This Week In Trailers: Ms. Purple, Rapid Response, La Flor, Los Reyes, This Changes Everything

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 talk about gender inequality in Hollywood, mend a fractured family, settle in for a long movie, watch some good puppers, and come to the aid of racecar drivers.

It's not lost on me that director Tom Donahue is a man making a movie about a very real issue for the women of Hollywood. However, it looks like he's attempting to sit back and let the women have their voices heard.

Told first-hand by some of Hollywood's leading voices behind and in front of the camera, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING is a feature-length documentary that uncover what is beneath one of the most confounding dilemmas in the entertainment industry – the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women. It takes an incisive look at the history, empirical evidence, and systemic forces that foster gender discrimination and thus reinforce disparity in our culture. Most importantly, the film seeks pathways and solutions from within and outside the industry, and around the world.

And, just look at those who took part: Geena Davis, Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Grace Moretz, Meryl Streep, Jessica Chastain, Sandra Oh, Taraji P. Henson, Natalie Portman, Tiffany Haddish. It's clear how vital this story is to understanding how this industry operates and the importance of listening to what is being said.

You all need to settle in for director Mariano Llinas' latest.

Llinás' ambitious, wildly entertaining saga—a decade in the making, shot in various countries on three continents, and acted in Spanish, French, Russian, German, Swedish, and English—is a love letter to the history of cinema. A follow-up to his 2008 four-hour cult classic, Extraordinary Stories, La Flor is divided into six episodes, four with no ending, one with a conclusion, and one other with an ending but no beginning.

All episodes are interwoven with on-screen appearances by the director himself explaining the film's structure, and filled with subplots and digressions. The first episode is a mock B-movie ("The kind that Americans used to shoot with their eyes closed and now just can't shoot anymore," says the filmmaker) about cursed mummies. The second is a musical with a twist; the third, an international espionage thriller; the fourth, a humorous category-defying story partly set in Canada, the fifth episode—the only one with a proper ending—is a remake of a well-known French classic by Jean Renoir. The sixth and final episode takes place in the 19th century and follows the story of an Englishwoman held captive by Native Americans, as described through her diary. And then there are 40 minutes of credits.

Are you kidding me? When you have a generation of people bingeing in the comfort of their own homes, to have a cinematic experience like this, especially when a filmmaker is playing with genres, it's not a dare, it's an invitation. It promises to be long but will reward anyone who takes him up on it. Nary a word is spoken here, nor does it need to be.