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 the film that Tom Tykwer, who’d later go on to direct Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, co-direct Cloud Atlas and co-create the hit TV show Babylon Berlin, became famous with? Julie certainly does. Make sure to check out her Six Damn Fine Degrees on Lola Rennt.
And talking about cinematic blasts from the past: Matt revisited Terry Gilliam’s Brazil as part of his Tour de Criterion.
But what about newer films?
Sam: It seems incredible that the original came out twenty years ago, but the quartet of iconic characters in The Devil Wears Prada 2 looks as if hardly a year has passed: Anne Hathaway returns to the lioness‘ den of Meryl Streep‘s fashion goddess Miranda Priestly, and Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt are at hand, too. The tone is playful, the zingers sting and the fashion is as sharp as ever. Hopefully, what the trailer promises is not all there is!
Mege: This movie seems to exist at a crossroads. They are Cornish fishermen, their community is a tight-knit one, and yet it turns out to be a ghost story. There seem to be touches of David Lynch and Mike Leigh that bring an eerie co-existence to this flick. What is going on?
Matt: Based on the trailer – whether the one in starkly contrasted black and white or the more garish coloured one -, I’m not sure I’ll be watching Spider-Noir. There’s something about it that strikes me as too self-conscious and quirky an exercise in pastiche. At the same time, though, I think that this is what superhero comic adaptations need: stylistic experimentation, a wider tonal range, anything really to get away from the sameyness that at least the big cinematic examples of the genre have long been plagued with. From what I’ve been hearing about Wonder Man, that’s another one that has managed to break the Curse of the Generic, so perhaps there’s reason for hope. Bring on the noir vigilantes, the genuinely comedic caped crusaders, the postmodern, meta riffs!
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 