Author: The Barista Collective

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: This’ll blow your mind

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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.

In the blink of an eye, Halloween has been and gone… leaving behind a bunch of carved pumpkins that will look more and more ghoulish over time, and so many blog posts, including this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees post, written by Alan, Julie and Sam, which focused on all things scary from a range of different perspectives.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #98: Alien: Earth

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When Alien came out in cinemas back in 1979, did anyone think at the time that this would turn into a franchise that is alive and kicking 46 years later, much like that Chestburster in Spaceballs? Last year brought us Alien: Romulus, arguably too much of a retread of the film that originally made us scream silently in space – but 2025 saw the release of Alien: Earth, a nine-part series created by Noah Hawley of Legion and Fargo fame. How does the xenomorph survive its transfer onto a new host: the streaming services? What do Hawley’s sensitivities and quirks as a storyteller bring to the table? Is this a necessary shot in the franchise’s arm, or is it more like a spurt of acid eating its way through the audience’s goodwill? Join Matt and Alan as they discuss these questions, provided that they’re not distracted by some leathery, slimy egg that just begs to be looked at up close.

P.S.: If this episode has whetted your appetite for all things xenomorph, make sure to also check out these episodes:

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #258: Halloween Trio

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Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Shivering with antici…

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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.

… pation. Made you wait, huh?

Anyway, what’s been going on chez A Damn Fine Cup of Culture this week? Our schedule was a bit wobbly, due to a post that wasn’t scheduled properly, which means we had two posts going up on Saturday, starting with Matt’s Six Damn Fine Degrees about adaptations into different media, and the ways that film and TV adaptations don’t necessarily restrict our imagination. Case in point: the BBC’s Wolf Hall.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Oh, okay, pass if you like

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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.

This week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees saw Alan continue his own Lord of the Rings trilogy, which started in May, this time writing about the choices made in creating the 1981 BBC radio adaptation. Alan’s a big fan of this version of Tolkien’s epic tale, and his post may just convince you to seek out the BBC’s take on The Lord of the Rings. But as there are no trailers for ’80s radio series, or at least none we could find, here’s a trailer for Ralph Bakshi’s animated Lord of the Rings instead.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: October 2025

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We’ve spent a lot of this year talking about the sadly departed David Lynch – but surrealist film doesn’t begin and end with Lynch, so we’re dedicating the October espresso podcast to one of the greats of experimental filmmaking: Maya Deren, who, aside from film, also was active as a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, writer and photographer. In particular, we’re focusing on her beautiful, enigmatic, eternally rewatchable “Meshes of the Afternoon”, a released in 1943, made by Deren and her husband Alexandr Hackenschmied (also known as Alexander Hammid). What makes this 14-minute short such an effective precursor to films ranging from Lynch’s Lost Highway and Inland Empire to more mainstream, genre cinema such as Inception and even arthouse video games?

P.S.: For anyone seeking out the films of Maya Deren: many of them can be found on YouTube, though not always in the original version and often with different sound/music. You can find one such version of “Meshes of the Afternoon” here.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #97: The Horror

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It’s that time of year: the days are getting shorter, the shadows are getting darker, and the ghouls and ghosts are eager to come out and play. As is customary, we’re dedicating our October podcast to scary things – and this year we’re looking at the definite article in horror: The. No, that’s not a typo: for this year’s Halloween episode, we’ve selected three horror films whose title begins with “The”, namely Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976), in which an American diplomat suspects that his newborn son has been replaced with the spawn of Satan; Spanish gothic The Orphanage (2007), in which the children are decidedly not all right; and John Carpenter classic The Thing (1982), which pits Kurt Russell against what may just be the gnarliest shapeshifting creature from outer space. What makes these three horror films ones that viewers can return to again and again? And what other recommendations do our Baristas of Fear have for the scary season?

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A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2025

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Wow, Bob, wow: Twin Peaks forms part of the DNA of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture – if our name and logo didn’t already make that obvious. And yet, some of us have come very late to David Lynch‘s seminal series: while Sam had seen a couple of episodes, he had never watched the entire (original) series when we recorded the first episode of our Lost Summer on the late, great director and purveyor of surreal unease. So, what better opportunity than this summer (which included espresso episodes on Wild at Heart and Lost Highway) to remedy this over some cherry pie and damn fine coffee? Join Sam and Matt in the Red Room as they talk about Twin Peaks and how it holds up for someone who, for decades has heard about the series but not watched it. (You’ll be pleased to hear that we’ve adjusted the audio so that no one is speaking backwards.)

And if you’re in a Twin Peaks mood after listening to our September espresso, you may want to check out our fourth ever podcast episode, in which O.G. baristas Mege and Matt talk about the fantastic, and harrowing, Twin Peaks episode “Lonely Souls”.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #96: Lost Summer – Gone too soon

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We’re concluding our summer series, Lost Summer, with an episode dedicated to the actors that died not in old age, looking back at a long, storied career, but that were gone too soon. From tragic silent film icon Rudolph Valentino, via River Phoenix, a teen idol promising to become one of Hollywood’s acting greats, to Philip Seymour Hoffman, a fearless actor who stood out even among amazing ensemble casts: how do we feel about their lives and their deaths? What is our relationship to these people that we largely know from playing fictional characters? Why can it feel like a deeper genuine loss when one of the actors we like dies? And is there a dark side to how fans mourn their idols, and how the movie industry uses its stars as commodities, even in death?

P.S.: Make sure to check out the other entries in our Lost Summer, running from June to September!

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A Damn Fine Espresso: August 2025

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Our Lost Summer continues, quite fittingly, with another David Lynch film: in our August espresso, Alan and Sam talk about Lynch’s most ’90s nightmare, Lost Highway, in which murder, mobsters, Mystery Men, Patricia Arquette (with black hair) and Patricia Arquette (with blond hair) abound. Add music by Nine Inch Nails, the Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, plus a killer track by David Bowie, and you have a David Lynch film that, more than all his other work, very much is marked by the decade it was made, so much so that at times it feels like a feature-length video shown on MTV’s Alternative Nation. But does this make Lost Highway dated, or does this neo-Hitchcockian slice of jealousy and paranoia hold up in 2025? There’s only one way to find out: listen to us, because, as a matter of fact, we’re at your home right now.

For more Lost Summer listening about David Lynch, make sure to check out our June episode (dedicated to Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Mulholland Drive) and the July espresso (on Wild at Heart).

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