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.
A new Paul Thomas Anderson film doesn’t come along very often, and especially not one like Licorice Pizza. Mege shared his thoughts on the latest slice of PTA here.
From the uneasily romantic to the goofily screwball: in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Alan wrote about the spiritual affinity between screwball classic Bringing Up Baby and Peter Bogdanovich’s spiritual descendant What’s Up Doc?, so let’s celebrate this with a trailer double bill.
Finally, Matt wrote about one of the films he’s recently seen – but one that is pretty far from the comedic hijinks of Alan’s picks: Pleasure, a 2021 Swedish drama about a young woman trying to become a star in the world of hardcore porn. Since both the film and the trailer are age-restricted, the latter cannot be embedded here, though anyone who’s interested can watch it at this link.
And this takes us to the week’s picks by the gang, starting with…
Sam: The adaptation of popular video game Uncharted proved to be a troublesome process from the start: after the game was originally released in 2007, interest in a movie version came early but was hampered by everything between the North Korean hack of Sony Pictures (including Uncharted’s screenplay) and the COVID pandemic, which hit mid-shooting in 2020. Now at long last, Mark Wahlberg and Tom Holland star in this spectacular mix of Bond and Indiana Jones franchises. The trailer boasts grand locations (Barcelona and Valencia stand out), a stellar supporting cast (Antonio Banderas is a particularly sleazy villain) and incredible stunt work worthy of a video game adaptation. Some of it is not particularly original (one scene is an obvious copy of the plane-based finale in Bond’s The Living Daylights) but it all looks highly entertaining, light-hearted and (hopefully) self-ironic. Ideally, the first true ‘popcorn movie’ of this unchartered territory of a year?
Mege: Ah, yes, horror movies. They seem to go for the jugular, the wound, the scar, the bits that hurt, the very spot where all the things worth telling about seem to get their pain from, directly and without excuse or trigger warning. That is what separates them from drama. Directed an written by Romola Garai? Featuring our very own Carla Juri? And Imelda Staunton? This promises more pain and more fun since my last tattoo. Yay, pain! Gimme, gimme! Where do I sign up?
Matt: I have to admit that I somehow missed Yellowjackets when people first started talking about it, but the talk prompted by the last few episodes of its first season caused me to look up… and even more when I saw that the likes of Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci were involved. This gives off vibes that are half Lost, half Ravenous, and it may just be the perfect pulpy thing to watch in the evenings after a day at work. Man lives not by bread and prestige drama alone, after all.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 