This Week In Trailers: The World Before Your Feet, Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Room 104

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising?

This week we walk a mile or two or hundreds within New York City, try to cope with suicide within the family, check into the hotel room where stories abound, and rah-rah along with some cheerleaders.

Evelyn

The trailer starts with a story shrouded in mystery but, by the end, it’s devastating. From the film’s synopsis:

On a walking odyssey across the United Kingdom, they confront a past they’ve been unable to talk about, whilst simultaneously repairing the fractures in their own relationships.

Director Orlando von Einsiedel turns the cameras on himself, as he and his parents and siblings embark on a journey in remembrance of their brother and son, Evelyn, who took his own life over a decade ago.

Along the way, they are faced with the realities of a walking mission – camping, exhaustion, the wet and cold. Yet despite these, and the challenges that come with remembering what happened to Evelyn, there are moments of happiness and humour as they recall the good memories that they buried alongside the painful ones.

What initially feels like we’re invading, violating the territory that undoubtedly belongs to the immediate family, all but melts away as you understand that this is a message of sorts. It’s catharsis wrapped up in a cinematic package for us to appreciate. Suicide and precisely the way it sometimes can be hidden away because of some secret shame is a dense, heady subject. Here we see how others can keep going on after a profound loss and celebrate someone who left their lives much too soon.

Room 104 Season 2

The brothers Duplass are back, and the trailer is bananas. I did not see the first season of this series, but this trailer makes me regret that. The physical constraints of being just within these four walls make this an actor’s showcase and the level of talent they have on tap prove that out. With small bursts of brilliance from Mahershala Ali and even Michael Shannon, this is one of those anthologies I’m already resigned to diving into head firstonce I have the chance.

Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

Murderball was a brilliant documentary in 2005. Inches away from winning the Acadamy Award the following year, director Dana Adam Shapiro directed 2010’s Monogamy starring Rashida Jones before coming back with this, his next feature-length documentary. While superficially about the genesis of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, this is also aiming at the conventional thinking surrounding the place of women in society. Empowerment, sexism, this appears to have it all.

The World Before Your Feet

It’s such a human interest story that there’s not much more to say about it. Director Jeremy Workman though, while also executive produced by Jesse Eisenberg, has elongated what should be a five-minute story on CBS Sunday Morning into an examination of the human condition when living in New York City. That said, the pull-quotes make this a “must watch” for me. It seems harmless while filled with just enough intrigue to investigate why this guy set out on this unlikely journey.

Nota bene: If you have any suggestions of trailers for possible inclusion in this column, even have a trailer of your own to pitch, please let me know by sending me a note at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com or look me up via Twitter at @Stipp

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