The Barista Collective

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Fear itself

Apr 23, 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.

A number of us here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture like horror films, and this is reflected (see what we did there?) in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, with Mege’s thoughts on how horror reflects us back at ourselves. Lake Mungo, the film he mentions most prominently, is not as well known as the big names in the genre, but this little-known Australian gem is sad and terrifying, like many of the best ghost stories.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: All These Women

Apr 16, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Trust Julie to do a fun, interesting deep dive into topics the way only she can: on Friday, she wrote about actress Gene Tierney, Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, and the unexpected connections between the two.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: April 2023

Apr 15, 2023Apr 14, 2023The Barista Collective1 Comment

Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is not an easy watch – and for a long time it was especially difficult to find an opportunity to watch it, but thanks to its top slot in the Sight & Sound critics’ poll in 2022, it returned to a number of cinemas, giving some of us a chance to watch (or even rewatch) Akerman’s contribution to radical cinema. At 3 hours and 21 minutes, during which little happens that would make up the plot of conventional movies, Jeanne Dielman asks a lot of its audiences – but, as Julie and Alan argue, it gives a lot back. What did the two of them get out of Akerman’s film dedicated to three days in the life of a widowed bourgeois housewife and occasional sex worker? How does its running time and structure work? And will their suggestion to shorten the title to a potentially catchier JD stick? Tune in to find the answer to, well, most of these questions!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: What a tangled web we weave

Apr 9, 2023Apr 9, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

The recent news that apparently a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo was in the works sent ripples of outrage through some corners of the internet – but it seems that our resident Hitchcock-phile Sam is remarkably open-minded about the possibility of someone else taking a stab at the classic.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Asteroids and Androids!

Apr 2, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Even someone who might consider themselves a reasonable Hitchcock fan might not have heard of Young and Innocent before – which is all the more reason to check out Alan’s Six Damn Fine Degrees post from this week. And as YouTube doesn’t seem to have a trailer for the film, here’s the next best thing: the entire movie. Enjoy!

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #67: Second Chances – Two Androids called David

Apr 1, 2023Apr 1, 2023The Barista Collective6 Comments

What is it about films featuring androids called David that makes them, let’s say, not entirely successful with audiences and critics? Following their recent trip to the Stanley Kubrick Archive in London, Alan and Matt dedicate this this year’s Second Chances episode to two sci-fi films by iconic directors that are unlikely to feature on those directors’ best-of lists: Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus (2012) and Steven Spielberg’s A.I. (2001). Both films have recently been revisited by critics who found more to like in them than they originally recognised. Will our baristas also enjoy these films better this time around? Or will the films fare worse the second (or third) time around? And just what is it about androids called David?

Also make sure to check out these past episodes:

A Damn Fine Espresso: December 2022 (in which Alan and Matt talk about their trip to the Kubrick Archive)
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #34: Xeno-who? The Alien franchise
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #62 Second Chances (2) (in which Alan and Sam talk about David Fincher’s Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #47: Second Chances (in which Julie and Matt talk about the Joan Crawford classic Mildred Pierce and Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly)

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: All you’ll be eating is cannibals

Mar 26, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

If the past is a foreign country: how do we watch films that are approaching their hundred-year anniversary? While working on his Criterion backlog, Matt recently watched Show Boat, but while there are things there to enjoy without knowing the historical context intimately, the musical’s handling of the United States’ history of slavery and racism is a mixed bag, and it’s not always easy to look past what is problematic at the things that may be surprisingly progressive. And some scenes manage to tick both of those boxes at the same time.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: A slow-boiling masterpiece

Mar 19, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Our long-running Bergman series finally came to an end… of sorts, with Matt checking out, among other things, a recent documentary on the director that doesn’t hold back with criticism. Does it change his take on Bergman’s films?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Mission Improbable

Mar 12, 2023Mar 12, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

It wasn’t the first time Lalo Schifrin’s iconic theme was heard, but I wonder whether many of our readers first encountered the Impossible Missions Force, or IMF, in Brian De Palma’s 1996 film – the starting point to Alan’s recent trek through all of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: March 2023

Mar 11, 2023The Barista Collective1 Comment

Hooray for Hollywood… OR IS IT??? It’s the weekend of the 95th Academy Awards, and Alan and Matt got together in cyberspace to talk about this year’s Oscars. What are their thoughts on the Academy Awards in general? Are they big fans of the Oscars? And what do they think of this year’s nominees for the big awards: Best Actor, Best Actress and, obviously, Best Picture? What are their thoughts on who should win – and, perhaps as importantly, who shouldn’t? What do the nominations say about 2023 Hollywood? And how easy is it to watch a performance in a film you consider flawed or even bad and judge whether it’s worthy of receiving an award? Featuring Polish donkeys, blue anti-colonialists, Freudian symbolism, #metoo conductors, with a generous helping of war being hell and a pair of Irishmen who just don’t like each other no more!

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