Podcast

A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2024

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We’ve talked about the Alien franchise before on our podcast, so we didn’t want to miss the opportunity presented by the release of the latest addition to the series, Alien: Romulus, which came out in August. Join Sam and Alan as they talk about Fede Álvarez’ return to the roots of the franchise. How successful is the movie’s ‘back to basics’ approach? How scary can the film be after an entire series has done a lot to strip its iconic set of monsters of their original mystery? What have Álvarez and his collaborators done to keep all things xenomorph fresh, how do they play with an almost overpowering legacy? And what about that unexpected return from the dead: an effective homage or a tacky reference?

For more thoughts on the long-running Alien franchise, check out the following podcast episodes:

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #84: Summer of Remakes – A Star is Born

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Our Summer of Remakes is coming to an end, with a conversation about not one, two, three or four films, but a whopping five, starting with What Price Hollywood? (1932), which was adapted in 1937 into A Star Is Born – and again in 1954, starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Then, in 1976, the story got the Streisand treatment, and in 2018 we got Bradley Cooper’s version, starring himself and Lady Gaga. Join Julie, Sam and Alan as they talk about the remake extravaganza. What is it about the material that makes it so enduring? How do the films tell their story differently? And, if A Star Is Born, is such an enduring tale, what would our cultural baristas expect from a near-future remake, should one be forthcoming?

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A Damn Fine Espresso: August 2024

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Imagine not only being a cinephile, and not only writing and talking about film – but doing this professionally: being a film critic is something many of us in the blogosphere dream of. Meet Alan Mattli: Alan is not only teaching and doing research into literature and film at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, he is also a reviewer for the German-language Swiss film and TV platform Maximum Cinema and (Swiss German) the Maximum Cinema podcast. While his reviews at Maximum Cinema and on his website Facing the Bitter Truth (which he launched in 2008, while still at school), and while much of his writing at these sites is in German, you can find his writing in English on Letterboxd. In our August espresso podcast, Matt talks to Alan about his way to becoming a film critic, whether he watches films differently as a critic, and how film criticism has changed in recent years.

P.S.: Here’s a list of Alan’s favourite current film critics:

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #83: Summer of Remakes – Solaris

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Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel, is classic sci-fi cinema: as can be expected of a film by Tarkovsky, it is intriguing, hypnotic, at times sublime, but undoubtedly also confounding and even frustrating at times. It is a product of its time in some ways but timeless in others. Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris (2002) is unlikely to stand the test of time to the same extent – but is it still a worthwhile take on Lem’s novel? Is it indeed a remake – and, if so, is it a meaningful, worthwhile one, or is it an uncanny replica of the original material, much like the revenants that Lem’s mysterious planet produces, possibly in an attempt to communicate with humanity? Join Matt, Alan and Sam for the third episode in our Summer of Remakes, as they discuss these two films and their takes on both. How do they compare, in their approaches to Lem’s story, and in how successful those approaches are in creating a memorable film?

For another take on the films of Steven Soderbergh, make sure to check out our 2020 episode (featuring Dan Thron of Martini Giant): A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #35: Soderbergh’s Schizopolis, Schizopolis’ Soderbergh

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A Damn Fine Espresso: July 2024

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Summer is a good time to catch up on films and series – in this case, the Netflix series Ripley, created by Steven Zaillian and released last spring. The Talented Mr. Ripley has been adapted before, most famously as Plein Soleil (AKA Purple Noon, by René Clément and starring a deliciously evil Alain Delon) and under its original title in 1999 (by Anthony Minghella, with Matt Damon as a more soulful murderer) – so what is the purpose of another adaptation? Join Sam and Matt as they ponder this question. What does Zaillian’s Ripley bring to the discussion, compared to the films by Clément and Minghella? What is the effect on the story of casting Andrew Scott as a Ripley a dozen years older than the earlier versions? What are the unique qualities of Netflix’s Tom Ripley? And is this version a more faithful adaptation of Highsmith’s story and character?

For more on Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and the various film adaptations of his adventures, make sure to check out these posts and podcasts:

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #82: Summer of Remakes – Wages of Fear and Sorcerer

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Our Summer of Remakes podcast series continues with its second episode: after June’s Hitchcock double bill, we’re changing country (at least once) but staying with thrills and suspense. Imagine being stuck in a dead-end town, together with other men with murky pasts and little to lose, and with little hope of ever making it out – and now imagine a big corporation offering you a ticket out of there. The only catch? You have to drive a truck loaded with volatile nitroglycerin over treacherous dirt roads. Simple as that. This is the story of Georges Arnaud’s 1950 novel Le Salaire de la peur, and to date it has been turned into two memorable films: The Wages of Fear (1953) by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Yves Montand, and Sorcerer (1977), directed by William Friedkin and starring Roy Scheider. Join Alan, Julie and Matt as they discuss these two versions of the story. Where do the original and the remake (though Friedkin did sometimes deny that Sorcerer was one indeed) make the same or similar choices? Where do they diverge? And to what effect?

For more on the films of William Friedkin, check out our 2023 Halloween episode on The Exorcist (feat. the one and only Daniel Thron), recorded shortly after Friedkin’s death.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: June 2024

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Our June espresso is a special one: differently from the vast majority of our podcast episodes, this one had Alan and Matt recording in the same room, talking into one mic – and the topic of their conversation is the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. Matt’s local cinema, the REX Bern, recently showed a series of Kore-eda’s films, from his first feature Marobosi to his latest, Monster, and Matt’s been wanting to do a Kore-eda episode for a long time, so the two took this opportunity to finally fulfil that wish. Join them as they discuss what makes a Kore-eda film, which ones they like best, and (obviously) what they would choose, After Life-style, as the sole memory to be filmed and taken into the beyond.

For more on Hirokazu Kore-eda, make sure to check out these blog posts:

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #81: Summer of Remakes – The Man Who Knew Too Much

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It’s that time of the year again: A Damn Fine Cup of Culture is dedicating its next four main episodes to a single theme. After 2022’s Summer of Directors and last year’s Summer of Collaborations, this year’s hot months are dedicated to remakes. And yes, remakes tend to get a bad rap from film fans, but there’s enough there that is interesting, fascinating and worth watching – and, yes, in many cases worth criticising. We think we’ve picked an interesting bunch of films and remakes, and we’re starting with a special case of one of the greats of Hollywood cinema remaking one of his own films: Alfred Hitchcock and The Man Who Knew Too Much. First in 1934, in one of his British films, and then again in 1956, Hitchcock told the same overall story of a couple whose child is kidnapped because of a secret plot they’ve uncovered by accident – but while a lot is the same, from the basic setup to the climax at the Royal Albert Hall, these are still two very different flavours of Hitchcock. Join Sam and his co-baristas Julie and Matt as they discuss multiple men who knew too much. What does each version bring to the table? Which did we prefer? If we had to choose, what would we go for: Peter Lorre’s pitch-perfect baddie or Doris Day belting “Que Sera, Sera”?

For further listening on Alfred Hitchcock, make sure to check out our earlier episodes, “The Good, the Bad and Alfred Hitchcock” (#33) and last month’s “Swan Song” (#80), in which Alan and Sam talked about the final films of Hitchcock and Billy Wilder.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: May 2024

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It’s not that much of a jump from last month’s espresso topic of cinematic women behaving badly (well, at least in the eyes of the society) to this month’s theme. Over the last month or so, the best cinema in the world showed a series of films by the American director Dorothy Arzner, who was mainly active from the 1920s to the early 1940s. Arzner stands out not only as a female director who helped launch the careers of actresses such as Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell and Lucille Ball, her films are also impressively ahead of their time in terms of their depiction of women and their critique of marriage and of heteronormative pairings as the sole path to contentment. Working in genres from screwball comedy and melodrama to literary adaptation and war films, and being more than willing to blend genres and tone, Arzner directed films that both reflect their times and feel strikingly modern. Join Julie and Matt as they discuss some of Arzner’s greats, from Dance, Girl, Dance to Merrily We Go to Hell, and from Working Girls to the flawed but fascinating Christopher Strong and Craig’s Wife.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #80: Swan song

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We often talk about the films directed by the big names at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture – but the films we end up talking about are rarely the final works of these directors. Enter Alan and Sam, who in our latest podcast episode discuss the directorial swan songs of two of the most famous Hollywood directors of all time: Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. Why do people rarely talk about Family Plot, Hitchcock’s black comedy thriller of 1976, or about Wilder’s comedy Buddy Buddy (1981), in which Walter Matthau plays a professional hitman and Jack Lemmon the suicidal husband whose attempts at taking his life foil Matthau’s plans? Where were Hitchcock and Wilder in their careers at the time when they made these films, and how do they fit into the directors’ oeuvres? Is either film a diamond in the rough, or are they clearly lesser works?

For further damn fine reading and listening material on the two directors, make sure to check out Six Damn Fine Degrees #129: All About Fedora (by Sam) and Six Damn Fine Degrees #130: Sunset Fedora (by Alan), as well as A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #33: The Good, the Bad and Alfred Hitchcock, Sam’s first podcast appearance (still as a guest at the time).

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