Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: W...
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? This week we survive a plane crash, talk about suicide, get trapped in an invisible box, join a cult, and make it all better by going to Italy.
Sole Survivor Trailer
My uncle was killed on American flight 191 that left O’Hare International Airport on May 25th, 1979.
I was too young to know him but I wrote a book a couple of years ago that included a chapter devoted to what it must have been like to feel the ascent of a jumbo jet only to bank and manically twist into a terrifying, unrecoverable roll that resulted from an engine completely detaching from the plane. It’s horrific to even imagine, and no one survived, but this is the kind of trailer that taps into that terror some of us face when we feel helpless in the sky. For those who are able to disengage and accept the inherent safety precautions that make a crash all but a statistical anomaly this may not resonate as well. However, this is real drama, and director Ky Dickens captures that in the trailer.
It’s hard not to listen to those who have had to push on without loved ones. To make sense of “Why me?” while also knowing that the violent way in which they were spared an all but certain demise is the stuff of raw emotion. The trailer may veer slightly into making grand platitudes about life and ask some rhetorical questions that feel a little out of place, the people IN the trailer are doing the heavy emotional lifting so you don’t need to go down that superficial road, but the overall effect of this trailer makes you feel lucky to be alive. These people not only have to deal with their present circumstance but to have to be reminded of their past every single day through no fault of their own is enough to make you curious about how the living can indeed go on.
The Wall Trailer
When I was a kid, there a movie that made me afraid of going under the water of a swimming pool. It was 1978′s The Legacy and it completely messed me up when it came to aquatic endeavors.
This trailer, from director Julian Pölsler, shows hints why it’s won major kudos and accolades. It feels psychologically oppressive while having a nice sci-fi bent. Much like Cabin in the Woods this, too, deals with someone who’s trapped in an invisible bubble to which there’s no escape. Instead of there being a cadre of bizarre creatures awaiting to take out the living, we have a woman who has to ponder her circumstances and simply endure.
That’s the real hook.
Instead of the tight window of a day or a night in order to figure out a way out of this situation it appears to be a marathon of endurance testing. This woman has to adapt to this invisible box and whether we find at the end that it was all psychological or there’s something else afoot, I would argue that as long as what we see on the screen is true to this woman that is what’s going to be so alluring. What’s here, though, shows more survivalist than hysterics so I’m thrilled to see how it all ends.
The Source Family Trailer
What in the hell?
I get that the 70s were a different time and that this seemed to be the time for spiritual reawakening after psychedelia of the late 60s had people looking inward. Groups like this seemed to be everywhere but it looks like first time filmmakers Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille have found something worthy enough to ride out 90+ minutes. The trailer, though, is trippy.
It establishes who this guy was, Father Yod, we listen to his words, we see his visage, we see his harem, the man seemed to have the rapt attention of many. The music just grinds it out as it gets more and more
