'Ghost in the Shell,' Sofia Coppola's Erotic Gothic & More Trailers You May Have Missed
Staying on top of the trailer circuit is a full-time job in and of itself. We're here to help.
The Beguiled (dir. Sofia Coppola)
We named Sofia Coppola's new film as one of our most anticipated of 2017, and if this trailer is any indication, we were right to do so. The Beguiled looks to be something of a Southern Gothic marvel, chock full of tempestuous affairs with political tensions roiling just under the surface. Colin Farrell plays a wounded Union soldier who is stranded near a Confederate girls' boarding school; when the women (Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst, and Nicole Kidman, among others) take him under their wing, he shatters their meticulously cultivated veneer of propriety. It's a remake of the Clint Eastwood-starring 1971 drama of the same name, which is itself based on Thomas P. Cullinan's novel A Painted Devil. The Grandmaster cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd lensed the film, which premieres June 23.
Ghost in the Shell (dir. Rupert Sanders)
Rupert Sanders helms the Hollywood remake of the 1995 Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell, originally directed by Mamoru Oshii. Thankfully, evidenced by the trailer's stunning production design, the British director seems to have retained the cyberpunk aesthetic that characterized both the original manga and film. Scarlett Johansson is The Major, a cyborg-human hybrid with extraordinary crime-fighting prowess, who must hunt down a computer-hacking villain called Kuze (Michael Pitt). In the process, she discovers some deep, dark secrets about who she is—and who she was meant to be. Ghost in the Shell hits theaters on March 31.
Personal Shopper (dir. Olivier Assayas)
Personal Shopper premiered to mixed reviews, to say the least; at least half of the critics at the Press & Industry screening that No Film School attended at Cannes booed the film. As Olivier Assayas fans, we landed somewhere squarely in the middle. At the very least, the French director must be applauded for his risky genre-bending: the film is defiantly uncategorizable and can only be described as an "art house ghost story." Kristen Stewart stars as a young woman who receives messages from the afterlife, oftentimes from her deceased twin. Despite its problematic writing—that's really as far as the story goes—Personal Shopper is a gripping exercise in performance, atmosphere, and the search for meaning. It will be released on March 10.
It Comes at Night (dir. Trey Edward Shults)
We featured Trey Edward Shults' SXSW sensation Krisha as one of the boldest risks directors took in cinema last year. (Shults shot his astounding microbudget debut, which starred his family members reenacting some of their most painful memories, for $30,000.) Ever since Krisha rocked us with its orchestra of family horrors, the indie world has been eagerly waiting to see what Shults might do next. Now, we have the trailer for It Comes at Night, which the director developed with A24. This time around, instead of baking atmospheric horror into family drama, Shults opts to weave family into a horror-thriller about a father determined to protect his family from a malevolent presence. But it looks like Shults hasn't strayed too far—the story is based on Shults' own father's death, in keeping with his commitment to telling personal family stories, and the director continues to explore his penchant for operatic camera movement and tension. From A24: "Imagine the end of the world. Now imagine something worse. It Comes at Night follows a man (Joel Edgerton) as he learns that the evil stalking his family home may be only a prelude to horrors that come from within." Also starring Riley Keough and Christopher Abbott, It Comes at Night will hit theaters August 25.
Beach Rats (dir. Eliza Hittman)
Eliza Hittman's Beach Rats recently won the Directing Award at Sundance, and we spoke to the director about her bold decision to shoot on 16mm, the challenges of choreographing sex scenes, and more. Beach Rats is a gritty teen drama that follows Frankie (Harrison Dickinson), a young man whose conflicts about his sexual orientation are magnified by his dying father and delinquent social circle. It was one of the buzziest films out of Sundance this year and we can guarantee that it lives up to the hype. Beach Rats will be released sometime in Fall 2017.
Dear White People (dir. Justin Simien)
Based on Justin Simien's highly successful 2014 movie of the same name, the new Netflix series Dear White People satirizes the idea of a "post-racial America" by depicting the experience of black students at a predominantly white Ivy League college. Netflix gave Simien, who is the show's writer-editor-producer-sometimes director, freedom to expand upon his brilliant premise: "I was waiting for someone to call and say, 'Yeah, you can't do any of the things we said you could do,'" Simien recently joked to the press. "I was waiting for the rug to be pulled under me." Each episode is told from the point-of-view of a different character, building to what is sure to be a climactic final act. What's more: Barry Jenkins, director of Moonlight, helms at least one episode. We can't wait for Dear White People's premiere on April 28.
The Bad Batch (dir. Ana Lily Amirpour)
Ana Lily Amirpour took the indie film world by storm with her confident and highly stylized debut A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. We saw her sophomore effort, The Bad Batch, at Toronto last year, where we spoke to Amirpour and star Suki Waterhouse about the post-apocalyptic film, which features roving cannibals and more than a few direct nods to Mad Max—not the least of them being the film's lack of dialogue. In theaters June 23.
All release dates are US.