February Movies & TV

For such a short month, February already looks like a much more promising month than January. I’ve never paid this much attention to it before, so maybe that’s the way it always is. But there’s one thing that I find that’s really annoying me. The point of making and distributing a film/television show is to get viewers. Viewers bring in revenue, which means people can make more films and television shows that viewers will want to watch. Pretty basic stuff. So why, pray tell, am I finding it so hard to access trailers for upcoming titles? It’s not like I’m trying to see a trailer of Infinity War or anything. These things are a month or so out. If I can’t find something online by now that intrigues me enough to say, I gotta see that, then someone is not doing their job. More on that later.

First up, on February 2nd, there’s two Netflix originals that look really promising while appearing to be worlds apart. First is Altered Carbon. It looks like someone took the original Blade Runner and made it into a murder mystery. In the futuristic tale, we’ve gotten to the point where we can store our consciousness and implant it into a new person. That right there is a pretty cool concept, but then add James Purefoy hiring this newly implanted entity to find out who is going to kill him. Not who’s trying to kill him, but going to kill him. There’s lots of fighting in tight, dark places. It looks pretty slick. Then there’s On Body and Soul. This Hungarian film looks very quiet and beautifully shot. From what I can understand, a shy woman sees a man at her work that she is attracted to. She works up the courage to approach him. As they get to know each other, they find they are having the same dream every night.

February 16th is the day most people are looking forward to. The next MCU entry hits the big screens: Black Panther. Of course I will have to see this, simply because I love Marvel movies. Also on that day, the new Aardman Animations film Early Man is released. I love Aardman. I love Tom Hiddleston. Take my money. Netflix has two interesting selections out the same day. The first is Everything Sucks. In the same vein as The Goldbergs, this is a comedy about high school kids in the mid ‘90s. It’s sure to bring back warm feelings to everyone who lived through that pre-internet, pre-cellphone Stone Age. Netflix is also debuting an original sports documentary called First Team: Juventus FC. There’s no trailer, but it apparently follows the soccer powerhouse through a year of competition. I’m not sure if First Team will be an ongoing anthology-type series, following world-class teams each season, but I really, really hope so.

Finally on February 23rd, Annihilation hits theatres. It’s a sci-fi thriller where Natalie Portman’s husband, Oscar Isaac, goes missing and a team of bad-ass, technically savvy, gun-toting chicks go in search of him. It’s got Tessa Thompson, my favorite Valkyrie, Gina Rodriguez, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It looks like Predator or Alien with a substantial shot of estrogen. It’s not usually my thing, but I really want to see this. Over on Netflix, the sci-fi film Mute will be released. Again, it’s a very Blade Runner-esque film. A mute bartender (Alexander Skarsgård) in near-future Berlin tries to find out what happened to his girlfriend. It also has Justin Theroux and Paul Rudd. Director Duncan Jones also directed Moon starring the amazing Sam Rockwell, and this is the second part of what will be a trilogy. If it’s anything like Moon it will be really good, but who knows because THERE’S NO FLIPPIN’ TRAILER!!!

And so you see my frustration. There were some others that looked interesting, but information is so scarce, I’m not sure if they’re even worth my time. There’s Re:Mind, a Japanese series where eleven girls find themselves in a locked room and have to figure out why they’re there. Seven Seconds has a teaser trailer that’s about that long with a woman standing in front of a crap-load of bloody snow across the river from New York City. She cries. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? Who knows. Then there’s Forgotten. There’s about three or four different films called that on Netflix. I think it’s a Korean film where a guy’s brother goes missing, then turns up after nineteen days with no memory of what happened. If that’s correct, it has some potential, but again, who tf knows. Gone are the days when you can just put something out with barely an explanation and figure people are going to find it. With Amazon Prime, Hulu, premium cable channels, and now even Crackle and others coming into the picture, consumers have even more choices than ever before. If you aren’t going to tell me about your product or give me a way to find out what your product is, I’m going to shop elsewhere. I hope Netflix picks up the ball, but I’m just a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Who cares what I think.