Sunday, March 13, 2016

This Week In Trailers: Adam Green’s Aladdin, Presenting Princess Shaw, The Idol, The Corpse of Anna Fritz, Wide Open Sky

Green Band Trailer

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 postulate who gave Adam Green the brown acid, get truly inspired by a stranger with a dream, watch a kid from Gaza realize his potential, hatch a bad plan around a famous dead body, and feel all squishy about a bunch of cute ragamuffins from down undah.

Presenting Princess Shaw Trailer

Hyperbole. I have no time for it. But, this was the best trailer I saw all week.

Director Ido Haar absolutely deserves to have this little engine that could be consumed and have the hairs stand up on your neck and arms when you feel the love. There’s just nothing but an earnestness and passion bursting at the seams here and kudos to the editors of this thing for knowing what the through line should be. We get to know our subject quickly, succinctly, and we get right to the point. Knowing what’s at stake for this woman, and getting a taste of what’s on the other side of her dream, was enough to turn what could have been a slight documentary into something a little more special.

Adam Green’s Aladdin Trailer

I lit-tra-lee have no words.

Director Adam Green, who must have ingested an artisan, hand-crafted cocktail of ketamine and pickle juice when he conceived and shot this utterly fantastic visual ink blot, amazingly created something unlike anything I’ve seen in some time. The visuals are sprawling, the audio syncing is iffy, the colors are fantastically insane, and I couldn’t tell you one single thing about what this story is trying to get across. Keep in mind, and I almost feel this needs to be said so as to not confuse some of you, this is not the same Adam Green who gave us Frozen (no, the OTHER one) and Hatchet before you start wondering where the gore and viscera has all gone. Regardless of which Adam Green we’re getting here there is no denying it is utterly amazing someone opened up a checkbook and put some zeros behind bringing this into the world.

The Idol Trailer

Two time Academy Award nominee.

I think this was important to get out there as I feel like this one is going to struggle to get seen even though the trailer is all balls. Director Hany Abu-Assad, who was nominated for his work in 2006 for his film Paradise Now and in 2013 for Omar, is an interesting case of a filmmaker who has focused his energy telling stories surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Tangentially they’re related to this and you can see it eke out in this, a story about the real life Palestinian singer Mohammad Assaf, and how, while not focusing on the strife, how it informs the story itself. It’s touching and effective and sweet and it’s vibrantly captured in a trailer that all but convinces you that this is a story, and a movie, worth your time.

The Corpse of Anna Fritz Trailer

I thought we were going down on a different path with a pretty corpse in a morgue with a shifty looking dude.

Once you get that this is not going to be about the evils some men do to the dead when they’re alone with a freshly deceased body, director Hèctor Hernández Vicens gets right into the dramatic thrust of what brings us here and why others, through tight and succinct pull-quotes, feel this is something unique. I found myself engaged with what in the world was going on and every moment that passed just reinforced how they were ratcheting up the suspense only to feel the pain of realizing, yup, we are going down the original path I thought we were on. The soundtrack, as well, is flat out horrible as is the voice-over. The only saving grace here is that there does feel like something else is brewing behind the whole desecrating a corpse angle and could be something that could make for an enjoyable midnight viewing.

Wide Open Sky Trailer

 

Delicate.

There is something so endearing about a documentary that looks at something so simple. Here, we’re peeking into the world of a children’s choir based in the Australian outback. On the surface this doesn’t seem like scintillating viewing but not only is this trailer fantastic but it was a winner at last year’s Sydney Film Festival for Best Documentary. First time filmmaker Lisa Nicol absolutely made a splash with her inaugural effort and it shows. The trailer moves us from moment to moment, letting tiny pieces of life just breathe, as we get a look into the lives of these inspiring children. I know the old adage that if it bleeds it leads as a means to getting through a cynical public but I’m just taken with the narrative and think this deserves to be shared.

Nota bene: If you have any suggestions of trailers to possibly be included 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:

The post This Week In Trailers: Adam Green’s Aladdin, Presenting Princess Shaw, The Idol, The Corpse of Anna Fritz, Wide Open Sky appeared first on /Film.



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