New trailers: Westworld, Amazing Stories, and more
I recently watched The Souvenir, Joanna Hogg’s partly autobiographical film about a young filmmaker who gets wrapped up in a toxic and emotionally abusive relationship with an older man. While looking up where to stream it, Google presented me with its “top voted tags” for the movie (I have no idea how these are generated), which were: slow, boring, pretentious, overrated, confusing, strong acting, and “+3 more.” Perfect, I thought.
One fascinating technique the film repeatedly uses is to obfuscate the beginnings of things and drop us into events well past when they’ve begun. The entire beginning of the central romantic relationship is left offscreen, as is all but the ending of a very significant argument between the couple. It’s disorienting and strange, but it helps to convey the feelings of the protagonist — suddenly in over her head, not entirely sure of how things got this way.
There’s apparently a sequel in the works. The film by no means calls for one, but I think there’s something very cool about making a sequel to a film that traditionally wouldn’t get one.
Check out nine trailers from this week below.
Westworld
After almost two years off the air, Westworld’s season 3 premiere is almost here. This season takes the hosts out of the park and into the real world where it seems like they teach Aaron Paul that capitalism is evil. Everything about this show has been ludicrous from the start, and it looks like none of that is changing. The series will return on March 15th.
Amazing Stories
Apple is rebooting the classic anthology series Amazing Stories. The original show came from Steven Spielberg, and his production company is behind the reboot, so it makes sense just how warm, awe-filled, and Spielbergy all of these stories look. The show will debut on March 6th.
The Plot Against America
Here’s the latest trailer for The Plot Against America, HBO’s adaptation of a Philip Roth novel about a racist demagogue who shocks America by winning the presidency and stoking violence across the country. It will premiere on March 16th.
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
PBS has a new documentary coming up about the life, music, and influence of Miles Davis. The film premiered at Sundance last year to positive reviews, with The Hollywood Reporter saying it “contains more rare footage and photos than can really be digested in two hours,” which I think is a compliment. The documentary will come to PBS on February 25th.
Little Fires Everywhere
Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington star in Hulu’s adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere based on Celeste Ng’s hit 2017 novel. It feels like Hulu is trying to find the next thing to watch for fans of Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, with big stars and plenty of drama and mystery. It will premiere on March 18th.
There’s Something in the Water
Ellen Page narrates and co-directs this documentary about how black and indigenous communities in Canada have often borne the awful effects of companies polluting the environment. It comes to Netflix on March 27th.
I Am Not Okay With This
Netflix has a new YA series coming up about a teenage girl who starts to develop some sort of bizarro, Eleven-like powers that she’s unable to control. Except instead of there being some weird nightmarish monster conspiracy she’s running away from, she’s mostly just surrounded a colorful and twee coming of age story. It’ll come out on February 26th.
Big Time Adolescence
Pete Davidson plays a college dropout who basically just acts like you’d expect Pete Davidson or a Pete Davidson character to act in Big Time Adolescence, a coming-of-age film that has him serving as a very poor role model for a high school student. Hulu acquired the film, so it’ll be streaming on the service on March 20th, a week after it hits some theaters.
Beforeigners
HBO is bringing one of its European shows to the US, and it looks wonderfully ridiculous. It’s about time-traveling Vikings and cave people, and I just really don’t understand any of what’s happening. The series debuted this week.