under your tree: our 2023 Christmas Special. This year we’re taking the opportunity to put a Damn Fine fingerprint on the media meme of the year: Barbenheimer. Join us – Julie, Sam, Alan and Matt, but also Damn Fine O.G. Mege and favourite frequent guest Dan Thron of Martini Giant (who took some time this autumn to talk all things Exorcist with us) – as we come up with double bills and mash-ups of wildly divergent and strangely complementary movies, taking our listeners from Paddiface and The Wizard of Chess via a very special Boris Karloff two-header and Wonkas of the Flower Moon to The Sound of Eagles and Under the Hours. (FYI, most of these are working titles that we’ll have to workshop before the final product is pushed out the door, or so Marketing tells us.) So, in the spirit of plastic dolls come to life and Cillian Murphy’s piercing eyes, of learning to start worrying and hate the bomb and of being Just Ken, we at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture wish all of our listeners happy holidays filled with good films, series, books, games and music!

P.S.: For more on Baby Face and Killers of the Flower Moon, make sure to check out these episodes:

A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #42: The Complicated Women of Pre-Code Cinema
A Damn Fine Espresso: November 2023 (in which Matt and Sam talk about Killers of the Flower Moon)

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

Dec 17, 2023The 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.

Sadly, there are no trailers for animated shorts – so instead, here is the opening and closing of the Looney Tunes film “Hollywood Steps Out”, which Alan wrote about for this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: December 2023

Dec 16, 2023Feb 3, 2024The Barista Collective3 Comments

In a little over a week it’s Christmas – and what goes together better than Christmas and forging signatures, telling lies, impersonating practically anybody… and a little murder? Matt’s recently had an opportunity to check out the film adaptations of the adventures of a very naughty boy: Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. In this month’s espresso podcast, join Matt and Sam as they talk about these adaptations that vary massively in tone, theme and quality: from Plein Soleil (AKA Purple Noon) and The American Friend to Ripley’s Game and Ripley Under Ground – not missing out The Talented Mister Ripley, of course. It’s a rare case that a series of novels is adapted not into a series of films but into very different individual movies, all treating their central character very differently. How talented are these various Ripleys, whether they’re played by Alain Delon, Matt Damon, Dennis Hopper, Barry Pepper or John Malkovich?

For a deep dive specifically into The Talented Mister Ripley and its two famous movie adaptations, make sure to check out our podcast from way back in June 2021: Ripley vs Ripley.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Thieves like us

Dec 10, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Can a week go wrong if it starts with a slice of Fellini? Probably not – though Matt wasn’t entirely taken with Il Bidone, which is probably a better film than Fellini’s pre-I Vitelloni films, but it also lacks a certain… Fellini touch, perhaps?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Tell me about the rabbit

Dec 3, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Is it possible that it’s really taken more than 15 years for us to finally write something about Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Well, Julie definitely made up for this in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees instalment.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #75: Hollywood on Hollywood

Dec 2, 2023Dec 1, 2023The Barista Collective1 Comment

It’s not exactly a secret that Hollywood can be a tad self-centred: it loves making films about itself, sometimes lovingly so (such as in Singing in the Rain), sometimes bitingly caustic (take Sunset Boulevard, for instance). And this has pretty much been a part of Hollywood’s MO since the beginning. For our December podcast, join Julie, Sam and Alan as they look at three films in which Hollywood depicts itself, for better or for worse, from the 1970s to the present. Starting with John Schlesinger’s adaptation of Nathanael West’s novel The Day of the Locust (1975), a dark, sometimes downright apocalyptic satire, continuing with Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004) and ending up with Damien Chazelle’s much-derided Babylon (2022), they examine how these films depict historical Tinseltown and what this reveals about their attitudes towards the US movie industry.

For further listening on these topics, make sure to check out Karina Longworth’s podcast You Must Remember This, especially her series “Fake News: Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon” and “The Many Loves of Howard Hughes” – and our very own podcast episode #18 from way back in early 2019, in which Julie joined us officially for the first time to discuss The Aviator.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: No horse would say ‘neigh’ to these!

Nov 26, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

This week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees took us deep into the heart of Hollywood cringe, with Mege’s post on BoJack Horseman.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Underwater, on the road

Nov 19, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

While the chronological approach that Criterion took in their Essential Fellini box set meant that the start was less than smooth, Matt’s definitely finding that the films improve a lot over time – and after I Vitelloni, La Strada is a worthy addition to any film collection, not least because of Giulietta Masina’s wonderful performance as Gelsomina.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: November 2023

Nov 18, 2023Nov 19, 2023The Barista Collective5 Comments

It’s the film that everyone’s had an opinion on, not least the devout Marvel fans and people who want an opportunity to go to the restroom during films of epic length: Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Join Sam and Matt for their discussion of Scorsese’s latest. How did the film land for a fan of the iconic American director, and what are the reactions of someone who isn’t so much into Scorsese’s world of toxic masculinity and backroom dealings? Where do they stand on the question of whether Killers of the Flower Moon needs its length (and being uninterrupted) to have the intended impact on the audience or whether it would have been improved by being shorter? What did they think of the performances of Scorsese stalwarts Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and of new faces Lily Gladstone and Jesse Plemonds? And what’s their take on that ending and on the director literally having the final word of the film?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The common denominator of filmmaking is not harmony

Nov 12, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

This week, Matt wrote about less-than-ideal actor/director relationships – mentioning along the way one of the most iconic fraught relationships in cinema, so let’s give the word to Messrs Kinski and Herzog.