no time to die – A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Shave and a haircut…

Nov 7, 2021Nov 7, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

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.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #50: Daniel Craig’s Bond farewell in No Time to Die

Nov 6, 2021Nov 5, 2021Matt1 Comment

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?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: A bad apple a day keeps the husband away

Sep 5, 2021Sep 12, 2021The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

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.

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The Corona Diaries: The beginning is the end is the beginning

Jul 15, 2021Matt1 Comment

For a while it looked like we were over the worst. Well, when I say “we”… Let’s put it like this: in many places, numbers were going down, cinemas were opening up, people were wondering if we were returning to something akin to normalcy. I mean, I’ve been back to the Best Little Cinema in the World often since it opened its doors again in May. Work colleagues are going abroad on vacation. Isn’t this what normal looks like?

Remember when Mege posted this photo in his Corona Diaries entry in May 2020?

Or is this just what it looks like when people decide, as the finishing line comes into view, that they’ve had enough, and it’s the last bit that sucks the most, so why don’t we skip it?

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #39: Bond – Nobody does it better (or worse)

Dec 5, 2020Dec 6, 2020Matt2 Comments

2020 turned out to be No Time For Bond – but our intrepid cultural baristas won’t let that stop them! In the absence of a new instalment in the long-running James Bond franchise, Julie, Alan and Sam – our resident expert in All Things Bond – talk about what the series has to offer: the best and the worst, the shaken and the stirred, the Goldfingers, GoldenEyes and Golden Guns. Who’s their favourite Bond? What’s the film they like least? Are the Bond movies actually good? And does Bond, James Bond still have a place in the 21st century, where the global threats are of a very different kind? P.S.: Listen out for the Bond-appropriate pre-credit sequence! (Okay, it’s not as if you could miss it, seeing how it’s right at the beginning.)

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