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’s only rarely that we get to show off the fact that one of our baristas is a Doctor Who fan of many, and I mean many, years. This week offered one such opportunity, as Alan got to talk about season 23 of the original run of Doctor Who, also known as “The Trial of a Time Lord”.
From the potentially ridiculous to the sublimely grim: Matt dipped his toe in the Criterion ocean once more, revisiting the classic Cold War tragedy The Spy Who Came In from the Cold.
But obviously, we’ve got more to offer than those two trailers, namely…
Matt: A young man trying to judiciously prune the branches of his family tree in order to get revenge for his banished mother and get rich in the process? Why am I suddenly thinking of Alec Guinness? How to Make a Killing is clearly inspired by the classic black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets and possibly closer to that film than some so-called remakes are to their originals. I can definitely see a place for a modern version of that particular story, even if it’ll be difficult not to compare to the deliciously cynical film from 1949 – and the cast definitely looks quite delicious, from Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley and Jessica Henwick to Bill Camp and Ed Harris. Bring on the familicide!
Matt: Dead Man’s Wire is not just set in the 1970s – the film looks like it was beamed straight onto our screens from that decade. And the presence of Al Pacino makes it difficult not to think of some of the decades political Hollywood films… such as Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon. Looking at his filmography, it seems I’ve only seen a single film by Gus Van Sant, his 2000 drama Finding Forrester, but based on the trailer, I am thinking that I should begin to remedy this, and quite possibly by going to see Dead Man’s Wire once it’s out.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 