Join us for another A Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast, in which we have a look at the indie horror and sci-fi films of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, from the huis-clos Resolution via Spring‘s dreamy summer body horror romance to cosmic horror/sibling drama The Endless. On the way, we also stop by 1970s New York with The Deuce and dark, original genre mix Colossal, in which Anne Hathaway inadvertently destroys much of downtown Seoul – hey, it’s happened to all of us.
Author: Matt
A fishy tale
Disney princesses they most certainly ain’t, even if like good old Ariel, the little mermaids of the (wait for it…) Polish horror fairy tale pop musical The Lure by director Agnieszka Smoczyńska are based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale. In spite of their fish-like tails they are decidedly different beasts from Disney’s red-haired teen heroine.
The Rear-View Mirror: GTA V (2013)
Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!
If I ever were to write a GTA-themed memoir of a gamer, it’d have to be titled Driving in Cars with Criminals.
They Create Worlds: Device 6
One of the things that video games can do magnificently is create worlds. These posts are an occasional exploration of games that I love because of where they take me.
Video games are so good at creating highly detailed, interactive worlds these days, it’s easy to forget that you can do the same using much less hi-tech means. For most of us, the first worlds we found, explored and enjoyed were created using much simpler building blocks: words, words, words.
Snap judgment
Ant-Man and the Wasp was fun, an action comedy that used both its likeable cast of characters and its inventive visual jokes to good effect. It was great breezy popcorn fare, the ideal thing at the end of a day mostly spent sweating and feeling much too hot for comfort. More even than Guardians of the Galaxy, the film embraced the comedy genre, becoming a necessary palate cleanser after the grim conclusion of Infinity War.
The Rear-View Mirror: Anomalisa (2015)
Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!
In a better, fairer world, Charlie Kaufman’s IMDB page wouldn’t indicate that the director hasn’t had any films in development since 2015. There are kazillions of dollars around for the likes of Michael Bay, surely it wouldn’t be too horrible if a bag of cash ended up on the doorstep of Mr Kaufman, right?
Death in Stockholm
Talk about serendipity – there I was in Stockholm on 14 July, the day that would have been Ingmar Bergman’s 100th birthday, and they were showing The Seventh Seal. What better way to enjoy a hot summer afternoon on vacation than to spend it in the company of a knight undergoing an existential crisis and the Grim Reaper himself?
Twin Peaks: A Postscript
We’ve already talked about Twin Peaks – The Return for an hour on our recent podcast – but, if anything, the process of thinking and talking about the series has generated more thoughts. While watching The Return, I greatly enjoyed it, but I’ve come to realise that I’m finding it quite difficult to reconcile it with the original series. At the same time, my idea of what Twin Peaks is (or was) is a highly selective one: when I think of “that Twin Peaks feeling”, as I put it on the podcast, I think of BOB and the Little Man dancing in the Red Room; I think of Leland Palmer crying and dancing and crying again, I think of the Giant going, “It is happening again.” I think of nightmares, which The Return offered in spades – but its nightmares feel very different.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #12: Twin Peaks – The Return
Tune in for episode 12 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, in which we finally return to the quiet (or is it?) town of Twin Peaks, say hello to Special Agent Dale Cooper and talk about death, nostalgia and David Lynch over a slice of pie and a fresh cup of joe. Did Twin Peaks – The Return deliver what we wanted or did it give us what we deserved? We also briefly visit the Civil War US and the land of the dead in Lincoln in the Bardo, experience the horror, the horror in Apocalypse Now Redux (now with more Playboy Bunnies!) and answer that age-old question – can a used condom be art? – as we chat about The Square.
The Rear-View Mirror: Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)
In 2017, Eagles on Pogo Sticks ended its ten years of soaring and went into a steep yet controlled ascent. After a quick dip into one of the few remaining phone booths, a suspiciously familiar-looking blog emerged: A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. Now, almost a year after we reinvented ourselves (or, more accurately, revealed ourselves as the cuppaholics we are) we’re launching a weekly feature: The Rear-View Mirror, where each Friday we’ll look at the cultural goodies, whether grande, venti or trenta, that may appear closer than they really are. We’re starting in the year of our (re-)launch, 2017. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!
Back when I was a student, I was pretty much subscribed to the Booker Prize winners. From Midnight’s Children (which, admittedly, I read more than 15 years after its release) via the likes of The Remains of the Day and The Famished Road, The English Patient and The God of Small Things to Amsterdam and Disgrace, I knew that the winning novels would be well worth reading. When I left university, though, I realised that life is very different when you’re not paid to read literature. After a day at the office doing things other than literary criticism, I found that my brain wasn’t necessarily in much of a state to plonk down with a book, and instead I’d watch an episode of something or play video games for an hour. The Booker Prize lost its appeal as any new books I ordered piled up on one of my Billy shelves. I still enjoy reading a lot, but it’s no longer the thing I do most of the time on most days, it’s something to do before going to bed (if I’m awake enough), over the weekend and especially on holidays.
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