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.
It had to happen sometime – it was Sunday evening, we were tired… and we entirely forgot that trailer posts don’t post themselves. At least not yet, though I’m sure that GPT-3 or whatever AIs are currently being created in dark IT labs by mad computer scientists will be more than up to the task. When Skynet stages its coup, we’ll recognise the terminators because they’ll have too many fingers and too many teeth.
And talking about too many teeth: Matt found himself liking Top Gun Maverick a surprising amount, while finding Avatar: The Way of Water dull and unengaging. And there’s something surprisingly poignant about Tom Cruise finally starting to show his age. What if Tom’s just one of us?
Meanwhile, in more cultured places, Julie wrote about the adventure that was the completion and restoration of Metropolis.
We also released our first podcast espresso of the year, in which Julie talked to Sam about symphonic soundtrack concerts, and about movie soundtracks more generally, touching upon one of Billy Wilder’s less talked about films, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and its music, composed by the legendary Miklós Rósza.
Which takes us to our regular trailers for… last week? This week? Time being a flat circle, let’s call it a draw.
Mege: Is Linoleum really that strange? Weird stuff is happening all around us, and movies like this aren’t really just condensed, dramatized episodes with a fictionalized edge. And how can I say no to Rhea Seehorn’s stern, laser-like stare?
Matt: A few weeks ago, I watched The Fire of Love, the documentary film by Sara Dosa about the life and death of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. It’s a fascintating film using amazing footage shot by the Kraffts themselves, but I wasn’t entirely convinced by the voiceover by Miranda July, which partly in its writing but definitely in its delivery went for what I suppose was melancholy poetry but that, for me, veered towards the maudlin. I couldn’t help but wonder: what would a film with this material be like if it was made by the one and only Werner Herzog? Well, thanks to The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft I should have a chance to find out exactly this before long.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 