Podcast

A Damn Fine Espresso: January 2026

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In our main podcast for the month, we celebrated our one-hundredth episode with Matt, Julie and original co-podcaster Mege, talking about the beginnings of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. For this month’s espresso episode, we’re continuing the story: Matt, Alan and Sam met up in real life to record their first ever live podcast episode together. Join the three of them in their conversation about 2020, the year they joined A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, and their experiences since. How have they changed as podcasters? How do they keep things fresh and interesting, even after five years of podcasting? What are the episodes they remember best? And what are the topics they hope to do an episode about in the next five years?

P.S.: A big shout-out to the wonderful REX cinema in Bern, Switzerland for letting us meet up at their bar in early January (you can hear the gentle noise of other cinemagoers, glasses and espresso cups in the background) to record our conversation!

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #100: A Hundred Podcasts

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And suddenly, to our surprise, we find that we have reason to celebrate: not just the beginning of a new year, but our one-hundredth episode! After our small-scale beginnings back in 2017, a little over eight years later, we have arrived at this nice, round number (and that’s without even counting our monthly espresso episodes, which we started in April 2022). And for this occasion, we’re got something very special: Julie and Matt are joined by co-founder and Damn Fine O.G. Mege, who graced the podcast from its first episode until January 2020, though he has been back on an annual basis to contribute to our Christmas Specials. Join the three of them as they wax nostalgic and talk about the early days of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture: what was it like to jump into the podcasting pond? What were the challenges we had to overcome? What made Mege hang up his headset back in 2020? And what are some of our favourite episodes of those first couple of years?

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2025

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It’s that time of the year again: when film geeks around the world argue about whether Die Hard and Batman Returns are Christmas films or not. The gang at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture has put together its usual Christmas Special episode, this time taking the topic of the year’s summer series, the Lost Summer, as a starting point: what, culturally speaking, have we lost this year… and what have we found? Join Matt, Julie, Alan, Mege and Sam as they ponder their Losts and Founds for 2025 – and everyone here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture wishes you very happy holidays. Enjoy the remaining days of 2025, spend some quality time with your loved ones, and make sure to enjoy some damn fine films, series, books, games, songs, albums while you’re at it!

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A Damn Fine Espresso: December 2025

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We weren’t originally going to do an espresso podcast in December, but then the timing and theme of our main episode for the month almost made it obligatory for us to replan: since our recent episode “Ozmosis” only covered Wicked, the first part of the movie adaptation of the hit musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, and not its 2025 continuation, Wicked: For Good, we are hereby remedying this. Join Matt and Sam as they take a trip to the Emerald City to talk about part 2 of this revisionist take on L. Frank Baum’s classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Did they find the film a worthy follow-up to the 2024 hit? Are Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande still as effective as Elphaba and Glinda? Do the new songs live up to the best numbers of either part? And just how does The Wizard of Oz fit into Wicked? Follow us down the Yellow Brick Road for this concluding conversation in our final espresso of the year.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #99: Ozmosis

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Arguably, the big event movie of this year’s holiday season is Wicked: For Good, the second part to last year’s hit film Wicked. (Sorry, Avatar fans, but that’s just how it is.) Most people loved the first instalment adapting the stage musical, which in turn adapted Gregory Maguire’s 1995 revisionist take on L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wizard of Oz and especially its iconic 1939 reincarnation as iconic Technicolor musical fantasy.

At the time this podcast was recorded, Wicked: For Good was just about to be released, prompting Sam, Alan and Julie to talk about the 2024 blockbuster and to revisit the Judy Garland classic. How does The Wizard of Oz stand up, and what does our trio think of the first Wicked film?

P.S.: Since we can do what Hollywood does as well, it is just about possible that we’ve split our discussion of Wicked into two separate podcasts. Watch out for the forthcoming December espresso, for good or for bad!

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A Damn Fine Espresso: November 2025

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Over the year, we’ve dedicated a number of episodes to the sadly departed David Lynch, his films, and his iconic TV series Twin Peaks. For our November espresso, Alan and Sam return to 2017 and to the third season of Twin Peaks that Lynch and his collaborator Mark Frost sprung on the world 26 years after we first tasted that cherry pie. For Sam, this was the first time he watched these 18 episodes, while for Alan it was an opportunity to revisit the entire series in one go. What are their thoughts on one of David Lynch’s last great works? How does it feel to return to Twin Peaks, Washington, the site of Laura Palmer’s murder, the focus of supernatural and surreal goings-on, after our loss of the man himself?

For more Lynch listening, don’t forget to check out these podcast episodes and posts:

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #98: Alien: Earth

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When Alien came out in cinemas back in 1979, did anyone think at the time that this would turn into a franchise that is alive and kicking 46 years later, much like that Chestburster in Spaceballs? Last year brought us Alien: Romulus, arguably too much of a retread of the film that originally made us scream silently in space – but 2025 saw the release of Alien: Earth, a nine-part series created by Noah Hawley of Legion and Fargo fame. How does the xenomorph survive its transfer onto a new host: the streaming services? What do Hawley’s sensitivities and quirks as a storyteller bring to the table? Is this a necessary shot in the franchise’s arm, or is it more like a spurt of acid eating its way through the audience’s goodwill? Join Matt and Alan as they discuss these questions, provided that they’re not distracted by some leathery, slimy egg that just begs to be looked at up close.

P.S.: If this episode has whetted your appetite for all things xenomorph, make sure to also check out these episodes:

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A Damn Fine Espresso: October 2025

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We’ve spent a lot of this year talking about the sadly departed David Lynch – but surrealist film doesn’t begin and end with Lynch, so we’re dedicating the October espresso podcast to one of the greats of experimental filmmaking: Maya Deren, who, aside from film, also was active as a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, writer and photographer. In particular, we’re focusing on her beautiful, enigmatic, eternally rewatchable “Meshes of the Afternoon”, a released in 1943, made by Deren and her husband Alexandr Hackenschmied (also known as Alexander Hammid). What makes this 14-minute short such an effective precursor to films ranging from Lynch’s Lost Highway and Inland Empire to more mainstream, genre cinema such as Inception and even arthouse video games?

P.S.: For anyone seeking out the films of Maya Deren: many of them can be found on YouTube, though not always in the original version and often with different sound/music. You can find one such version of “Meshes of the Afternoon” here.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #97: The Horror

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It’s that time of year: the days are getting shorter, the shadows are getting darker, and the ghouls and ghosts are eager to come out and play. As is customary, we’re dedicating our October podcast to scary things – and this year we’re looking at the definite article in horror: The. No, that’s not a typo: for this year’s Halloween episode, we’ve selected three horror films whose title begins with “The”, namely Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976), in which an American diplomat suspects that his newborn son has been replaced with the spawn of Satan; Spanish gothic The Orphanage (2007), in which the children are decidedly not all right; and John Carpenter classic The Thing (1982), which pits Kurt Russell against what may just be the gnarliest shapeshifting creature from outer space. What makes these three horror films ones that viewers can return to again and again? And what other recommendations do our Baristas of Fear have for the scary season?

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A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2025

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Wow, Bob, wow: Twin Peaks forms part of the DNA of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture – if our name and logo didn’t already make that obvious. And yet, some of us have come very late to David Lynch‘s seminal series: while Sam had seen a couple of episodes, he had never watched the entire (original) series when we recorded the first episode of our Lost Summer on the late, great director and purveyor of surreal unease. So, what better opportunity than this summer (which included espresso episodes on Wild at Heart and Lost Highway) to remedy this over some cherry pie and damn fine coffee? Join Sam and Matt in the Red Room as they talk about Twin Peaks and how it holds up for someone who, for decades has heard about the series but not watched it. (You’ll be pleased to hear that we’ve adjusted the audio so that no one is speaking backwards.)

And if you’re in a Twin Peaks mood after listening to our September espresso, you may want to check out our fourth ever podcast episode, in which O.G. baristas Mege and Matt talk about the fantastic, and harrowing, Twin Peaks episode “Lonely Souls”.

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