This week saw trailers dropping like flies, except in a good way! Like, they’re not dying. We’ve rounded up of a few of the best: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Sisters, Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart’s Central Intelligence, Melissa McCarthy’s The Boss, and Liam Neeson’s sexy-monster-tree movie, A Monster Calls.
Sisters (out December 18)
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Sisters may be the world’s only worthy adversary for a Star Wars movie (both open the same weekend, which is ballsy AF on the part of Fey and Poehler). The comedy follows the pair as fortysomething siblings horrified that their parents have decided to sell their childhood home; as such, they decide to throw one last raucous party in it. The new (UK) trailer sees the two playing against type: Fey is resplendently drunk in a Statue of Liberty costume, while Poehler seems decidedly more cautious and conservative, at least until she falls through a ceiling. Maya Rudolph’s here, too, getting salty with the siblings inside a Target, which is, in my experience, the absolute best place to have a public dispute. All of this is to say this movie looks amazing. Who wants to see Sisters on December 18 with me instead of The Force Awakens? Anyone?
Central Intelligence (out June 17)
Did you just watch that Sisters trailer and think, “Wow, this looks cool, except I wish it was about two hilarious dudes saving the world?” Here you go, my good man. Central Intelligence stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart as two hilarious (sure) dudes saving the world. What makes these two dudes particularly hilarious is that one is big and the other is small. I mean, can you even? The big one (Johnson, in case I’ve already lost you) is in the CIA; the small one (… Hart) is scared to join, because he’s small. There are lots of jokes about small men being inferior and even a wonderful visual gag about fat men being innately ridiculous. Masculinity is a prison, LOL. The most important takeaway here, though, is that Dwayne Johnson sounds a lot like Barack Obama in this trailer, and it’s distracting and troubling. Has anybody ever seen The Rock and Barack (!!) in the same room?
The Boss (out April 8)
Melissa McCarthy, her husband Ben Falcone, and another dude who’s not married to either of them named Steve Mallory are the minds behind The Boss, starring McCarthy as Michelle Darnelle, a “titan of industry” who goes to prison for insider trading and wears turtlenecks that reach to her ears. When Michelle’s released, she decides to lend her business acumen to the world of Brownies, the fascist organization that teaches girls to dress identically and shill mass-produced, overpriced treats to the powerless, Thin-Mint-addicted public. Will the cold-hearted Michelle learn about love and compassion and other types of shirts? Will the Girl Scouts learn to stand up for themselves and threaten potential customers with bodily harm? Will a movie about a powerful woman that makes money at the box office do anything to change the status quo or will everybody write it off as a fluke again? TBD all.
A Monster Calls (out October 14)
Based on an award-winning children’s fantasy novel, A Monster Calls follows Lewis MacDougall as Conor, a kid whose rich internal life helps him deal with having a sick mom (Felicity Jones) and asshole bullies. Tired of being invisible to his peers and the world at large, he “calls for a monster,” who shows up and yanks him out of his home via his bedroom window. The monster happens to be voiced by Liam Neeson, who’s reaching deep into his lower register and temporarily discarding his Old Dude In An Action Movie status in exchange for Old Dude Voices A Giant Tree status. Relatedly, I’ve never been more attracted to Liam Neeson.
