This week has a handful of things we love a lot: AI, Kristen Wiig, supernaturals, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. They’re not all in the same movie—that might be too much—but together are sprinkling the future movie landscape with an oddly charming brand of fairy dust. Here is your latest batch of WIRED-approved trailers.
The One You Wish Everyone Would Talk About: Welcome To Me
There are roughly 73,000 reasons to be so excited for this movie, and Kristen Wiig’s comedic abilities account for roughly half of those reasons. When we saw the new movie Nasty Baby at Sundance, we were impressed and encouraged by how weird and against-the-grain Wiig is willing to be with her script choices, and Welcome To Me is building on what we hope is a trend in her career that we’ll call “surreal quirk” for now. The Me of this movie is Borderline Personality Disorder patient Alice Klieg (Wiig). Alice wins an $86 million lotto jackpot, goes off her medication, and—thanks to her obsession with Oprah—buys her own talk show. In just this trailer we see her demand to enter the set on a swan boat and devote possibly an entire show to making and eating a meatloaf cake. It’s produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay and co-stars Wes Bentley, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Linda Cardellini.
Pause at: 0:43. The viewing audience for this movie. Swan boat at 1:28. Meatloaf cake at 1:46. Winning at 2:11.
Essential Quote: “You’re off your meds. You’re living in a reservation casino. And you’re hosting your own talk show.”—Dr. Moffat (Tim Robbins)
The Small Screen Standout: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Inhumans alert! Inhumans alert! S.H.I.E.L.D. is about to make its mid-season return, and now that we’ve been made aware of the Inhumans, Marvel is ready to plant the seeds for its July 2019 movie about the mutant subset. Remember when intricate co-dependent storylines didn’t exist to guide us through years of televised and cinematic entertainment? Ha ha, neither do we!
Pause at: 0:19. Danger! Keep away!
Essential Quote: “There was something inside of me, something I didn’t even know was there, something possibly… inhuman. And if it gets out, nothing will ever be the same.”—Skye (Chloe Bennet)
The Documentary: Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
But, like, who hasn’t considered making their own shot-for-shot remake of their favorite movie? Not many people? Oh, well then that probably makes what Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala did pretty exceptional in the realm of superfandom. Over the course of seven years starting in 1982, the two friends—who were 11 years old at the time—recreated one of the greatest movies ever made, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Strompolos and Zala weren’t able to finish the project, but armed with nothing besides passion, determination and DIY know-how, the pair still produced a legendary work of fan art. Then, as fate and the Internet would have it, some influential Hollywood types, specifically Eli Roth, got a hold of the incomplete project many years later and started passing it around to friends and colleagues. This documentary is the story of how the Raiders recreation was made, and what happens when Strompolos and Zala get the chance to complete their film 30 years later by shooting the iconic plane scene. Such a better way to express your fan devotion than writing Fifty Shades of Grey.
Pause at: 0:43, 0:46, 1:06, 1:18, 1:27, 1:33, and 2:04 for major commitment to the craft.
Song: John Williams, “The Raiders March (Indiana Jones Main Theme)”
Essential Quote: “I mean, did anybody get hurt in the making of this film?!”
The Science Fiction One: Eva
High five if you’re excited about the onset of moody, haunting AI movies on the horizon! In April, we’ll finally get to see the wide release of Ex Machina. Chappie is on the way. (OK, so that one is more big-budget action than moody/haunting, but we’ll take sentient robots where we can get them!) And now we’ve got Eva. Daniel Brühl continues to make interesting and smart career choices as he takes up the role of Alex, a “renowned cybernetic engineer” living in a future where humans and robots exist peacefully alongside one another. Alex works for an impossibly cool sounding entity called the Robotic Faculty, and he’s been assigned the task of creating a child robot. In addition to that, he also reunites with his former flame who is now married to his brother, and together the two have a child, Eva, that Alex develops an immediate bond with. The tired love triangle trope could use a shot in the arm, and we think artificially intelligent machines are just what the robotic overlords ordered.
Pause at: 0:20 for Ironman hologram technology and 0:21 for a robot dog! Stop at 0:26 for Alex’s robot progeny. Meet niece Eva at 1:28. Beyond human at 2:05.
Essential Quote: “It doesn’t really matter if robots feel or not. What really matters is they make you feel.”
The Biopic: Love and Mercy
First of all, Paul Dano looks eerily similar to a young Brian Wilson. Second, is there anyone better to play a doctor who exploits a patient through an abusive relationship than Paul Giamatti? Well, this movie has both of those things! The combination of mystery and tragedy and genius that defines the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson makes him one of the most interesting figures in music history—certainly one deserving of his very own biopic. And Love and Mercy tells his story from the professional boom times of the 1960s through his deeply troubled, but ultimately triumphant, period in the 1980s, with Dano and John Cusack sharing the role of young and older Wilson, respectively.
Pause at: 0:17. Hey look! It’s Brian Wil—oh, sorry. That’s Paul Dano! Some pet sounds at 0:29.
Song: The Beach Boys, “I Get Around” and “God Only Knows”
Essential Quote: “I got different stuff inside me! I gotta get it out.”—Brian Wilson (Paul Dano)
The Arthouse Indie One: Her Wilderness
So here’s a curious little number. This movie’s official description calls it “both wildly operatic and quietly mysterious, while blending memory with fantasy … a portrait of four women wondering just how much power they wield in choosing their next stage in life.” It looks positively Malick-ian in tone, managing to be at once vague, hyper-intimate, and expansive in scope. And here’s the twist, writer/director/editor Frank Mosely has spread the work across multiple platforms, with an interactive online component meant to accompany the feature length film.
Pause at: 0:44, 1:13, 1:34, 1:42, 1:49—yep, that’s about all we’ve got!
Essential Quote: “It’s just funny how it’s so hard to part with something, even when you already know how it’s going to end.”
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