TV and Streaming

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that

MattLeave 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.

Other than David Lynch himself, the person who perhaps left most of a fingerprint on Lynch’s work is the composer Angelo Badalamenti, who died a week ago. Matt shared his thoughts and memories of Badalamenti’s work, in particular on the various incarnations of Twin Peaks (which we’ve written and podcasted about, the latter more than once).

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Into the night: Angelo Badalamenti (1937 – 2022)

Matt2 Comments

I fell for Twin Peaks before I’d even seen a single scene of the series. I was fifteen and we were visiting with my uncle in the UK. Twin Peaks had just come out, and I was curious, but my parents weren’t watching it, and I didn’t think of recording it at the time, probably because I didn’t have any VHS tapes of my own. Anyway, there I was at my uncle’s, it was getting dark, and I discovered this CD on a shelf. Foggy mountains, some trees, a road curving to the left, and a sign: Welcome to Twin Peaks. I asked whether I could listen to it, they gave me some headphones, and I plonked down on a bean bag next to the stereo system.

And the night enveloped me.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Who will think of the children?

The 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.

The second Black Panther film, Wakanda Forever, has quite a few issues and doesn’t come together nearly as well as its predecessor. At least that was Matt’s take on the film – though it handles Chadwick Boseman’s death with respect and genuine feeling. But since MCU trailers are a dime a dozen, let’s instead lead with a trailer for Boseman’s final films, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: This post belongs in a museum

The 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.

This week, our Six Damn Fine Degrees took us to a concert by The Cure. Which doesn’t exactly lend itself to trailers… unless we stretch things a bit, which is entirely in keeping with Six Damn Fine Degrees. So, please enjoy this trailer for the psychological horror film Cure by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. And when I say “enjoy”, what I really mean is “please be majorly freaked out by”.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: That’s not how I remember it

The 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.

Even if you don’t know his name, chances are you’ve seen Donald Pleasance in something – from The Great Escape to You Only Live Twice, from Halloween to Shadows and Fog, or in one of his many TV appearances. In this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Sam gave us a much-appreciated reminder of Pleasance and his work.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #106: The doubtless pleasure of Donald Pleasance

samlinder3 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!

It’s amazing that it took us one hundred and five installments to finally connect to Donald Pleasance (whom Matt mentioned in last week’s post)! After all, Pleasance (according to IMDb’s statistics) is the actor with the second-most closeness centrality in movie history, connecting most directly to almost everyone in the acting business (second only to Christopher Lee)! And isn’t that what our Six Damn Fine Degrees are all about: connecting our movie interests in seemingly random ways, creating a massive network of connections?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Queer as films

The 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.

What do we find most frightening in horror movies? For Matt, it’s less the Freddy Kruegers and the Pennywises and more the implacable, impersonal evils coming closer… and closer… and closer. The Michael Myers, for instance. Check out our latest Six Damn Fine Degrees post for the terrifying details.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: To serve mankind

The 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.

Recently, Matt’s been exploring another set of virtual lands – though while Little Orpheus is gorgeous to look at (and listen to), there’s something about its lack of variety and challenge that makes it difficult to truly appreciate the craft in this one.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’…

The 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.

On his grand Criterion journey, Matt got to Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up… for the first time ever. It’s amazing how you can almost reach 50 without having seen some of these iconic movies – but then, as always, too much to watch, too little time.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #103: Occupants of Interplanetary (Most Extraordinary) Craft

Alan Kuhl Graham2 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!

People don’t seem to get abducted by aliens anymore. Or, at least, if they still are being abducted we don’t get to hear about it. Because one of the strongest memories of my youth was the fact that, like Quicksand and Rabies, Alien Abduction was an ever-present danger. Indeed the whole idea that the Earth was being visited by Extra-Terrestrials was supported by so much anecdotal evidence that it seemed inevitable that they just had to be out there and it would all soon be revealed.

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