Movies – Page 70 – A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

Six Damn Fine Degrees #37: Elmore Leonard

16/07/202124/06/2026Mege4 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!

I don’t care how many movies you own, if your bookshelf doesn’t contain at least one single Elmore Leonard novel, there is a gap in your collection. There are very few novelists whose prose is already so close to a screenplay; in fact, if you, like me, imagine something very much alike to a movie scenes while reading a novel, you have it easy with Leonard, because his writing is, in the best sense of the word, graphic.

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The Corona Diaries: The beginning is the end is the beginning

15/07/2021Matt1 Comment

For a while it looked like we were over the worst. Well, when I say “we”… Let’s put it like this: in many places, numbers were going down, cinemas were opening up, people were wondering if we were returning to something akin to normalcy. I mean, I’ve been back to the Best Little Cinema in the World often since it opened its doors again in May. Work colleagues are going abroad on vacation. Isn’t this what normal looks like?

Remember when Mege posted this photo in his Corona Diaries entry in May 2020?

Or is this just what it looks like when people decide, as the finishing line comes into view, that they’ve had enough, and it’s the last bit that sucks the most, so why don’t we skip it?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Don’t stop–

11/07/2021The 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.

Matt may not be as big a fan of Anthony Hopkins as many people, but he definitely liked The Father a lot, a film that’s worth seeing for more than just its acting. Check out his thoughts on Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his own play, Le pêre.

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Things fall apart: The Father (2020)

08/07/2021Matt1 Comment

I’ll get it out of the way: I’m not actually that much of an Anthony Hopkins fan. He’s certainly great in many of his appearances, and he’s never not watchable, but I often feel that I’m watching a trademarked Anthony Hopkins performance, something that has the purpose of making the material he appears in look better than it really is. There’s no one like Hopkins to make mediocre scripts and outright schlock seem more classy, at least at a first glance, than what they really are – but a bit like that other saint of modern cinema, Meryl Streep, it’s rare that I watch a performance by Anthony Hopkins without being entirely aware that that is what I’m watching.

While I can’t say that Anthony Hopkins is unrecognisable in The Father, I will say that Hopkins the celebrity vanishes into Anthony the character almost entirely. And it is bitterly ironic that the character I’m watching is on the verge of vanishing himself.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: I’ll show you the windmills of my mind!

04/07/2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

2021 has done funny things to time – sometimes it feels like it’s both speeded up and come to a complete standstill. Well, at least that’s our excuse for the longish break between the previous instalment of The Compleat Ingmar (on The Seventh Seal) and the most recent one, on the small but sweet The Devil’s Eye. Unfortunately it seems that YouTube doesn’t have any useable trailers for that one, just for some little-known horror film called Devil’s Eye – so instead here’s Criterion’s trailer for its wonderful box set Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema. Did we mention that we like Criterion here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture?

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #46: Post-pandemic cinema

03/07/202104/01/2025The Barista Collective1 Comment

It is July – and in many countries, cinemas are open again, albeit with some restrictions. Have our intrepid cultural baristas already been back to movie theatres – and if so, what has it been like to be back after several months? How have they coped with half a year without cinemas? How has COVID-19 affected movie theatres and cinema goers alike? And how will the cinema landscape change after the pandemic? Even if we’re looking at a summer and autumn with open movie theatres (fingers crossed!) and upcoming blockbusters like the new James Bond and Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited, often-postponed Dune, will cinema be the same? Join Alan, Julie and Matt as they discuss these and other issues concerning post-pandemic cinema!

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The Compleat Ingmar #23: The Devil’s Eye (1960)

30/06/2021Matt4 Comments

Things are not well in hell: the devil has a pain in his eye, and as everyone knows, this can only mean one thing: there’s a young woman on earth who is about to enter marriage as a virgin. What’s a devil to do? Clearly, there’s only one thing: that famous sinner Don Juan must be dispatched post-haste to seduce the young Nordic maid!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: What happens in Russia…

27/06/2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Horrible rulers? Court intrigue? Perfectly cast historical satire? Huzzah, indeed: last week, Matt blogged about the first season of The Great, written by Tony McNamara of The Favourite fame. The Great, a darkly funny mostly-comedy, may not be quite as scalpel-sharp as Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2018 film, but it’s still well worth checking out – though perhaps not in the company of children, unless you want them to ask interesting questions about sex, death and history.

The ruling crass: The Great (2020)

23/06/2021Matt3 Comments

At a first glance, the historical (though perhaps don’t take that adjective too literally) comedy-drama The Great looks suspiciously like a TV spinoff of Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2018 The Favourite – which isn’t too surprising, since both were (co-)written by the Australian playwright Tony McNamara. Both Lanthimos’ film and the series are bleak, black farces about incompetent, neurotic rulers, the people at their mercy, and central female characters that attempt to change things by manipulating the people in power. Both are irreverent, blatantly sexual to the point of crudeness, and ruthless, depicting the deadly ridiculousness of hereditary rule, and the corrupting effects of power.

Seeing how there isn’t much that’s even remotely comparable to the works of Yorgos Lanthimos on TV – or anywhere, really, other than in Lanthimos’ films -, it’s definitely unique and not a little thrilling to find something like The Great on TV. However, it doesn’t entirely do The Great a favour to watch it through that particular lens, because while it is undoubtedly entertaining as pitch-black historical comedy, it doesn’t have the same kind of sharp, icy edge that The Favourite has. It is only when looking at what the series does differently that it truly comes into its own.

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