Author: The Barista Collective

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The One With Almost No Trailers

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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.

It’s Bergman time again: this week, Matt stopped by one of Bergman’s early films, Port of Call. It may not be the most Bergman (the Bergmanest?) of all the Bergmans, but after a slow start it turned out… surprisingly engaging! Sadly, finding a trailer for Port of Call proved almost impossible.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Music and moonlight and love and… monsters?

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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 a director can be on a wavelength too different from your own, and such differences may be irreconcilable. Will Matt ever learn to love Olivier Assayas, or will Irma Vep (1996) be as good as it gets for him?

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A Damn Fine Espresso: June 2022

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We’ve talked about movies and music before, and for our June Espresso episode, Sam and Matt pick up the tune again, talking about two films they’ve recently seen that are all about the music. Sam watched Ennio, the 2021 documentary about iconic composer Ennio Morricone, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore (of Cinema Paradiso fame), while Matt caught Academy Award winner Summer of Soul (2021) at the cinema, which combines the genres of documentary and concert film to celebrate artists from Mahalia Jackson and B.B. King to Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone and Nina Simone – and talk about the relevance of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival to African American culture and politics. Sam and Matt also discuss what, for them, makes a good film about music and musicians, and what is necessary for a musical performance to come to life on film.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: I will show you fear in a drop of blood

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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.

After something of a break from Nordic existentialism, Matt returned to his Bergman boxset, watching an early film by the director, Thirst (1949). Unfortunately the age of the film, and possibly the fact that Thirst isn’t exactly one of Bergman’s most memorable films, means that there isn’t a trailer to be found on YouTube – so, instead, please enjoy this trailer for Park Chan-wook’s 2009 vampire movie Thirst, loosely based on a 19th century French novel.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: You’ll never get that out of the carpet!

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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.

Remember 1994, when Peter Jackson became known to an audience much larger than aficionados of shlocky horror and bad taste (or indeed Bad Taste)? Julie certainly does, and her latest Six Damn Fine Degrees post takes us back to Heavenly Creatures and to the murder case that the film is based on.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #57: Summer of Directors – Dario Argento

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And our Summer of Directors continues: after celebrating the tactility of Jane Campion’s films last month, we continue with a very different kind of physicality, with the variform violence done to bodies and minds in the phantasmagoric cinema of Italian filmmaker Dario Argento. Join Sam, Julie and Alan as they dissect a trio of Argento’s films, from giallo classic The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) via Deep Red (1975) – a film called by some the best giallo ever made – to perhaps the most famous film by Argento, the supernatural horror film Suspiria (1977). What makes these films potent to this day? How important is plot to an Argento film? How much of a successor was the director to Alfred Hitchcock? Just what is “impure cinema”? And just how does our gang draw a direct line from classic movie musicals to Dario Argento’s films?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Your mission, should you choose to accept it

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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.

Most of us here at A Damn Fine Cup became who we are in no small part because of the films we watched growing up. Last week, Matt wrote about his memories of watching Amadeus back in 1984 with his father, who recently died, and how the film will forever be linked to those memories

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The Future Is Now – and so is the past

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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.

How other to follow up our recent podcast episode on Jane Campion than with a look at Criterion’s 4K version of Campion’s 1993 film The Piano? Matt was more than bowled over with how gorgeously tactile and physical the film looks – even though (gasp! shock! horror!) he showed little interest in a recent local showing of the film on 35mm reels. (And if you still haven’t had enough 88-keyed goodness, you may want to check out our recentish podcast ep on movie soundtracks.)

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A Damn Fine Espresso: May 2022

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In the mood for a little cup of culture? Tune in for our May espresso, in which Alan and Matt discuss the latest addition to the MCU, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Spoiler: While they both enjoy the MCU, they were less than taken with Sam Raimi’s return to superhero movies. They both agree, however, that the MCU would benefit from having more Benedict Wong in it. After their discussion in January, following the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Alan and Matt talk about the MCU at this point, what pitfalls it would do well to avoid, and what their hopes are for the coming Marvel attractions. But: how do Ingmar Bergman and LEGO figure into all of this? Well, there’s only one way to find out!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: You have my sword. And my axe. And my camera.

The 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.

How else to end the week than with a bit of avenging, saving and killing? Amleth knows, and he’s happy to tell us, if you don’t mind a spear thrown straight at you. Just ask Matt, who posted his thoughts on The Northman here.

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