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 saw Matt learning to forgive David Morse for something a character played by David Morse did. To be fair, he did say it was an irrational dislike.
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.
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!
“Somewhere in here I was born… and here I died. It was only a moment for you… You took no notice.”
Even just reading those words gives me goose bumps. In Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, a film that’s not light on ominous, eerie moments, it is probably the one scene that most gets under my skin, even after I’ve seen the film a half-dozen times. It is strange and uncanny (even if it is actually part of an extended con), but also, and perhaps most of all, it is sad, as many of my favourite ghost stories are. The woman in front of you pointing at the tree rings, pointing out where she was born, first, and then where she died.
Died. Past tense.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 