A Damn Fine Cup of Culture: Recent Episodes
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture
Join us every month for a cup of freshly brewed culture! Matt, Julie and friends talk about films, TV series, books or games that have grabbed their attention.
For our February espresso podcast, we’ve got a very special treat: this month, Matt and Julie talk to British writer, critic, curator and film historian Pamela Hutchinson. Pamela, a regular contributor to the Guardian and to Sight & Sound, joins us for a look at The Lady with the Torch, a selection of films that played at the Locarno Film Festival 2024 and that was recently featured (in part) at the Kino REX in Bern, Switzerland, where Pamela spoke about the films and Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat in particular. Find out more about what made Columbia Pictures special, how its co-founder and president Harry Cohn was both a terror and a boon to the studio, and how Columbia Pictures ended up offering opportunities especially to the women working there that were unheard of elsewhere – and watch out for our recommendations for the Columbia Pictures films of the era you need to see, from the biting screwball comedy of Twentieth Century (1934) to the heartbreaking darkness of In a Lonely Place (1950) and the prescient political drama of All the King’s Men (1949). Don’t miss this special treat for lovers of classic Hollywood – and a big thank you to Pamela from all of us at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture!
P.S.: As director Dorothy Arzner features in the history of Columbia Pictures and comes up in our conversation with Pamela, make sure to check out last year’s May espresso podcast for a closer look at Arzner and her films.
P.P.S.: You can find Pamela’s talk at the REX on Columbia Pictures and The Big Heat here.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: February 2025
It’s that time of the year again, when we look at films we didn’t enjoy originally and give them another chance. This time it’s Sam and Alan having another look at movies they’d previously bounced off of, and both films feature Shirley MacLaine: Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960) (yes, Alan hasn’t been a big fan of the film to date!) and MacLaine’s first film, The Trouble with Harry (1955), her first feature appearance and one of the movies generally considered to be lesser Hitchcock. Will our intrepid two come away with a new appreciation of these films, or will their original opinions be reinforced?
For more Second Chances episodes, make sure to check out:
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #77: Second Chances (2024), in which Matt and Sam revisit two very different musicals, Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark and Richard Attenborough’s adaptation of A Chorus Line
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #67: Second Chances – Two Androids called David, in which Alan and Matt give another chance to Steven Spielberg’s A.I. and Ridley Scott’s first Alien prequel Prometheus
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #62: Second Chances (2), which sees Sam and Alan revisiting two David Fincher films, Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #47: Second Chances, our very first Second Chances episode, in which Julie and Matt have another look at Michael Curtiz’ Mildred Pierce and Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly – an obvious combination, don’t you think?
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #89: Second Chances (feat. Shirley MacLaine)
Sometimes they come back: in late 2024, Robert Eggers broke with his series of films titled “The” followed by a proper noun with the release of his remake of Nosferatu. Following F.W. Murnau’s 1922 version, a rip-off of Dracula so good that it took on a life (or should that be undeath?) of its own, and the 1979 remake by living legend Werner Herzog, Eggers’ Nosferatu calls back to the earlier versions while putting its own spin on the material. Join Alan and Matt for their discussion of the film: What does Eggers’ Nosferatu bring to the table? How does it compare to other versions of Nosferatu and of Dracula? What are the film’s greatest strengths, and where does it perhaps falter? And where do Matt and Alan stand on big bushy moustaches?
For more talk of the undead, make sure to check out our episode “Three Draculas” from October 2023, in which Julie, Sam and Matt talk about Murnau’s Nosferatu as well as the 1958 and 1992 versions of Dracula.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: January 2025
Welcome to 2025! We’re taking the new year as an opportunity to look both forward and into the past – and to do something we’ve never done before: for the very first time (no, Robin Beck, we don’t mean you!) we’ve recorded a conversation featuring all four of the damn fine core podcasters: Alan, Julie, Matt and Sam. In the first episode of the year, we’re having a look at the cups of culture (mostly film) that came out in 1925, 1950, 1975 and 2000, from Marion Davies and Zander the Great via the wonderfully meta double bill All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard and ’70s greats such as Jaws and Chinatown to the still futuristic-sounding year 2000, which brought us films as different as Gladiator, Memento and In the Mood for Love. We cap off our conversation about a century of cinema with a look at the year to come and the films we’re anticipating the most. Wishing everyone a damn fine year, or indeed century!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #88: Century
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!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2024
It’s December – which means, it’s time for snow! And since the actual white stuff falling from the sky is becoming rarer and rarer in many places, your cultural baristas at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture are talking about the cinematic version: snow in films. Join Julie, Sam and Matt as they talk about films in which snow is central, focusing on the following three movies: James Whale’s The Invisible Man (1933), starring a young Claude Rains, Where Eagles Dare (1968), Brian G. Hutton’s WW2 adventure featuring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, and finally an enduring favourite of several of us at A Damn Fine Cup: the Coen Brothers’ modern classic Fargo (1996). What role does snow play in these films – and which of them is the ultimate snow movie, in which the white stuff isn’t just an aesthetic choice or a means to an end but much, much more?
(By the way, due to technical difficulties, Matt’s audio in this episode unfortunately sounds like he recorded his audio with his mic in one room and himself in another. We hope that you’ll still enjoy the conversation – and if necessary, we’ll send him and his mic out into the snow until he’s promised to do better next time!)
P.S.: If you’re interested in more talk about the Coens, make sure to check out our podcast from summer 2023:
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #71: Summer of Collaborations – The Coen Brothers & Co
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #87: Snowpisode!
We’ve covered remakes extensively this summer, but what about their often derided sibling, the sequel? We’re taking the recent release of two high-profile sequels, Joker: Folie à deux and Gladiator 2, as an opportunity to talk about sequels. Are they all creatively bankrupt exercises in IP masturbation, or is there potential in sequels? Is the only good sequel one that gives us more of what we enjoyed the first time around, or should a sequel break with what has gone before and surprise us? Where are Joker 2 and Gladiator 2 on the continuum from more-of-the-same sequels to throw-everything-out-the-window sequels? Is Folie à deux as much of a waste of talent and money as most people said? Is Gladiator 2 a worthwhile return to Rome and to the arena that gets our thumbs-up?
For more thoughts on sequels with a bonus link to Ridley Scott, you may want to check out the following:
- A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2024 (in which Sam and Alan talk about Alien: Romulus, the latest sequel? prequel? something-quel to Ridley Scott’s iconic Alien)
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #67: Second Chances – Two Androids called David (in which Alan and Matt discuss Prometheus, as well as Steven Spielberg’s A.I.)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: November 2024
For this year’s summer series, A Damn Fine Cup of Culture focused on remakes, from men who knew too much and trucks bearing explosive goods to planets that create their own remakes and finally to stars being born and dying. But these are the obvious remakes (whatever their directors might say, depending on which day of the week it is): what about iconic films – that almost no one knows to be remakes? In this episode, Julie and Alan get together to talk about two films that are infinitely more famous than the originals that preceded them: Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Maltese Falcon (1941). Why do these films escape the frequent criticism of remakes: that originality is dead and that Hollywood only knows how to repeat itself? How do the originals compare to the more iconic later films? And what’s the key to making a remake that will eclipse the film(s) that came before?
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #86: Stealth remakes
On the podcast, we’ve talked about festivals before, both about specific festivals (such as Queersicht, the annual LGBTIAQ+ film festival held in Bern, Switzerland) and about the experience of going to cultural festivals of any kind. Autumn is festival season, and Alan and Sam talk about film festivals they’ve been to, from Switzerland’s festivals in Locarno and Zürich via San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain (which Sam recently visited) to the London Film Festival, where Alan regularly catches some of the more off-the-radar small films. What’s it like to attend these festivals? What is the experience like? How good are they for celebrity-spotting? And would they recommend the festivals to film fans, or are they reserved more for filmmakers and journalists?
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: October 2024
The 1970s were a bad time for men travelling in Europe, doubly so if they were following the traces of a mysterious girl, and triply so if they weren’t good at listening to advice. Before you know it, you meet with a gruesome fate at the hands of cultists or misshapen serial killers, and then where will you be? Dead! That’s where. Dead in Venice or Summerisle.
For this year’s October episode, we finally fulfil a common wish of ours: join Matt, Sam and Julie as they talk about two creepy favourites of theirs, the cult folk horror that is the original The Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy, and the mournful, intricate, watery loops of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. Apart from both coming out in 1973 and being shown as a double bill at the time, what do these two films have in common? Why are they both such enduring classics, in spite of very clearly being products of their time? And – in keeping with our summer theme – why do the two films resist being remade, in spite of an ill-fated attempt by Neil LaBute and starring Nicolas Cage at maximum Cage?
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #85: Halloween Special – Death in Venice (and Summerisle)
We’ve talked about the Alien franchise before on our podcast, so we didn’t want to miss the opportunity presented by the release of the latest addition to the series, Alien: Romulus, which came out in August. Join Sam and Alan as they talk about Fede Álvarez’ return to the roots of the franchise. How successful is the movie’s ‘back to basics’ approach? How scary can the film be after an entire series has done a lot to strip its iconic set of monsters of their original mystery? What have Álvarez and his collaborators done to keep all things xenomorph fresh, how do they play with an almost overpowering legacy? And what about that unexpected return from the dead: an effective homage or a tacky reference?
For more thoughts on the long-running Alien franchise, check out the following podcast episodes:
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #34: Xeno-who? The Alien franchise (the first episode featuring our very own Alan?
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #67: Second Chances – Two Androids called David (in which Alan and Matt discuss Prometheus, as well as Steven Spielberg’s A.I.)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2024
Our Summer of Remakes is coming to an end, with a conversation about not one, two, three or four films, but a whopping five, starting with What Price Hollywood? (1932), which was adapted in 1937 into A Star Is Born – and again in 1954, starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Then, in 1976, the story got the Streisand treatment, and in 2018 we got Bradley Cooper’s version, starring himself and Lady Gaga. Join Julie, Sam and Alan as they talk about the remake extravaganza. What is it about the material that makes it so enduring? How do the films tell their story differently? And, if A Star Is Born, is such an enduring tale, what would our cultural baristas expect from a near-future remake, should one be forthcoming?
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #84: A Star Is Born
Imagine not only being a cinephile, and not only writing and talking about film – but doing this professionally: being a film critic is something many of us in the blogosphere dream of. Meet Alan Mattli: Alan is not only teaching and doing research into literature and film at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, he is also a reviewer for the German-language Swiss film and TV platform Maximum Cinema and (Swiss German) the Maximum Cinema podcast. While his reviews at Maximum Cinema and on his website Facing the Bitter Truth (which he launched in 2008, while still at school), and while much of his writing at these sites is in German, you can find his writing in English on Letterboxd. In our August espresso podcast, Matt talks to Alan about his way to becoming a film critic, whether he watches films differently as a critic, and how film criticism has changed in recent years.
P.S.: Here’s a list of Alan’s favourite current film critics:
- Jake Cole
- Josh Lewis
- Angelica Jade Bastién
- Manohla Dargis
- Richard Brody
- Filipe Furtado
- Caitlin Quinlan
- Phuong Le
- Will Sloan
- Priscilla Page
- Brandon Streussnig
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: August 2024
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel, is classic sci-fi cinema: as can be expected of a film by Tarkovsky, it is intriguing, hypnotic, at times sublime, but undoubtedly also confounding and even frustrating at times. It is a product of its time in some ways but timeless in others. Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris (2002) is unlikely to stand the test of time to the same extent – but is it still a worthwhile take on Lem’s novel? Is it indeed a remake – and, if so, is it a meaningful, worthwhile one, or is it an uncanny replica of the original material, much like the revenants that Lem’s mysterious planet produces, possibly in an attempt to communicate with humanity? Join Matt, Alan and Sam for the third episode in our Summer of Remakes, as they discuss these two films and their takes on both. How do they compare, in their approaches to Lem’s story, and in how successful those approaches are in creating a memorable film?
For another take on the films of Steven Soderbergh, make sure to check out our 2020 episode (featuring Dan Thron of Martini Giant): A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #35: Soderbergh’s Schizopolis, Schizopolis’ Soderbergh
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #83: Solaris
Summer is a good time to catch up on films and series – in this case, the Netflix series Ripley, created by Steven Zaillian and released last spring. The Talented Mr. Ripley has been adapted before, most famously as Plein Soleil (AKA Purple Noon, by René Clément and starring a deliciously evil Alain Delon) and under its original title in 1999 (by Anthony Minghella, with Matt Damon as a more soulful murderer) – so what is the purpose of another adaptation? Join Sam and Matt as they ponder this question. What does Zaillian’s Ripley bring to the discussion, compared to the films by Clément and Minghella? What is the effect on the story of casting Andrew Scott as a Ripley a dozen years older than the earlier versions? What are the unique qualities of Netflix’s Tom Ripley? And is this version a more faithful adaptation of Highsmith’s story and character?
For more on Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and the various film adaptations of his adventures, make sure to check out these posts and podcasts:
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #45: Ripley vs Ripley – who’s the most talented?
- A Damn Fine Espresso: December 2023 (in which Sam and Matt discuss the other adaptations of Tom Ripley novels)
- Anyone you can be, I can be better: All About Eve and The Talented Mr Ripley
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: July 2024
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.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #82: Summer of Remakes – Wages of Fear and Sorcerer
Our June espresso is a special one: differently from the vast majority of our podcast episodes, this one had Alan and Matt recording in the same room, talking into one mic – and the topic of their conversation is the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. Matt’s local cinema, the REX Bern, recently showed a series of Kore-eda’s films, from his first feature Marobosi to his latest, Monster, and Matt’s been wanting to do a Kore-eda episode for a long time, so the two took this opportunity to finally fulfil that wish. Join them as they discuss what makes a Kore-eda film, which ones they like best, and (obviously) what they would choose, After Life-style, as the sole memory to be filmed and taken into the beyond.
For more on Hirokazu Kore-eda, make sure to check out these blog posts:
- Criterion Corner: After Life (#1089)
- Play it again, Cath: The Truth (2019)
- They are family (on Shoplifters (2018))
- Fog of Law (on The Third Murder (2017))
- We are family (on Our Little Sister (2015))
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: June 2024
It’s that time of the year again: A Damn Fine Cup of Culture is dedicating its next four main episodes to a single theme. After 2022’s Summer of Directors and last year’s Summer of Collaborations, this year’s hot months are dedicated to remakes. And yes, remakes tend to get a bad rap from film fans, but there’s enough there that is interesting, fascinating and worth watching – and, yes, in many cases worth criticising. We think we’ve picked an interesting bunch of films and remakes, and we’re starting with a special case of one of the greats of Hollywood cinema remaking one of his own films: Alfred Hitchcock and The Man Who Knew Too Much. First in 1934, in one of his British films, and then again in 1956, Hitchcock told the same overall story of a couple whose child is kidnapped because of a secret plot they’ve uncovered by accident – but while a lot is the same, from the basic setup to the climax at the Royal Albert Hall, these are still two very different flavours of Hitchcock. Join Sam and his co-baristas Julie and Matt as they discuss multiple men who knew too much. What does each version bring to the table? Which did we prefer? If we had to choose, what would we go for: Peter Lorre’s pitch-perfect baddie or Doris Day belting “Que Sera, Sera”?
For further listening on Alfred Hitchcock, make sure to check out our earlier episodes, “The Good, the Bad and Alfred Hitchcock” (#33) and last month’s “Swan Song” (#80), in which Alan and Sam talked about the final films of Hitchcock and Billy Wilder.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #81: Summer of Remakes – The Man Who Knew Too Much
It’s not that much of a jump from last month’s espresso topic of cinematic women behaving badly (well, at least in the eyes of the society) to this month’s theme. Over the last month or so, the best cinema in the world showed a series of films by the American director Dorothy Arzner, who was mainly active from the 1920s to the early 1940s. Arzner stands out not only as a female director who helped launch the careers of actresses such as Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell and Lucille Ball, her films are also impressively ahead of their time in terms of their depiction of women and their critique of marriage and of heteronormative pairings as the sole path to contentment. Working in genres from screwball comedy and melodrama to literary adaptation and war films, and being more than willing to blend genres and tone, Arzner directed films that both reflect their times and feel strikingly modern. Join Julie and Matt as they discuss some of Arzner’s greats, from Dance, Girl, Dance to Merrily We Go to Hell, and from Working Girls to the flawed but fascinating Christopher Strong and Craig’s Wife.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: May 2024
We often talk about the films directed by the big names at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture – but the films we end up talking about are rarely the final works of these directors. Enter Alan and Sam, who in our latest podcast episode discuss the directorial swan songs of two of the most famous Hollywood directors of all time: Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. Why do people rarely talk about Family Plot, Hitchcock’s black comedy thriller of 1976, or about Wilder’s comedy Buddy Buddy (1981), in which Walter Matthau plays a professional hitman and Jack Lemmon the suicidal husband whose attempts at taking his life foil Matthau’s plans? Where were Hitchcock and Wilder in their careers at the time when they made these films, and how do they fit into the directors’ oeuvres? Is either film a diamond in the rough, or are they clearly lesser works?
For further damn fine reading and listening material on the two directors, make sure to check out Six Damn Fine Degrees #129: All About Fedora (by Sam) and Six Damn Fine Degrees #130: Sunset Fedora (by Alan), as well as A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #33: The Good, the Bad and Alfred Hitchcock, Sam’s first podcast appearance (still as a guest at the time).
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #80: Swan song
We’ve got a special treat for our April espresso podcast: say hello to Marcy Goldberg, Swiss-Canadian film historian, lecturer and media consultant. Marcy recently talked to the London-based author, critic and podcaster Anna Bogutskaya at a panel discussion organised by the Filmpodium Zürich. The Filmpodium is currently running a series of films in connection with Bogutskaya’s first book, Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate (published in 2023). For our podcast, Marcy joins Julie and Matt to talk about Bogutskaya’s book, and about the women in film and TV that are scorned by some, celebrated by others, for being unapologetically angry, horny, ambitious, and sometimes downright crazy and/or murderous. What makes a female character unlikeable? Why are women judged differently for actions and attitudes that men are allowed to get away with? And what does this say about cinema and about our culture?
For our readers and listeners based in or around Zürich: Unlikeable Female Characters, the series of films co-curated by Anna Bogutskaya and Nicole Reinhard of the Filmpodium (including e.g. Leave Her to Heaven, A Woman Under the Influence, Dangerous Liaisons, The Last Seduction, Gone Girl, Poor Things, and that classic of unlikeable-women cinema, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) runs until 15 May. (Check here for the complete programme (in German).)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: April 2024
The pod must flow: Julie and Alan are back to talk about Dune: Part 2, and they’re once again joined by friend of the show Daniel Thron, one of the hosts of the Martini Giant podcast… and one of the people who worked on the visual effects for Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi novel. Did our intrepid three enjoy Part 2 as much as they did the first part? Did Villeneuve & Co deliver on the promises of the 2021 film? What are the choices Denis Villeneuve and his collaborators made in bringing this complex, much-beloved book to the screen? What was changed, and to what effect? How damn cool was the worm riding when the film finally got to it? (Spoiler: Very damn cool.) And where does Dune: Part 2 place its characters for the likely third film, based on Herbert’s sequel Dune Messiah?
P.S.: If, like us, you’re a fan of Dan Thron and his thoughts on film, make sure to check out these earlier episodes featuring him:
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #59: Summer of Directors – Robert Altman
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #35: Soderbergh’s Schizopolis, Schizopolis’ Soderbergh
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #79: Dune Part 2
It’s the weekend before the Big Mama, the White Whale, the movie awards to end all movie awards: the Oscars. Who will win the Academy Awards 2024? Will Christopher Nolan And Cillian Murphy explode with the metaphorical force of a thousand suns? Will Barbie get what it can, in spite of the snubs for its director and star? What about Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, The Holdovers – or the European dark horses Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest? Join Sam and Matt as they discuss their own Oscar thoughts: who was snubbed? Who was nominated but shouldn’t have been? And which films should win which awards?
For more discussion of some of the 2024 Oscar favourites and underdogs, make sure to check out these posts:
- A Damn Fine Espresso: August 2023 (in which Alan and Matt talk Barbenheimer)
- A Damn Fine Espresso: November 2023 (in which Sam and Matt discuss Killers of the Flower Moon)
- Girl, you’ll be a woman soon: Poor Things (Matt’s post on Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: March 2024
TV and murder are made for one another, and the crime series is still one of the most popular genres in television – but there’s no one quite like Lieutenant Columbo, the crumpled, harmless-seeming homicide detective played so memorably by Peter Falk, in ten seasons and 69 episodes over a stretch of 35 years (if you include the specials). What makes the series, and the character, so enduring? Join Sam, Julie (valiantly fighting a sore throat in order to take part in this conversation on one of her favourites!) and returning special guest Johannes Binotto (video essayist and Professor for Film and Media Studies in Lucerne and Zürich) – who, counter to Columbo tradition, won’t turn out to be the murderer after all… or will he? – as they discuss their all-time favourites and guilty pleasures, ranging from fan favourites “Any Old Port in a Storm” and “Etude in Black” to darker and stranger cases such as “By Dawn’s Early Light” and “Make Me a Perfect Murder”.
(Make sure also to check out our 2022 episode on Ida Lupino, featuring the first appearance on A Damn Fine Cup of Culture by Johannes – and if you’re looking for more material on all things Columbo, there’s always Shooting Columbo: The Lives & Deaths of TV’s Rumpled Detective by David Koenig.)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #78: Just one more thing – The Columbo Episode
Much as with Pringles, the problem with musicals is this: once you’ve enjoyed one or two, you can’t just stop. Earlier this month, Sam and Matt gave two movie musicals a second chance: A Chorus Line and Dancer in the Dark. While they didn’t necessarily come away from this with a renewed appreciation of those films, it felt to them that their conversation ended way too soon – so they went back to the well to talk about their formative experiences with the genre. Which musicals did they watch growing up? How did they come to appreciate the genre? How have they experienced the difference between musicals on screen and on stage? From Jesus Christ Superstar to Aladdin, from Fiddler on the Roof to Cabaret and Victor/Victoria: how did Matt and Sam learn to stop worrying and love a good musical?
(And, as before, if you’re looking for more musical talk, make sure to check out our episode #41 from 2021: The Musical Episode!)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: February 2024
Another year, another opportunity to give some films we didn’t particularly like another opportunity. Was it the films? Was it us? Was it just the wrong time to watch these? For this year’s movie revisit, Sam and Matt talk about two musicals that, at a first glance, couldn’t be much more different: Richard Attenborough’s 1985 adaptation of A Chorus Line and Nordic provocateur Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark. What is the result of our return to these musicals? Did we come away with a new appreciation of Michael Douglas’ foray into musicals (and then he doesn’t even get to sing!), and did things finally fall into place when we rewatched the musical melodrama led by Icelandic multitalent Björk?
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #77: Second Chances (2024)
For more episodes on similar topics, check out:
- Podcast #67: Second Chances: Two Androids called David (on AI and Prometheus)
- Podcast #62: Second Chances (2022) (on the David Fincher/Brad Pitt double bill Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
- Podcast #47: Second Chances (2021) (on the very female-centric Mildred Pierce (dir. Michael Curtiz) and the mucho male-centric Killing Them Softly (dir. Andrew Dominik)
- Podcast #41: The Musical Episode
For our first espresso podcast episode in 2024, Julie and Sam sit down together over a virtual coffee to talk about the Austrian director G.W. Pabst (1885 – 1967). Taking Pabst’s silent film classic Pandora’s Box (1929, adapted from Frank Wedekind’s play Lulu) as a starting point, the two discuss the director’s career as a filmmaker during the Weimar Republic, his emigration from but later return to Nazi Germany, and his filmmaking under the Nazi regime and the auspices of the Ministry of Propaganda led by Josef Goebbels, but also the recent novel Lichtspiel, a fictionalised biography of Pabst, written by Daniel Kehlmann. How does a filmmaker go from making progressive, formally daring and even scandalous cinema criticising the society of its day to becoming an accomplice to the propaganda machinery of the Third Reich?
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: January 2023
Welcome to 2024! We at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture are beginning the year with a discussion of one of the greats of early Hollywood cinema: Buster Keaton, the Great Stone Face himself. Join Alan, Julie and Sam as they discuss three films by the master of deadpan physical comedy: One Week (1920), in which a newlywed couple attempts to assemble a house kit that, unbeknownst to them, a rejected suitor has sabotaged, Sherlock Jr. (1924), perhaps Keaton’s best-known and -loved comedy next to The General, and The Navigator (also 1924), with its amazing underwater scenes. How does Keaton hold up next to the other two greats of early comedy, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd? And what happened to Keaton and his career in later decades?
If you are interested in learning more about Keaton, make sure to check out Dana Stevens’ Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, and take note of the writings of the late, great Cari Beauchamp, who wrote extensively on the era and who passed away on 14 December 2023.
Finally, all three of the Buster Keaton films discussed in this episode can be streamed on YouTube – and there are definitely worse ways to brighten your early January!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #76: Buster Keaton
As the sheer Ho-ho-honess of the season descends on us, here’s a little something for under your tree: our 2023 Christmas Special. This year we’re taking the opportunity to put a Damn Fine fingerprint on the media meme of the year: Barbenheimer. Join us – Julie, Sam, Alan and Matt, but also Damn Fine O.G. Mege and favourite frequent guest Dan Thron of Martini Giant (who took some time this autumn to talk all things Exorcist with us) – as we come up with double bills and mash-ups of wildly divergent and strangely complementary movies, taking our listeners from Paddiface and The Wizard of Chess via a very special Boris Karloff two-header and Wonkas of the Flower Moon to The Sound of Eagles and Under the Hours. (FYI, most of these are working titles that we’ll have to workshop before the final product is pushed out the door, or so Marketing tells us.) So, in the spirit of plastic dolls come to life and Cillian Murphy’s piercing eyes, of learning to start worrying and hate the bomb and of being Just Ken, we at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture wish all of our listeners happy holidays filled with good films, series, books, games and music!
P.S.: For more on Baby Face and Killers of the Flower Moon, make sure to check out these episodes:
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #42: The Complicated Women of Pre-Code Cinema
- A Damn Fine Espresso: November 2023 (in which Matt and Sam talk about Killers of the Flower Moon)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2023
In a little over a week it’s Christmas – and what goes together better than Christmas and forging signatures, telling lies, impersonating practically anybody… and a little murder? Matt’s recently had an opportunity to check out the film adaptations of the adventures of a very naughty boy: Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. In this month’s espresso podcast, join Matt and Sam as they talk about these adaptations that vary massively in tone, theme and quality: from Plein Soleil (AKA Purple Noon) and The American Friend to Ripley’s Game and Ripley Under Ground – not missing out The Talented Mister Ripley, of course. It’s a rare case that a series of novels is adapted not into a series of films but into very different individual movies, all treating their central character very differently. How talented are these various Ripleys, whether they’re played by Alain Delon, Matt Damon, Dennis Hopper, Barry Pepper or John Malkovich?
For a deep dive specifically into The Talented Mister Ripley and its two famous movie adaptations, make sure to check out our podcast from way back in June 2021: Ripley vs Ripley.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: December 2023
It’s not exactly a secret that Hollywood can be a tad self-centred: it loves making films about itself, sometimes lovingly so (such as in Singing in the Rain), sometimes bitingly caustic (take Sunset Boulevard, for instance). And this has pretty much been a part of Hollywood’s MO since the beginning. For our December podcast, join Julie, Sam and Alan as they look at three films in which Hollywood depicts itself, for better or for worse, from the 1970s to the present. Starting with John Schlesinger’s adaptation of Nathanael West’s novel The Day of the Locust (1975), a dark, sometimes downright apocalyptic satire, continuing with Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004) and ending up with Damien Chazelle’s much-derided Babylon (2022), they examine how these films depict historical Tinseltown and what this reveals about their attitudes towards the US movie industry.
For further listening on these topics, make sure to check out Karina Longworth’s podcast You Must Remember This, especially her series “Fake News: Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon” and “The Many Loves of Howard Hughes” – and our very own podcast episode #18 from way back in early 2019, in which Julie joined us officially for the first time to discuss The Aviator.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #75: Hollywood on Hollywood
It’s the film that everyone’s had an opinion on, not least the devout Marvel fans and people who want an opportunity to go to the restroom during films of epic length: Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Join Sam and Matt for their discussion of Scorsese’s latest. How did the film land for a fan of the iconic American director, and what are the reactions of someone who isn’t so much into Scorsese’s world of toxic masculinity and backroom dealings? Where do they stand on the question of whether Killers of the Flower Moon needs its length (and being uninterrupted) to have the intended impact on the audience or whether it would have been improved by being shorter? What did they think of the performances of Scorsese stalwarts Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and of new faces Lily Gladstone and Jesse Plemonds? And what’s their take on that ending and on the director literally having the final word of the film?
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: November 2023
This year’s Halloween has been and gone – but we’re continuing our recent run of horror-themed podcasts (with three Draculas and many more vampires) by dedicating our November episode to the late, great William Friedkin’s seminal film about demonic possession: The Exorcist. More than that, though, we’re bringing back one of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture’s most beloved guest stars: Daniel Thron, of Martini Giant fame. (We were planning to bring him back around this time for a second Dune podcast, but, well, things happened.) Join Julie, Sam and Dan as they talk about the masterpiece that has endured over the decades, in spite of a franchise that has truly plumbed the depths. Come for the projectile vomit and turning heads, stay for the surprising humanity of a film about a young girl and a mother driven to the edge. And that’s before we even get to Dan’s Kentucky accent!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #74: The Exorcist
Do vampires get jealous that Dracula tends to hog all the attention? In this month’s espresso episode, Matt and Julie try to make up for this; after the most recent podcast featured not only one but three Draculas (in some cases under a different name, for copyright reasons), we’re returning to the pulsating vein of vampire fiction to talk about some other stories with a bite that deserve as much attention as the Count. (The impaling one, that is, not the one who’s into numbers and stuff.) From Jim Jarmush’s Only Lovers Left Alive to the ultra-’90s British series Ultraviolet (featuring a pre-True Blood Stephen Moyer) via the likes of Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In and Cronos, we explore the crypts and mausoleums where those endowed with big fangs go right for the jugular. Join us – and don’t forget to pack some garlic and a crucifix
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: October 2023
Aside from Frankenstein’s creature perhaps, is there another movie monster as iconic as that most famous of vampires: Dracula? At the same time, has familiarity turned Dracula into something less than a monster? Is the famous count with the two pointy teeth still capable of instilling fear, or has he become too much of a cliché, even a cartoon? For our spooky October episode, Sam, Julie and Matt have packed their stakes, crucifixes and garlands of garlic and are heading to deepest Transilvania to look in on three versions of the Count, ironically starting with the one who isn’t even called Dracula: F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), in which the wonderfully named Max Schreck played the famous vampire with the serial numbers filed off. Then there’s Christopher Lee, the tall, dark stranger, in Terence Fisher’s 1958 film Dracula (or Horror of Dracula, as it was called in the US); and finally, we check out Francis Ford Coppola’s self-proclaimed return to the original novel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), in which Gary Oldman chews scenery at least as much as he nibbles on the necks of nubile Victorian ladies. How do these three films succeed at bringing the famous vampire to life (or should that be undeath)?
(And if this isn’t enough vampirism for you, there’s always our podcast episode on Werner Herzog, in which we touch on the director’s 1979 take on Nosferatu.)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #73: Three Draculas
Travels with our Sam: our resident James Bond expert/soundtrack fiend went back to La La Land itself for his summer holidays. Want to find out what Sam did on his hols? Join him and Julie as they talk about Sam’s SoCal adventures: bumping into movie stars at Starbucks, checking out the rides and the studio tours (but failing to find a good studio shop – what’s wrong with you, Hollywood?!), and finding the coolest ever record store with the oldest ever shop attendant. We hope you enjoy this latest espresso of a podcast episode as much as Sam obviously enjoyed his LA vacation!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2023
Our summer of collaborations is coming to a close with one of the most iconic creative partnerships of Hollywood, going back almost 50 years: the collaboration between director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams, which began in 1974 with Sugarland… Continue reading →
What’s giddy, grim, and black and white and pink all over? You’ve guessed it: just when the discourse has died down, A Damn Fine Cup of Culture goes all Barbenheimer on y’all. Join Alan and Matt as they talk about… Continue reading →
Our summer of collaborations continues with an iconic duo from Minnesota: the Coen Brothers are probably among the filmmakers of recent decades most associated with the (flawed) notion of the auteur – but at the same time, they’re among the… Continue reading →
As promised, one month after our espresso episode on the Indiana Jones series prior to the release of Dial of Destiny, we’re returning with another podcast that belongs in a museum! Join Sam, Alan and Matt as they talk about… Continue reading →
After the inaugural episode of our Summer of Collaborations (starting with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), we’ve arrived at the second instalment of our summer series, this time focusing on a collaboration that gave us iconic performances and classic films… Continue reading →
It’s June, and one of the year’s biggest blockbusters is just weeks away: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will be released on 30/6/2023. Will Harrison Ford, complete with hat and whip and iconic half-grin, deliver once again, as… Continue reading →
Last year we dedicated the summer to some damn fine directors, from Jane Campion, Dario Argento (who was also the topic of our most recent espresso) and Ida Lupino to Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese. This year, we decided to look at some of the great collaborations of cinema, and for the first instalment in our Summer of Collaborations, Julie has been talking to Alan and Sam about one of the legendary couples of Hollywood, both on- and off-screen: Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The two starred in nine films, many of them romantic comedies banking on the palpable chemistry that was apparent between Hepburn and Tracy from the first. Our trio of cultural baristas takes a closer look at the first collaboration between the two, Woman of the Year (1942); their last, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), finished just 17 days before Tracy’s death; and perhaps their most iconic film together, Adam’s Rib (1949), which Julie previously wrote about. What made this one of the most sparkling acting collaborations in Hollywood? Why was there this fascination with Hepburn’s characters being knocked down a peg? And how well do these films, the issues they address and the way they address these issues hold up more than half a century later?
For last year’s summer series of podcasts, check this link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture: Summer of Directors (2022)
Sources, apart from the usual ones:
The Hepburn Tracy Project, by Glenn Kenny and Claire Kenny;
The ever reliable Karina Longworth, on You Must Remember This.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #69: Summer of Collaborations – Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy
For our May espresso we’ve got a crimson-coloured, deeply unsettling treat for our listeners. Italian horror-thriller maestro Dario Argento (Suspiria, Deep Red, Phenomena) already featured prominently in our Summer of Directors a year ago, but a spine-tingling encounter of the unmissable kind has brought Alan and Sam back to the mic to talk about him: the BFI’s recent Argento screenings and a unique Q&A with the director himself! Along the way, they chat about which of his films the event has put on the map for them, what the map of Turin, Italy has to do with Argento’s cinema, and how a high-profile exhibition at that Italian city’s National Cinema Museum has recently shown how Argento is well on his way to the Italian as well as the international movie Olymp. And, last but not least, Alan has met the next generation of Dario Argento fan. Join us to find out more!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: May 2023
It had to happen sooner or later: for our May episode, Alan, Julie and Matt got together to talk about the genre of documentary films. Their subjects may not be the ones you might expect: while the likes of Ken Burns, Werner Herzog and Errol Morris get a mention, our three cultural baristas picked examples of the genre that are perhaps less well known: Nostalgia for the Light (2010) by the Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, which draws a line from the astrological observatories in the Atacama Desert to the women who still search the desert for the remains of their loved ones who were murdered by the Pinochet regime; Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020), writer-director Kirsten Johnson’s attempt to come to terms with her father’s dementia and the reality of a death foretold, in which the daughter enlists the help of the eponymous Dick Johnson to pre-enact possible (and impossible) scenarios of his demise; and Mark Rappaport’s 1995 video essay From the Journals of Jean Seberg, about the actress who was hounded to her death by the FBI and the culture of a movie industry for whom women are commodities and screens onto which men can project their wishes, needs and fantasies. The focus of the conversation is firmly on these films, but obviously no discussion of documentary films can be complete without getting into questions like “What is a documentary?”, “How does it differ from fictional features?”… and “What are the worst documentaries we’ve ever seen?”
For more talk about documentaries and related topics, make sure to check out:
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #28: Werner Herzog
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #60: Summer of Directors – Martin Scorsese (in which Julie talks about Scorsese’s 1995 documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Film)
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #55: Based on a true story (in which we talk about fiction that is based on true stories… well, more or less)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #68: Documentary film – The drama of the truth
Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is not an easy watch – and for a long time it was especially difficult to find an opportunity to watch it, but thanks to its top slot in the Sight & Sound critics’ poll in 2022, it returned to a number of cinemas, giving some of us a chance to watch (or even rewatch) Akerman’s contribution to radical cinema. At 3 hours and 21 minutes, during which little happens that would make up the plot of conventional movies, Jeanne Dielman asks a lot of its audiences – but, as Julie and Alan argue, it gives a lot back. What did the two of them get out of Akerman’s film dedicated to three days in the life of a widowed bourgeois housewife and occasional sex worker? How does its running time and structure work? And will their suggestion to shorten the title to a potentially catchier JD stick? Tune in to find the answer to, well, most of these questions!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: April 2023
What is it about films featuring androids called David that makes them, let’s say, not entirely successful with audiences and critics? Following their recent trip to the Stanley Kubrick Archive in London, Alan and Matt dedicate this this year’s Second Chances episode to two sci-fi films by iconic directors that are unlikely to feature on those directors’ best-of lists: Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus (2012) and Steven Spielberg’s A.I. (2001). Both films have recently been revisited by critics who found more to like in them than they originally recognised. Will our baristas also enjoy these films better this time around? Or will the films fare worse the second (or third) time around? And just what is it about androids called David?
Also make sure to check out these past episodes:
- A Damn Fine Espresso: December 2022 (in which Alan and Matt talk about their trip to the Kubrick Archive)
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #34: Xeno-who? The Alien franchise
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #62 Second Chances (2) (in which Alan and Sam talk about David Fincher’s Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #47: Second Chances (in which Julie and Matt talk about the Joan Crawford classic Mildred Pierce and Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly)
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #67: Second Chances – Two Androids called David
Hooray for Hollywood… OR IS IT??? It’s the weekend of the 95th Academy Awards, and Alan and Matt got together in cyberspace to talk about this year’s Oscars. What are their thoughts on the Academy Awards in general? Are they big fans of the Oscars? And what do they think of this year’s nominees for the big awards: Best Actor, Best Actress and, obviously, Best Picture? What are their thoughts on who should win – and, perhaps as importantly, who shouldn’t? What do the nominations say about 2023 Hollywood? And how easy is it to watch a performance in a film you consider flawed or even bad and judge whether it’s worthy of receiving an award? Featuring Polish donkeys, blue anti-colonialists, Freudian symbolism, #metoo conductors, with a generous helping of war being hell and a pair of Irishmen who just don’t like each other no more!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: March 2023
Our baristas have shown before that they have an eye for interesting locations in movies, in their discussion of their home towns and their appearances in films as well as in last summer’s episode on the cinema of Dario Argento. This month they’re going from a geographical, ‘on location’ scale to the more individual, designed spaces of interior and exterior architecture. Sam is joined by Alan and Julie to talk about architectural design in cinema: staircases that range from grand to absurd and dreamlike, the modernist villains’ lairs (watch out for a feline cameo in keeping with the theme!) and iconic War Rooms of Ken Adams, and the grand, retro-futuristic design and cityscapes of Blade Runner and other epic-scale sci-fi. What do our cinephile sightseers like better: grand bespoke sets or on-location shots of existing places? Matte paintings, miniatures or CGI architecture? And what are some of the staircases that no movie lover should miss?
Also make sure to check out these past episodes:
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #54: Movie Geography – Our Home Towns on Film
- A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #57: Summer of Directors – Dario Argento
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #66: Grand Designs – Architecture in Movies
When we talk about cinematic serial killers, we usually think of the likes of Hannibal Lecter: charismatic sociopaths, individuals that are intellectually brilliant but utterly amoral, and whose killing usually follows some grand aesthetic design, making them queasy stand-ins for artists. Saeed Hanaei, the man who murdered sex workers in Mashhad, Iran in the years 2000 and 2001, isn’t that kind of serial killer, and Iranian director Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider isn’t that sort of film. In this month’s espresso episode, Alan and Matt talk about Abbasi’s film, which got an ambivalent reception when it came out at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. Choosing to put more of a focus on the killer than on his victims, and staging the murders starkly, Holy Spider was accused of some of being exploitative – but how does a film go about depicting a series of killings in which an entire society is implicated responsibly and tactfully? Tune in to hear our duo’s take on Holy Spider, its depiction of violence against women and how Abbasi’s film uses a fictionalised journalist protagonist (played by Zar Amir Ebrahimi) to tell a story about, as the director puts it, “a serial killer society”.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: February 2023
It is a truth universally acknowledged that at least some of us here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture have a general aversion to films that are based on a true story – but it is just as true that some of the greatest films of all time took their inspiration from real events. One such film is Sidney Lumet’s 1975 crime drama Dog Day Afternoon, which tells the story of a failed, fateful armed bank robbery in ’70s New York. The film, which stars Al Pacino and John Cazale, was nominated for six Oscars at the 48th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor and Editing, and it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (written by Frank Pierson of Cool Hand Luke fame). Join Julie, a big fan of the film, as she talks to Sam, who watched it for the first time for this episode, as they discuss Lumet’s classic and its sensitive, nuanced and empathetic handling of its characters and themes
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #65: Dog Day Afternoon
For our first espresso episode of 2023, Julie and Sam got together to once again share their love of good film soundtracks and to talk about soundtrack concerts. What is the experience of watching a film while a live orchestra is playing the soundtrack? What’s the overall state of film music and movie concerts? What are some of the duo’s favourite movie soundtracks? And how do Sam and Julie end up talking about some of the lesser-known Billy Wilder movies?
If you enjoy our conversation about film soundtracks, make sure also to listen to our podcast episode #49, “The Music Makers”, about some of our favourite soundtrack composers and films where the music is central to the experience.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: January 2023
For most of our podcasts, and many of our posts, A Damn Fine Cup of Culture talks about films – which makes sense, because we love cinema, but there is so much more to culture. Why is it that the conversation usually defaults to movies? And why don’t we talk about other media more often? In our first episode of 2023, Julie, Matt and Sam decide to amend this and to talk about the other damn fine cups of culture they’ve enjoyed recently that didn’t show on a big screen. Sam’s brought along three books – And the Band Played On (1987) by Randy Shilts and When We Rise (2016) by Cleve Jones, two non-fiction books about the the LGBT activism of the 1970s and 1980s and the AIDS epidemic in the US, and Swiss Book Prize winner Blutbuch (2022) by Kim de l’Horizon (which is currently only out in German, but is set to come out in English in 2023). Matt talks about two streaming series he very much enjoyed in 2022, namely Severance (Apple TV+) and Star Wars: Andor (Disney+). And yes, even when we talk about media that aren’t cinema, we don’t fully get away from the movies: Julie recommends the podcasts You Must Remember This (by Karina Longworth) and The Secret History of Hollywood (by Adam Roche) about the real stories of classic Hollywood. The book she mentions is Watergate, a New History by Garrett M. Graff.
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #64: No movies!
It’s that time of the year again: join the gang at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture for a festive celebration and a look back at the year. In keeping with our big summer series, the Summer of Directors, we’re thinking back on the five episodes where we talked about Jane Campion, Dario Argento, Ida Lupino, Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese. Featuring contributions from our regulars Sam and Alan as well as this year’s wonderful guests Johannes Binotto, lecturer and video essayist, and Dan Thron of Martini Giant (who’s also had a lot to say about Steven Soderbergh and Denis Villeneuve’s Dunein the past). It’s been quite the year, but we’ve been able to enjoy many a good film, book, series, game, and even a concert or two, and obviously many good conversations about all of these things. We’ll be back soon, with more Damn Fine Cups of Culture – and in the meantime, we wish all of our listeners, and all of our guests, happy holidays!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2022
This year’s December espresso is a very special episode: a few weeks ago, Alan and Matt visited the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the London College of Communication, a place replete with scripts, research materials, production and post-production documents, props, costumes, sound tapes, publicity material and much, much more. Sadly, it’s obviously not possible to enter the Archives and dive into these documents and materials much like Scrooge McDuck likes to dive into his immense wealth – but we still felt like children in Santa’s grotto (if Santa was the kind of guy who’d direct A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut). Prior to our visit, we’d asked to see pre-production materials for 2001: A Space Odyssey and script versions of A.I.., the film that Kubrick himself never got to make. Join us as we talk about this fascinating experience and one of the coolest pre-Christmas presents a bunch of film geeks could ever ask for.
A big thank-you to everyone at the London College of Communication and the Stanley Kubrick Archive for granting us our wish!
You can also download the podcast at the following link:
A Damn Fine Espresso: December 2022
Is there anything more terrifying, more capable of evoking fear, than the one-syllable word? Obviously yes – but it is still noteworthy how many recent horror films have gone for a monosyllabic title (which suggests that A24 may have a… Continue reading →
After our recent podcast episode on festivals, Sam decided to get in on the fun as well, so he and Matt took the opportunity to talk about a festival that Sam worked on for several years: Queersicht, the LGBTIAQ+ film… Continue reading →
Second Chances, second time: a little over a year ago we first decided to give a couple of films we’d not been overly enamoured with another try to see if time or adjusted expectations had changed anything – or if… Continue reading →
As with our September shot of espresso, in which we talked about the first season of the adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, we’re staying in the land of Netflix: this month Julie and Alan talk about Andrew Dominik’s Blonde –… Continue reading →
Summer is over, as is our Summer of Directors – and this also means that the main festival period of 2022 has come to an end. The last few years, festivals have been greatly affected by the pandemic, and especially… Continue reading →
Last month, Netflix released the first season of its adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s seminal graphic novel The Sandman – and seeing how Julie and Matt met on the Neil Gaiman message board and began their ongoing conversation about films, books,… Continue reading →
Our Summer of Directors comes to an end: after Jane Campion, Ario Dargento, Ida Lupino and Robert Altman, we’ve arrived at Julie’s choice of director: Martin Scorsese. Poor Marty has come under attack in recent years, especially from fans of… Continue reading →
Sam’s been travelling, and in this month’s espresso episode, he talks to Alan about his first-time trip to the place that is a byword for American cinema: Hollywood! What’s it like for a European movie geek to visit the city?… Continue reading →
Our Summer of Directors continues with Robert Altman, the maverick director whose subversive takes on quintessentially American genres helped shape 1970s Hollywood cinema. Join Alan, Matt and frequent contributor Daniel Thron from fellow film podcast Martini Giant as they discuss… Continue reading →
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture has talked about musicals before – but this month’s espresso is a special treat: Alan has seen the production of Cabaret that is currently being shown at the Playhouse Theatre in London. He and… Continue reading →
Our Summer of Directors reaches its midpoint, with an episode that is special in two different respects. For one thing, we’re talking about an artist whose name should be much, much more familiar than it is: Ida Lupino, the English-American… Continue reading →
We’ve talked about movies and music before, and for our June Espresso episode, Sam and Matt pick up the tune again, talking about two films they’ve recently seen that are all about the music. Sam watched Ennio, the 2021 documentary… Continue reading →
And our Summer of Directors continues: after celebrating the tactility of Jane Campion’s films last month, we continue with a very different kind of physicality, with the variform violence done to bodies and minds in the phantasmagoric cinema of Italian… Continue reading →
In the mood for a little cup of culture? Tune in for our May espresso, in which Alan and Matt discuss the latest addition to the MCU, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Spoiler: While they both enjoy the… Continue reading →
Never mind that May is still firmly spring in most people’s minds: we are launching the Summer of Directors, a series of podcasts, each of which is dedicated to one particular director, and we’re doing so with an episode dedicated… Continue reading →
We’ve now been doing monthly podcasts for almost five years at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture – and today we’re starting A Damn Fine Espresso: shorter, more impromptu small doses of all the cultury goodness you’ve come to expect… Continue reading →
What is your reaction when you read those words? Is a story better if it actually, really happened? Or are all stories partly fiction, partly true? Where does truth lie in fiction, and where does a story begin to turn… Continue reading →
Ever watch a film made in a place you know very well, only to find that the movie’s geography doesn’t make any sense: that street does not lead to that bridge, and how would you get from this church to… Continue reading →
Some of us remember when we first heard that high-pitched giggle at the cinema, and watched as a thoroughly mediocre man, though one with an eye and an ear for genius, vowed to destroy the greatest composer of his generation:… Continue reading →
A new year, a new slew of Marvel movies and TV series! After 2019’s grand finale Avengers: Endgame, what felt like an infinite number of new films, shows, characters and storylines were announced – and then a certain virus that… Continue reading →
Certainly, 2020 and 2021 have been strange years (and perhaps I shouldn’t say too much, since there is still one week to go until we get to the end of the latter), they have been difficult and draining in many… Continue reading →
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture couldn’t let the year end without celebrating one of the most anticipated films of the year, nay, the pandemic: Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic Dune. For this, Julie and Alan… Continue reading →
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… Continue reading →
Bernard Hermann, John Barry, Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith: so many of our favourite movie moments wouldn’t be the same without their iconic soundtracks. What would Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’Échafaud be without Miles Davis’ melancholy jazz trumpet? Or the title… Continue reading →
It all began when she walked into our coffee bar… It’s September, but really, we’re starting Noirvember early: join Alan, Julie and Matt as they discuss what some have called that most cynical of genres, the film noir. Obviously, there’s… Continue reading →
What happens when we watch a film, don’t like it – and then we return to it, half a dozen years (or more) later? Why do some of the films we don’t enjoy still stay with us, and what’s necessary… Continue reading →
It is July – and in many countries, cinemas are open again, albeit with some restrictions. Have our intrepid cultural baristas already been back to movie theatres – and if so, what has it been like to be back after… Continue reading →
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,… Continue reading →
For our June episode, we’re sending the cultural baristas on a holiday in sunny Mongibello, Italy, where rich, pretty young ex-pats spend their time and money on the beach – though there are others who may be less harmless… Patricia… Continue reading →
When Isao Takahata died in 2018, the world lost one of the uncontested masters of animation. Takahata, long-time creative partner of Hayao Miyazaki and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, created some of the most striking, memorable anime there is. Together with… Continue reading →
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,… Continue reading →
As Edwin Starr asked in 1970: “War, huh, yeah! What is it good for?” Hollywood has known the answer to that one for a long time – war makes for very lucrative movies. From the trenches of the First World… Continue reading →
… or how the Code Ruined Everything. Welcome listeners! For our March episode we will look into the cinema of the 1930s, before the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced in 1934. Just after the roaring ’20s and through the… Continue reading →
Sing, sing, sing: for our February episode, we celebrate the genre where people are constantly at risk of breaking into song and dance and where one-word titles just don’t feel right unless you add an exclamation at the end. Yes,… Continue reading →
Ah, 2021. We expected so much of you, but you decided to one-up your predecessor. The events of the last week have made John Frankenheimer’s paranoia classic The Manchurian Candidate (1962) look surprisingly sedate – who needs one sleeper agent… Continue reading →
2020 is almost over, but not before we go into the strangest festivities in decades. Are many of our listeners in lockdown? Will they be able to celebrate with their families, or will they be sitting down for a Christmas… Continue reading →
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… Continue reading →
At A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, our wheelhouse is mostly films, TV series, books – the damn fine cups of culture that you can enjoy at your own leisure, in your own time, at the turn of a page… Continue reading →
Cancelled blockbusters, social distancing, mask requirements: even in places where movie theatres are still open, it isn’t easy for cinemas in 2020 to keep audiences coming back. Here and there, though, there are cinemas that are weathering the pandemic and… Continue reading →
2020 being the year in which you make plans only to see them dissolve, we originally had a different topic and guest planned for the September episode – but Robert Burns had it right after all… which means we took… Continue reading →
For our August episode, we welcome special guest Daniel Thron (of Martini Giant) to talk about what may be the least-watched film of Steven Soderbergh’s directing career: Schizopolis. How does this surreal, experimentalist and often downright silly comedy about doppelgängers,… Continue reading →
For our July podcast, we’re heading to space, where no one can hear you podcast: join Julie, Matt and special guest Alan for a chat about Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic Alien and all the wacky hijinks that ensued, with… Continue reading →
We have had a certain Norman Bates over for a fresh, hot cup of culture before, but this is the first time we’re dedicating an entire episode to the Master of Suspense himself – and, more specifically, to good gals,… Continue reading →
Shakespeare once wrote that all the world’s a stage – but what if you turn that upside down and try to make your stage into all the world? This is what Cayden Cotard, sadsack protagonist of Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut… Continue reading →
We’re back after a three-month break – and right in the middle of a pandemic. What better time than this to listen to some new podcast goodness, though? And what better time to look at the gaps we’ve all got… Continue reading →
The End is Nigh – but nothing ever really ends: in our first podcast episode of 2020 we’re donning our masks to talk about the costumed vigilantes, white supremacists and glowing blue men of Damon Lindelof and HBO’s Watchmen. Is… Continue reading →
The festive season is upon us. Turkeys are being defrosted, eggnog is being whisked, and your cultural baristas have brought along presents for everyone. It’s a surprise, really, and we don’t want to spoil anything, but here are some hints:… Continue reading →
Prepare to have your milkshake drunk right across the internet: your cultural baristas once again return to the Paul Thomas Anderson well, this time to talk about his grim, disorienting epic There Will Be Blood that still confounds after multiple… Continue reading →
It is finally time for us to talk about the Grand Old Wild Man of German cinema, the director who made Klaus Kinski drag a boat across a mountain, the man who directed a film where all the actors were… Continue reading →
Whether you’re an Elvis man or a Beatles man, tune in to our latest episode of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, because we’re finally getting around to talking about the man who doesn’t need us to tell him how… Continue reading →
After spending much of our summer looking into the abyss with our two episodes on cinematic psychopaths, A Damn Fine Cup of Culture is heading for British Hong Kong, 1962: we’ve rewatched Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000)… Continue reading →
Sometimes they come back: since our last episode, where we discussed black and white movie psychopaths, couldn’t contain all the cinematic psychoses, we’re dedicating a second episode to our favourite psycho killers. Starting from the question what we consider the… Continue reading →
From the Weimar Republic child murderer of Fritz Lang’s M (1931) via Reverend Harry Powell from the dark fairy tale The Night of the Hunter (1955) to Hitchcock’s seminal Psycho (1960) and its twitchy Norman Bates: what better way to… Continue reading →
For the June episode, join your cultural baristas as they discuss The Lives of Others (2006), the Academy Award-winning drama about East Germany in the 1980s, Stasi surveillance, the redemptive power of art and its tragic limitations. When not listening in to the artist couple in the apartment on the floor below, we also talk about Amazon Prime's adaptation of the near-apocalypse, Good Omens, Béla Tarr equine mood piece The Turin Horse and Richard Powers' 2003 novel The Time of Our Singing.
P.S.: In keeping with the thwarted surveillance motif, Matt's recording equipment wasn't quite up to the task this month. We apologise for any problems with the audio quality and promise to do better in July.… Continue reading →
How's that for galactic serendipity? For our 22nd episode, we're strapping on our Infinity Gauntlets and snapping our fingers to discuss the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Endgame. Is it a worthy finale to the Infinity Saga or is it a titanic misstep? Were these particular fans serviced to their satisfaction or did they leave the cinema with a frown? Did we laugh, cry and cheer as the original Avengers line-up do their victory lap? Join us and find out!… Continue reading →
For our April episode, we're revisiting a classic from Hollywood's Golden Age, featuring one of American cinema's golden couples: The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Will you finally find out who killed the chauffeur? Now, that would be telling... In addition, Mege reports from a somewhat uncanny dancing school in 1970s Berlin after watching the recent Suspiria remake, Julie investigates the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films and Matt goes cubist after a visit to a nearby Pablo Picasso exhibition.… Continue reading →
Join us for an early spring podcast where we go and look at the pretty horses with Michael Clayton, a 21st century take on ’70s thrillers, and talk about George Clooney without ever mentioning Return of the Killer Tomatoes! even… Continue reading →
In this month's podcast, we look back at TV series before the so-called Golden Age of Television and what has happened since - what we've gained and what we've lost in times of HBO, prestige television and binge watching. Are series the novels of the 21st century or is it all sexposition, soap operatics and narratives dragged out way past their sell-by date? Featuring our theme tune, "Mystery Street Jazz" by Håkan Eriksson (make sure to listen to the very end of the podcast)... and a very special appearance by Trillian the Cat!… Continue reading →
For the first episode of 2019, Julie, Mege and Matt revisit Martin Scorsese's much-awarded but rarely-discussed The Aviator. Is it one of Scorsese's best or a bit of a mess? Does Cate Blanchett's Katherine Hepburn enter parody territory, and is it any less awesome for this? Will Mege pounce in defense of Leonardo di Caprio? Find out the answers to all these questions and more, as the gang of pop culture baristas serves up some smaller helpings on AMC's The Terror (a heady blend of Master and Commander and The Thing) and the interactive Black Mirror episode, "Bandersnatch".… Continue reading →
What better way to get into a festive mood than by watching a woman dressed as a cat licking the face of a man dressed as a bat? Celebrate the holiday season with us as we talk about that Christmas classic, Batman Returns - and give a yuletide welcome to Julie, the new addition to the cultural baristas at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture!… Continue reading →
This month Mege and Matt are visiting with the Cranes at Hill House. Will we make it out alive or will we be stuck forever with the shades and phantoms wandering its forlorn corridors? We also stop by Colombia, fashionably late, to talk about Narcos and its take on Pablo Escobar, and we catch a glimpse of the American criminal justice system as illustrated by Cleveland, Ohio, guided by Sarah Koenig & Co., in the third season of Serial.… Continue reading →
In the November episode of the podcast, Mege and Matt are returning to the island of Utøya to take a look at Paul Greengrass' filmic take on the massacre. How does Greengrass' film compare to Erik Poppe's interpretation (which we discussed last month)? What does it bring to the table? And can it do justice to the events that happened on Utøya on 22 July 2011? We also hear of a near-mythical face-to-face encounter in the Virtual Reality version of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and of the German documentary The Cleaners, which tells of the content moderators scouring social media for inappropriate content and the price their work exacts.… Continue reading →
In this month's episode Mege and Matt discuss Erik Poppe's U - July 22, a cineastic attempt to come to terms with the massacre of 69 young people on the island of Utøya, Norway, by a right-wing terrorist. Does the film do justice to its subject? What are the responsibilities of filmmakers depicting recent real-life atrocities? Also, Mege talks about the new Netflix series Maniac, starring Jonah Hill, Emma Stone and Justin Theroux, and Matt speaks of the joys of web-swinging through New York in the recently released game Spider-Man.… Continue reading →
It's September, and the world is coming to an end on this month's episode. Join Mege and Matt as they talk about the post-apocalypse in pop culture, from Obsidian's epic role-playing game Fallout: New Vegas via Mad Max: Fury Road to - bear with us on this one - the HBO series The Leftovers. We also discuss Spike Lee's latest joint, BlacKkKlansman, and talk about Sarah Vowell's book Assassination Vacation.… Continue reading →
Join us for another A Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast, in which we have a look at the indie horror and sci-fi films of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, from the huis-clos Resolution via Spring's dreamy summer body horror romance to cosmic horror/sibling drama The Endless. On the way, we also stop by 1970s New York with The Deuce and dark, original genre mix Colossal, in which Anne Hathaway inadvertently destroys much of downtown Seoul - hey, it's happened to all of us.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 12 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, in which we finally return to the quiet (or is it?) town of Twin Peaks, say hello to Special Agent Dale Cooper and talk about death, nostalgia and David Lynch over a slice of pie and a fresh cup of joe. Did The Return deliver what we wanted or did it give us what we deserved? We also briefly visit the Civil War US and the land of the dead in Lincoln in the Bardo, experience the horror, the horror in Apocalypse Now Redux (now with more Playboy Bunnies!) and answer that age-old question - can a used condom be art? - as we chat about The Square.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 11 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, in which we visit Westworld, look back at season 1 and discuss whether its Hosts are more human than human. Is the series great, cerebral sci-fi or is it a puzzlebox too far? We also talk about festivals, theatre and otherwise, and pay our respects to the late, great Sam Shepard, by way of Michael Shannon.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 10 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture,in which we look in on the Avengers & friends and a certain titan with a temper. Is Infinity War a worthy culmination of ten years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? (Beware: heavy spoilers for Infinity War, including the ending.) Also, Mege's looked into a different kind of infinity with Béla Tarr's Sátántangó, and Matt wishes he hadn't seen the trailer last year's indie darling Lady Bird five times before watching the film, and we share our impressions of Jon Bernthal in Netflix' The Punisher and Cécile McLorin Salvant in concert.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 9 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, which looks back at the first season of Legion, one of the most unique and exciting superhero narratives - especially for those out there who have had it with men and women in suits saving the universe - after we briefly stop by the Ozarks for a quick spot of money laundering and TV drama, hang out on the desert planet with Alejandro Jodorowsky and friends and check out the gruesome murders and medieval mansplaining of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 8 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, which takes us to Area X and the Shimmer. Will we come back from our discussion of Alex Garland's Annihilation unchanged? We also spend an all too short summer vacation in early '80s Italy with Call Me By Your Name's Elio and Oliver and have a quick drink with Jessica Jones.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 7 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, most of which we spend with Moonee, Jancey, Halley and Bobby at the Magic Castle motel, discussing Sean Baker's The Florida Project. We also stop by Charlotte, Tennessee for a quick chat about Logan Lucky and take a quick glimpse at the upcoming Academy Awards.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 6 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast, which returns us to a long time ago (all together now!) in a galaxy far, far away: what did we think of The Last Jedi? What role did that mega-franchise play in our childhood? And has Rian Johnson ruined or renewed Star Wars? Also, some thoughts on The Leftovers - the novel, not the series - and on Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred Deer.… Continue reading →
Surprise! Just in time for Christmas 2017, we're bringing you a very special (and damn fine, we hope) cup of culture. When we started talking about launching a podcast to complement our blog, we did a pilot episode - or, more accurately, a test run. Although we had no intention at the time to release the pilot, we're still proud of it - warts and all. The sound quality isn't at its best, but the energy is there, and we had a lot of fun talking about the BBC's Sherlock - so we're sharing it with you. Enjoy - and happy holidays!… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 5 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast, in which Mege and Matt discuss recent and upcoming films and TV series by and about African Americans - from Get Out and Loving to Black Panther and Dear White People. Also expect a mention of anarchic comedy (and surprise relationship drama) The Lego Batman Movie, the inventive The Good Place, a blast from the past with Freaks & Geeks and a return visit to 19th century Canada with Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 4 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast, but beware of the owls: Mege and Matt reminisce about Twin Peaks, the original series. Warning: if you don't know who killed Laura Palmer, watch the series first! (Hint: It wasn't the Log Lady.) Also, Mege takes a trip to the sci-fi-tinged Middle Ages through the eyes of Aleksei German and the Brothers Strugatsky, and Matt doesn't hold back on the meagre charms of Danny Rand.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 3 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast as Mege and Matt remember Harry Dean Stanton and discuss Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas. Also, a spot of Criterion Collection fanboying, our first ever discussion of a book (they exist!) and a quick chat about the Swiss-Austrian psycho drama Tiere - so come and join us on the long and dusty road to Paris...
...
... Texas.… Continue reading →
Tune in for episode 2 of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast as Mege and Matt discuss Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, with a quick chat about the chilling, murderous Lady Macbeth and the biopic Jackie by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín. Once again, mild spoilers are to be expected, and we may have some opinions on Tom Cruise - so respect the cup, sit down and listen.… Continue reading →
Tune in for the very first A Damn Fine Cup of Culture podcast as Mege and Matt discuss Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, as well as a bit of chat about Paul Verhoeven's Elle and Matt Reeves' War for the Planet of the Apes. Expect mild spoilers, references to Wonder Woman and a bit of Michael Bay mockery - everything that's needed for a hot, steaming, tasty cup of culture!… Continue reading →
Serial is the most successful podcast around these days. At its core, it’s about the 1999 death of a Baltimore County high school student called Hae Min Lee, about her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed, who is serving life in prison, and… Continue reading →