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.
There should be a fictional documentary about a society of film fans that consider mockumentaries entirely true, and that have constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory around how subjects too dangerous are defused by turning them into mockumentaries. You can’t handle the truth about Spinal Tap, or Kiwi filmmaker Colin McKenzie, or the Mayflower Kennel Club Show. But in the meantime we have mockumentary greats such as “Soldier of Illusion” and “The Goof Who Sat By the Door”.
We also have musicals: after our February podcast, in which Matt and Sam gave a second chance to A Chorus Line and Dancer in the Dark, they felt that there was much more to say about musicals – especially since they both used to have ambivalent feelings about the genre. They therefore took the opportunity to continue their conversation about musicals in this month’s espresso podcast. (Still no actual singing in the episode, mind you!)
And what else does the week have in store for us in terms of trailers?
Mege: I am actually wheezing: Marvel Jesus? Heeheeheeee. I don‘t like goofy for goofy‘s sake, but there is something whacky about Deadpool that I can‘t help but like. It‘s admirable that there is a corner of the MCU that can go into the territory of weird and reckless.
Matt: The trailer for Orion and the Dark looks… okay, I guess? It looks like relatively generic computer-animated kids’ fare inspired by Pixar (and particularly Inside Out). However, I did an actual double take when I checked out the reviews for the film – and found out that the script was written by Charlie Kaufman, of Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York fame. He’s adapting someone else’s material, but he’s done that before: even if we permit Adaptation into this category with a lot of major caveats, I’m Thinking of Ending Things was adapted from Iain Reid’s novel, but it is Kaufman through and through. Will Kaufman’s tendencies towards the existentialist and absurdist also make themselves felt in a DreamWorks Animation movie?
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 