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.
james bond
Shortcuts: May 2026
We’re nearing the end of May, which means it’s time for our monthly Shortcuts: what have we seen or listened to recently?
Continue readingSix Damn Fine Degrees #199: Parental Guidance Suggested?
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!
What was the first film your parents ever took you to see at the cinema? I’m sure the latest Disney production, for many, were frequent firsts. Or even the myriad of family comedies just in time for the Christmas season? I remember it well and it was pretty standard: my parents took me to see Disney’s The Lady and the Tramp at Bern’s ABC cinema. I must have been around six. This led to more, obviously, with Astrid Lindgren’s Ronja rövardotter (1984) a particular favourite of mine.
So far so good.
Continue readingI’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The Quick and the Undead
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.
Sam wouldn’t be Sam without his deep, abiding love for all things James Bond – so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that his first Six Damn Fine Degrees entry of 2024 would focus on the special agent with a license to kill, and Roald Dahl’s connection to Bond.
Six Damn Fine Degrees #164: Double-O-Dahl
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.
Oddly enough, my first encounter with a Roald Dahl story did not come via Mathilda or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, nor with The Witches (even though I saw the Anjelica Houston version early and loved it!), Fantastic Mr Fox (so joyfully discussed in Julie’s last post) or one of his many short stories (repeatedly adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents). It was that one foray of the world-famous children’s book author and macabre genius into the world of James Bond that I was compulsively obsessed by starting at age 12: his screenplay to 1967’s You Only Live Twice.
Continue readingSix Damn Fine Degrees #135: Amazing Avengers Associations
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!
Reading Alan’s insightful observations about the Dark Phoenix saga from last week and his reference to British cult series The Avengers (1961-69; renewed in 1976/77, The Movie in 1999), I was reminded what these Six Degrees posts are really all about: connecting everything in the world of film, music and culture to everything else. And there is hardly another series that represents that principle of six degrees removed as well as The Avengers!
Continue readingI’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Shave and a haircut…
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.
What better way to start the Sunday trailer post than with barbers and meat pies? I mean, everyone needs to look good and everyone needs to eat – and who’s more aware of this than one Benjamin Barker… though most people might know him better under his alias: on Friday, Julie took our Six Damn Fine Degrees feature to dark places to write about Sweeney Todd.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #50: Daniel Craig’s Bond farewell in No Time to Die
No, A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, we expect you to podcast… Obviously we cannot let a cultural phenomenon such as Daniel Craig’s final James Bond outing go uncommented – especially since Alan, Julie and Sam already talked about the Bond franchise a year ago in preparation for the (oft postponed) release of James Bond: No Time to Die. In the meantime, it has been time to watch No Time to Die, and our three intrepid baristas return to finish their mission. Did they enjoy Daniel Craig’s last hurrah as MI6 agent James Bond? What were they shaken and/or stirred by most? What did they think of the villain, the women, the hidden lair – and especially the ending? Just as importantly: whither James Bond? Where do we want the franchise to go next? And… who do we want to have a crack at the iconic secret agent next?
Continue readingFootnotes: The Music Makers
We thought long and hard about whether we wanted to put musical excerpts in our podcast episode on movie soundtracks, but in the end we decided against it – not least because these pieces should be heard in their entirety, and they tend to work best when you listen to them along to the respective scenes from the films they’re from. So, below you’ll find our picks and some more of our thoughts about these wonderful tunes and composers.
Continue readingI’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: A bad apple a day keeps the husband away
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.
Hoo boy! This was a busy week here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, starting with Matt’s post on the mildly absurdist Greek dramedy (such a bad word for such a wide range of stories!) Apples. He wasn’t entirely won over by it, but there’s still a lot to enjoy here.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 