Podcast

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 Last year brought us Alien: Romulus, arguably too much of a retread of the film that originally made us scream silently in space – but 2025 saw the release of Alien: Earth, a nine-part series created by Noah Hawley of Legion and Fargo fame.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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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #96: Lost Summer – Gone too soon

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We’re concluding our summer series, Lost Summer, with an episode dedicated to the actors that died not in old age, looking back at a long, storied career, but that were gone too soon. From tragic silent film icon Rudolph Valentino, via River Phoenix, a teen idol promising to become one of Hollywood’s acting greats, to Philip Seymour Hoffman, a fearless actor who stood out even among amazing ensemble casts: how do we feel about their lives and their deaths? What is our relationship to these people that we largely know from playing fictional characters? Why can it feel like a deeper genuine loss when one of the actors we like dies? And is there a dark side to how fans mourn their idols, and how the movie industry uses its stars as commodities, even in death?

P.S.: Make sure to check out the other entries in our Lost Summer, running from June to September!

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A Damn Fine Espresso: August 2025

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Our Lost Summer continues, quite fittingly, with another David Lynch film: in our August espresso, Alan and Sam talk about Lynch’s most ’90s nightmare, Lost Highway, in which murder, mobsters, Mystery Men, Patricia Arquette (with black hair) and Patricia Arquette (with blond hair) abound. Add music by Nine Inch Nails, the Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, plus a killer track by David Bowie, and you have a David Lynch film that, more than all his other work, very much is marked by the decade it was made, so much so that at times it feels like a feature-length video shown on MTV’s Alternative Nation. But does this make Lost Highway dated, or does this neo-Hitchcockian slice of jealousy and paranoia hold up in 2025? There’s only one way to find out: listen to us, because, as a matter of fact, we’re at your home right now.

For more Lost Summer listening about David Lynch, make sure to check out our June episode (dedicated to Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Mulholland Drive) and the July espresso (on Wild at Heart).

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #95: Lost Summer – Films from the Poison Cabinet

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Some things are sadly lost: rolls of film crumble, TV programmes are never recorded, studios choose not to distribute a film. And then there are the cultural artefacts that come from a context so toxic, they are consigned to the poison cabinet, where people have to make an effort to seek them out. The films made during the Third Reich, under the control of Joseph Goebbels’ Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, are such artefacts. There are the famous propaganda films, such as those made by Leni Riefenstahl (if you get a chance, watch the 2024 documentary on her by Andres Veiel!), but there are many others that are barely known, except to film historians. In the third episode of our Lost Summer, and inspired by Rüdiger Suchsland’s 2017 documentary Hitler’s Hollywood, Sam, Julie and Matt look at two of those films: Wolfgang Liebeneier’s big city comedy Grossstadtmelodie (1943) and Opfergang (1944), a strange, lurid melodrama by Veit Harlan (often translated as The Great Sacrifice or Rite of Sacrifice) that was sometimes called the ‘Nazi Vertigo‘. Neither film may correspond entirely to what present-day viewers may imagine Nazi propaganda to look like – but both, made by directors loyal to Hitler’s regime, were very much made to convey propagandistic messages to their audience. What is it like to revisit these films 80 years later? What have they left behind? And should they, and other films of their kind, remain locked up in the poison cabinet, or is there an argument for making them available, fully knowing what they were made to do?

P.S.: Make sure to check out the other entries in our Lost Summer, running from June to September!

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A Damn Fine Espresso: July 2025

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Our Lost Summer started with an episode in honour of David Lynch, the artist and director who’s been an inspiration to us here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. After last month’s espresso episode, in which Sam and Matt talked about the extended deleted scenes that were released for Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, we’re now continuing our tribute to the man with a stealth Second Chances episode: Alan, a big fan of Lynch, has nonetheless bounced off the director’s Wild at Heart (1990), while Sam has been a fan from the beginning, so the two of them have revisited the film. Has time changed Alan’s assessment? Have Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern and a fantastic supporting cast ranging from Diane Ladd and Willem Dafoe to Harry Dean Stanton and a bunch of familiar faces from Twin Peaks, WA won him over – or, indeed, Sam’s enthusiasm for this pulpy pop thriller that nods more than just once or twice in the direction of camp classic The Wizard of Oz?

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #94: Lost Summer – The Vanished

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Hundreds of films and TV series make it onto our screens each year – but just as many vanish, some before they ever make it in front of an audience. The second episode of our summer series, the Lost Summer, is dedicated to these: the films that are destroyed or vanish into some vault, the TV series that were never archived, or even the legendary scenes that are much talked about but never seen. Join Julie, Alan and Sam as they explore the romance and the frustration inherent in this vast library of lost film and TV. Why are we fascinated so much by what is lost? Why are the movie and television industries often so cavalier about preserving this cultural heritage? And which of the vanished would our cultural baristas most like to see found again?

P.S.: Make sure to check out the other entries in our Lost Summer, running from June to September!

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A Damn Fine Espresso: June 2025

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Our recent podcast episode on David Lynch, marking the start of our 2025 series Lost Summer, prompted us to pick up where that episode left of: for two of the films we discussed earlier this month, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, there are extensive sets of deleted scenes that, if they had not ended up on the cutting room floor, would have made both films into something very different. Sam and Matt watched these scenes – 51 minutes for Blue Velvet, a whopping 91 minutes for Fire Walk With Me – and talk about these and the notion of deleted scenes in general. Would Fire Walk With Me have been a better film if it had included all that material about the town of Twin Peaks, as fans and critics had hoped for when it was released? What can deleted scenes say about the virtues of leaving some things out? How do fan edits, a practice which has become highly accomplished in many cases, figure into this, and into the question of which version of a film is the real deal?

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