The Barista Collective

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: This one begins and ends with Japan

Nov 5, 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.

Sometimes it’s hard to top our first experience with an actor, a director, a writer, isn’t it? Matt’s first Kore-eda film was After Life, and he’ll gladly admit that he will use any opportunity to talk about the director’s beautiful take on what happens after we die. Watching the Criterion release of After Life let him indulge in two of his loves.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #74: The Exorcist

Nov 4, 2023Nov 4, 2023The Barista Collective3 Comments

This year’s Halloween has been and gone – but we’re continuing our recent run of horror-themed podcasts (with three Draculas and many more vampires) by dedicating our November episode to the late, great William Friedkin’s seminal film about demonic possession: The Exorcist. More than that, though, we’re bringing back one of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture’s most beloved guest stars: Daniel Thron, of Martini Giant fame. (We were planning to bring him back around this time for a second Dune podcast, but, well, things happened.) Join Julie, Sam and Dan as they talk about the masterpiece that has endured over the decades, in spite of a franchise that has truly plumbed the depths. Come for the projectile vomit and turning heads, stay for the surprising humanity of a film about a young girl and a mother driven to the edge. And that’s before we even get to Dan’s Kentucky accent!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Livin’ it up

Oct 29, 2023Oct 28, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

The first two entries in Criterion’s Essential Fellini collection, Variety Lights and The White Sheik, both have their appeals – but third time’s the charm for Matt, as he describes in this week’s post on Fellini’s I Vitteloni.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: October 2023

Oct 21, 2023Nov 4, 2023The Barista Collective2 Comments

Do vampires get jealous that Dracula tends to hog all the attention? In this month’s espresso episode, Matt and Julie try to make up for this; after the most recent podcast featured not only one but three Draculas (in some cases under a different name, for copyright reasons), we’re returning to the pulsating vein of vampire fiction to talk about some other stories with a bite that deserve as much attention as the Count. (The impaling one, that is, not the one who’s into numbers and stuff.) From Jim Jarmush’s Only Lovers Left Alive to the ultra-’90s British series Ultraviolet (featuring a pre-True Blood Stephen Moyer) via the likes of Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In and Cronos, we explore the crypts and mausoleums where those endowed with big fangs go right for the jugular. Join us – and don’t forget to pack some garlic and a crucifix

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Who let the dogs out?

Oct 15, 2023Oct 15, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

This week, we had Matt writing about the odd allure of a series of games that are shallow timewasters – but that he nonetheless keeps returning to, most recently with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Another one bites the neck

Oct 8, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Halloween is still a few weeks away, but October’s a good month for scary films. Are long-running franchises that basically repeat the same basic story over and over again really scary, though? Matt has some doubts in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #73: Three Draculas

Oct 7, 2023Nov 4, 2023The Barista Collective7 Comments

Aside from Frankenstein’s creature perhaps, is there another movie monster as iconic as that most famous of vampires: Dracula? At the same time, has familiarity turned Dracula into something less than a monster? Is the famous count with the two pointy teeth still capable of instilling fear, or has he become too much of a cliché, even a cartoon? For our spooky October episode, Sam, Julie and Matt have packed their stakes, crucifixes and garlands of garlic and are heading to deepest Transilvania to look in on three versions of the Count, ironically starting with the one who isn’t even called Dracula: F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), in which the wonderfully named Max Schreck played the famous vampire with the serial numbers filed off. Then there’s Christopher Lee, the tall, dark stranger, in Terence Fisher’s 1958 film Dracula (or Horror of Dracula, as it was called in the US); and finally, we check out Francis Ford Coppola’s self-proclaimed return to the original novel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), in which Gary Oldman chews scenery at least as much as he nibbles on the necks of nubile Victorian ladies. How do these three films succeed at bringing the famous vampire to life (or should that be undeath)?

(And if this isn’t enough vampirism for you, there’s always our podcast episode on Werner Herzog, in which we touch on the director’s 1979 take on Nosferatu.)

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Cinema, red in (dog)tooth and (finger)nail

Oct 1, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Last week saw us looking back – or squinting, more likely – at Psycho II, so this week Alan took us back to the Anthony Perkins-directed Psycho III, a sequel that isn’t as bad as you’d expect… but does that make it a good film? Read this Friday’s Six Damn Fine Degrees to find out!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Back from the dead, and twice as bad

Sep 24, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Norman Bates is back! Well, not exactly – but for this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Matt wrote about his positive but patchy memories of Psycho II, and the reasons why he doesn’t particularly want to go back and find out whether the film was really surprisingly good or whether at the time it just benefited from really low expectations (and Meg Tilly, obviously).

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A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2023

Sep 23, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Travels with our Sam: our resident James Bond expert/soundtrack fiend went back to La La Land itself for his summer holidays. Want to find out what Sam did on his hols? Join him and Julie as they talk about Sam’s SoCal adventures: bumping into movie stars at Starbucks, checking out the rides and the studio tours (but failing to find a good studio shop – what’s wrong with you, Hollywood?!), and finding the coolest ever record store with the oldest ever shop attendant. We hope you enjoy this latest espresso of a podcast episode as much as Sam obviously enjoyed his LA vacation!

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