Was able to stay up to date this time around, which I regret because I had to watch a trailer for Fifty Shades 4 Teenz, but I also got to see a surprisingly dope teaser for the sequel to the most oversaturated movie in recent memory, and a couple other movies I’m surprisingly here for, so I’ll call this week a win.

The Curse of La Llorona

Sections of this trailer are genuinely pretty spooky, with the bulk of the bath scene at the end standing out. The sequence doesn’t lean into the jump scare nature of lesser horror strings, but instead just lets you see everything from go, and watching the ghastly hands massaging the child’s head and then slowly dunking the kid underwater is genuinely unnerving. I kinda wish the scene had just cut with the empty bathroom, with the tub in the center, instead of using the rest of the time to basically build to a jump scare, but whatever. The bulk of this trailer, though, makes it feel like a lesser horror film, relying on jump scares instead of building genuine dread, but maybe I’ll be surprised in the long run on this one.

The Hustle

So this is a remake of the great mismatched buddy comedy Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels, trading out Michael Caine and Steve Martin with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson, which is a trade that starts out well and then falls apart pretty much immediately. I like Hathaway a lot, and she can play the sophisticated part of the role well and has the comedic chops to do the “straight woman” work against Rebel Wilson, who I don’t actively dislike, but also doesn’t have the widest of comedic ranges, so this movie will probably turn out to be fairly one-note, basing itself almost entirely on physical comedy, which is a shame.

Yesterday

This is a very interesting concept of a movie that could easily just coast on getting to play some of the Beatles most known hits, something that not a lot of movies can say, because it probably costs $2.8 billion dollars to just sample the “Judey Judey Judey” part of “Hey, Jude.” But this movie looks like it doesn’t necessarily need to coast on just getting to listen to some of the most recognizable songs of all time, with the steady hand of Danny Boyle directing a script from the equally talented Richard Curtis (his About Time is unambiguously the best romantic comedy of the decade, don’t @ me, I did literally zero research to confirm this), as well as what appears to be a very strong film debut you for Himesh Patel. Yes, you could make the argument that a music world without The Beatles might not have ever led to Coldplay existing (which, like, might have been a fair trade, to be honest, don’t @ me, Chris Martin is as engaging as a literal piece of white bread), but, like, that isn’t even the most interesting question that this movie implies. No, it’s not “Did Mark David Chapman still kill John Lennon outside The Dakota?” It’s “Did The Wings still exist, and if not, who did the opening song to ‘Live and Let Die’ and does it still forkin’ slap?'” The answers are probably no, Kris Kristofferson, and it’s fiiiiiiiine, which is the real tragedy here.

Frozen II

Yeah this is super not what I ever would have anticipated as the first footage to the sequel to Frozen, and honestly, this looks pretty incredible. From the tense beginning of Elsa trying to use her powers to scale some pretty intense waves, to whatever the hell those crystals outside of Anna’s window are, and then there’s all those Svens (prove to me that every reindeer in this universe isn’t named Sven and we’ll talk). Wrap everything up with Anna swinging a forkin’ sword at some unseen foe, this is a much darker and more tense trailer than I ever would have foreseen, and I’m here for it. Oh and it avoided using “Let It Go,” instead using a new version of the vocalizing from the first film? This movie could have taken a bunch of easy lay-ups for its first trailer, but instead worked much harder to get a dunk (did that work?)

Ma

Lolz what the actual fork is this movie, and I’m asking that question in the best way possible. Academy Award Winner Octavia Spencer plays some bonkers middle aged woman who lets kids have some pretty raucous parties in her basement, all while trying to kind of become one of the kids. This is all genuinely very bewildering, and that’s even before she forkin’ hits a kid with her van. Oh and then Luke Evans shows up. Like. How is Luke Evans suddenly showing up in like three seconds of a trailer not in the top five of weirdest shirt that happens in that trailer? Also, is she gonna castrate that kid? This is amazing.

After

Woof. This very much feels like a toned down Fifty Shades for teens, which even just as a sentence is troubling, but when you start to really peel away the layers, it gets worse. First, the idea that this sort of romance, where the dude just outright ignores the girl’s request for distance (which she finds charming, which, stab me in the cornea), and he also just seems to be outright stalking her, which, not okay. Also, is that last shot of him watching her sleep supposed to be terrifying? Because it’s very forking terrifying. All of this gives bad messages to teens: to girls, it should be saying that stalkers are cool and charming. To guys, that stalking is cool and charming. Which, uh, no please? Also, after a little bit of research (thanks, GoodReads), the book that this nightmare is based on is actually a published version of the author’s One Direction fan fiction, which, I don’t know, seems to make it worse because at its core, this main dude I guess is Harry Styles, which, I can’t imagine he’s in love with this idea. Anyways this is really forked up and I hate it and I hope it dies in a fire.

Long Shot

Boyz II Men calls Seth Rogen a cracker, and that is probably the only thing I could ever need to be told about a movie to sell me on it. But also this movie looks like a genuinely great twist on a romantic comedy, with Rogen being a speechwriter for Charlize Theron’s Secretary of State who is running for president, all while they start to fall for each other. The director, Jonathan Levine has proven himself capable of combining genuine comedy with a surprising amount of heart (one need only look at 50/50 to see that, although throwing in Warm Bodies doesn’t necessarily hurt), and Rogen and Theron are both hugely likable leads and look to have some pretty impressive chemistry here. Honestly, the only bad thing I have to say about it is the suggestion that I wouldn’t want to see Kate Middleton date Danny DeVito. Make that movie, and I see it every day for the rest of my life.

Rankings and Summaries

1. Frozen II- Choosing the hard path of trying to capture the attention of people who might not have been into the first movie, Disney’s follow-up to the most over-saturated movie of the decade looks to be a much more tense experience, and that’s pretty dope.
2. Ma- Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer kisses a ten, hits another kid with her van, and presumably threatens to castrate another one, all while Luke Evans and Juliette Lewis are also around, and that’s the weirdest/best sentence I have ever typed for one of these.
3. Long Shot– I’m sure this movie is great, but all I really want is a movie where Danny DeVito marries a princess, so, like, hit me up Netflix, I’ll make this movie for exactly $17.54.
4. Yesterday- Despite this world suggesting that I not only lose “Life and Let Die,” but I still have to hear “Something Just Like This,” I still think this movie looks great.
5. The Curse of La Llorona- A standard looking ghost-based horror flick that ends on a mostly effective sequence of dread, I just can’t foresee something like this really standing out much longer while A24 keeps producing their stuff.
6. The Hustle- A pale remake of a great comedy, replacing the wide range of Steve Martin’s comedy with the predominantly physical comedy of Rebel Wilson seems like a poor choice.
7. After– Pretty forked up.

Never forget.

Pictures
Cover Photo https://techaeris.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/frozen-2.jpg
Genie https://shawglobalnews.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/will-smith-genie-aladdin-trailer.png?w=720&h=379&crop=1