I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The Marvellous Moreau

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.

Look, if you’ve had enough of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we understand – and you may want to skip this week’s trailer post, since Friday’s Six Damn Fine Degrees instalment had Mege talking about sharing the MCU with his daughter: she’s a Marvel fan, and he enjoys sharing movies with her. So, for her, here’s a vintage Marvel trailer.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #60: My daughter, the Marvel fan

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 would have liked to dazzle you with a cool origin story, but I can’t remember how and when my favourite daughter found her love for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I am pretty sure she saw the first few movies in chronological sequence at home on BluRay, too young to have seen then in the theatres, so Tony Stark, Cap and the Hulk came to her at home, and it was probably the first Avengers movie that she saw in an upholstered seat, ticket in hand, with a bag of popcorn, on the big silver screen. But she was hooked long before that.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Heroes, villains and wolves

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’re afraid that this week wasn’t particularly fruitful in terms of posts. What can we say – it’s been a busy time, for various reasons. Or perhaps there were more posts, but then some big, mean, purple-chinned alien warlord snapped his fingers and half the posts vanished into thin air? (And here’s a small reminder that we did two podcasts on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and those haven’t been snapped away.)

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #22: Avengers: Endgame

d1ad56da-abce-4afe-9f45-79294aede9e3How’s that for galactic serendipity? For our 22nd episode, we’re strapping on our Infinity Gauntlets and snapping our fingers to discuss the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Endgame. Is it a worthy finale to the Infinity Saga or is it a titanic misstep? Were these particular fans serviced to their satisfaction or did they leave the cinema with a frown? Did we laugh, cry and cheer as the original Avengers line-up do their victory lap? Join us and find out! Beware: major spoilers for Infinity War and Endgame (and no, we don’t mean the play by Samuel Beckett)!

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Captain Marvel has nothing to prove to you

My reaction to Captain Marvel, the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was oddly split. On the one hand, I found the beginning of the film one of the dullest opening sequences of a Marvel movie in a while. The plot and overall structure was reminiscent of the earliest films in the franchise, to the point of feeling generic. The big set pieces were predictable and there was never really much of a sense of danger, even when Earth was at risk of being carpet-bombed from space. I fully understand the reviewers who consider Captain Marvel thoroughly mediocre Marvel fare.

Captain Marvel

And yet, I came to enjoy the film much more than its constituent parts would have led me to believe. In fact, I left the cinema with a big grin on my face.

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Throwing down the gauntlet of 2018

It’s saying something if the first thing I remember about the movie year 2018 is not a movie, but a character. Thanos looms large – how could he not? With one fell swoop, Marvel solved its most prominent problem and made very, very sure that we wouldn’t forget their biggest, baddest baddie. He has depth – I believe him when he says that he fulfills his mission partly against his own will, and that it cost him everything. And he – goddamn it – is successful. Of course, my experience of Avengers: Infinity War was deeply colored by my favorite daughter sitting beside me who couldn’t believe that half her favorite MCU characters went up in ashes. Maybe this was this generation’s Bambi. Continue reading

That Was The Year That Was: 2018

In past years I always forgot about doing a look back at the year that was until my friend and co-blogger Mege did his own retrospective – and by that time it was too late. This year I come prepared and bearing not just one or two but eight awards. Enjoy!

A Damn Fine Cup

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Snap judgment

Ant-Man and the Wasp was fun, an action comedy that used both its likeable cast of characters and its inventive visual jokes to good effect. It was great breezy popcorn fare, the ideal thing at the end of a day mostly spent sweating and feeling much too hot for comfort. More even than Guardians of the Galaxy, the film embraced the comedy genre, becoming a necessary palate cleanser after the grim conclusion of Infinity War.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #10: Avengers: Infinity War

d1ad56da-abce-4afe-9f45-79294aede9e3Tune in for episode 10 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, in which we look in on the Avengers & friends and a certain titan with a temper. Is Infinity War a worthy culmination of ten years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? (Beware: heavy spoilers for Infinity War, including the ending.) Also, Mege’s looked into a different kind of infinity with Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó, and Matt wishes he hadn’t seen the trailer last year’s indie darling Lady Bird five times before watching the film, and we share our impressions of Jon Bernthal in Netflix’ The Punisher and Cécile McLorin Salvant in concert. Continue reading