The Barista Collective

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Sugar and spice and all things nice

Dec 5, 2021The 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.

Over the last two years time has felt like it’s broken, or at least its batteries are way down. Nonetheless, it’s December, the holidays aren’t all that far away, and the twelfth of our monthly podcasts has gone up. (More on that later.) The pandemic is still going on, affecting our lives and our cultural habits, but that’s not going to keep us from making sure our cups are filled with damn great culture – such as Mike Leigh’s Naked, which Julie wrote about in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #51: Denis Villeneuve’s Dune

Dec 4, 2021Jan 4, 2025The Barista Collective7 Comments

A Damn Fine Cup of Culture couldn’t let the year end without celebrating one of the most anticipated films of the year, nay, the pandemic: Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic Dune. For this, Julie and Alan are joined by Daniel Thron of Martini Giant, who had previously come by for a damn fine cup to discuss Stephen Soderbergh with us. Did our intrepid cultural baristas enjoy Villeneuve’s take on Herbert’s seminal novel? Did Hollywood do justice, in terms of storytelling and aesthetics, to a novel that many others – including David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky – failed to successfully bring to the screen? So, face your fear, permit it to pass over you and through you, and spend an hour in the desert landscape of Arrakis with Dan, Alan and Julie!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Send in the frogs

Nov 28, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

For one, this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees looked at pictures that don’t move – although in your mind’s eye they absolutely do: Mege wrote about J.M.W. Turner’s painting “The Fighting Temeraire”. And since he so handily mentioned Mike Leigh’s 2014 film Mr. Turner, that makes the first trailer of this Sunday post quite easy to choose.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Vive la France!

Nov 21, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

For this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Alan wrote about the pitch-perfect performance of John Turner as Roderick Spode in the TV adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster and one of the most fitting quasi-Hitler moustaches in TV history. If you haven’t already done so, make sure to check it out! Sadly, it seems that the only trailers for the show available online are in German, which obviously won’t do, so here’s a six-minute excerpt to enjoy instead.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Murder, Mayhem, Sheep

Nov 14, 2021Nov 14, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

There would be so many trailers to choose from when it comes to Angela Lansbury, the focus of Sam’s homage in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees. Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Manchurian Candidate or Beauty and the Beast, for instance. She even lent her voice to Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt (which I didn’t previously know – thanks, IMDB!) But for so many of us – well, at least the Gen Xers among our readers – the first and most iconic of all of Lansbury’s roles will always be her neo-Miss Marple: Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote. And yes, trailers for classic TV are cheesy and weird, but hey, it’s Murder, She Wrote!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Shave and a haircut…

Nov 7, 2021Nov 7, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

What better way to start the Sunday trailer post than with barbers and meat pies? I mean, everyone needs to look good and everyone needs to eat – and who’s more aware of this than one Benjamin Barker… though most people might know him better under his alias: on Friday, Julie took our Six Damn Fine Degrees feature to dark places to write about Sweeney Todd.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #50: Daniel Craig’s Bond farewell in No Time to Die

Nov 6, 2021Jan 4, 2025The Barista Collective2 Comments

No, A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, we expect you to podcast… Obviously we cannot let a cultural phenomenon such as Daniel Craig’s final James Bond outing go uncommented – especially since Alan, Julie and Sam already talked about the Bond franchise a year ago in preparation for the (oft postponed) release of James Bond: No Time to Die. In the meantime, it has been time to watch No Time to Die, and our three intrepid baristas return to finish their mission. Did they enjoy Daniel Craig’s last hurrah as MI6 agent James Bond? What were they shaken and/or stirred by most? What did they think of the villain, the women, the hidden lair – and especially the ending? Just as importantly: whither James Bond? Where do we want the franchise to go next? And… who do we want to have a crack at the iconic secret agent next?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Shots fired

Oct 31, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Once again: what do you do if you want to post a trailer, but the post it refers to isn’t about a film? Books and music are difficult – but with musicals it’s a bit easier, because even stage shows get trailers nowadays. So, while there’s no Uncle Sam analogue in it, here’s a trailer for a recent(ish) staging of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. Because, hey fella, feel like you’re a failure? Feel misunderstood? C’mere and kill a president! Trust me, it’ll all make sense if you read the post.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Knives Out

Oct 24, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Boy oh boy, as always it’s difficult to find a trailer if the post it relates to is about a song. Mege’s Damn Fine Degrees post about Elvis Costello’s “I Want You” makes it a bit easier by mentioning the Michael Winterbottom film of the same name – though it seems it only exists in very, very bad quality on YouTube. Ah well.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Magic, mayhem, artificial colouring

Oct 17, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Sadly, this week started with Matt not particularly enjoying Ingmar Bergman’s The Rite, a TV adaptation of a stage play that is at the same time bitter and tacky. Sorry, Ingmar, that’s not a combination that many people could pull off, even if they’re as talented as you and your cast, consisting of Gunnar Björnstrand, Ingrid Thulin and Anders Ek. Also, for the purpose of the Sunday trailer post, there doesn’t seem to be a trailer of The Rite available on YouTube – so here’s something else about rituals and masques and the like. Enjoy this trailer of the film adaptation of John Fowles’ The Magus! (Is that something of a tenuous link? Probably!)