Six Damn Fine Degrees #295: London Falling (Patrick Radden Keefe, 2026)

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!

Note: while I conscientiously try to avoid spoilers in this short review: if you want to go in clean, you may want to come back to it later, as small spoilers on London Falling are inevitable in the text below.

Zac Brettler – Chrysa DaCosta / Doubleday via NPR
Continue reading

Six Damn Fine Degrees #288: For the love of Elizabeth Taylor

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!

Image: Bettmann/Getty Images, via Vanity Fair
Continue reading

Six Damn Fine Degrees #283: The Woman in White

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!

Continue reading

Still raining: Sátántangó (1994)

How do you begin with a film like Sátántangó? If you commit to its seven hours and 19 minutes, how much can you trust your own impressions at the end, and how much is the combination of Stockholm Syndrome and Sunk Cost Fallacy talking? There are films where I would say I liked them, possibly a lot – but would I recommend them to anyone else?

What I can say for certain is this: if this film is showing anywhere near you, if you have the time to go and see it, and if you are the least bit curious – go and see it. There are few experiences I am aware of in cinema that are like it, and that includes the other Béla Tarr films I’ve seen. (We were lucky – if that’s what you want to call it, seeing how the occasion was the recent death of the director – to catch Sátántangó as well as The Werckmeister Harmonies and The Turin Horse at the best local cinema over a couple of weeks.) If your experience is anything like mine, the length is the least of your worries. Worry more about the extended scene in which a child tortures and finally kills a cat. I will absolutely defend the scene… and I hope not to see it, or anything like it, in a long, long time.

Continue reading

Six Damn Fine Degrees #273: Lola Rennt (1998)

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!

Note: mild spoilers ahead. Though nothing of substance is spoiled in this post, you may want to see the movie first.

Continue reading

Six Damn Fine Degrees #270: Oppenheimer

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!

I didn’t like Oppenheimer. That’s largely because I didn’t understand the second half of the movie, wherein, somehow, Oppenheimer gets the upper hand over Strauss. I didn’t understand what was there for the getting, nor did I understand what the bone of contention was. To the very small extent that I got the situation between them, I didn’t much care. As I understood it, it took a smallish statement by the Rami Malek character during the hearing to push Strauss off his pedestal. And that was it. What had just happened?

Continue reading

Six Damn Fine Degrees #268: Agatha All Along

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!

Okay – I’ll start with the headline. I absolutely love Agatha All Along. It’s one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe TV shows that stands up to a rewatch. It’s funny, creepy and, over the course of its nine episodes, slowly unravels a satisfying and unpredictable story. So many streaming shows these days feel like a single large plot arbitrarily cut to fit awkwardly into the episodic TV format. But Agatha All Along understands how to tell a story episodically, each week delivering revelation and plot, including some cracking cliffhangers.

Continue reading

Six Damn Fine Degrees #259: The Twilight Zone

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!

I moved twice in the last few years, and somehow, my complete Twilight Zone BluRay collection got lost. I suspect, quite fittingly, that it may still exist somewhere at my new place, but in another dimension. I locked myself in the basement for half a day and tried to find it, but still nothing. I miss it more than I expected. Somehow, I am still in mourning, if you can believe that.

Continue reading

Six Damn Fine Degrees #253: The Untamed and the joy of fan translations

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!

Sam’s post on Hitchcock’s odd movie out, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, reminded me not only of the delights of watching a sniping couple, but also of that very specific joy that blooms when you consume something completely different and it rocks.

Continue reading