I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

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.

On Friday, Alan did a fascinating post on the Shirelles song “Boys” that was later covered by this small indie band, The Beatles – and how having Ringo Starr sing a song about “boys, now (yeah, yeah, boys)” made the lyrics take on a very different meaning. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find trailers that directly relate to songs… but since another hit by The Shirelles was “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”, YouTube revealed that there’s a 2013 Taiwanese rom-com of the same title, so that will serve as the first trailer for this week’s post.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Scenes from a small island

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.

This week may not have been quite as generous as the last one, but there are still some choice trailers to share with our readers – beginning with one that should be a good fit for Mege’s Six Damn Fine Degrees post on the working stiffs of rock music, including one Nicholas Cave Esq.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: A bad apple a day keeps the husband away

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.

Hoo boy! This was a busy week here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, starting with Matt’s post on the mildly absurdist Greek dramedy (such a bad word for such a wide range of stories!) Apples. He wasn’t entirely won over by it, but there’s still a lot to enjoy here.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #48: None More Noir

It all began when she walked into our coffee bar… It’s September, but really, we’re starting Noirvember early: join Alan, Julie and Matt as they discuss what some have called that most cynical of genres, the film noir. Obviously, there’s no way around the big granddaddy of them all, Billy Wilder’s blackest, bleakest of jokes, Double Indemnity (1944), or indeed Roman Polanski’s magisterial, tragic Chinatown (1974), each of these iconic examples of the genre – which, arguably, didn’t even exist yet when Wilder made his film. From classic noir to neo-noir, we finally take a trip to a Californian high school to check out Rian Johnson’s Brick (2004) as an example of postmodern noir, before we finish on a discussion of the future of the genre. Do we need any more compromised private eyes and femmes fatales – and, if so, what would they look like for the 21st century?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Our Lady of Perpetual Crime

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.

Did we need another crime miniseries about smalltown murder and violence against women? Is Kate Winslet enough to make it worthwhile? Matt recently finished Mare of Easttown, and his thinking is that while Winslet is great in the series, there’s plenty more there to make it worthwhile. Check out his post, and enjoy this trailer – though remember that the series is much more lively and, yes, even funny than the trailer makes it out to be.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Kings, heroes, villains and… spacemen?

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.

Let’s start with the humanoid killer shark in the room: the big-screen DC movies haven’t always been all that much fun to watch, so it was quite a pleasant surprise for Matt to find out that The Suicide Squad succeeds at being just that. Who needs mopey Bats and grimdark Supes when you can hang out with Harley Quinn & Co?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: From Cassandra to Sandra, from Green Knights to Last Nights

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.

Pandemics and cinema produce interesting things. Is The Cassandra Crossing one of these, or is it trash – and if so, is it the kind of trash that’s fun to watch? Check out Sam’s Six Damn Fine Degrees post to find out!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Baa, baa, bleak sheep

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.

And our Swedish adventure continues: last week, Matt posted about the 24th film in Criterion’s glorious Bergman box set, the oddball comedy All These Women – a decidedly less than glorious film by the director. Sadly/luckily, there doesn’t seem to be a trailer available for the film, so let’s instead begin with the preview the British Film Institute did for the 2017 Bergman centenary.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #47: Second Chances

What happens when we watch a film, don’t like it – and then we return to it, half a dozen years (or more) later? Why do some of the films we don’t enjoy still stay with us, and what’s necessary for us to change our minds? In the August episode of our podcast, Julie and Matt talk about these questions and give two films a second chance: Julie’s brought along Mildred Pierce in its 1945 adaptation by Michael Curtiz, starring Joan Crawford, and Matt has rewatched the more recent Killing Them Softly, adapted for the screen and directed by Andrew Dominik in 2012. Why did we bounce off of these films when we first saw them? Was it them or was it us? Are we seeing the films through different eyes, or do they still not convince us? Join us for a conversation about expectations, being in the wrong mindset or mood, and what happens when you revisit a film ten, twenty years after you’ve first seen it. And, who knows? We might just give this format more than one chance!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Love and Death in the Middle Ages

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.

If a week begins with Stanley Kubrick, it can’t be all bad: Matt started the Criterion Corner, a new feature exploring his Criterion back catalogue, starting with Kubrick’s The Killing. Again, not a bad start for anything.

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