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.
This week saw the first post of new contributor Alastair Bickley: in last Friday’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, he wrote about the first three minutes of the Sherlock Holmes mystery “The Priory School”, as adapted for ITV, starring Jeremy Brett. Once again, there’s no trailer – but the entire episode is on YouTube, so here’s that particular treat for all the Sherlock-heads out there!
Also in this week’s posts: Matt wrote about the Oscar-winning I’m Still Here – which he liked but didn’t love, for reasons he goes into in his post.
And what else do we have for this week’s trailer grab bag?
Matt: I don’t envy Celine Song: having to follow Past Lives, a wonderful romantic drama with a set of great lead performances. Materialists looks suitably romantic, but it also looks like a more overtly commercial follow-up. Or am I just falling into the trap of thinking that whatever she does next, it can’t live up to that fantastic first film? Is there no way Song can win, really?
Matt: I’ve not seen a single Final Destination film, but I’m intrigued by the way they seem to turn violent death into Rube Goldberg machines – but is there something about this that’s just too nasty and sadistic for me, or do the films manage to foreground the gruesome fun over the pain, suffering and death in convincing ways? On a very different note, though: Tony Todd must have been one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood until his death last year. At this point in time, he has no less than eight films listed on IMDB still to come out. Plenty of opportunities to remember Todd.
Matt: Finally: here’s something that popped up very recently. One, it’s a new film by Paul Thomas Anderson. Two, it’s based, albeit loosely, on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland. (I didn’t love Anderson’s earlier Pynchon adaptation Inherent Vice, but I definitely liked Anderson’s take on Pynchonland.) Three, I’m always happy to see Regina Hall in pretty much anything. It’s still a bit of a wait until 26 September of this year, but my levels of anticipation are already pretty damn high.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 