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New trailers: Star Wars, Thor, Dear White People, and more

New trailers: Star Wars, Thor, Dear White People, and more

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Thor: Ragnarok still
Marvel

Last weekend I watched Eight Days a Week, Ron Howard's documentary about The Beatles' touring years. It's a really enjoyable film with some great performance footage (turns out The Beatles were very good musicians), but what I really loved about it was the insight into ’60s culture on the periphery of it all.

The film was basically supplemental viewing for me, since I'm also watching through Mad Men for the first time right now. In the spot I'm at — the middle of season five — music is increasingly being used to show the tension between adults of the ’50s and adults of the ’60s, and Eight Days a Week speaks to that on some level.

The documentary may be about The Beatles' members, but it also shows how the band gave people the chance to loudly, passionately, irrationally care about something. And the ability to care like that is so often at the core of Mad Men's conflicts.

Check out 11 trailers from this week below.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

I don't really need to say anything here, do I? (But if you want a breakdown of the trailer, you can read that right here.) The film comes out December 15th.

Thor: Ragnarok

Thor has always been the odd one out in the Marvel film universe, bordering on interesting but always falling short of Tony Stark's charisma or Captain America's thrills. But it looks like Ragnarok could change all of that by actually making Thor... fun. Or maybe it's just the music. We'll see November 3rd

Detroit

Kathryn Bigelow's followup to Zero Dark Thirty is about Detroit's 1967 riot and the systemic racism that led up to it. The film looks dark and frenetic, and it's already clear that there's a good chance this will be one of 2017’s must-sees. It comes out August 4th.

Dear White People

Netflix opens its latest Dear White People trailer with a full-on troll of its haters: a trigger warning telling them to watch it. The show looks every bit as unflinchingly sharp and funny as the movie it's based on, with director Justin Simien returning to help bring the story to TV. The first season comes out April 28th.

The Bad Batch

Ana Lily Amirpour's followup to A Girl Walk Home Alone at Night looks even more striking, surprising, and... oh wow that mustache on Keanu Reeves is really something. The movie looks kind of like a mashup of Mad Max and a rave. I'm super into it. It comes out June 23rd.

I Love Dick

Amazon put out a first trailer this week for I Love Dick, its loose adaptation of Chris Kraus' controversial, feminist, cult-hit novel. And it'll probably be a must-see for a whole lot of people, especially given that Transparent creator Jill Soloway is behind the series. It starts streaming May 12th.

Sense8

After a long break, Netflix is bringing back Sense8, the Wachowskis' eclectic, mysterious, globe-spanning series about eight interconnected people and the secretive forces hunting them down. The show seems to be keeping its same odd mix of action, dark conspiracy, and joyful affirmation as it goes into season two, which arrives May 5th.

Risk

Laura Poitras' last film documented Edward Snowden days after leaving the NSA, and she isn't going any lower profile for her latest: Risk follows Julian Assange over six years, including through the 2016 election, which his organization infamously disrupted by leaking emails from the Clinton campaign. The film comes out sometime this summer.

The Wizard of Lies

HBO got Robert De Niro to star in Wizard of Lies, its film about Bernie Madoff and the eventual bust of his Ponzi scheme that swindled investors out of $65 billion over 20 years. It may be a TV movie, but it looks like one of De Niro's more interesting roles in some time. It comes out May 20th.

The Mist

Spike is turning Stephen King's novella The Mist into a TV series, and while the special effects in this trailer definitely leave something to be desired, the show still seems to hit the eerie, mysterious tone that it's looking for. The show starts June 22nd.

The Hitman's Bodyguard

This movie looks dumb and ridiculous, but it knows exactly how dumb and ridiculous it looks. And it's kind of great? It's out August 18th.