I watched Guava Island last weekend, since I was really curious to see what this mystery project that Donald Glover, Rihanna, and Hiro Murai had put together was. As a person who watches nearly every single trailer in existence, it was nice for once going into a movie with almost no understanding of what I was about to get, since the film’s teasers were just a couple of seconds long.
The movie is somewhere between an extended music video and a film that just happens to involve musical set pieces. There’s a very funny reprise of Murai and Glover’s “This is America” video, a sweet sequence of Glover and Rihanna dancing on a pier, and some lovely moments in between that basically boil down to Glover being a super charming dude and a great underdog hero.
The movie’s not quite interested in building itself out in either direction though — music video or musical film. It tells a basic story, shows some gorgeous images, plays some music, and leaves. Stereogum described it as being but an echo of a classic Brazilian drama, while Pitchfork called it “a very long commercial for Childish Gambino songs.” At least it’s a pretty one.
Check out 11 trailers from this week below.
Hobbs & Shaw
I’ve never understood the Fast & Furious series, but it’d be hard not to understand this. The only thing Hobbs & Shaw takes seriously is having a complete blast, and every moment of this trailer — which is a full minute longer than a normal trailer — is self-aware, over-the-top, action movie fun. It comes out August 2nd.
Big Little Lies
After the success of its first season, HBO found a way to bring back Big Little Lies for more — and at the very least, adding Meryl Streep to the cast seems like a really strong start. It debuts June 9th.
When They See Us
Here’s a beautiful, devastating trailer for When They See Us, Ava DuVernay’s four-part series about the Central Park Five, a group of black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted of rape. The series is particularly timely considering then-real estate developer Donald Trump’s inflammatory crusade around the teens and his ongoing refusal to accept their innocence. The series debuts May 31st.
Dark Phoenix
I saw someone joke on Twitter about the millions of dollars worth of reshoots that were needed before Fox could make a coherent Dark Phoenix trailer. In fairness, I’ve barely seen any of the X-Men movies, but this really is the first trailer I’ve been able to completely follow. It comes out June 7th.
Swamp Thing
DC put out a first teaser for Swamp Thing this week. Unfortunately, it also cut the episode order on Swamp Thing this week, which suggests it doesn’t have the highest of hopes for the series. Here’s a first look at it if you’re interested. The show debuts May 31st.
The Boys
Amazon is adapting a comic book series about a world where superheroes are all corrupt and selfish and a group of guys decide to teach them a lesson. It’s a nice twist, though the show weirdly seems to be mining the very things it’s critical of for crude humor and bloody fights. It comes out July 26th.
Alternatino with Arturo Castro
Broad City’s Arturo Castro is getting his own sketch series on Comedy Central. The network has had some iconic sketch shows (along with plenty of not-so-iconic ones) over the years, and its last great sketch comedy series, Key & Peele, wrapped up in 2015. Now it looks like the network is now trying to take that same style of very energetic, culturally focused comedy and let Castro use it to explore the experience of a Latino immigrant to the United States. The show debuts June 18th.
Child’s Play
I love that this trailer starts with a shot of a gritty hang out spot where a bunch of teens... share bags of potato chips with each other? Anyway, here’s the new trailer for the Child’s Play reboot, which puts a high-tech spin on Chucky and makes good use of our growing smart home fears. It comes out June 21st.
Tuca & Bertie
This is a little bit like Bojack Horseman, but with Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong, which seems like enough of a winning formula. The show debuts May 3rd.
The Perfection
There’s a large extent to which this feels like ‘Hey what if Allison Williams did that thing from Get Out but in more traditionally creepy horror movie ways,’ but also there’s an extent to which, if you’re looking for a very creepy movie, this definitely looks like a winner. It comes out May 24th.
Grass is Greener
Fab 5 Freddy, the former host of Yo! MTV Raps, among many other things, directs this documentary about the history of weed in America and the racist dynamics that shaped its reception. Freddy sits down with Snoop Dogg, Killer Mike, and more to tell the story. Obviously, it comes out today.