RogerBW's Blog

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal.)

Locked Down: interesting as a way to take advantage of the situation, but somehow the principals look wrong for their roles and their relationship. Weird.

Outside the Wire: even worse than I thought, it's a buddy soldier film. (Ashley tells me there's more to it than the trailers admit, so that's good!)

Malcolm & Marie: if this were white people, I'd call it pretty white people problems. Does its being non-white people make it more interesting?

Horizon Line (#2): you really shouldn't be that lost that quickly if you were doing visual sightseeing. But I might still give this a look; I know a reasonable amount about general aviation and I can't see any really major factual errors.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday: great music, hackneyed plot. Even if it is true.

Adverse: it's a very standard story so what would interest me would be some sign that it's not like the many other films that have the same story. What the trailer wants to tell me is "this is exactly like all the others", because that's whom trailers are aimed at.

Stray: I suppose you could, as they do, call this a documentary.

Bliss: I seem to remember 1970s SF books with this kind of idea. But I suppose the only way you can really make the idea-lag less is to make filmmaking cheaper, so that you don't have to be a studio boss before you can make the film of the story you enjoyed as a kid.

Falling: doesn't attract me any more than the teaser did last month.

The Sinners: thinking for yourself lets in SATAN, kids!

Breaking News in Yuba County: she murdered him, right? That's the only way this could be interesting. And even then, not very interesting.

Cherry: why do I care about someone whose solution to existential angst is bank robbery? Everybody gets existential angst. Most people don't become criminals.

Fear of Rain: still nothing original to be seen here. (Nice nod to the Amityville eye-windows though.)

I Care a Lot: glad to be told it's hilarious, I wouldn't have known otherwise. (Vaping is the new smoking, even in Hollywood.)

Willy's Wonderland: Cage does the Standard Cage Thing, reasonably well. (Ooh look how clever we are, we ripped off a line from Watchmen.)

Dreamcatcher: screamy screamy and that's meant to make me like them? Nah, clearly from this trailer I'm meant to enjoy bad things happening to them. Assuming it's the same people.

Boogie: probably speaks more to other people than it does to me. But it has some appeal even to me, I think because of the expressions on the leads.

Boss Level: uh-oh, Ken Jeong. And Mel Gibson. And woman-as-reward. Might be enjoyable action, but those would be likely to spoil it for me. (Also it was filmed in 2018 and it's been sitting on the shelf since then.)

Godzilla vs. Kong: I suppose if what you want is giant monster action… but Kong is not a kaiju, Kong is not on the same level as a kaiju. That's not what Kong as a character is about.

Raya and the Last Dragon: if it didn't have that generic Disney uncanny-valley doll-face look and Standard Disney Voices, it might be more interesting.

Silk Road: Remember log.txt? This wants you to forget it. Also "A key difference between the online drugs trade and the normal economy, though, is that not all that many people are interested in building a career in online drug dealing and passing the firm down to their children. People grow up, leave college, or have the kind of short interaction with the legal system which suggests to them that a lifestyle change is in order. Businesses often tended to close down." (Dan Davies, Lying for Money)

Crisis: somehow it doesn't engage. Partly because we all know full well where the "opioid crisis" came from and the harm it already does when people believe in it.

The Courier: the problem with Cumberbatch for me is that he always looks like and acts like the same person. Apart from that, fair enough though it doesn't seem to have much to say when we already have Cold War thrillers actually made in the Cold War.

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar: apparently this is a trailer. This film has jokes in it. At least I assume they're meant to be jokes. If you don't find the idea of middle-aged women who don't conform to societal expectations intrinsically funny, I suspect this will be largely lost on you.