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 readingHaving written about the films I liked best in 2023 (and there were others I admired, though perhaps more ambivalently, such as Hayao Miyazaki’s possible swan song The Boy and the Heron), what other cups of culture kept me awake and well caffeinated this year?
And once again, the year just keels over and ends. At least that’s how it feels: ever since history decided that we can’t complete a single orbit around the sun without some major upheaval or crisis, it’s continued in that vein. Or has it always been that way, and I’ve just been too Euro- or phallo- or whatevercentric to notice that that’s just what history is: one kind of crisis after another?
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.
As the sheer Ho-ho-honess of the season descends on us, here’s a little something for under your tree: our 2023 Christmas Special. This year we’re taking the opportunity to put a Damn Fine fingerprint on the media meme of the year: Barbenheimer. Join us – Julie, Sam, Alan and Matt, but also Damn Fine O.G. Mege and favourite frequent guest Dan Thron of Martini Giant (who took some time this autumn to talk all things Exorcist with us) – as we come up with double bills and mash-ups of wildly divergent and strangely complementary movies, taking our listeners from Paddiface and The Wizard of Chess via a very special Boris Karloff two-header and Wonkas of the Flower Moon to The Sound of Eagles and Under the Hours. (FYI, most of these are working titles that we’ll have to workshop before the final product is pushed out the door, or so Marketing tells us.) So, in the spirit of plastic dolls come to life and Cillian Murphy’s piercing eyes, of learning to start worrying and hate the bomb and of being Just Ken, we at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture wish all of our listeners happy holidays filled with good films, series, books, games and music!
P.S.: For more on Baby Face and Killers of the Flower Moon, make sure to check out these episodes:
Apart from the ’70s anime version of Heidi (which I, like so many kids growing up in Switzerland in the 1980s, watched much more of than any more ‘native’ versions of the story), for which Hayao Miyazaki worked on scene design, layout and screenplay, my first proper encounter with the director and his work that I was aware of was Princess Mononoke (1997). Japanese animation didn’t often make it into Swiss cinemas at the time, at least other than the occasional showing of a classic of the form such as Akira or Ghost in the Shell, so I had to travel to another city to catch the film at the cinema.
It was absolutely worth the journey: seeing Princess Mononoke was a breathtaking experience. The film felt archaic and epic and strange, though at the same time intimate and very personal. It grappled with big moral questions, but without reducing these to good vs evil simplicity. (Ian Danskin’s video essay “Lady Eboshi is Wrong” on the topic is well worth watching.) Even just on an aesthetic level, Princess Mononoke was visually stunning, and its score, easily one of Joe Hisaishi’s best, complemented the visuals perfectly. Miyazaki’s films deserve to be seen on a big screen – and yet, since seeing Princess Mononoke at a cinema, I only managed to do the same with Spirited Away. All of Miyazaki’s other films (and everything that Isao Takahata did) I only ever saw on my TV.
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.
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.
Sadly, there are no trailers for animated shorts – so instead, here is the opening and closing of the Looney Tunes film “Hollywood Steps Out”, which Alan wrote about for this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.
In a little over a week it’s Christmas – and what goes together better than Christmas and forging signatures, telling lies, impersonating practically anybody… and a little murder? Matt’s recently had an opportunity to check out the film adaptations of the adventures of a very naughty boy: Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. In this month’s espresso podcast, join Matt and Sam as they talk about these adaptations that vary massively in tone, theme and quality: from Plein Soleil (AKA Purple Noon) and The American Friend to Ripley’s Game and Ripley Under Ground – not missing out The Talented Mister Ripley, of course. It’s a rare case that a series of novels is adapted not into a series of films but into very different individual movies, all treating their central character very differently. How talented are these various Ripleys, whether they’re played by Alain Delon, Matt Damon, Dennis Hopper, Barry Pepper or John Malkovich?
For a deep dive specifically into The Talented Mister Ripley and its two famous movie adaptations, make sure to check out our podcast from way back in June 2021: Ripley vs Ripley.
Continue readingWelcome 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 kid the cartoons of Hollywood’s Golden Age were rarely off the television. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were staples on the schedule, convenient filler for when the channel had five minutes they had to fill up between bigger shows.
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