A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2024

It is that time of the year again: snow, carol singing, and Bruce Willis crawling through air vents muttering to himself before he delivers the presents. Which also means: it’s time for our Christmas Special! This year, we’re taking the topic of the summer series as the starting point, remakes – but as everyone knows, these can be naughty or nice, so we’ve asked our guests as well as our regulars to talk about their dream remakes, the ones they would like to see made, or the nightmare remakes which they wouldn’t even wish on the people at CinemaSins. From train-bound screwball comedy to sexy ’60s spies, from dodgy demons to festive skeletons, from one serial killer to a different serial killer altogether: these are the films we would love, or hate, to see remade.

A great big thank you goes out to our guests of 2024 who have contributed to the Christmas Special: film critic Alan Mattli (of Maximum Cinema, Swissinfo and Facing the Bitter Truth), filmmaker and podcaster Daniel Thron (of Martini Giant) and film historian and cultural critic Marcy Goldberg – and obviously to all of you out there who have been following our work at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. The Damn Fine Cup of Culture crew wishes everyone happy holidays, filled with good films, series, books, games and music!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: French bombshells

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.

Can you believe that it’s been eight years since Stranger Things premiered? And that it’ll only actually end (if it does) in 2025? Let this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees take you back to the time when Stranger Things was something to be excited about.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #82: Summer of Remakes – Wages of Fear and Sorcerer

Our Summer of Remakes podcast series continues with its second episode: after June’s Hitchcock double bill, we’re changing country (at least once) but staying with thrills and suspense. Imagine being stuck in a dead-end town, together with other men with murky pasts and little to lose, and with little hope of ever making it out – and now imagine a big corporation offering you a ticket out of there. The only catch? You have to drive a truck loaded with volatile nitroglycerin over treacherous dirt roads. Simple as that. This is the story of Georges Arnaud’s 1950 novel Le Salaire de la peur, and to date it has been turned into two memorable films: The Wages of Fear (1953) by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Yves Montand, and Sorcerer (1977), directed by William Friedkin and starring Roy Scheider. Join Alan, Julie and Matt as they discuss these two versions of the story. Where do the original and the remake (though Friedkin did sometimes deny that Sorcerer was one indeed) make the same or similar choices? Where do they diverge? And to what effect?

For more on the films of William Friedkin, check out our 2023 Halloween episode on The Exorcist (feat. the one and only Daniel Thron), recorded shortly after Friedkin’s death.

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