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.
We all know the iconic images: the statue of Christ flying through Rome, transported by a helicopter; wild nighttime parties in the Baths of Caracalla; believers carrying the sick on stretchers, tabloid journalists and TV people crowding two small children that claim to have seen the Madonna; and, always and especially, Anita Ekberg in the Fontana di Trevi.
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!
To me, The Lord of the Rings is unreadable. Not because the writing is bad; it’s not. And not because I am not into fantasy; while it’s not my favourite genre, I don’t run for the hills if someone suggests a good fantasy novel to me. I have not yet read a bad China Miéville novel, if that is anything to go on. I am also not afraid of super-long novels, either – behold, I am the guy who read Infinite Jest and loved it. It’s just that investing myself in a heavy brick of a novel, there is a point where the text has to convince me that it’s worth wading through it for the next couple of days or weeks.
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.
It’s the weekend before the Big Mama, the White Whale, the movie awards to end all movie awards: the Oscars. Who will win the Academy Awards 2024? Will Christopher Nolan And Cillian Murphy explode with the metaphorical force of a thousand suns? Will Barbie get what it can, in spite of the snubs for its director and star? What about Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, The Holdovers – or the European dark horses Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest? Join Sam and Matt as they discuss their own Oscar thoughts: who was snubbed? Who was nominated but shouldn’t have been? And which films should win which awards?
For more discussion of some of the 2024 Oscar favourites and underdogs, make sure to check out these posts:
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.
As Alan talked about in his Six Damn Fine Degrees instalment last week, there are very good reasons to dislike some actors even when we enjoy their performances and the films they’re in. The same is true for directors, producers, writers, and so on. Hollywood has its fair share of bigots, racists, antisemites, homophobes, abusers, and various bastards of any shape or size. And the more we find out about what went on in yesteryear’s film industry, the more skeletons pop out from the closet. This may make our feelings about some of our favourite films more complicated, but I’d agree with Alan: all in all, it’s better to know.
However, sometimes we develop irrational dislikes of the faces we see on the silver screen. I started off hating Eddie Redmayne for no better reason than, well, literally disliking his face… and, yes, his acting style and often his choice of roles. Possibly his voice as well. But I’m mostly over it. Mostly.
But for a long, long time I nursed an irrational dislike of an actor who had done even less than poor Eddie to deserve my ire. Reader: I used to hate David Morse.
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.
How do we handle knowing rather unsavoury things about the actors and filmmakers whose work we like? This week, Alan wrote about his approach, focusing on Charles Coburn, that most avuncular of bigoted racists, best remembered perhaps for his role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
TV and murder are made for one another, and the crime series is still one of the most popular genres in television – but there’s no one quite like Lieutenant Columbo, the crumpled, harmless-seeming homicide detective played so memorably by Peter Falk, in ten seasons and 69 episodes over a stretch of 35 years (if you include the specials). What makes the series, and the character, so enduring? Join Sam, Julie (valiantly fighting a sore throat in order to take part in this conversation on one of her favourites!) and returning special guest Johannes Binotto (video essayist and Professor for Film and Media Studies in Lucerne and Zürich) – who, counter to Columbo tradition, won’t turn out to be the murderer after all… or will he? – as they discuss their all-time favourites and guilty pleasures, ranging from fan favourites “Any Old Port in a Storm” and “Etude in Black” to darker and stranger cases such as “By Dawn’s Early Light” and “Make Me a Perfect Murder”.
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.
Being a fan of the Golden Age of Hollywood comes with a price. As much as you can celebrate the writing, the glamour, the celebrity even the innovation of those times, it’s very hard to immerse yourself in that era without coming up against a sad truth. Maybe it will be a scene somewhere in the film that casually drops in racism. Or an offensive stereotype with but a few seconds of screen time. And sometimes it will be the appearance of someone who you have learnt was a horrible bigot.
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.
