Six Damn Fine Degrees #220: The meta madness of Duck Amuck

Matt3 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!

At some point when I was in my early teenage years, I found myself with a video tape of classic Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons, which we’d got from an uncle or from some friends. In the end it doesn’t matter, because what mattered was the joy the video brought: these were the genuine classics of Warner Bros. animation, the likes of What’s Opera, Doc?, in which Elmer Fudd dresses up as Siegfried and sings “Kill the wabbit!” to the tune of Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkryries”, and Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, the second-funniest piece of filmmaking about Mutually Assured Destruction.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Walk the line

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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, Sam reminisced about the animated line art of his childhood – or, more precisely, he wrote about his memories of the Italian cartoon La Linea, which featured a little man made up of a single line and his ongoing fight against the vicissitudes of life… and the whims of his animator. No trailer this time; instead you’re getting an entire La Linea cartoon (and the accompanying doo-bee-doo 1970s soundtrack), courtesy of YouTube.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #89: Second Chances (feat. Shirley MacLaine)

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It’s that time of the year again, when we look at films we didn’t enjoy originally and give them another chance. This time it’s Sam and Alan having another look at movies they’d previously bounced off of, and both films feature Shirley MacLaine: Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960) (yes, Alan hasn’t been a big fan of the film to date!) and MacLaine’s first film, The Trouble with Harry (1955), her first feature appearance and one of the movies generally considered to be lesser Hitchcock. Will our intrepid two come away with a new appreciation of these films, or will their original opinions be reinforced?

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #219: Osvaldo Cavandoli’s La Linea

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!

Italian TV cartoons that were the joy of our youths? Reading Alan’s piece from last week, I didn’t have to look far: To me, La Linea, the little angry man hand-sketched by a cartoonist on a line, was an ever-present phenomenon in 1980s television.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The ball goes into the hole

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.

This week, Alan contributed to our ongoing Six Damn Fine Degrees series with his look back at accidentally discovering the ’90s Italian comedy Volere Volare. Sadly, it’s as difficult to find a trailer for the film as it is to find the film itself, so here’s a short sequence (in Italian) that’s a nice illustration of how Volere Volare blends live-action film and animation.

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They create worlds: Walkabout Mini Golf

Matt2 Comments

One of the things that video games can do magnificently is create worlds. These posts are an occasional exploration of games that I love because of where they take me.

When I started getting into Virtual Reality with the release of the first consumer-grade Oculus Rift in 2016, the kind of games I was expecting I’d eventually play in VR were ones where I’d sit in the cockpit of a spaceship, plane or racing car, or where I’d run around exploring mysteries and fighting or evading enemies. I expected games that were pretty much like what I’d been playing on PC for decades, just more immersive, more focused on the experience of being there, in the virtual world.

What I didn’t expect: that some of my favourite VR experiences by far would be hanging out with friends and trying to get a small ball to go in a smaller hole.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #218: Maurizio Nichetti’s Volere Volare

Alan Kuhl Graham3 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!

When I was young, in distant, far-off days when television in the UK was limited to just four channels, you could sometimes find yourself idly watching the box when a genuine oddity would come up. Nothing you would actually have ever thought about watching, but it was on and, before you knew it, BANG, you were hooked.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Fix your hearts or die

MattLeave a comment

Somehow, losing David Lynch hits harder, not only because of his art, which is often beautiful and disturbing in equal measure, but also because of who Lynch seems to have been: a kind, strange, generous soul, as an artist and as a human being. As anyone looking at our front page and at the name of our site will be able to tell: Lynch had an impact on us, and his absence will be felt.

We’ll dedicate most of this week’s trailer post to the weird, frightening, wonderful worlds of David Lynch, but first, let’s have a look at what we did this week.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: January 2025

The Barista Collective1 Comment

Sometimes they come back: in late 2024, Robert Eggers broke with his series of films titled “The” followed by a proper noun with the release of his remake of Nosferatu. Following F.W. Murnau’s 1922 version, a rip-off of Dracula so good that it took on a life (or should that be undeath?) of its own, and the 1979 remake by living legend Werner Herzog, Eggers’ Nosferatu calls back to the earlier versions while putting its own spin on the material. Join Alan and Matt for their discussion of the film: What does Eggers’ Nosferatu bring to the table? How does it compare to other versions of Nosferatu and of Dracula? What are the film’s greatest strengths, and where does it perhaps falter? And where do Matt and Alan stand on big bushy moustaches?

For more talk of the undead, make sure to check out our episode “Three Draculas” from October 2023, in which Julie, Sam and Matt talk about Murnau’s Nosferatu as well as the 1958 and 1992 versions of Dracula.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #217: L.A. Confidential, revisited

Julie3 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!

Director Curtis Hanson with Kevin Spacey. Image copyright Warner Bros.

Although I try to avoid plot spoilers, for those who have never seen L.A. Confidential: skip this article and see the film first. It’s worth it, and inevitably there will be minor spoilers ahead.

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