This Week In Trailers: Quincy, F**k You All: The Uwe Boll Story, Why Are We Creative?, Queercore: How To Punk A Revolution, Ad Vitam
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they're seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising?
This week we learn how to live forever, get a retrospective of one of this generation's most celebrated music producers who isn't named Diddy, get queer as punk, find out where creativity comes from by just asking the question, and spend some quiet time with Uwe Boll.
Quincy
Directors Alan Hicks and Rashida Jones have created a documentary on Rashida's father, the legendary music producer Quincy Jones. Watching this trailer, I'm struck by just how influential Jones has been in the music industry. No matter how much the market has evolved, no matter how much tastes have changed, Quincy has always been able to be a dominant force. I'm eager to hear the story and am genuinely interested if this will be the Oscar contender people are saying it could be or will it paint a flattering portrait of the artist and go easy on the more rougher edges of the man who has launched so many careers? Either way, this looks incredible.
Ad Vitam
When we last were talking about actress Garance Marillier, it had everything to do with her breakout role in Raw. This new series, from writer/director Thomas Cailley, who brought us 2014's critically lauded Love at First Fight, is a mind scrambler. The synopsis is below:
A new regeneration process allows human beings to live forever, but when a number of teenage suicides rock the seemingly evergreen population, a hard-boiled detective must enlist the help of a rebellious 20-something to uncover the truth behind what happened.
This trailer enchants you into its universe and with its premise. But then, as with all good sci-fi, there's the catch that shakes the entire foundation. To see how, on the one hand, there is the ability to live forever, and, on the other, there are those who want to end it all, it's compelling. The trailer expertly bobs and weaves through the narrative while being gorgeous to look at and listen to because, by the end, I had goosebumps just wondering where this all would end. I hope the series is a fraction as good as this trailer.
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution
As movements go, this one was pretty incredible. Director Yony Leyser, who directed 2010's William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, is here with a documentary looks back to the 1980s punk scene. Specifically, Leyser delves into how punk became a backdoor for many of those within the LGBTQ community. To wit:
Started in the 1980s as a fabricated movement intended to punk the punk scene, Queercore quickly became a real-life cultural community of LGBTQ music and movie-making revolutionaries. From the start of the pseudo-movement to the widespread rise of pop artists who used queer identity to push back against gay assimilation and homophobic punk culture, 'Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution' is just that: a how-to-do-it guide for the next generation of queer radicals.
I love how rough this trailer feels. Immediately you get why this took off the way it did within the community. For decades there was this megaphone of media and popular thought about how homosexuality was to be thought of, dealt with, or suppressed by the cis overlords who were in control of the message. Here was this outlet, then, this empowering and powerful conduit through which frustration and raw emotion flowed free. It's punk for sure.
Why Are We Creative?
This is just nutty. Director Hermann Vaske was a dude who spent 30 years getting in front of people like David Bowie, Bono, Quentin Tarantino, Stephen Hawkins, Wim Wenders, so many others, and just asked them the question of why they are creative. After that, he seems to just sit back and listens intensely to the response. It's brilliant, to be honest. For those of us who don't care what it was like to work with so-and-so or whether they can confirm a rumor having to with this or that, this gets to the heart of everything and the trailer is impressive. While it seems like it would be cringy to wait patiently for a response to this heady question the interview subject's response ends up being kind of fascinating. There is no "gotcha" to any of this but, rather, a frank exploration into the minds of those who have created something as to why they do it. (via Screen Daily)
F**k You All: The Uwe Boll Story
Hoo boy. I don't think you could make a more accurate title for a documentary dealing with director Uwe Boll. I remember a long time ago when it was the stuff of movie blog headlines to revel in the critical tug-of-war between critics who would bash Boll's cinematic efforts with the kind of glee only reserved for pinata parties. Boll's responses, too, to that pelting was just as satisfying. From the videos he made to the boxing ring antics where critics did put up their dukes to face the man 1-on-1, Boll has always been a sideshow. Director Sean Patrick Shaul, then, seems to have channeled that energy to create a retrospective of the man who has nearly all but disappeared from our daily film news cycle. The trailer is nothing short of fantastic concerning the people he has participating in this, as well as the man himself, who looks all but too delighted to revel in his past behaviors.
Nota bene: If you have any suggestions of trailers for possible inclusion in this column, even have a trailer of your own to pitch, please let me know by sending me a note at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com or look me up via Twitter at @Stipp
In case you missed them, here are the other trailers we covered at /Film this week: