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.
If the past is a foreign country: how do we watch films that are approaching their hundred-year anniversary? While working on his Criterion backlog, Matt recently watched Show Boat, but while there are things there to enjoy without knowing the historical context intimately, the musical’s handling of the United States’ history of slavery and racism is a mixed bag, and it’s not always easy to look past what is problematic at the things that may be surprisingly progressive. And some scenes manage to tick both of those boxes at the same time.
Some classics however work as well nowadays as they did when they originally came out – and arguably Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest is one such film, added to which it has some of the most enjoyable villains in all of Hitchcock’s oeuvre.
Let’s move into the present day with our final trailer for the week, though.
Matt: Remember those first couple of seasons of Lost? This being the pre-streaming days, you’d get actual water-cooler talk about what happened last night and what this might mean for the story and characters going forward. And at the time there was more to it than just mystery boxes: the series also had characters you were interested in and could root for. For me, season 1 of Yellowjackets managed to pull off that very same trick, and not only the whole thing kicks off with a horrific plane crash. The cast is great (<3 Melanie Lynskey), the storytelling veers from thrills to fun to horror with ease, and damnit, I want to know what happens next (while hoping that the showrunners have a fairly clear idea where they’re doing with all of this). And, obviously, the new additions to the cast – mainly Lauren Ambrose and Elijah Wood – don’t hurt.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 