Orson Welles

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The name’s Welles. Orson Welles.

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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.

This week, our Summer of Welles (Editor’s note: Not a real thing.) continued with Sam’s post about Welles in Portugal and Spain. What better opportunity to take Sam’s mention of the dreadful 1967 Casino Royale and post this trailer for it, a great indication of just how dreadful the film is?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Sceptred isles, hunchbacked toads

The 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.

Matt is inching ever closer to completing his epic journey through the works of Ingmar Bergman. This week he wrote about the lesser-known Brink of Life – but, he argues, it definitely deserves more recognition than it has received to date. That lack of recognition is reflected by a lack of a trailer – unless we search further afield and find this video advertising a Hungarian stage adaptation of the film from 2011.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #94: The Great Orson Welles Hoax

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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!

Hollywood. The Dream Factory. And what is a dream but a story that never happened? (Or, if you believe in the MCU, things that happen in alternate universes – which means that these alternate universes have a hell of a lot of lectures and speeches made, and lessons taught, by people who suddenly find that they’re actually naked.)

One of the greatest such ‘dreams’ brought forth by Hollywood – or, to be more frank and forthright, one of its greatest lies – is that of Orson Welles: director, actor, writer, and, if we are to believe IMDB, also Editor, Costume Designer, Script and Continuity Department, and (ironically) Self. In short, a Hollywood wunderkind supreme.

How ironic, then, that Orson Welles… play the ominous dun-dun! sound… never actually existed.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #93: Mank v Welles

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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!

Orson Welles ca. 1949, Getty Images
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Six Damn Fine Degrees #10: Ed Wood

Julie2 Comments

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.

Johnny Depp as Edward D. Wood Jr.

If there ever was a prime example of positive thinking gone awry, it has to be Tim Burton’s interpretation of Edward D. Wood Jr.

A filmmaker in the 50’s, an era of highly localized and diversified cinema where there was still a space for worse-than-B grade films, the real Ed Wood’s two best known films are Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space. He is most noted for being voted the worst director of all time, posthumously, in 1980. It is clear he wanted to make extraordinary movies, but lacked everything, from money to quality control to, well, competence. But they do have… personality.

Note: spoilers below…

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The Rear-View Mirror: Touch of Evil (1958)

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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!

touch-of-evil 2

Touch of Evil most resembles a house of mirrors. In some parts you may feel you have gone backstage in some kind of carnival or circus. The direction is very Welles-ian, very masterful and very distinct. In the first minutes, we see a bomb placed in the boot of a car, and then the camera follows the car in one shot for a full 3 minutes and 20 seconds. We see shop-fronts, a souvenir seller moving his cart, some livestock and even two of our protagonists, who are walking the same route as the car. The bomb explodes, as it has to, and our story begins.

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