Six Damn Fine Degrees #154: Ivor Novello – All Downhill From Here?

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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!

Julie’s wonderful reminder of silent film star Ivor Novello, whose most lasting screen appearance must indeed be Hitchcock’s The Lodger, but whose popular legacy was assured thanks to Robert Altman’s inclusion among the Gosford Park kaleidoscope of characters, reminded me of that other Hitchcock he made – and that’s why for my follow up post, it’s all Downhill from here!

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Criterion Corner: After Life (#1089)

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You arrive at a sort of waystation. The people working there give you a room, they provide food, and they tell you what has happened.

You’ve died.

Also, you’ve got three days to choose a memory of yours. The staff will take that memory, turn it into a short film, and that will be what you are left with, and what is left of you, for eternity.

So, go ahead. Choose. It can’t be all that hard, can it?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Livin’ it up

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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.

The first two entries in Criterion’s Essential Fellini collection, Variety Lights and The White Sheik, both have their appeals – but third time’s the charm for Matt, as he describes in this week’s post on Fellini’s I Vitteloni.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #153: Ivor Novello in Gosford Park

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!

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Forever Fellini: I Vitelloni (1953)

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It was bound to happen sooner or later. I was somewhat lukewarm on Variety Lights and The White Sheik; both films had things to like about them, but neither made me look forward to watching the remaining dozen films in Criterion’s collection dedicated to Federico Fellini. The third film in the collection, I Vitelloni, didn’t immediately seem like a big step up. As in the previous two films, we get men behaving badly (towards women, but not only), feeling entitled to all the best life has to offer and feeling sorry for themselves when they don’t get it. They’re more grating because of how the film plays a lilting Nino Rota score that suggests we’re to consider all of this as a lark: boys being boys, that sort of thing. But then, around the halfway point of I Vitelloni, something changes: a note of desolate sadness creeps in, a despair underlying the laddish performativity of it all, slowly but surely becoming the film’s dominant tone.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Showing you fear in a handful of previews

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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.

There are movies that are like rides – but what about rides that are like movies? In this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Sam shared his experience with such rides with us.

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A Damn Fine Espresso: October 2023

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Do vampires get jealous that Dracula tends to hog all the attention? In this month’s espresso episode, Matt and Julie try to make up for this; after the most recent podcast featured not only one but three Draculas (in some cases under a different name, for copyright reasons), we’re returning to the pulsating vein of vampire fiction to talk about some other stories with a bite that deserve as much attention as the Count. (The impaling one, that is, not the one who’s into numbers and stuff.) From Jim Jarmush’s Only Lovers Left Alive to the ultra-’90s British series Ultraviolet (featuring a pre-True Blood Stephen Moyer) via the likes of Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In and Cronos, we explore the crypts and mausoleums where those endowed with big fangs go right for the jugular. Join us – and don’t forget to pack some garlic and a crucifix

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #152: Movies as rollercoaster rides

samlinder2 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!

Among the many ways popular American blockbusters have been commercialised and marketed, the theme park ride at locations such as Disneyworld, Universal or Warner Studios literally made rollercoaster rides out of movies designed to shake and thrill their audiences at cinemas to begin with. Jaws (1975), considered by most to be the first true summer blockbuster, still has its legendary spot in Universal Studio City, which I was able to witness this summer going back to L.A.: somewhere along the studio tour and just after passing the original Bates Motel does one drive by remnants of Amity Island, mostly small houses and a pond, in which a scuba diver gets suddenly and unceremoniously eaten in front of visitors’ eyes, just before ‘Bruce’ the shark himself unexpectedly pokes up his mouth out of the water for a quick but intense fright.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Who let the dogs out?

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, we had Matt writing about the odd allure of a series of games that are shallow timewasters – but that he nonetheless keeps returning to, most recently with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #151: A walk in the park without a dog

Mege2 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!

I’ve been to the Europapark with my favourite daughter, and she had the good idea to go take the Valerian ride because she sort of liked Cara Delevigne in the Luc Besson movie. It’s with a virtual reality ride with a sturdy yellow helmet, but it is basically the Eurosat ride inside the silver globe, so that was a great ride for slightly nervous older geezers like me. It was also Luc Besson who co-wrote the series of Arthur and the Minimoys, and he was consulted for the park ride of the same name. It’s for the kids, but it was a pleasant change from the panic-inducing hellride called Blue Fire.

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