Six Damn Fine Degrees #193: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely optional

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.

There’s always something strange to watching an actor play a real person, doubly so when the actor in question is one we know, and know well, from other parts, and triply so when that real person is still alive. Oh, look – there’s Gary Oldman playing Lee Harvey Oswald, and there’s Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler! There’s Helen Mirren or Emma Thompson (did you know that?) playing Queen Elizabeth II! Is that a trio of Truman Capotes or is that Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toby Jones and Tom Hollander having a chat? We recognise Taron Egerton, but we also recognise the bespectacled pop star he’s playing. We know that neither Michelle Williams nor Ana de Armas are Marilyn Monroe, but when we watch them on screen they are somehow both. And is it comforting or monstrous (or both at the same time) that the horrible person in the Oval Office isn’t actually Donald Trump but Brendan Gleeson playing the man?

Continue reading

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Our Lady of Perpetual Crime

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.

Did we need another crime miniseries about smalltown murder and violence against women? Is Kate Winslet enough to make it worthwhile? Matt recently finished Mare of Easttown, and his thinking is that while Winslet is great in the series, there’s plenty more there to make it worthwhile. Check out his post, and enjoy this trailer – though remember that the series is much more lively and, yes, even funny than the trailer makes it out to be.

Continue reading

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Kings, heroes, villains and… spacemen?

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.

Let’s start with the humanoid killer shark in the room: the big-screen DC movies haven’t always been all that much fun to watch, so it was quite a pleasant surprise for Matt to find out that The Suicide Squad succeeds at being just that. Who needs mopey Bats and grimdark Supes when you can hang out with Harley Quinn & Co?

Continue reading

Criterion Corner: In Cold Blood (#781)

I’ve never read In Cold Blood – in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Truman Capote. I have seen the two competing films about the writing of In Cold Blood, though, Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006), in which the idiosyncratic author was played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toby Jones respectively, so I was quite aware of what Capote’s novel, and its 1967 film adaptation, would be about. I was also aware of the whole discourse about the non-fiction novel, the genre that Capote adopted. Did Capote create, or at least shape, the format that we’ve come to know as true crime? Or did he just reflect cultural anxieties and currents that were already forming?

Continue reading

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: At play amidst the strangeness and fear

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.

Do you like a good scare? Do you like feeling a tad miserable? And do you like great acting? Julie’s Friday post on the HBO adaptation of Stephen King’s The Outsider ticks all three boxes – so if you’ve missed it, make sure to check it out!

Continue reading

Six Damn Fine Degrees #18: Toby Jones

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.

You know how sometimes there are these strange cases of cinema serendipity, where within a year you’d get not just one but two big films about, say, asteroids heading for Earth and teams of astronauts sent on a mission to destroy them. Or CGI comedies about ants. Or biopics about legendary Scottish freedom fighters.

Perhaps the strangest of those pairs of ‘twin films’, as the phenomenon is called on Wikipedia, is the 2005 film Capote and 2006’s Infamous, both of which told the story of Truman Capote’s writing of his 1966 book In Cold Blood. Capote received wide acclaim and won its lead actor Philip Seymour Hoffman an Academy Award. Infamous, though, was barely noticed – beyond the comparisons to the film released earlier. And this extended to the actor who played Infamous‘ version of Truman Capote: Toby Jones.

The Two Capotes
Continue reading