Over the year, we’ve dedicated a number of episodes to the sadly departed David Lynch, his films, and his iconic TV series Twin Peaks. For our November espresso, Alan and Sam return to 2017 and to the third season of… Continue reading →

When Alien came out in cinemas back in 1979, did anyone think at the time that this would turn into a franchise that is alive and kicking 46 years later, much like that Chestburster in Spaceballs? Last year brought us… Continue reading →

We’ve spent a lot of this year talking about the sadly departed David Lynch – but surrealist film doesn’t begin and end with Lynch, so we’re dedicating the October espresso podcast to one of the greats of experimental filmmaking: Maya… Continue reading →

It’s that time of year: the days are getting shorter, the shadows are getting darker, and the ghouls and ghosts are eager to come out and play. As is customary, we’re dedicating our October podcast to scary things – and… Continue reading →

Wow, Bob, wow: Twin Peaks forms part of the DNA of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture – if our name and logo didn’t already make that obvious. And yet, some of us have come very late to David Lynch‘s… Continue reading →

We’re concluding our summer series, Lost Summer, with an episode dedicated to the actors that died not in old age, looking back at a long, storied career, but that were gone too soon. From tragic silent film icon Rudolph Valentino,… Continue reading →

Our Lost Summer continues, quite fittingly, with another David Lynch film: in our August espresso, Alan and Sam talk about Lynch’s most ’90s nightmare, Lost Highway, in which murder, mobsters, Mystery Men, Patricia Arquette (with black hair) and Patricia Arquette… Continue reading →

Some things are sadly lost: rolls of film crumble, TV programmes are never recorded, studios choose not to distribute a film. And then there are the cultural artefacts that come from a context so toxic, they are consigned to the… Continue reading →

Our Lost Summer started with an episode in honour of David Lynch, the artist and director who’s been an inspiration to us here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. After last month’s espresso episode, in which Sam and Matt… Continue reading →

Hundreds of films and TV series make it onto our screens each year – but just as many vanish, some before they ever make it in front of an audience. The second episode of our summer series, the Lost Summer,… Continue reading →

Our recent podcast episode on David Lynch, marking the start of our 2025 series Lost Summer, prompted us to pick up where that episode left of: for two of the films we discussed earlier this month, Blue Velvet and Twin… Continue reading →

This month’s podcast kicks off our summer series for 2025: the Lost Summer is all about what we’ve lost – directors, actors, films – and what this means to us. We’re starting with one that is very close to our… Continue reading →

It’s been a while since we’ve been excited about the Marvel Cinematic Universe here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture – so when Thunderbolts*, the 36th movie in the franchise was released to largely positive reviews, we were curious:… Continue reading →

Does a killer title make for a killer movie? When Philip Kaufman adapted Milan Kundera’s early-’80s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being for the big screen, it made a huge splash at its release in 1988, drawing audience numbers that,… Continue reading →

Back in 2022, we did our first summer series: the Summer of Directors. The episode led by Alan focused on Robert Altman, the “grizzly-bear genius of American cinema”, as Ryan Gilbert put it in The Guardian. Back then, we discussed… Continue reading →

To many fans of detective fiction, he’s the greatest sleuth of them all: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. He’s figured in many stories, novels, films, TV series and video games, to mention just a few of Mr Holmes’ exploits. He… Continue reading →

What do our baristas do when they’re not podcasting or writing blog posts about Korean series, animated favourites, or their addiction to the Criterion Collection? In Sam’s case, he teaches at a Swiss grammar school – and he regularly stages… Continue reading →

This Sunday, the 97th instalment of the Academy Awards, more commonly known as the Oscars, will be awarded in Hollywood. In keeping with the times, it has been an uncommonly heated lead-up to this year’s awards, and not everyone is… Continue reading →

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… Continue reading →

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… Continue reading →