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.
Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is not an easy watch – and for a long time it was especially difficult to find an opportunity to watch it, but thanks to its top slot in the Sight & Sound critics’ poll in 2022, it returned to a number of cinemas, giving some of us a chance to watch (or even rewatch) Akerman’s contribution to radical cinema. At 3 hours and 21 minutes, during which little happens that would make up the plot of conventional movies, Jeanne Dielman asks a lot of its audiences – but, as Julie and Alan argue, it gives a lot back. What did the two of them get out of Akerman’s film dedicated to three days in the life of a widowed bourgeois housewife and occasional sex worker? How does its running time and structure work? And will their suggestion to shorten the title to a potentially catchier JD stick? Tune in to find the answer to, well, most of these questions!
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.
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!
Young and innocent they are certainly not: When Marvel veteran Robert Downey Jr. and screenwriter Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, Spencer) were announced to be working on a remake of no other than Hitchcock’s Vertigo – considered by many to be the best film ever made – the world of film (fandom) was aghast: a sacrilege to the Holy Grail in Hitch’s filmography! Two filmmakers gone madder than Norman Bates! Dizzy spells among even the most hardboiled critics! What a wonderful opportunity, I thought, to wrap my head around this, particularly after Alan’s delicious piece on watching early delights by the Master of Suspense.
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.
Even someone who might consider themselves a reasonable Hitchcock fan might not have heard of Young and Innocent before – which is all the more reason to check out Alan’s Six Damn Fine Degrees post from this week. And as YouTube doesn’t seem to have a trailer for the film, here’s the next best thing: the entire movie. Enjoy!
What is it about films featuring androids called David that makes them, let’s say, not entirely successful with audiences and critics? Following their recent trip to the Stanley Kubrick Archive in London, Alan and Matt dedicate this this year’s Second Chances episode to two sci-fi films by iconic directors that are unlikely to feature on those directors’ best-of lists: Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus (2012) and Steven Spielberg’s A.I. (2001). Both films have recently been revisited by critics who found more to like in them than they originally recognised. Will our baristas also enjoy these films better this time around? Or will the films fare worse the second (or third) time around? And just what is it about androids called David?
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!
When it comes to the early British films by Alfred Hitchcock, there’s a famous few that grab all the attention: the likes of The Lodger, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps. They’re all hugely entertaining, but one of the reasons they retain their status is that watching them you can spot so many of the ideas that Hitchcock was to take to Hollywood with him and make his more famous classics. It’s like listening to the early songs of an artist who’ll go on to conquer the charts – it’s clearly the same talent, not quite as polished, but then there’s something thrilling in how unpolished it is.
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 the past is a foreign country: how do we watch films that are approaching their hundred-year anniversary? While working on his Criterion backlog, Matt recently watched Show Boat, but while there are things there to enjoy without knowing the historical context intimately, the musical’s handling of the United States’ history of slavery and racism is a mixed bag, and it’s not always easy to look past what is problematic at the things that may be surprisingly progressive. And some scenes manage to tick both of those boxes at the same time.
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!
Lock up your daughters (and your sons, quite possibly) – the British are coming! It’s pretty much impossible to watch Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and not be bowled over by the suave charms of its British star. That voice, the confidence, and the man certainly knows how to wear a suit.
But enough about James Mason. Cary Grant is also pretty good in the film.
What is it I look for in a Criterion release? Why do I not just get every single film released by the Criterion Collection? It would certainly save me some time – upfront, at least, though not necessarily afterwards, when I actually have to watch these films. Not that it’s a chore, but my various media backlogs and the increasing unlikelihood that I’ll actually get to finish all the films, series, books, games etc. that I’ve amassed in my life to date are already making me more anxious than I like. (#firstworldproblemsamirite?)
So, what is it that makes me buy a Criterion release? Obviously, the first reason is that they release a film that I already like, or the work of filmmakers and actors that I already enjoy. Next, sometimes it’s a film that I’ve heard a lot about, one of those stone-cold classics that I’ve never got around to watching on TV, and what better way to first see a classic than a good remaster with interesting extras included on the disc? (Okay, the correct answer to this is often: at the cinema. But while I’m very happy with our local cinema releases of classics, they will never cover everything I’m interested in.) Sometimes it’s simply that I’ve never heard of a certain Criterion release, or perhaps only snippets and a still here and there, but what I read makes it sound intriguing, strange or fascinating in some other way. I mean, if it’s Criterion, it’s gotta be good, right?
The final type of Criterion purchases I make comes from me feeling somewhat guilty that I’m not more broadly interested in the history of cinema. Obviously I am interested, but then I look at Julie or Alan, our two resident movie historians, and I see their fascinating with and breadth of knowledge on classic Hollywood, whether we’re talking about the classics of silent movies or pre-Code Hollywood, and there’s a part of my movie-fan ego that feels vaguely inadequate.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 