A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #52: The State of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

A new year, a new slew of Marvel movies and TV series! After 2019’s grand finale Avengers: Endgame, what felt like an infinite number of new films, shows, characters and storylines were announced – and then a certain virus that shall not be named thwarted the plans of Disney. 2020 came and went without a single new MCU movie, but 2021 more than made up for this, with four films – starting with Black Widow and ending with Spider-Man: No Way Home – and various Disney+ series continuing the ongoing adventures of the Marvel heroes and heroines. Join Alan and Matt as they talk about the franchise and their response to it. What were their expectations after the big snap-and-back climax of Infinity War and Endgame? How did they bridge the one-year gap caused by the pandemic? Were they excited by the upcoming Marvel avalanche, or was it all getting to be too much? And how do they feel about where the franchise is now, leading into 2022?

By the way, this is a Very Special Episode of the Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast: for the first time ever, it was recorded in front of a live studio audience with everyone on the podcast not only in the same country but the same room, talking into the same microphone! Which means that Matt’s Christmas wish did come true. How better to start 2022?

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #60: My daughter, the Marvel fan

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!

I would have liked to dazzle you with a cool origin story, but I can’t remember how and when my favourite daughter found her love for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I am pretty sure she saw the first few movies in chronological sequence at home on BluRay, too young to have seen then in the theatres, so Tony Stark, Cap and the Hulk came to her at home, and it was probably the first Avengers movie that she saw in an upholstered seat, ticket in hand, with a bag of popcorn, on the big silver screen. But she was hooked long before that.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Coming soon to a cinema near you!

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.

Sadly, the last trailer post before the new year never came about (it would have referred to Matt’s post about House of Gucci and the Christmas Special 2021 podcast) – but what better way to start 2022 than with starting anew and with lots and lots of trailers? Some we’ve already posted, some not, and some may already have played in cinemas where our readers are, but we haven’t had a chance to watch them yet ourselves.

So, without much further ado, and without comments from the gang, here goes…

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That was the year that wasn’t: 2021

In early 2021, I started a draft blog post for the end of the year, in which I’d note down all the culture that had come out during the past twelve months that stood out to me: films that I loved, TV series that surprised me, books that I hated so much that they somehow defined 2021 for me.

I started that draft, and then I never touched it again. And here we are.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2021

Certainly, 2020 and 2021 have been strange years (and perhaps I shouldn’t say too much, since there is still one week to go until we get to the end of the latter), they have been difficult and draining in many ways, and Christmas 2021 is likely to be more lonely for some of us than we would like. The pandemic has been a drain on everyone, and it’s not over yet. But in spite of this, we have had some good times this year, we’ve watched some great films and TV (and admittedly some that were not so great), we’ve read some great books and we’ve played some fun games – not least the wonderful board game Pandemic Legacy, which at least gives us the feeling that this thing can be beaten… provided our medic isn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For the Christmas Special 2021, Julie and Matt are joined, albeit remotely in space and time, by regulars Alan, Mege and Sam as well as by our favourite returning guest Daniel Thron of Martini Giant, and we talk about the damn fine things we’d like to see under the Christmas tree – from the purely material but greatly enjoyable to things that are elusive but all the more necessary for that. Join us – and have happy, safe and healthy holidays! Wishing all of you the very best for what remains of 2021, and thanks as always for hanging out with us.

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What’s a little murder between family? House of Gucci (2021)

You may have heard about House of Gucci being really bad: lurid, cheesy soap opera. You may have read about Lady Gaga’s over-the-top accent and Jared Leto’s outlandish performance. You may have decided that the film is a disaster and definitely no reason to go out to the cinema and risk catching some C-word virus.

The thing is, you’re probably not wrong. House of Gucci isn’t a very good film. Even if The Last Duel wasn’t a surprisingly strong addition to Ridley Scott’s oeuvre, most likely it would still be the weaker Scott film coming out in 2021. But the reasons for this aren’t Lady Gaga’s accent or Jared Leto’s much-reviled performance. It’s true, the accent almost deserves a mention in the credits as a supporting character, and Leto’s performance of Paolo Gucci, son of Aldo Gucci (Al Pacino) and scion of the Gucci dynasty, is often grotesque. House of Gucci isn’t subtle or nuanced, and it isn’t The Godfather but with fashion substituting for organised crime. If anything, it’s the panto version of The Godfather.

No, arguably House of Gucci suffers from not being lurid and cheesy enough. It fails because it has several very different ideas of what kind of film it is – and therefore ending up particularly good at none of them.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Time. Space. Music.

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 the week with a bit of opera: on New Year’s Day in 1975, Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute premiered on Swedish television. Almost 47 years later, Matt watched the film as part of his Swedish odyssey and wrote about it on A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. The Magic Flute‘s plot is strange, bordering on the nonsensical, but Bergman’s adaptation has a lot of charm.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #59: Watching Star Wars with my 10 year-old niece

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!

Do you remember when you first saw the original Star Wars trilogy? Did you possibly even see it when it first came out or, if not, at least upon the movies’ return to the cinema in their ‘improved’ version in the late 1990s? I was among the many who had gotten used to bad video tape quality since the late ’80s and was stunned when eventually seeing them on the big screen, just before the disappointment of Episode I (The Phantom Mess) hit. Even trying to think really hard, however, I can’t remember my first reaction to the big plot twists: did I suspect Darth Vader was Luke’s father? Or Leia his twin sister? Did I believe Vader would redeem himself at the end? And did I mind (as Matt so poignantly asked in last week’s post)?

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The Compleat Ingmar #28: The Magic Flute (1975)

In 1975, Ingmar Bergman directed a production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute for Swedish television (which was later given a cinema release). I had seen Mozart’s opera before, at the theatre, but that was about 35 years ago. I don’t remember much, other than the relatively sexy outfits the Three Ladies were wearing (or at least what I considered sexy at the age of 11). Having watched Bergman’s screen version, though, I can safely say that The Magic Flute is weird.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Trailer senses tingling!

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.

As we are hurtling towards the holiday season and things are getting busier and busier, we still find the time to write the occasional post – such as Friday’s Six Damn Fine Degrees about Matt’s increasing disillusionment with redemption narratives. Sure, many an engaging story was about bad boys trying to un-break bad, but should our focus always be on them?

Anyway, since Star Wars may be the pre-eminent franchise that fetishises redemption narratives, here’s a trailer for an upcoming Star Wars games – because redemption is twice as yummy if it’s the player trying to make up for their dark, dastardly actions, right?

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