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.
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.
Once again: what do you do if you want to post a trailer, but the post it refers to isn’t about a film? Books and music are difficult – but with musicals it’s a bit easier, because even stage shows get trailers nowadays. So, while there’s no Uncle Sam analogue in it, here’s a trailer for a recent(ish) staging of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. Because, hey fella, feel like you’re a failure? Feel misunderstood? C’mere and kill a president! Trust me, it’ll all make sense if you read the post.
Some people have a visceral hatred for David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016). I don’t. I found a lot of it annoying, but most of all I found it forgettable, apart from a few bits and pieces. It introduced us to Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, a character (or, rather, a version of the character) that proved more durable than the film in which she originated. Other than that, though? There was a Will Smith character and someone with a boomerang, and someone with… some sort of fire thing? A crocodile-skinned dude? A guy with a gun? No, as much as I try, I simply don’t much remember the film. I remember Folding Ideas’ video essay on the film better than I remember Suicide Squad itself (though nothing against Folding Ideas, and his video essay on Suicide Squad is great).
Having said that, I like the idea. If handled right, I can absolutely see the appeal of taking a bunch of goofy comic book villains and putting them together in a Dirty Dozen-style adventure, where no one is exactly good, everyone is unpredictable, and death might strike pretty much anyone at any time. I have little attachment to these characters, I don’t consider myself particularly invested in the continuity, so yeah, if you offer me a good time and a chuckle while you have fun with your action figures, then, yeah, I’m in. Man lives not by Bergman alone.
And that’s exactly what James Gunn delivers with what is less a sequel than it is a second chance (and we’re fond of those here at A Damn Fine Cup). Silly, inventive, blackly humorous fun. Something that the superhero genre definitely could do with at this time.
Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!
Look, I get it. Luther is no longer the same now, compare to its first season in 2010. We still get to see Idris Elba playing the lead, his loyal sidekick DS Justin Ripley, gruff DSU Martin Schenk, Benny Silver and many other cool names that turn up for a few episodes or a whole season, like Saskia Reeves, Rose Leslie, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Indira Varma or Sienna Guillory. But since Alice Morgan dropped out of DCI John Luther’s life (and Ruth Wilson out of the series), something is missing.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 