We’re almost at the end of July, which for many of our readers (if the WordPress stats are to be believed) means that they’re at the height of summer – and what better way to escape the summer heat than to plonk down in the dark with a good film or book or game? That is, if we have any good films or books or games to recommend…
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 1935, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed the Best Picture award on Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Clark Gable and Charles Laughton. Does the film hold up 91 years later, and did Alan like it?
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.
What better way to spend a hot summer Sunday than sitting in a cool cinema and watching a 4 1/2 hour documentary about the Boston municipal government? Or a similarly long film about the inner workings of the National Gallery? Or, indeed, an angry and unexpectedly lyrical look at the US welfare system in the mid-’70s? Frederick Wiseman has it all for you, and much more beyond, as Matt found out in June when his favourite cinema did a Wiseman programme in honour of the late documentarian.
As we discussed in our second podcast episode of this year’s summer series which was dedicated to the Western genre, Westerns are, among many other things, a way of the USA talking about themselves. But not all Westerns take the same, serious approach to doing so, and the tropes of the genre – sheriffs, gunslingers, corrupt railroad barons, and many more – lend themselves to a different, more meta kind of genre: the parody. In this month’s espresso episode, Sam and Julie talk about Mel Brooks’ affectionate stab at the Western, Blazing Saddles. How does it fit in their viewing of Westerns? How does it hold up more than 50 years after its original release? And what is the state of film spoofs in 2026?
For some connected reading, check out Sam’s Six Damn Fine Degrees instalment on frequent Mel Brooks collaborator Madeline Kahn and her finest moments (including “I’m Tired” from Blazing Saddles). And make sure to keep following our series, the Summer of Genre, for more discussion of cinematic genres that we love!
Continue readingJoin 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.
Alan’s Academy Awards series continues with the Best Picture winner of 1934: It Happened One Night. (It probably isn’t that much of a spoiler to say that Alan liked that one. A lot.)
After last month’s episode on the Knives Out mysteries, our Summer of Genre embraces today’s date and continues with that most American of genres: the Western, and the ways in which the genre is frequently used to tell, retell and revise the foundational myth of the United States of America. And since it would be silly to discuss this among jaded Europeans only, we’re bringing back a guest and Damn Fine friend for this episode: Daniel Thron, who’s been on the show to talk to us on everything from Steven Soderbergh via the films of Robert Altman and The Exorcist to the arid sandscapes of Dune, both Part One and Part Two (which means that you may just get to hear him again in a few months when Denis Villeneuve finishes his epic trilogy). Join us for a talk that starts with the classic, iconic John Ford western My Darling Clementine (1946) and then takes us all the way to 2007 for the revisionist The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and the darkness of the Coen brothers’ neo-western No Country for Old Men. How do all of these films tell stories about the ever-changing, ever-same frontier that is the United States of America?
P.S.: For anyone who can’t get enough of Dan’s voice, make sure to check out CG Garage, a podcast dedicated to the movie industry.
Continue readingAnd already we’re almost at the halfway point of the year. What have we watched, read and enjoyed recently? (Hint: For most of us, it’s not the heat.)
As anyone who listened to our March episode on three film adaptations of Agatha Christie’s whodunits can tell: no one at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture is a big fan of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot. The erstwhile Shakespeare wunderkind tried his hand at the Belgian super-sleuth three times, with Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022) and A Haunting in Venice (2003). Admittedly, we’re not the first ones to say an emphatic non to Branagh’s Poirot – but, having just recently taken a closer look at the Knives Out films, which feature a different modern movie detective that nonetheless takes more than a few cues from Agatha Christie, and from Monsieur Poirot himself, Sam and Alan nonetheless felt it was high time to give Branagh’s trio of period thrillers another chance.
Do they improve when approached with tempered expectations? Can they be salvaged, or do they remain not just second-best versions of these stories but downright failures of adaptation? How do the ensemble casts compare to those put together by Sidney Lumet in the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express and John Guillermin in 1978’s Death on the Nile? And just what is up with that moustache?
Continue readingWe’ve arrived at June, which can only mean one thing – it’s once again time for a Damn Fine tradition: our summer series. This year, we bring you the Summer of Genre: four episodes, from June until September, each dedicated to a genre that is close to our hearts. And we’re launching our Summer of Genre with one of Julie’s favourites – the whodunit. But not just any whodunit: Julie, Alan and Sam have got together to discuss Rian Johnson’s Knives Out mysteries, from 2019’s inaugural murder mystery via 2022’s Glass Onion to last year’s Wake Up Dead Man. Since our part-time sleuths, part-time cultural baristas are big fans of the classical whodunit (for key evidence in this particular case, make sure to check out this March’s podcast episode, Three Christies, featuring the same star-studded cast), Johnson’s modern-day riffs on the clasical format are the logical next step. But will our intrepid trio exonerate Johnson and his private detective Benoit Blanc, or will they reveal their unquestionable guilt once and for all?
Continue readingJoin 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.
