I watched First Reformed last weekend, and I still don’t know quite what to think. The film, which comes from Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader, stars Ethan Hawke as a minister who slowly starts to see darkness in the world — global warming, capitalism, political indifference — and gets sucked toward the extremes he had once been warning against.
The film does a masterful job twisting its minister from a quiet, lost character to one who’s driven and obsessed. It feels real, and it’s an excellent portrait of how someone could shift their point of view so far and so intensely.
But, like Taxi Driver, I also don’t know how much I enjoy watching a story that lets us see into how the heart of man (men, specifically) becomes twisted. I sort of just don’t care! Which makes it hard for me to recommend, even when the film is fascinating enough to have left me thinking about it for days.
Check out 11 trailers from this week below.
Joker
What if… this is good? Joker seems like an impossible premise — making a delusional supervillain into enough of a sympathetic figure for audiences to root for him. But the approach it takes seems to be a lot closer to a Paul Thomas Anderson movie than a Zach Snyder film, and maybe that’s what it needs to work. Also, I just have to tell you this, it’s directed by the guy who did The Hangover series and Old School. The movie comes out October 4th.
Game of Thrones
With just over a week to go, HBO has put out another teaser for the final season of Game of Thrones. Sorry — this one’s really just a teaser again, with no sign of actual footage from the new episodes. But I’m sure there are some clues in there somewhere. The season debuts April 14th.
Avengers: Endgame
How is there another Endgame trailer? And when did Hawkeye get a full tattoo sleeve? How did he have the time to completely revamp his look? Does this mean, after half of his friends died, he thought, “I should find a surviving tattoo artist and have him fill in my whole arm”? Is the tattoo key to Thanos’ downfall? The movie comes out April 26th.
The Society
Netflix has a new YA series coming out that’s like Lord of the Flies, with a modern twist and a lot more partying. It’s a little end-of-the-worldy and a little mysterious. The series debuts May 10th.
Top Boy
Netflix, with the help of Drake as a producer, is reviving Top Boy, a British series that ran for two season starting in 2011. It’s about people living in a crime-filled area of East London, dealing with the reality of getting by amid violence and poverty. The show looks gorgeous and like a serious dive into its subjects’ lives. It comes out some time this fall.
The Ruthless
Netflix has a very fun looking crime drama coming up about a thief and drug smuggler in Italy trying to expand his operations and fall in love. It comes out April 19th.
J.T. LeRoy
Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern star in this telling of the drama around literary sensation and not-quite-real person, J.T. LeRoy. It looks like a lighthearted take on the story, which was also turned into a far more dramatic looking documentary a couple years ago. It comes out April 26th.
NOS4A2
Joe Hill’s vampire novel is being adapted into a TV series that has Zachary Quinto playing the villain. The vampire teeth look particularly freaky. The show starts June 2nd.
The Dead Don’t Die
Jim Jarmusch put together a surprisingly star-studded cast for this very dry, seemingly low-key zombie comedy. It comes out June 14th.
Too Old to Die Young
Would I generally recommend watching a 10-episode crime noir from Nicolas Winding Refn, the director behind Drive and The Neon Demon? Probably not. But I suspect I will not be able to help watching it myself anyway. Naturally, this first trailer is filled with starkly beautiful and haunting images. It comes to Amazon on June 14th.
My Spy
Ok, this is cute.
This article is from The Verge
