10. First Cow
She is beauty, she is grace. She is Miss United States. When the trailer for Kelly Reichardt‘s First Cow dropped, jaws hit the floor and all of Twitter was alight in adulation for the film’s star: Evie the Cow. Did the gentleness of this trailer clear my skin and pay my rent? Yes. Did its soft-spoken, kind-hearted gait whisk me away to a rippling creekside, streaked with moonbeams? You bet. The trailer for First Cow signaled one of the few warm, comforting hugs of 2020. God bless it.
9. Mayor
The trailer for Mayor immediately outlines the balancing act that defines what makes the film so special: a tonal tightrope between black comedy and a political maelstrom. The documentary follows Musa Hadid, the eponymous recently re-elected mayor of Ramallah, the de-facto capital of Palestine. For all his lightly comic affectations, Hadid’s desire for normalcy belies a fervently sympathetic quest for dignity. This isn’t a vision of misery, as some may expect, but a very human, grounded snapshot of what it looks like to try and keep your community together under oppressive circumstances.
8. Mank
The film that launched a thousand Mank puns. A manksterpiece, if you will. To this day, “they made a film called Mank” still makes me chuckle. David Fincher‘s period biopic about Herman J. Mankiewicz, the alcoholic social critic who rumor has it actually wrote Citizen Kane, marks the director’s first film in six years. This trailer proclaimed Fincher’s return, boldly announcing its title with a 1930s boom. Mank was the goofy gift of 2020 trailers. That said, it’s also a snappily edited, enticingly stylish vision of Old Hollywood. A very potent double whammy.
7. Da 5 Bloods
The trailer for Da 5 Bloods, the latest Spike Lee joint, lives up to the electric energy and searing insight that we’ve come to expect from the filmmaker. It sets the stage with The Chamber Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today” and the beat serves as a very fitting ticking clock as the visuals blend archival footage from fifty years ago with Lee’s filmed material. Without revealing too much as far as the plot goes, this groovy glimpse at the film offers a taste of a sweeping action movie that’s frenetic, mournful, and not to be missed. –– Anna Swanson
6. Boys State
I honestly can’t think of a better way to capture a microcosm of the American political…uh, situation, than by literally casting it as childish. And nice try, A24, but your mocking, lumbering band music can’t trick me. This is clearly a horror film. I don’t think I needed proof that the kids were alarmingly not alright, but boy oh boy, does a debutante ball for teenage political junkies sure sound like my personal circle of hell. So thanks, Satan.
Related Topics: 2020 Rewind
