New trailers: The Hateful Eight, Doctor Who, Supergirl, and more

The Hateful Eight

Throw eight Quentin Tarantino characters into a room, wait a couple days, and see who walks out. That seems to be the premise of Tarantino's latest, The Hateful Eight. This trailer is more about showing its cool side than its actual tone, but having seen more footage at Comic-Con last month, I can tell you that you'll definitely want to see more. It's out starting on Christmas.

Doctor Who

I think this trailer is trying to make Doctor Who look very rock and roll, and it is either wildly succeeding or miserably failing depending on how much you already like BBC programing. Either way, Doctor Who's new season is bringing back everything fans could ask for, it has a guest appearance from Maisie Williams this year, and it starts September 19th.

Supergirl

CBS's Supergirl looks campy in all the right ways. It's a superhero show for people who love CW series more than Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, and that's kind of wonderful. We need more variety when it comes to how these classic characters as presented. It starts on CBS October 26th.

Jem and the Holograms

Jem and the Holograms certainly isn't sticking close to its source material. But maybe it doesn't matter: the reboot is trying to become a story of fame and identity in the internet age, and the series' broader conceits might just help it get there. Plus, there's a weird little robot! It's out October 23rd.

Westworld

Imagine if someone threw Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Deadwood into a blender and then gave you a shot of whatever freaky goo came out. That's kind of what watching this trailer is like. Westworld is a new series coming to HBO next year that stars Anthony Hopkins and is based on a film from Michael Crichton. It's about reality, or something. It looks cool.

The Quay Brothers in 35mm

Christopher Nolan’s next movie is a… short documentary? Nolan's short film Quay heads into the Quay Brothers' eerie stop-motion animation studio. The film is being toured around the US, and it'll be playing along with four shorts that the brothers have made over the past three decades. If you've never seen their gorgeously creepy work before, definitely check it out above. The film begins playing in New York next week.

Trumbo

At the very least, this movie seems like a wonderful excuse to watch Bryan Cranston do some wonderful acting. Plus, there's Helen Mirren, John Goodman, and Louis C.K., too. The film is about a blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter amid 1940s communism scares, and it comes out this November.

Life

Life has Robert Pattinson playing a photographer looking into a hot new actor named James Dean. This first trailer is pretty toned down, but it's worth paying attention to: it comes from director Anton Corbijn, who's made some great films like The American. Life comes out on September 26th in the UK.

Amazing Grace

In 1972, director Sydney Pollack recorded over 20 hours of footage documenting Aretha Franklin as she recorded the album Amazing Grace. By all means, that's something that a lot of people would love to see, but the footage was apparently locked up for one reason or another until recently. Now it's finally been edited together into a documentary, which is premiering this year at the Toronto International Film Festival. That means it'll likely be released widely in late 2015 or early 2016.

Wolf Totem

I'd watch this just for the amazing landscapes and baby wolves. Wolf Totem is about nomads in 1960s China who are facing down the elements — and wolves — all while students from Beijing are moving in and trying to teach their kids. It's based on a novel that came out about a decade ago; the film comes out on September 11th.

Burnt

I have, like, no idea what's happening here. This trailer is 20 percent James Bond, 20 percent food porn, 20 percent cutesy romance, 20 percent Gordon Ramsay, and 20 percent Bradley Cooper just being too aww-shucks cute to dislike. But here's what it's really worth watching for: a really wonderful use of sound. Noises of the kitchen build and build until they're one overbearing rhythm that sets the tone for the trailer's darker points. Who knows what the film is going to be like, but it'll be out October 23rd.

Sleeping With Other People

Red Band trailers are supposed to be all edgy and cool, but this one really just drives home how often they reveal a movie's worst sensibilities. The first trailer for Sleeping With Other People made it seem like a surprisingly thoughtful sex comedy, but this trailer makes it seem more like it errs toward the gross-out extremes that people love to see from Seth Rogen films. I guess that's all fine and well if that's what you're into, but I have to wonder if making a movie that doesn't need a Red Band trailer is sometimes the smarter move. The film comes out on September 11th.

Billions

Pros: a very serious Paul Giamatti.

Cons: in comparison, probably everything else.

It starts on Showtime January 17th.