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.
1933 has arrived – at least in Alan’s series One Best Picture After Another, which is dedicated to all the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture in chronological order. What did our time-traveller think of Cavalcade? (And if you want to form your own opinion: here, in the absence of a trailer, is the full movie.)
This week we also published our Shortcuts for June, which ranged from horror (Rabbit Trap, Together, Obsession and, arguably, Pixar’s Hoppers at times) to football and politics, with Matt’s thoughts on Jafar Panahi’s 2006 film Offside.
And from one kind of patriotism (which Offside certainly is about) to another: in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, Julie revisited Kenneth Branagh’s first big-screen Shakespeare success, Henry V.
Which leaves only our regular trailers to end the week on. Enjoy!
Mege: The good news is that this flick reminds me of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Magnolia, not only because of Julianne Moore‘s main role, but because writer/director Jesse Eisenberg seems to frame some of his shots with a frontal break of the fourth wall just like Magnolia did. The bad news: if I am not completely wrong, the trailer seems to give away the movie‘s main revelation, and if that holds true, then the flywheels at A24 should be seen to. A trailer that reveals too much severely sabotages the movie it wants to promote.
Matt: Look Back, for which we posted the trailer two weeks ago, isn’t the only film by Hirokazu Koreeda awaiting its release: there’s also Sheep in the Box. This one wasn’t widely received with praise at the Cannes Film Festival, and the trailer hints at how this story about a humanoid robot replacing a dead son could be tonally tricky and potentially even mawkish. Then again, I’ll gladly find out myself whether I’ll bounce off the film, like those critics, or whether it’ll click for me. For what it’s worth, I liked the female lead Haruka Ayase a lot in Koreeda’s Our Little Sister. And if the film turns out to be middling or outright bad? Hey, other star directors managed to get over making a mawkish film about a robot child intended to replace a dead son.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 