I'm not a big fan of Wes Anderson's early films, but I've really enjoyed his last few, and Isle of Dogs was no exception. While I would not say it was one of the most profound or emotional films I've seen this year, it was a fairly relentlessly funny and joyful experience.
But there is still a lot of room for criticism, as has been evident if you've read something about the film. One thing I found rare was that almost all dogs were men, despite having a literal island full of them, and that human gender norms are fully translated into their canine fantasy world.
Of course, the big question in the film was how he used Japanese culture to tell a story written primarily by white Americans and starring English-speaking dogs. There have been many great articles on the subject, and I would recommend reading some after watching the movie: here is the piece by Emily Yoshida in Vulture interviewing Japanese speakers who saw her, and here is Karen Han in The Daily Beast on how it does not interact with Japanese culture.
See nine trailers this week below.
Fahrenheit 451
Here is the first full trailer of the HBO adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 with Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon as the protagonist. There's nothing here that does not look fantastic: it's beautiful, bad-tempered, and it takes a bold dystopian concept and it makes it feel serious and scary, the way it's supposed to be. The film will premiere on May 19.
The First Purge
I have not seen the other movies Purge but I'm surprised at how much it seems to be permeated by social commentary instead of just horrifying murders: from the trailer, it seems that the first Purge is revealed as a government scheme to kill people of color. It leaves on July 4.
The man who killed Don Quixote
Normally I do not include foreign trailers here, but this is a case in which I'll have to make an exception: this is Terry's first footage. Gilliam's adaptation of two decades in the works (of type) of Don Quijote . The production of the film has been famous for its failures. And although it is not too late still for something to stop him this time, it seems that the project has finally come to fruition. There is still no news on a release date.
Ava
Ava is the first film by the Iranian / Canadian director Sadaf Foroughi, and it looks great. She is a high school girl who lives in Tehran, who deals with the tension between her growing interest in a child and social norms, and the actions of her family, which prevents her from seeing him. It has received good reviews so far, and now it will be released on April 27.
The Gospel according to André
A new documentary traces the life and career of André Leon Talley, the former editor in chief of Vogue and, more generally, a fashion icon. The trailer is full of personality and personalities, including a moment when will.i.am calls Talley "Nelson Mandela of haute couture" and it looks like it should be a fun and powerful watch. It leaves on April 27.
Update
The latest film from the horror studio Blumhouse looks like a wonderfully forgiving, B-style sci-fi revenge movie about a man whose body is taken by AI. It looks completely exaggerated, but in a way that makes it very clear that the writer and director of the film, Leigh Whannell, who was behind the opening films Saw knows exactly what he is doing. It leaves on June 1.
Do you trust this computer?
And here is basically the documentary version of the previous movie, asking how dangerous AI could be for humanity. I do not get the impression of this trailer that the film is so deep in its subject, but it has an appearance of Elon Musk, which is always entertaining when it comes to AI. There is still no release date.
How to talk to girls at parties
I'm not going to say that this is not what it seems (a kind of twee movie with a girl problem of maniac pixie dreams) based on naming alone, but it's definitely not exactly what it looks like, because it's also about extraterrestrials. And punk rock, I suppose. So far the reviews are pretty bad, but, it's based on a Neil Gaiman story, so there it is. It leaves on May 18.
Generation Wealth
If you are looking for a good hate watch, look up. It leaves on July 20.