RogerBW's Blog

February 2023 Trailers 01 March 2023

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I want a trailer to tell me what's different about this film; the marketers want it to tell me why it's like all the others…)

Big George Foreman: OK, I'm in my fifties, and to me George Foreman has always meant the guy shilling the electric grill. I assumed he must have been famous for something once, like all the other people one is supposed to be impressed by. If there's a personal story here, that could be great; what I see here looks like Generic Boxing Movie. (If Foreman's story has generated some of the clichés of Generic Boxing Movie, fair enough, but that doesn't mean it'll work now.)

Moving On: man, McDowell got old. (I mean, he is 79, and Fonda is 85, but presumably she's had to put a lot more work into not looking as though she'd break if you breathed hard in her direction.) Plot? Clearly an excuse to wind up the old luvvies and let them to their thing.

The Lost King: this will rest on Hawkins' shoulders, though I think she can do it. Coogan irks me just by being, even when he isn't trying to be funny.

Guy Ritchie's The Covenant: how to make desert war look like a gangster squabble. Doubtless it's all terribly manly.

My Happy Ending: I like the cast, but I suspect I've now seen the whole plot.

White Men Can't Jump (First Look): nothing here to engage with. I guess if you already like the cast, or you've never seen Sports Movie before.

Resident Evil: Death Island: given that this looks like game footage, why wouldn't I play the game?

Paint (Teaser): looks as if it's leaning hard on the whimsy button.

Strays (Red Band): dogs are good. woo.

Air: the plucky little multimillion dollar company that could.

Luther: The Fallen Sun: "where do you want this 150,000 gallons of police action polyfilla? I don't care if the plot's not ready, you ordered it for today you're getting it today."

Fast X: not just a giant safe, a giant rolly ball o' death! Not just one helicopter, but two helicopters! Oh, and family I guess.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - To the Swordsmith Village: not a series I know, not a style I tend to enjoy.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3: yes, middle-aged white man, you are important. Really, you are.

The Flash: I can't help noticing that we get at least as much Batman and Superman awesomeness as we do Flash ditto. Usually I'd only expect to see that level of lack of confidence in a film with women in the lead roles.

Nothing Is Impossible: "Pure Flix is an American evangelical Christian film production and distribution studio". If they'd just given it a normal name rather than one that's clearly "like Netflix, but Pure!" I probably wouldn't have bothered to look it up. But the style, and particularly the cheapness of this ten-minute promo, make it clear that this was made by people who consider Message more important than filmmaking competence.

Love Again: kind of heavy-handed, not to mention desperately contrived. But the major gimmick is clearly "Celine Dion's first film role" along with "why be honest, that wouldn't produce enough Drama".

Kandahar (Teaser): I mean, you could tell a story set in Iran. Or you could make Generic Action Movie and paint Iranian desert on the backdrop.

Tetris: profoundly offputting.

Smoking Causes Coughing: OK I guess, though the one thing sentai shows are universally known for is colour-coded heroes.

Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams: …you going anywhere with this? Am I supposed to be interested in the guy already?

Boston Strangler: Ridley Scott is pretty patchy these days. Might work, might not, but definitely wait for reviews.

Sisu (Red Band): looks like silly fun.

The Pope's Exorcist: woo, what a guy, making his career out of lying about children and women.

About My Father: hi-larious.

Past Lives: yeah, this has some possibilities, if it doesn't get too maudlin.

A Thousand and One: there's something here in between the cliché.

The Machine (Red Band): why do I care about this person?

RRR: Bollywood does India's fight for independence. I suspect I could seriously enjoy this.

Somewhere in Queens: if this is your culture maybe it will speak to you. To me it looks like all the stereotypes rolled together.


  1. Posted by Ashley R Pollard at 09:16am on 02 March 2023

    RRR is awesome fun. Surprised you haven't already seen it. Here's a link to Patrick (H) Willems review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPU2D5Ftjbw

  2. Posted by DrBob at 01:06pm on 02 March 2023

    I second RRR. Awesome and bonkers all at the same time.

  3. Posted by Chris Suslowicz at 10:46pm on 02 March 2023

    Being somewhat older than you, my "George Foreman" take was reversed. "Why is a retired boxer advertising kitchen equipment?" (Not having a television set for decades probably helped in this regard.)

    The grill is useful, boxing as an alleged "sport" rather less so.

    Chris.

  4. Posted by DrBob at 02:48pm on 15 March 2023

    Okay I've now seen Luther: Fallen Sun. And it is nothing like the trailer. The trailer is all the fighty, action bits. And some bits which aren't fighty, action but cut to look like they are.

    The actual movie is the creepiest thing I've seen in forever. Andy Serkis is awesome as the villain, with unsettling and creepy dialled up to 11. It's almost as much a horror movie as it is a cop film.

  5. Posted by RogerBW at 03:15pm on 15 March 2023

    Good-oh! I'm not much of a generic-horror fan, but when it gets genuinely creepy, I'm interested.

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