Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment 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.
Does Death only play chess? Or could he also be talked into a different challenge, say, Mario Cart or Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64? Then again, if you’re a Swedish knight returning home from the Crusades, it’s probably the Game of Kings that lends itself to the situation. So yes, you’ve probably guessed correctly: The Seventh Seal was the most recent stop on Matt’s travels with Ingmar. Hey, it doesn’t get much more iconic than that!
On Friday, Sam shared his thoughts on the stereotypical representation of homosexual characters in the ’70s: a fascinating, if not a little queasy, walk down Memory Lane suggesting that when it comes to representing LGBT characters on screen, while we still have a long way to go, we’re at least somewhat further than we were in the 1970s – though that is in no way an excuse for the present-day gay-panic portrayals that still rear their ugly heads.
On Saturday, we released our latest podcast episode, celebrating the works of the late, great godfather of anime, Isao Takahata – which is as good an opportunity as any to post a trailer of the gorgeous, haunting, poignant The Tale of the Princess Kaguya!
And this takes us to our regular Sunday trailers by the gang:
Eric: At first blush, an anime re-telling of Beauty and the Beast may not seem particularly noteworthy, given it’s been one of the most ubiquitous tales of our collective childhoods since Disney got their hands on it. But: the director is one Mamoru Hosoda, a man responsible for some of the most keenly observed humanity in the medium lately — The Girl Who Leapt Through Time‘s raucous yet tempered celebration of childhood, and Wolf Children‘s poignant, bittersweet tale of single motherhood being the most notable. So while the lush visuals and music in Belle tell us to come to a feast for the senses, the promise of those small, quietly observed moments of humanity is what we’ll be staying for.
Matt: And we finish on the theme of animation, with this trailer for Volume 2 of Netflix’ animated anthology, Love, Death & Robots. I wasn’t entirely sold on the first volume in terms of its storytelling, but all the episodes were showcases for beautifully crafted, cutting-edge animation. Volume 2 will come out in mid-May, featuring (amongst others) short films based on stories by Harlan Ellison and J.G. Ballard. Since I found the stories and scripts to be the biggest problem with the first volume, perhaps the new ones will be an improvement in that respect, eh? In either case, I expect LD&R V2 to be a feast for the eyes… if probably not the kind of animation that is for the whole family, if Volume 1’s sex and violence were anything to go by. (And yes, I can’t help but think of that great monologue by the Player in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead when I see that title: “We’re more of the love, blood and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can’t give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They’re all blood, you see.”)
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 