trailer sunday – A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: No country for cold men

Jan 29, 2023The 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 finally caught up (at least somewhat) with Alan and Julie, watching the Criterion release of Ernst Lubitsch’s comedy Design for Living almost two years after their podcast on the complicated women of pre-Code cinema. Even for someone not much versed in the films of the era preceding the Hays Code, Design for Living more than delivers with its wit and its wonderful trio of protagonists.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: You say ‘Sunday’, I say ‘Monday

Jan 23, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

It had to happen sometime – it was Sunday evening, we were tired… and we entirely forgot that trailer posts don’t post themselves. At least not yet, though I’m sure that GPT-3 or whatever AIs are currently being created in dark IT labs by mad computer scientists will be more than up to the task. When Skynet stages its coup, we’ll recognise the terminators because they’ll have too many fingers and too many teeth.

And talking about too many teeth: Matt found himself liking Top Gun Maverick a surprising amount, while finding Avatar: The Way of Water dull and unengaging. And there’s something surprisingly poignant about Tom Cruise finally starting to show his age. What if Tom’s just one of us?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: I’m Thinking of Joaquin Phoenix Things

Jan 15, 2023Jan 15, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

If Alan had wanted to make it as difficult as possible to come up with a trailer to fit his Six Damn Fine Degrees post on The Balanescu Quartet’s string covers of Kraftwerk tunes, he definitely succeeded. The closest we could manage? Wim Wender’s The End of Violence features some Kraftwerk on its soundtrack – but instead, let’s go with The Big Lebowski, which may not have any Kraftwerk (or Balanescu Quartet) music on its soundtrack, but its German nihilist character played by Peter Stormare used to play in a band called Autobahn, an obvious homage to the titans of experimental krautrock. Take it away, Dude!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The Two Nicks

Jan 8, 2023Jan 8, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Time flies yet again: we’re already at the second trailer post of 2023 – and it begins with the classic Bong Joon-ho joint Memories of Murder, which Matt wrote about earlier this week.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Ringing in the new year in style

Jan 2, 2023The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Welcome to the first day of 2023! Our main post this week (which, eerily, was published last year) had Matt looking back at the damn fine cups of culture he liked best in 2022, so let’s revisit some of those trailers. But first things first: Matt also wrote about four cellists and the heavy, metally things they did to Metallica in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, so why not start with that (even though there’s nothing trailery about it)?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Merry Christ(opher Lee)mas!

Dec 25, 2022Dec 25, 2022The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

This week, Matt posted his thoughts on the TV series version of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander – but that one featured in a recentish trailer post. Then there was the Christmas Special podcast – but as that one focused on our Summer of Directors, many of the trailers that would fit best already came up in other posts this year.

Which leaves us with Sam’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, a post that oozed (or should that be ‘öözed’?) Metal – so let’s go with that…

17 times Christopher Lee was the spirit of metal | The Independent | The Independent

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that

Dec 18, 2022MattLeave a comment

Other than David Lynch himself, the person who perhaps left most of a fingerprint on Lynch’s work is the composer Angelo Badalamenti, who died a week ago. Matt shared his thoughts and memories of Badalamenti’s work, in particular on the various incarnations of Twin Peaks (which we’ve written and podcasted about, the latter more than once).

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Who will think of the children?

Dec 11, 2022Dec 16, 2022The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

The second Black Panther film, Wakanda Forever, has quite a few issues and doesn’t come together nearly as well as its predecessor. At least that was Matt’s take on the film – though it handles Chadwick Boseman’s death with respect and genuine feeling. But since MCU trailers are a dime a dozen, let’s instead lead with a trailer for Boseman’s final films, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: This post belongs in a museum

Dec 4, 2022The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

This week, our Six Damn Fine Degrees took us to a concert by The Cure. Which doesn’t exactly lend itself to trailers… unless we stretch things a bit, which is entirely in keeping with Six Damn Fine Degrees. So, please enjoy this trailer for the psychological horror film Cure by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. And when I say “enjoy”, what I really mean is “please be majorly freaked out by”.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: That’s not how I remember it

Nov 27, 2022The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Even if you don’t know his name, chances are you’ve seen Donald Pleasance in something – from The Great Escape to You Only Live Twice, from Halloween to Shadows and Fog, or in one of his many TV appearances. In this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Sam gave us a much-appreciated reminder of Pleasance and his work.