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.
Mege: I missed Mia Wasikowska. Not that she hasn’t done anything – it’s just that her movies didn’t reach me. Now she’s back with Judy & Punch, a movie that seems to unite four or five genres: revenge story, period piece, costume drama, horror flick, farce, and some others. It might not really work, but the trailer looks like fun. Also featuring Damon Herriman, who is busy playing right-wing loonies, if he isn’t busy playing Charles Manson.
Julie: The feature debut of writer-director Rose Glass, Saint Maud premiered at TIFF in September 2019, and (hopefully!) will be coming to cinemas sometime this year. The story is about a pious nurse, working in a hospice after an unspecified trauma, who becomes obsessed with saving the soul of one of her patients. Danny Boyle has compared it to Carrie, or The Exorcist (both movies that I absolutely love) and it has also been likened to Midsommar. The trailer, at least, is promisingly unsettling.
Matt: There’s something a bit depressing about seeing trailers for films that we’re unlikely to catch at the movies any time soon – but somehow the Criterion Collection decided it wanted to cheer me up and this candy-coloured gem came up on my feed. Jacques Demy is a bit hit-and-miss for me – I love Les Parapluies de Cherbourg but found Peau d’Âne (Donkey Skin) pretty grating – but this looks like it falls more in the former camp than in the latter, it looks fluffy and jazzy and sweet. Probably better fare for these socially distancing times than rewatching Contagion (which, in my darker moments, I feel an urge to do).
Eric: I’m a fan of visual symbolism, so when a movie has a high concept that entails a vertical prison cell with a central shaft which lowers a platform to each level with leftovers from the people above, I’m conflicted about how on the nose the social inequality metaphor is, yet I cannot deny this frisson, unbidden, over how audacious and outré that construct is. And credit where it’s due: releasing this movie during this most unsubtle of times is about as apropos as you can get.
Why would anyone want to watch a movie about prisoners in an unsustainable physical and social construct while self-isolating? I don’t know. I suspect this film has its uses, either as a warning or a paean to the darkness that dwells within. It’s up to us to decide which one it actually is.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 