“Minari”
It’s almost like you can feel the warmth of a summer’s breeze on your skin in the first few glimpses of “Minari.” A gentle and optimistic score by Emile Mosseri punctuates the arrival of our family of protagonists into their new home. “We said we wanted a new start,” Steven Yeun’s man of the family Jacob tells his children and wife in Korean. This is the American Dream seen through the eyes of those who work to exhaustion for it while also felt through the children’s big hearts just trying to enjoy the great outdoors and the intimate relationships with their family. Greens are sunkissed, relationships are fraught, laughs are big, and work is hard. You get the sense of this small family’s world is enormous, full of love and worry and hope and regret, trying so hard to be at one with the world around them and save each other. It’s as devastating in the images of a barn-burning down as it is in a couple trying to squeeze each other’s hands to remember what it feels like—one to enjoy with your whole heart.
“The Batman”
Matt Reeves was always going to have to go big or go home to impress us with a first look at “The Batman” – when you promise a cast on this scale, to tell yet another version of the story fans know so well, you have to level up. And so a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Something in the Way’ sets the tone for this bleak and ominous affair, in a first glimpse full of easter eggs, which seems to show that, actually, this could be pretty good. It’s impossible to choose between Colin Farrell and Robert Pattinson in terms of the character transformations that feel the most exciting (although Farrell is totally unrecognizable), but this seems to have enough style, power, and threat to stand the test of time. And all this while still being in production at the time of writing – quite a feat.
“Possessor”
There’s no time to play around in Brandon Cronenberg’s bone-chilling film, with slicing and killing beginning before the director’s name even appears. But then the real mission comes into focus with Andrea Riseborough, and it becomes even more unsettling from there. We have Christopher Abbott putting in his best performance to date, a life-or-death body horror pushing every single person to their limits – and doing so with ear-splitting intrigue and never a lack of blood. If there was ever any doubt Brandon couldn’t follow in his father David Cronenberg’s footsteps, the trailer here proves he certainly isn’t afraid of anything.
“Candyman”
2021 is going to belong to Yaya Abdul-Mateen II. His eyes light up with anticipation and fear as he recalls the urban legend at the start – before a bunch of schoolgirls are unfortunate enough to put it to the test. Director Nia DaCosta builds horror visually here, with the iconic bees buzzing around those curious enough about the titular threat, but also sonically – there’s a genius repurposing of a Destiny’s Child track that makes the film’s tagline feel just a little bit more seductive. Mirrors and voices toy with what people believe and know to be true, as this one threat takes over a whole community in just one trailer. The best monsters are those you don’t entirely see, and the terrifying voice in the trailer proves this better than ever. Whenever we’re lucky enough to see this in cinemas finally, nobody knows yet – but the trailer will have given us enough to have nightmares about until then.
“Promising Young Woman”
Capitalizing on buzzwords we’ve heard all too much over the last few years (“It was a he-said-she-said situation” to start) as more women have spoken up about years of sexual assault and misconduct, Emerald Fennell’s directorial debut gives this a stylish and searing twist. Halfway into the trailer, we’re gifted with the best cover of Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ the world has ever seen, as candy-colored images of a man and a woman dancing in a pharmacy aisle, a nurse with turquoise highlights in her hair and a nightclub with a woman who’s had too much to drink all fill the screen. It’s a smart teaser, not telling us what happened to the girl who dropped out, nor what the girl now seeking revenge is going to do. “Promising Young Woman” shocks its audience and sets expectations alight, so it’s only natural that the thing that entices us to see it will do the same. Whatever you think this trailer is telling you, think again. There is so much more to come. Enjoy it, but also beware.
