That was the year that was: 2024

Ever since the pandemic, time feels like it’s been broken. Looking back at the films and TV series I’ve watched this year, the games I’ve played, and whatever else I did over the last 12 months, my most frequent reaction is “That happened this year?!” The temporal shape of things has been out of whack for a while, and it sometimes feels like this is getting worse – like we’re all stuck in one of the trippier episodes of Star Trek. Though I think it’s time to be honest about this: in part that’s also because I am approaching the big Five-Oh (and no, I’m not talking about Hawaii). This is my last New Year’s post before finishing my half-century, and that is a pretty freaky thought.

Continue reading

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: I call the xenomorph ‘Bitey’!

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.

Remember that time when most of us were excited for Game of Thrones? When we’d look at the new cast members for the upcoming season and get even more excited? Sam’s interest in Game of Thrones began and, sadly, peaked with him bumping Jonathan Pryce in Dubrovnik, where he (Pryce, that is, not Sam) was filming for season 5 for what was at one point the hottest series on TV. Check out Sam’s Six Damn Fine Degrees for more on this encounter!

Continue reading

Love, longing, loss: All of Us Strangers (2023)

Would you say that, when you were a child, your parents really knew you? Did they see the person you considered yourself to be? Were there things you wished they’d known about you, but you were afraid of what they would think if indeed they did know? Did you feel that, in so many ways, you and your parents were strangers to one another?

Continue reading

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Back from the dead, and twice as bad

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.

Norman Bates is back! Well, not exactly – but for this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Matt wrote about his positive but patchy memories of Psycho II, and the reasons why he doesn’t particularly want to go back and find out whether the film was really surprisingly good or whether at the time it just benefited from really low expectations (and Meg Tilly, obviously).

Continue reading