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.
Remember just a week ago when we were still in 2023? In the last couple of weeks we’ve skipped the trailer posts, but now we’re catching up on some of the films we wrote about, such as Miyazaki’s likely swan song The Boy and the Heron, Paul King’s non-Paddington confection Wonka and some of the movies Matt liked best last year.
We’ve got some films to look forward in 2024 too, so here are some choice previews:
Mege: There is something about unvoluntary horror, or real horror for that matter, that is deeply unsettling because it latches on to the real, to the here and now. It is immaterial that it happened years ago – cannibalism caused by a plane crash is immediate and direct. And if it is done by J.A. Bayona, prophet of catastrophes, it is something to look out for.
Matt: I guess we need a signature disaster for 2024, so why not a civil war in the United States? Mind you, while I have liked a lot of Alex Garland’s work, both as a screenwriter and as a director, this looks remarkably tacky, like an overly po-faced take on the same themes that Craig Zobel handled (or failed to handle) with the 2020 satire The Hunt. Honestly, the thing I find most interesting about this trailer is that Jesse Plemons seems to have left his “Matt Damon ordered from Wish.com” phase behind and is now heading for the “Philip Seymour Hoffman Tribute Act” phase.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 