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: Tiger King is a documentary series about Joe “Exotic” Shreibvogel, a zoo owner and mullet-wearing, gun-toting, polyamory practising presidential hopeful. The story is in equal parts risible and heartrending, but mainly way stranger than fiction. Those of you familiar with Wondery’s podcast on the same subject will be clapping your hands in anticipation of actually seeing all the players in this drama. Those of you who are not, will want to listen to the podcast after binge-watching the show. Un-be-lievable.
Mege: Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth looked great, but felt somewhat tame and reduced, even if it had Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard on its cast-list. Kurzel might get it right with the True History of the Kelly Gang, based on Peter Carey’s novel. Featuring George MacKay, Essie Davis, Nicholas Hoult, Charlie Hunnam, Thomasin McKenzie, and Russell Crowe.
Eric: Simon Stålenhag’s art is evocative of times and places familiar and comforting yet juxtaposed with looming monoliths of the future, sinewed with cable and armoured like tanks, and that contrast serves to throw the entire work into relief by simultaneously depicting deep existential fear and yet, also, complacence. Enter a show based upon this feeling, with a trailer that promises much and also, somehow, not enough. Anthologies are generally hit-or-miss, so basing a show on art that works primarily because it suggests instead of spelling out is risky business without good storytelling behind it. But one thing will be true, regardless of the end result: it’ll still look like almost nothing else out there.
Matt: Okay, this one will be entirely obscure to some of our readers and “well, duh!” to others. Half-Life: Alyx is the continuation-or-prequel-but-not-a-sequel of the Half-Life series, the last installment of which came out in 2007. That’s right, thirteen years ago. For over a decade, people have been clamouring for the story to be continued, because Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (don’t think too hard about computer game naming conventions) ended on a doozy of a cliffhanger… but no, the first Half-Life game in more than a dozen years is an inbetweenquel, and it’s VR-only. No surprise that many Half-Life fans felt that they were being toyed with. Nonetheless, I’ve been using these days of isolation to put on a silly-looking piece of equipment and return to City 17, because dagnabbit if this isn’t the closest I’ve ever come to feeling that I’ve been plonked down in an honest-to-Gordon holodeck. A holodeck where toxic headcrabs scuttle around in the dark, just waiting to jump at my tasty, tasty head.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 
