Oscar Hopeful Trailers Galore
Friday, August 26, 2016 at 8:00AM Chris here. As the upcoming fall festival and Oscar season looms, get ready for a steady stream of incoming footage for this year's hopefuls to start cropping up in the coming weeks. Today we have some peeks at a few weepies ready to work your tear ducts on their path to awards: Manchester By The Sea, A United Kingdom, and Lion. Take a look at the trailers (and a few quick thoughts) below:
Manchester By The Sea
• Kenneth Lonergan is definitely returning to You Can Count On Me territory after the intellectual meanderings of Margaret, with already raved about results.
• Isn't Kyle Chandler in this? Obviously new star Lucas Hedges will be the supporting Oscar play here, but when will the always strong Chandler finally get his due?
• I've read Michelle Williams performance compared to Beatrice Straight in Network several times. Looks like we'll have a brief spellbinder of a performance.
• A common complaint for trailers such as this, but that cliche uplifting rock tune seems extra tacked on here. Lonergan would never.
A United Kingdom
• This and Loving will no doubt face cheap comparisons to one another in the coming season. Kingdom looks to be playing to more broad, rousing emotions on a larger scale.
• The gorgeous coupling of Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo sends my heart all aflutter. That's a lot of pretty.
• While it doesn't look like the historical drama mold won't be broken here, the two stars ferocity might be what gives it some life.
• After Belle, this is an excited sep up in scale for director Amma Asante, who seems poised to give us a moving crowdpleaser.
Lion
• The trailer works just as hard to sell the plot as it does to establish Rooney Mara as Silent Supportive Girlfriend. She has more caring glances in the trailer than actual words.
• Dev Patel is charismatic if not always great, so his understated emoting here should at least shed some of his "aw shucks" persona.
• So little Nicole to be seen here that she's eclipsed by her unfortunate wig.
• Will the Weinstein Company financial woes hold this one back in the awards race? They have this and The Founder this year, and Michael Keaton might be the one Harvey throws his weight behind.
What are your thoughts on Manchester By The Sea, A United Kingdom, and Lion?
Reader Comments (24)
Of these Manchester looks the most promising to me. Very disappointed by the United Kingdom trailer. They've just painted the story in the broadest of broad strokes with far too many characters who basically scream "BUT I'M PREJUDICED!!" Reminds me of the King's Speech: takes an interesting and complicated story and makes it easy, accessible, and dull.
Pleasantly surprised by Lion. I have always been underwhelmed by Dev Patel but he actually seems to be doing some good work here. Definitely too bad about the ladies though.
Man that Manchester trailer cut was pretty bad (the music and critics quotes ugh) BUT I have no doubt it will be great. Lots of faith in Lonergan and he excels at the type of complicated familial relationships that are showcased in the trailer.
thumbs up for dev patel's aussie accent
but manchester by the sea is the one i'll be watching
Far out, I never expected Dev Patel to give Kate Winslet a run for her money in the best Aussie accents stakes, and yet here we are. Somebody also suggested that Kidman's character has cancer/an illness of some kind (I haven't read the book) hence the raggedy Annie wig.
@catbaskets I agree that United Kingdom seems a bit heavy handed with its attitude towards race, but then again in real life racial issues ARE often heavy handed. There's no need to make movies that are so lyrical and subtle that the reader who doesn’t read between the lines won’t even know it’s about race.
Excited for Michelle Williams. Likely her fourth nomination and a potential win if they're anxious.
@3rtful - me, too. I hope it's juicy enough role/scene for this to happen.
I won't be watching the Manchester trailer. I heard it gives way too much away and it's best to go into it completely blind.
@beyaccount- agreed. Real life race issues are very heavy handed--but it also does a lot of damage to represent these issues as clear cut and obvious. So much racism is more subtle than overt "I do not like_____" statements. The trailer is reading as: white colonial officials hate the woman because she's married to a black man and shout racism at her, while people in Botswana don't like the woman just because she's white. It's an empty "everyone's a little bit racist" platitude that loses its heft in making unfair comparisons. A lot of people will hold grudges/animosities and not express them verbally. Also, there is a lot thorny about a cosmopolitan elite ruler who may not have a ton in common with the people he rules but instead spends time overseas marrying a white woman. It's easy to be subtle but still very, very clear that this film is about race. The proud "their love conquered an empire" declarations were cringe worthy. There is long history of non-consensual, unequal, and not altruistically motivated interracial sex, companionship, and marriage, especially where colonial contexts are concerned. So something a bit more nuanced would be appreciated.
That is probably the least I have ever seen Nicole featured in a trailer. Maybe the wig makes her look too much like the clown mother. I hope her HBO miniseries is successful, because (apart from the play) she has been adrift for years. Get it together!
Poor Nicole
Kidman has the new Yorgos Lanthimos movie currently shooting.
All three look a little insufferable. The stupid music and the "based on a true story"/"an unforgettable story" shots and the critics quotes instantly turn me off.
But I'm in for most things Lonergan, even though the plot of Manchester By the Sea is clearly Baby Boom meets Good Will Hunting.
I think Manchester looks great, K Lonergan is a master at creating genuine, unsentimental emotion that just wrecks me. Both Lion and United Kingdom look like - or are certainly being marketed as - classic cliche triumph of the spirit oscar bait. Not saying they won't be decent films, but both trailers left me kind of rolling my eyes even as they were tearing up.
Must say Affleck looks very strong here and you can never have enough teary eyed Michelle Williams in life.
Do not look at trailers at all ... but I am looking forward to all of these movies to come...
Not a fan of Williams... she always plays too soft for me.. usually forgettable in her roles... hope this is better..
Manchester by the sea: YES! based on the early reactions from Sundance, this looks like the critics darling during awards season. And it's time to give Casey Affleck the proper recognition he deserves.
A UK: hmmm, this looks like Loving 2.0 (but with reversed roles) and not sure if that's good at all
Lion: is just me or if this movie turns out to be good, Dev Patel might snatch an oscar nod? the role is juicy enough. And apparently Nicole's role is the one with the biggest emotional punch, so maybe the 4th oscar nomination is not out of question here.
The Manchester trailer is pretty underwhelming, considering the buzz.
Also the bad Boston accents bring me back to Spotlight. Is that where the buzz is coming from? People thinking they're watching Spotlight again?
I was NOT prepared for how good Dev Patel looks with the long hair and beard. Physical transformation of any kind gets the critics salivating.
At first I didn't even realize that *was* Dev Patel...and that's a good thing. He's giving me Naveen Andrews-Kama Sutra realness, which is O.K. with me.
P.S. I thought/hoped Queen of the Desert would be Nicole Kidman's return to form (and Oscar), but that didn't materialize it seems. All the more reason to hope that the screen adaptation of Photograph 51 comes to fruition because she was excellent and very poignant when she did the play on the West End last fall.
I agree the three trailers lack anything special. But I am very excited to watch Manchester By The Sea and I think it will be very big at the oscars. It's a serious drama with a linear structure about a white man in America. It'll take something really special to compete with it oscar wise. But regardless of Oscar chances it seems like a good movie from everything I've read and seen.
I was way way more excited for Lion before the trailer put Dev Patel front and center and made Mara and Kidman official supports. Concerned girlfriend and crying mom. I'm not saying they won't be terrific. Odds are they will be. But I am legitimately sick of watching the stories of men. Especially when it's a novice who has really done nothing to impress so far being "supported" by true talent. We'll see how it pans out. Garth Davis did great with Top of the Lake and maybe I'm just making a bunch of assumptions at this point - but the trailer certainly did not help.
The thing is I will probably watch all of these movies, but these trailers are really trying too hard.
Manchester By The Sea looks a lot better than I thought it would. A United Kingdom seems like Loving but with a sense of grandeur with its on-the-nose dialogue and grandiose speeches yet still looks promising. Lion could go one of two ways, though. It'll either be labeled as middlebrow Oscar bait by critics or they'll love it enough for it to gain recognition.
I AM HERE FOR ROSAMUND PIKE!!!!!