Matt Kimmich
@thirith.bsky.social
Films, games, books, disillusionment. Not always in that order.
https://adamnfinecup.com/
https://adamnfinecup.com/
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"Which, of course, is a fascinating phenomenon: do each of us remember films not only differently in tone and emotional impact, but does everyone actually add and subtract scenes to films we see, so that if we talked about it and compared, this would make for a whole library of imagined cinema?"
Six Damn Fine Degrees #305: Movie scenes only existing in my head (I think..)
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instal…
adamnfinecup.com
September 25, 2026 at 4:05 PM
"Which, of course, is a fascinating phenomenon: do each of us remember films not only differently in tone and emotional impact, but does everyone actually add and subtract scenes to films we see, so that if we talked about it and compared, this would make for a whole library of imagined cinema?"
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"Hud can certainly be described as a revisionist Western, taking the tropes and iconography of the genre to tell a darker story about a country built on the myth (or lie?) of rugged individualism."
Criterion Corner: Hud (#1319)
There is a certain thrill to seeing a movie star of tremendous charisma, a leading-man type we’re drawn to, play a character that is offputting. Certain stars we got to know as villains: Will…
adamnfinecup.com
September 24, 2026 at 10:18 PM
"Hud can certainly be described as a revisionist Western, taking the tropes and iconography of the genre to tell a darker story about a country built on the myth (or lie?) of rugged individualism."
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
In our main September podcast episode, we talked about our love for the tactile fantasy of 1980s cinema. Where are we at when it comes to visual effects in 2026?
(feat. @movietrubs.bsky.social and @thirith.bsky.social)
(feat. @movietrubs.bsky.social and @thirith.bsky.social)
A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2026
In this month’s main podcast episode, we talked about the tactile fantasy movies of the 1980s. But what happened afterwards? The phase between Jurassic Park and Peter Jackson’s The Lord…
adamnfinecup.com
September 19, 2026 at 3:40 PM
In our main September podcast episode, we talked about our love for the tactile fantasy of 1980s cinema. Where are we at when it comes to visual effects in 2026?
(feat. @movietrubs.bsky.social and @thirith.bsky.social)
(feat. @movietrubs.bsky.social and @thirith.bsky.social)
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"Then we got to the ending, when one of my housemates suddenly got incredibly animated.
'That’s NOT how it ends!'"
'That’s NOT how it ends!'"
Six Damn Fine Degrees #304: Erm… Misremembered Movies
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instal…
adamnfinecup.com
September 18, 2026 at 3:34 PM
"Then we got to the ending, when one of my housemates suddenly got incredibly animated.
'That’s NOT how it ends!'"
'That’s NOT how it ends!'"
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"There’s an underrated skill in making an epic that feels like we’ve gone on a proper journey. Many films don’t really manage it, even with a wearying long runtime. Yet I felt I’d seen an epic by the time of the intermission, and that’s not even halfway through."
One Best Picture After Another #12: Gone With The Wind (1939)
Welcome to One Best Picture After Another – where I attempt to watch all the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, starting at the very beginning. And attempt to answer two simple qu…
adamnfinecup.com
September 14, 2026 at 4:45 PM
"There’s an underrated skill in making an epic that feels like we’ve gone on a proper journey. Many films don’t really manage it, even with a wearying long runtime. Yet I felt I’d seen an epic by the time of the intermission, and that’s not even halfway through."
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
@punkyfins.bsky.social looks back to the 1990s in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.
"The saving grace of movies like these is that they don’t take themselves very seriously. They’re self-consciously genre movies. They’re supposed to be fun and gritty and self-referential, which is not to say that this necessarily absolves them, in any way, from criticisms such as the above."
Six Damn Fine Degrees #303: Um, it was the Nineties?
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instal…
adamnfinecup.com
September 11, 2026 at 3:29 PM
@punkyfins.bsky.social looks back to the 1990s in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"Mara isn’t the cypher that video game protagonists often are. She is clearly defined, through what she says and does as much as through what she doesn’t do. Her clothes, hair, posture: even rendered in blocky pixel art, all of these give us an impression of who she is."
They create worlds: Perfect Tides: Station to Station (2026)
One of the things that video games can do magnificently is create worlds. These posts are an occasional exploration of games that I love because of where they take me. Gamers love choice. They love…
adamnfinecup.com
September 9, 2026 at 6:42 PM
"Mara isn’t the cypher that video game protagonists often are. She is clearly defined, through what she says and does as much as through what she doesn’t do. Her clothes, hair, posture: even rendered in blocky pixel art, all of these give us an impression of who she is."
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Whatever happened to the tactile fantasy films of the ‘80s?
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #108: Summer of Genre – Tactile Fantasy
Our Summer of Genre comes to an end: in this month’s podcast, Alan returns to a genre that was a favourite of his during his childhood. He is joined by Sam and Matt to discuss what they call …
adamnfinecup.com
September 6, 2026 at 1:06 PM
Whatever happened to the tactile fantasy films of the ‘80s?
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"When I read this blog and people reminisce about the media that influenced them, this is the part that fascinates me. What did those movies and shows do to us? What do they say about who we were and who we still are now?"
Six Damn Fine Degrees #302: This blew me away
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instal…
adamnfinecup.com
September 4, 2026 at 3:03 PM
"When I read this blog and people reminisce about the media that influenced them, this is the part that fascinates me. What did those movies and shows do to us? What do they say about who we were and who we still are now?"
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"When You Can’t Take It With You begins, it is all too easy for Capra's detractors. We’re introduced to Evil Businessmen and their bullying aides that are so two-dimensional they feel straight out of a ’60s live-action Disney film about a Talking Car or a Magic Dog."
One Best Picture After Another #11: You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
Welcome to One Best Picture After Another – where I attempt to watch all the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, starting at the very beginning. And attempt to answer two simple qu…
adamnfinecup.com
August 31, 2026 at 3:09 PM
"When You Can’t Take It With You begins, it is all too easy for Capra's detractors. We’re introduced to Evil Businessmen and their bullying aides that are so two-dimensional they feel straight out of a ’60s live-action Disney film about a Talking Car or a Magic Dog."
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"Episodes feel like you’re being told a ghost story – the mystery unravelling as Sapphire and Steel investigate. Nothing is going to lean on impressive visuals to scare you, just the haunting quality of the ideas on display."
Six Damn Fine Degrees #301: The Nightmare Fuel of “Sapphire And Steel”
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instal…
adamnfinecup.com
August 28, 2026 at 4:10 PM
"Episodes feel like you’re being told a ghost story – the mystery unravelling as Sapphire and Steel investigate. Nothing is going to lean on impressive visuals to scare you, just the haunting quality of the ideas on display."
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Our August Shortcuts are out. Enjoy!
Shortcuts: August 2026
The year is almost at its 2/3 mark, so this is us getting in a few more shortcuts before we enter that final third, which always tends to accelerate more and more quickly until we blink twice and i…
adamnfinecup.com
August 26, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Our August Shortcuts are out. Enjoy!
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
“Nothing prepared us for the summer of 1993, however, when Stephen King’s IT first aired on German TV!”
Six Damn Fine Degrees #300: Stephen King‘s IT (1990)!
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instal…
adamnfinecup.com
August 21, 2026 at 4:58 PM
“Nothing prepared us for the summer of 1993, however, when Stephen King’s IT first aired on German TV!”
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
“All of a sudden, it feels like there’s a drama, that characters are in peril, where Zola is faced with a moral choice and where I’m engaged in why he chooses to fight for justice and worried about the threats he faces.”
One Best Picture After Another #10: The Life Of Emile Zola (1937)
“A surprising number of Best Picture winning films can be described as “Truly Forgotten”. For all their success at the time, they have left no cultural trace. They don’t get shown again in re…
adamnfinecup.com
August 17, 2026 at 7:54 PM
“All of a sudden, it feels like there’s a drama, that characters are in peril, where Zola is faced with a moral choice and where I’m engaged in why he chooses to fight for justice and worried about the threats he faces.”
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Iceberg ahead: our August espresso podcast looks at the summit of the ‘90s disaster movie revival - James Cameron’s Titanic.
A Damn Fine Espresso: August 2026
In the August instalment of our Summer of Genre, we talked about that most ’70s of genres: the disaster movie. But the genre didn’t vanish after its heyday following the release of Airp…
adamnfinecup.com
August 15, 2026 at 11:33 PM
Iceberg ahead: our August espresso podcast looks at the summit of the ‘90s disaster movie revival - James Cameron’s Titanic.
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"We had our (mostly implicit, but not always) crushes on Patrick Stewart and his Shakespearean tones, Kira Nerys and her nose ridges, David Duchovny in his FBI suit, Gillian Anderson in her glorious Gillian Andersonness"
Six Damn Fine Degrees #299: VHS tapes, space stations and vampire slayers
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instal…
adamnfinecup.com
August 14, 2026 at 3:25 PM
"We had our (mostly implicit, but not always) crushes on Patrick Stewart and his Shakespearean tones, Kira Nerys and her nose ridges, David Duchovny in his FBI suit, Gillian Anderson in her glorious Gillian Andersonness"
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
"You don’t have to squint hard to see the Weimar Republic as a time akin to ours in many ways."
Criterion Corner: Berlin Alexanderplatz (#411)
Is there any other period in German history that feels as unsettlingly familiar in 2026 as the Weimar Republic? It’s become something of a cliché, but it’s frighteningly easy to tell a …
adamnfinecup.com
August 12, 2026 at 4:42 PM
"You don’t have to squint hard to see the Weimar Republic as a time akin to ours in many ways."
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
Reposted by Matt Kimmich
“When I was growing up, the anarchic sense of liberation that British humour offered on television was an essential tool to cope with the impending doom of the late stage Cold War world.”
Six Damn Fine Degrees #298: Ann Droid, or evolutions in British humour
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instal…
adamnfinecup.com
August 8, 2026 at 6:07 AM
“When I was growing up, the anarchic sense of liberation that British humour offered on television was an essential tool to cope with the impending doom of the late stage Cold War world.”