Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest installment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.
Julie: Sure, it may be based on Arthurian Legend, in particular the 14th century poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, but this will be a David Lowery picture. (Other than Pete’s Dragon, you may know him from A Ghost Story or Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.) So, rather than sanitising this tale of decapitation, honour and honesty, hopefully it will be suitably lurid (in a good way). Watching this fabulous trailer, it sure does. Dev Patel looks satisfactorily and glamorously brooding. The burning head, and equally combustive correspondence in this smashing trailer, give me great hope that this film will be Epic.
Matt: Roy Andersson’s films (at least as much as those of the Hollywood Andersons) are instantly recognisable, even before people start speaking Swedish. Andersson is a master at laconic comedy with a surreal tint. The episodes in his films veer towards the dark frequently, but they never turn cynical. At a first glance, his latest film, About Endlessness, looks very similar to the films in his “Living” trilogy (Songs from the Second Floor (2000), You, the Living (2007) and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)), but judging from this trailer About Endlessness looks to have a more sustained tender poetry.
Mege: I know, I know, but it is so well made, and while the kids like it, it contains a lot of movie references for adults. They used Hannibal Lecter in the last one, and I am not ready to tell you what they did for this one here. And it contains sheep. Many, many sheep. And who doesn’t like sheep, honestly?
Eric: After tackling the question of how consciousness emerges in season one, and the inevitable robot uprising in season two, Westworld makes an even larger break from its loosely (in many cases, very loosely) inspired Crichton source by getting out of the theme park, continuing its assessment of the idea of free will from season 2, and muddying the waters of what a protagonist or antagonist even is some more.
Cue familiar faces, with all their journeys past and present creased into the lines across their visages as motives present themselves while a piano and strings cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine tracks the action (welcome back, Ramin Djawadi). But apart from familiar faces, there’s also the new one: and who better to be the audience proxy than the constantly flappable Aaron Paul?
As for Jon Nolan, no matter all of these machinations, his view of the human condition remains reliably bleak. How do I know this? Because there’s a secret trailer that doesn’t bury the lede. And yet, I can’t wait to see more of where it’s headed.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 