I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Directing movies is a complicated profession

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.

There should be a fictional documentary about a society of film fans that consider mockumentaries entirely true, and that have constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory around how subjects too dangerous are defused by turning them into mockumentaries. You can’t handle the truth about Spinal Tap, or Kiwi filmmaker Colin McKenzie, or the Mayflower Kennel Club Show. But in the meantime we have mockumentary greats such as “Soldier of Illusion” and “The Goof Who Sat By the Door”.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #169: Don’t mock the mockumentary

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.

Werner Herzog must be one of the most frequently parodied filmmakers in the world. I have no evidence of this other than my own gut feeling, but is there anyone else that’s been caricatured as often as him? And good old Werner gets in on the fun too: he’s voiced versions of himself on The Simpsons, The Boondocks and American Dad – and it’s likely there’s an element of self-parody in him voicing a character described as “Old Reptile” in an episode of Rick and Morty.

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