Movies

That was the year that was: 2024

Matt2 Comments

Ever since the pandemic, time feels like it’s been broken. Looking back at the films and TV series I’ve watched this year, the games I’ve played, and whatever else I did over the last 12 months, my most frequent reaction is “That happened this year?!” The temporal shape of things has been out of whack for a while, and it sometimes feels like this is getting worse – like we’re all stuck in one of the trippier episodes of Star Trek. Though I think it’s time to be honest about this: in part that’s also because I am approaching the big Five-Oh (and no, I’m not talking about Hawaii). This is my last New Year’s post before finishing my half-century, and that is a pretty freaky thought.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: out with the old, in with the new

Matt1 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.

It’s the last trailer post of the year, and we feel… apprehensive? Not so much about the trailers but definitely about the year to come – but until then, let’s enjoy some trailers, shall we? And we’ll begin with a collection of trailers coming out of this year’s Christmas Special podcast episode, ranging from Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock to Billy Wilder and Mary Harron. Enjoy!

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #214: ’70s Movie Brat Musicals

Alan Kuhl Graham2 Comments

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!

There’s a host of great directors that made their names in the 1970s, producing a body of work that revitalised moviegoing at the time and which still stands up to this day. But there is one genre that seemed to be beyond them – where their adoration of the past seemed to prevent them from producing something new and, crucially, very good.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2024

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It is that time of the year again: snow, carol singing, and Bruce Willis crawling through air vents muttering to himself before he delivers the presents. Which also means: it’s time for our Christmas Special! This year, we’re taking the topic of the summer series as the starting point, remakes – but as everyone knows, these can be naughty or nice, so we’ve asked our guests as well as our regulars to talk about their dream remakes, the ones they would like to see made, or the nightmare remakes which they wouldn’t even wish on the people at CinemaSins. From train-bound screwball comedy to sexy ’60s spies, from dodgy demons to festive skeletons, from one serial killer to a different serial killer altogether: these are the films we would love, or hate, to see remade.

A great big thank you goes out to our guests of 2024 who have contributed to the Christmas Special: film critic Alan Mattli (of Maximum Cinema, Swissinfo and Facing the Bitter Truth), filmmaker and podcaster Daniel Thron (of Martini Giant) and film historian and cultural critic Marcy Goldberg – and obviously to all of you out there who have been following our work at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. The Damn Fine Cup of Culture crew wishes everyone happy holidays, filled with good films, series, books, games and music!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a kaiju?

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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.

Only a few more days until Christmas – but until the big Yuletide onslaught begins in earnest, let’s revisit what we did this week at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture… starting with Sam’s revisiting of two pastiches of classic crime stories, Clue and Murder by Death.

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Criterion Corner: Godzilla (#594)

Matt1 Comment

I admit: knowing many of those old, black-and-white monster movies only from short snippets or animated GIFs, I tend to go in assuming that they’re kinda silly, and while you might enjoy them, it’ll be the kind of enjoyment that comes with an ironic distance. You enjoy them for their silliness, their camp aspects. You enjoy them because it’s so obviously a guy in a rubber suit stomping on toy cars.

Sometimes that may be true, or you might enjoy the historical aspect, or the craftsmanship of a time when the effects guys were literally making up a new industry. Sometimes, though, you can watch one of these films and realise that they still work as what they were meant to me: earnest works of horror. Perhaps not in their entirety – but there’s an earnestness and filmmaking skill on display that can’t be dismissed with any amount of jaded irony.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: People. It’s what’s for dinner.

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.

This week saw a first: a new Six Damn Fine Degrees post by our new contributor, Melanie. Taking last week’s lead on The Neverending Story, she wrote about fictions in which people run around mindscapes created by their own brains, focusing on the Chinese series The Spirealm. Make sure to check out Melanie’s inaugural contribution!

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Come and see: cinema is not for the faint-hearted

Matt1 Comment

Half an hour into the film, I began to feel off. It started with a wave of nausea. I was worried that I might have to throw up, but then the nausea was first complemented and then supplanted by something else: tunnel vision. My field of vision began to fade around the edges, becoming more and more narrow. I tried to focus on something other than the screen, but by then it was too late. The sounds I was hearing became muffled. Next thing, though I still registered the low, muted noises of the film, I felt I was somewhere else, somewhere far away.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Let it snow!

MattLeave 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.

This week, Matt swerved our weekly Six Damn Fine Degrees feature away from vampires towards the book that was his favourite when he was a child, and that still is among his favourites: Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story. Unfortunately, this means that we won’t get around posting the trailer for the film adaptation, which Matt has never seen and most likely will never see.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #87: Snowpisode!

The Barista Collective1 Comment

It’s December – which means, it’s time for snow! And since the actual white stuff falling from the sky is becoming rarer and rarer in many places, your cultural baristas at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture are talking about the cinematic version: snow in films. Join Julie, Sam and Matt as they talk about films in which snow is central, focusing on the following three movies: James Whale’s The Invisible Man (1933), starring a young Claude Rains, Where Eagles Dare (1968), Brian G. Hutton’s WW2 adventure featuring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, and finally an enduring favourite of several of us at A Damn Fine Cup: the Coen Brothers’ modern classic Fargo (1996). What role does snow play in these films – and which of them is the ultimate snow movie, in which the white stuff isn’t just an aesthetic choice or a means to an end but much, much more?

(By the way, due to technical difficulties, Matt’s audio in this episode unfortunately sounds like he recorded his audio with his mic in one room and himself in another. We hope that you’ll still enjoy the conversation – and if necessary, we’ll send him and his mic out into the snow until he’s promised to do better next time!)

P.S.: If you’re interested in more talk about the Coens, make sure to check out our podcast from summer 2023:

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