Trailers for Suffragette, Mistress America, Paper Towns, and Ted 2 have hit the World Wide Web all at once, which means it’s time for a throwdown at the Trailer Park. Watch these trailers in the sequence I’ve assembled below for a very literal representation of the term “descending order.”
The Dissolve News Team (TM) has been frothing at the mouth(s?) over Suffragette for months now. Kate wrote about the first teaser for the film back in April; today brings both the news that Suffragette will open the BGI London Film Fest on October 7 as well as the first full-length trailer, which is not making me cry at my desk at all, nope. Penned by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, Shame), Suffragette follows The Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst, who was at the forefront of the feminist movement in the early 20th century, encouraging women to risk everything for the right to vote. Carey Mulligan stars as Maud, a working wife and mother who joins Emmeline and the Women’s Social and Political Union in fucking shit right on up for the patriarchy. This new trailer is goosebump-inducing and powerful, all the more so because it’s based on real events and because someone (Imogen Heap?) is singing a beautiful cover of “Landslide” over it. Also, Carey irons a dude’s hand!
The trail of the tape
Title: Suffragette
Director: Sarah Gavron
Screenwriter: Abi Morgan
Cast: Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson
Release date: October 23
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “We break windows. We burn things. Because war’s the only language men listen to.”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
Mistress America is the latest film in the grand Noah-Baumbach-follows-hip-but-troubled-young-people-around-New-York tradition. This time, our central youthful human is Tracy (Lola Kirke, sister of Jemima), a “lonely college freshman in New York, having neither the exciting university experience nor the glamorous metropolitan lifestyle she envisioned.” That is, until she’s taken in by her soon-to-be-stepsister Brooke (Greta Gerwig, but of course), a goofy free spirit/hot mess who rescues Tracy from a life of sitting in a dorm cafeteria and occasionally eating leftovers. The first trailer is filled to the brim with Gerwig/Baumbach’s signature screwball, self-aware humor; most of it’s working, except for the end, which feels a touch overdone. As a staunch Gerwig apologist, I’ll watch the shit out of this movie anyway.
The trail of the tape
Title: Mistress America
Director: Noah Baumbach
Screenwriter: Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig
Cast: Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Michael Chernus
Release date: August 14, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “I freelance as an interior director. You know the Bowery Hotel? If you walk about a block south, there’s a laser-hair removal center that’s very hip. I did the waiting room.”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
Paper Towns
The first trailer for John Green adaptation Paper Towns debuted in March, and included a slow-motion shot of a young girl stepping out of a mini van while pulling a spirit hood off of her head. I assumed things could only improve from there. But the second trailer boasts yet another scene centered on a mini van (how else does one telegraph “THE SUBURBS ARE SOUL-SUCKING,” I guess?), plus several tired tropes that make the movie feel more like a stale, stilted Superbad imitation and less like a teen-centric iteration of Elizabethtown. Which is the lesser evil? It’s hard to say. Anyway, press play if you’d like to hear some MILF jokes sprung from the mind of a young teen named “Radar” and learn just how dull and tuba-filled protagonist Quentin’s (Nat Wolff) life was before the object of his lifelong affection, Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne; again, better be a Jewess), asked him to help her seek revenge on her cheating boyfriend.
The trail of the tape
Title: Paper Towns
Director: Jack Schreier
Screenwriter: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber
Cast: Cara Delevingne, Halston Sage, Nat Wolff, Austin Abrams
Release date: July 24, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “It’s a paper town. Paper houses and paper people.”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
This new red-band trailer for Ted 2 kicks off with a brief Darth Vader reference followed by Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried, and Ted ripping a massive bong in an office setting. The rest of the ad includes, but is not limited to, the trio tossing food into a blind stranger’s butt crack, driving a car through a shed, and shooting rifles idly into the air. Morgan Freeman stops by to lecture Ted on being a terrible person/stuffed animal. Ted falls on top of Mark Wahlberg, who is lying on top of a broken fence? There is absolutely nothing by way of plot offered here, though the “help me get home” joke went over well at my desk. The fact that an organization referred to Seth MacFarlane as a genius this weekend did not.
The trail of the tape
Title: Ted 2
Director: Seth MacFarlane
Screenwriter: Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin, Wellesley Wild
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Morgan Freeman, Seth MacFarlane
Release date: June 26, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “What the fuck?”
The entire trailer in one screengrab: