"In this month’s podcast, Sam and Alan get together to revisit two historical pieces, though they couldn’t be much more different – one has decadence, deviance and Nazism, the other offers Hollywood mystery, Communists and dancing sailors." adamnfinecup.com/2026/04/04/a...

"Seeing how both my parents had left the countries where they were born before they were thirty, I suspect that watching movies and TV series set in those countries... was a way of reconnecting, if not with their places of birth then with an idea of those places." adamnfinecup.com/2026/04/03/s...

"I was utterly taken in by that deep-seated mixture of cultures and influences all over the city and how a walk along the city’s river Miljacka is a literal walk down its historical timeline."

"... don’t watch The Testament of Ann Lee for its plot, but for its glimpse of a strange spiritual world that is compelling and confounding in equal measure." adamnfinecup.com/2026/03/25/s...

Join us for a Wuthering Brides double date: Cathy and Heathcliff, meet Frank and the Bride! adamnfinecup.com/2026/03/21/a...

Another great post from @punkyfins.bsky.social.

“There is an underlying sense of tension from the first that grows stronger with every minute, a pent-up violence waiting to happen.” adamnfinecup.com/2026/03/14/s...

"The more you explore this, the more it becomes clear just how arbitrary most national identities are. Go back far enough, change just a couple of things, and you’d probably have a very different atlas today." adamnfinecup.com/2026/03/13/s...

@dthron.bsky.social One for you, if you haven't already seen it. vimeo.com/1170995498

“Why do these stories have lasting appeal? How do Christie’s plots survive the adaptation into a different medium? And why exactly do they let Kenneth Branagh do those ghastly modern adaptations?” adamnfinecup.com/2026/03/07/a...

"I thought of the world as a puzzle back then, something to be cracked and conquered, and I was going hard at it." adamnfinecup.com/2026/03/06/s...

“But then: some of Miéville’s premises are so damn good that it finally doesn’t matter so much if he doesn’t quite know how to end the stories in a satisfying way.” adamnfinecup.com/2026/02/27/s...

From pred action to prog rock: our February Shortcuts are out. adamnfinecup.com/2026/02/25/s...

"What makes theatre tick differently from film? What translates well from one format to the other, and what is lost in the process? Where could a lot of cinema perhaps learn from the stage?" adamnfinecup.com/2026/02/21/a...

"At first glance, Berlin hasn’t quite been as cinematic a city as, let’s say, romantic Paris, foggy London, cosmopolitan New York or sunny L.A."

"What I did ask myself, rewatching the film in 2026: is Brazil‘s dystopic satire still relevant? The fascism of the present day doesn’t use bureaucracy as a Trojan horse: it isn’t cruel by accident and neglect so much as by design." adamnfinecup.com/2026/02/14/c...

"Lola Rennt is a very charming, very kinetic actioner. It is short, it is clever: it is effective. It has Moritz Bleibtreu and Franka Potente, both enormously compelling actors. But it’s also smart enough to not spell everything out for us. " adamnfinecup.com/2026/02/13/s...

Trailers! adamnfinecup.com/2026/02/08/i...

"How does Rosencrantz and Guildenstern land only a couple of months after Stoppard’s death on 29 November 2025? How does this quintessential piece of metatheatre translate onto the screen? Is it better to be alive or dead in a box?" adamnfinecup.com/2026/02/07/a...

“It’s this power fantasy that lends a time loop its sense of fun: even if you die, repeately, in more and more outlandish ways, you don’t really die.” adamnfinecup.com/2026/02/06/s...

"Something about the idea of getting a do-over again and again and again, and adjusting your responses until you get the result you want, completely tickled my brain."

We’re trying a new monthly format: on the last Wednesday of each month, we will release a few shortcuts: quick impressions of films, series, books, albums, games, or any other damn fine cups of culture that we’ve enjoyed this month, whether they are new or we only just got around to them now.

“And, frankly: when I realised the extent to which my backlog would survive me? I felt an unsettling sense of vertigo.” adamnfinecup.com/2026/01/24/t...

"And then the movie veered off and concentrated on that political duel between Oppenheimer and his former mentor Strauss, and I utterly lost the plot. Or the plot lost me."

Three podcasters walk into a cinema bar - and record our January espresso podcast live. adamnfinecup.com/2026/01/17/a...

"When Nick and Charlie touch, little squiggly cartoon flashes of electricity appear around them and you can literally feel the sparkles going off between them in the air."

Ending the week on a buncha trailers, as is customary. adamnfinecup.com/2026/01/11/i...

"And yet: in both Hollow Knight and Silksong, I feel like this is a real world, these are real, albeit insectile, characters. There is a sense of history and weight to Pharloom, the doomed realm in which Silksong is set, and those that inhabit it." adamnfinecup.com/2026/01/10/t...

@audacityofdespair.bsky.social I just listened to your conversation with Ira Glass, where you mentioned what you’d hoped to do with the ending of Treme. Is there a post, article or interview somewhere where you go into details on those Westworld-foiled plans?

"I feel comfortable in asserting that, when making the show, nobody thought that they’d get many viewers from the hardcore Harkness Comics Crowd." adamnfinecup.com/2026/01/09/s...

And suddenly, to our surprise, we find that we have reason to celebrate: not just the beginning of a new year, but our one-hundredth episode! adamnfinecup.com/2026/01/03/a...

“Yuletide has come and gone. You have survived holiday family dinners – well done, you – and if you have a certain kind of family, you might be feeling, how do I put it, a little frayed around the edges.” adamnfinecup.com/2026/01/02/s...

“Whenever I hear or read someone going on about how culture, originality, cinema and TV are dead, I can’t help but roll my eyes – because there is so much out there that is pretty damn good: fresh, engaging, challenging, riveting.” adamnfinecup.com/2025/12/31/t...

“But the modern Christmas ghost stories made in 1977 and 1978 are like little else you’ll see on television – treading a fine line between scary and silly. Between a beguiling piece of storytelling, and a frustrating one.” adamnfinecup.com/2025/12/26/s...

Season’s greetings from everyone at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture! adamnfinecup.com/2025/12/24/a...

“What would be a good, fair, healthy way of dealing with such creators? Should we banish them from our shelves, once they have revealed themselves to be monsters, less for ourselves than for the people they have hurt?” adamnfinecup.com/2025/12/19/s...

“But perhaps that is the problem: I find it easier to imagine the kind of film Jay Kelly could have been – something sharper, more perceptive, more satirical, something that isn’t designed to make us feel the sadness of a tremendously privileged person...” adamnfinecup.com/2025/12/17/t...

“Follow us down the Yellow Brick Road for this concluding conversation in our final espresso of the year.” adamnfinecup.com/2025/12/13/a...

"It’s a far cry from Christie’s famous detective stories featuring Poirot or Miss Marple, but it’s still a story ripe with class envy, deceit — and murder."