One of the reasons I maybe wasn’t super eager to see Eighth Grade when it came out last year was just how sharp the film appeared to be at recreating the immense awkwardness of middle school. And now having actually watched it, I can confirm that the movie is just as good at evoking that awkwardness as its trailers made it appear.
Eighth Grade does an excellent job at everything it’s doing, but it also has one sequence, which I won’t detail here specifically, that is just so painful to watch (like, legitimately, I might just hit fast forward kind of painful) that I have to wonder if there are other ways a director could have approached the scene that kept the same takeaway for its main character, but spared audiences from watching effectively a slow-motion car crash.
In particular, I’ve been wondering what would have happened if a woman had been the writer or director here. The film very much respects the teenage girl it focuses on, but I wonder a lot about a director’s responsibility to their audience. Events on screen can be legitimately painful to watch, and Eighth Grade — an otherwise lighthearted movie about awkward pre-teen years — gets there.
Check out 11 trailers from this week below.
Shaft
Kenya Barris, the creator of Black-ish, is behind the script for the revival of Shaft, which brings together two previous generations of film-adaptation Shafts to pass the torch along to yet another generation. The movie looks like it strikes a very fun balance between cool action movie and ridiculous comedy. It comes out June 14th.
The Twilight Zone
Jordan Peele is bringing back The Twilight Zone, and CBS aired a wonderfully eerie first teaser during the Super Bowl last week. There’s not much to see, but it seems to be hitting all the right notes. The show debuts April 1st on CBS All Access.
Child’s Play
I love the slow reveal in this first trailer for the revival of Child’s Play, which starts out just like any generic video from a tech company trying to get you to buy their never-as-good-as-it-looks new gadget. It’s a fun twist on the origin story of the murderous doll. The film comes out June 21st.
Avengers: Endgame
Marvel put out new Avengers: Endgame footage during the Super Bowl last weekend. It’s a short spot, but it’s a moody one, giving a clearer look at the bleak world the film takes place in. Plus, there are some odd clues in it for fans to search through. The film comes out April 26th.
Captain Marvel
I feel like Marvel has gotten better and better at advertising Captain Marvel as the movie’s gotten closer to its release date. This spot run during the Super Bowl is filled with fun and seriously energetic new footage that makes it look like a rollercoaster straight through. The film comes out March 8th.
Doom Patrol
DC hasn’t revealed much about Doom Patrol yet, but this short teaser suggests it’ll be worth paying attention to. The show is about a team of not-quite-super superheroes who seem to be struggling with the responsibility placed on them. It’s a dynamic we’ve seen more and more often lately — but hey, it’s a fun one. The show will be exclusive to DC’s streaming service when it debuts February 15th.
What We Do in the Shadows
Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement have taken their movie about a houseful of confused, immature vampires and expanded it into a TV series that looks like it’ll be a plenty of fun. The show comes to FX on March 27th.
The Case Against Adnan Syed
HBO has a new documentary series coming up that dives into the case made famous by Serial. It’s not clear that this series pushes the story much further, but it does catch up on what’s happened since the podcast and put faces to the voices people already know. The four-part series debuts March 10th.
Ash is Purest White
The opening scene to this trailer is just wonderful. Ash is Purest White has a ton of great reviews from when it debuted at Cannes last year, with The Playlist calling it a “feminist take on the gangster film.” Now it’s finally headed to the US for a limited release on March 15th.
Our Planet
I don’t think there’s any end to the number of incredibly-filmed, David Attenborough-narrated nature documentaries that people will watch. Netflix was smart enough to scoop up the latest, which comes from the creator of Planet Earth. The eight-episode series debuts April 5th.
Pet Sematary
Creepy children are a standby of horror, but creepy children the main characters are responsible for creating and have a familial attachment to are way, way scarier. The Stephen King adaptation comes out April 5th.
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