We get bombarded with teasers, trailers and promotional clips relentlessly – each weekend Steve Newall sorts through the best of the week for you to check out and get excited about.
Foe
In what looks part intimate relationship drama, part thriller and part sci-fi, Lion director Garth Davis adapts the novel of the same name by Iain Reid, author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things. And yes, if you’ve seen/read that, you will be getting creeped out already… In the near future, a couple played by Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan live a remote life on secluded farmland—until one is selected to go on a solitary journey, with an unorthodox replacement proposed…
Rebel Moon
Zack Snyder brings his trademark aesthetic and bombast to the space opera genre, in what first came to life as a Star Wars film (something that will be immediately apparent while watching the above trailer). Like Lucas before him, Snyder looks to be plundering from Japanese cinema, namely Seven Samurai, with Sofia Boutella assembling a group of warriors to stand up against a tyrannical regent threatening a peaceful colony. Cue slow-mo, CGI and the sort of visual nods to Star Wars that permeated so many sci-fi pretenders of the early 80s.
Cat Person
Just when you might have forgotten about it the 2017 short story sensation, it has become a black comedy starring CODA‘s Emilia Jones… but hey, if you were going to cast any dude as a tall creep, you couldn’t really go past Succession‘s Nicholas Braun, could you? For those unfamiliar, it’s the story of a hook-up that comes with a few red flags. OK, more than a few…
Starstruck
Rose Matafeo’s rom-com series returns for its third season, which follows Matafeo’s London-based Kiwi Jessie as she reacquaints herself with single life. In the wake of her relationship with actor ex Tom (Nikesh Patel), a new—maybe even more complicated—love interest presents himself.
It Lives Inside
A soul-eating spirit turns out to be not-so-mythological after all in this hotly-tipped new horror (after all, if it wasn’t really life-threatening, there wouldn’t be much of a movie). From the producers of Get Out, it’s centred on a young woman who’s desperate to fit in at school and so turns her back on her Indian heritage—something she’ll need to revisit to defeat a demonic spirit.
Cassandro
A luchador wrestler, played by Gael García Bernal, aspires to move beyond being cannon fodder in this biopic. Gay in his everyday life, Saúl Armendáriz (Bernal) embraces the flamboyance of an “exotico”—but will the wrestling community accept his new persona Cassandro as a champion?
Bosch: Legacy
Harry Bosch is back in a new season of the series tracking his career post-Hollywood homicide. Are you following me? We were big fans of the original Bosch series, and were sad to see the end of one of TV’s best cops—so thankfully his reinvention as a private investigator continues. Yes, it is extremely similar, and no, we have absolutely no issue with that at all.
Society of the Snow
If you’ve seen 1993’s Alive, starring Ethan Hawke, or TV’s Yellowjackets, this will feel very familiar—a plane goes down in the Andes carrying a rugby team who have to survive in the mountains. Based on the same true story as the former, don’t expect any weird occult stuff, but in the hands of director J.A. Bayona it’ll still be a harrowing survival tale—and perhaps not for the squeamish.
Flora and Son
Eve Hewson (Bad Sisters, The Luminaries) plays the mother of a troublemaking teen who’s on a trajectory to disaster. At her wits’ end as to what to do with him, and encouraged by the police to find him a hobby Flora picks up a battered guitar so the two can work on a hobby together and, with the help of an online guitar tutor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), find a shared passion.
Reptile
Benicio Del Toro stars (and gets a writing credit) in this thriller, the feature debut of director Grant Singer (Lorde’s Perfect Places and Green Light, most of Sky Ferreira’s vids, plus clips for The Weeknd, Sam Smith etc). Del Toro and Alicia Silverstone are detectives hunting a murderer—Justin Timberlake playing the mourning boyfriend in a cast that also includes Michael Pitt, Eric Bogosian and, welcomely, the aforementioned Ferreira (PS Free Sky Ferreira!)
The Promised Land
OK, its non-English title Bastarden is way cooler, but I’m still stoked to see Mads Mikkelsen back in period drama terrain. Reteaming with the director of 18th century romance A Royal Affair, Mikkelsen is a poor Danish soldier trying to carve a name and a life for himself on barren land—except the ruler of the area has no respect for the King or his notions of colonialism.
V/H/S/85
The found footage anthology series returns, this time as mid-80s as you can get. David Bruckner, Scott Derrickson, Gigi Saul Guerrero , Natasha Kermani and Mike P. Nelson direct this outing’s segments, collected together in the form of a made-for-TV documentary exposing sinister secrets of the 80s…
