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.
Matt’s been spending some more time in virtual worlds, in particular a digital version of 1980s Wyoming, spotting fires. He wrote about his experience here – which should go well with the Firewatch trailer.
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.
We’re getting closer and closer to the end of our monthly trips into the oeuvre of Bergman. This week, Matt wrote about Waiting Women (AKA Secrets of Women) – another one where there’s no trailer available, it seems, so here’s a little-seen preview for something called Women and Bergman, which seems to have been shown at the Stockholm International Film Festival in 2007, the year of Bergman’s death.
Our Summer of Directors continues with Robert Altman, the maverick director whose subversive takes on quintessentially American genres helped shape 1970s Hollywood cinema. Join Alan, Matt and frequent contributor Daniel Thron from fellow film podcast Martini Giant as they discuss three Altman classics: the darkly satirical neo-noir Chandler adaptation The Long Goodbye, the revisionist western McCabe & Mrs. Miller and the scathing quasi-musical critique of American society and culture, Nashville. Why is it that many of Altman’s films can rub viewers the wrong way the first time they see them – or is the wrong way in fact the right way, considering the venom of some of Altman’s satire? What changes for us when revisiting these films? What are the targets of Altman’s critique, and what is its collateral damage? To what extent did the director deplore the world and society he depicted – and how much affection does he have for them? And why oh why doesn’t Shelley Duvall, the perfect Olive Oyl, get more recognition than she does?
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.
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.
Some films don’t quite come together but are still worth it for their individual components. Matt saw Petrov’s Flu recently, and while he thinks the film gets in its own way in the end, there’s a lot to like about it… if you’re looking for a fever dream of a film
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 Damn Fine Cup of Culture has talked about musicals before – but this month’s espresso is a special treat: Alan has seen the production of Cabaret that is currently being shown at the Playhouse Theatre in London. He and Julie talk about the production and how it compares to Christopher Isherwood’s original stories that Cabaret is based on, as well as the 1972 film by Bob Fosse, featuring Liza Minelli in her iconic turn as Sally Bowles. How do the various production choices change the characters and the overall depiction of Berlin during the Weimar Republic? And, obviously, what are Alan’s thoughts on the stage production: is this time jump to 1929 Berlin worth taking if you happen to find yourself in London?
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.
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.
Our Summer of Directors reaches its midpoint, with an episode that is special in two different respects. For one thing, we’re talking about an artist whose name should be much, much more familiar than it is: Ida Lupino, the English-American actress, singer, writer, producer, and, yes, director, whose films such as Outrage, The Bigamist and The Hitch-Hiker are fascinating, intriguing, and unusually frank (not only for the time!), dealing with topics such as rape and its social fallout or toxic masculinity long before such topics were common in the movies, and in ways that are more intriguing and nuanced than many more modern films. The episode is also special for another reason: Julie and Alan are joined by Johannes Binotto, lecturer at the University of Zürich and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, who’s written and spoken about Lupino. (You can check out some of his work on Lupino in video and text format – in German, but it’s still well worth checking out if you understand the language or trust DeepL to do a reasonably good job of translating it.) Many thanks to Johannes for his time and for sharing his views and profound knowledge of the subject with us and our listeners!
