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.
These days, with director Werner Herzog still nourishing his infamously conflicted yet cinematically so fruitful relationship with Teutonic titan Klaus Kinski (even spoofed in Documentary Now!, as described in last week’s postby Matt), it is an almost forgotten fact that for a while, some forty years ago, a very different Kinski made her way into the audience’s consciousness: his daughter Nastassja.
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.
Werner Herzog must be one of the most frequently parodied filmmakers in the world. I have no evidence of this other than my own gut feeling, but is there anyone else that’s been caricatured as often as him? And good old Werner gets in on the fun too: he’s voiced versions of himself on The Simpsons, The Boondocks and American Dad – and it’s likely there’s an element of self-parody in him voicing a character described as “Old Reptile” in an episode of Rick and Morty.
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.
Here’s a trivia question for you: which actor and director, who famously ended up working together, supposedly shared a boarding house in Munich?
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!
There is something intensely likeable about movie quizzes. If you know the answer, you feel really quite smug: Yes, I’ve seen the movie, and I know a whole lot about that film – it was even produced by someone you wouldn’t expect. You get that warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach because you’ve scored a point, while a lot of the others didn’t, you can tell from their puzzled faces, and you are inching just a tiny bit closer to the top spot. And on the other hand, if you don’t know the answer, you go into instant detective mode: I should know the answer, now how can I deduce that from the other movie that very same director has made just before this one? Hmmm… You rack your brain about a name, and then, with your last ounce of with and memory, you may just come up with the right answer. Most of the time, anyway.
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.
One of the curiosities about the filmography of Werner Herzog is that it contains his own little two-film micro-genre – “fanatical madman played by Klaus Kinski goes up the Amazon to the music of Popol Vuh.” His first foray is 1972’s Aguirre, Wrath of God, which is quite possibly one of my favourite films of all times. So when I came to Fitzcarraldo, the other of the two films, I was both excited and filled with trepidation. Would it meet the earlier film’s dizzying heights?
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.
It’s a story made for the movies, isn’t it? Two oddballs meet and fall in love with each other – and with volcanoes. They become documentary filmmakers and travel the world, capturing the awe-inspiring power and beauty of volcanoes on camera… until, twenty years later, they die together in an eruption. Perhaps not the happiest ending to a love story, but one so fitting it could have been penned by a screenwriter.
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.
Oddly enough, my first encounter with a Roald Dahl story did not come via Mathilda or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, nor with The Witches (even though I saw the Anjelica Houston version early and loved it!), Fantastic Mr Fox (so joyfully discussed in Julie’s last post) or one of his many short stories (repeatedly adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents). It was that one foray of the world-famous children’s book author and macabre genius into the world of James Bond that I was compulsively obsessed by starting at age 12: his screenplay to 1967’s You Only Live Twice.
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
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!
Yes, I am of the firm opinion that Die Hard (1988) is a Christmas movie, but enough about that. In Paul King’s Wonka (2023), there is often snow on the cobblestones of the old town renowned for its chocolate. It could be Paris or Charles Dickens’ London, while the shopping arcades reminded me of Milan, but it matters little where the story is set: it’s an olden-time dream world where it’s possible to manufacture magical chocolate if you are ready to go and milk a giraffe at the local zoo.
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
When I was a child, I remember there being a certain Hollywood magic to films that seemed to have simply everyone in them. I’m not talking about your average ensemble cast (or the kind of ensembles that Robert Altman worked with, which were very much their own thing), but the kind of cast where every name that is dropped in the credits makes you go, “Ooh, wasn’t he in… And didn’t we see her in…? And wasn’t he great as…?” In my head, the archetypes of this kind of film are the 1970s Agatha Christie adaptations featuring Belgian super-sleuth Hercule Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express, in which you’d get Lauren Bacall on the table next to Ingrid Bergman and Jacqueline Bisset, looking across the aisle at Richard Widmark, Michael York, Sean Connery and John Gielgud, or Death on the Nile, whose cast ranged from Bette Davis via Angela Lansbury to Mia Farrow, and from David Niven to Jack Warden, and that’s not mentioning the Maggie Smiths, Jon Finches and Peter Ustinovs. Then there’s the grimmer but equally star-studded A Bridge Too Far, again with Sean Connery, but also Gene Hackman, Dirk Bogarde, Edward Fox, Michael Caine, and many, many others.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 