Dave Franco (Superbad, If Beale Street Could Talk) sits in the director’s chair for the first time with The Rental, a fairly on-the-nose horror film centred on the conceit of a vacation rental property gone awry. In the age of COVID-19, of course, it’s a bit easier to imagine such fears manifesting themselves. Musically, the trailer follows a three-part structure that’s both through-composed and is clearly purpose-built to gradually guide the dramatic arc from suspenseful to thrilling.

Originally due out May in tandem with Eurovision, the latest from Will Ferrell has him co-starring with Rachel McAdams as part of a songwriting duo hailing from Iceland. Eurovision, of course, is famous for its colourful and bombastic performances—material well-suited to Ferrell, and in this trailer he naturally leans into the spirit of the occasion.

In light of the ongoing protests happening in the United States, Canada and around the world under the banner of Black Lives Matter, we felt it was appropriate to pause this week and highlight a few of the film trailers we’ve covered that centre on Black lives and experiences. Hopefully you might discover something interesting and new to rent or buy—or see in theatres, perhaps eventually—as a result.

Christopher Nolan returns with his latest mind- and time-bending opus, Tenet; while it claims to be coming to theatres, the obvious unknown is when that might really be. Regardless, for the time being we have its latest trailer, which musically plays on its central conceit of time inversion in a couple of subtle and clever ways.

Ten years following the end of The Office, Michael Scott is pivoting from the paper industry to space military—this, in essence, is the pitch Netflix is offering those pining for more classic Steve Carrell antics come May 29th.

Spike Lee’s next directorial venture follows up on 2018’s critically-acclaimed BlacKkKlansman with Da 5 Bloods, an American war drama that centres on four African American Vietnam veterans who return to Vietnam in search of both the body of their deceased squad leader and the promise of treasure.

Since Coronavirus has captured the world’s attention, it stands to reason that there would be multiple documentary-style investigative pieces and explainers that attempt to inform or persuade the public. This simultaneously offers a chance to see how the trailers for these piece use music and sound—using pitch make the pitch.

With 94% on the Tomatometer and a corresponding 92% audience score, music documentary Beastie Boys Story is clearly resonating with critics and fans alike. The Spike Jonze-directed live documentary (who directed many of the Beasties’ music videos) happens to arrive via streaming at a time when mass live music concerts are all but a faded memory; it feels particularly timely to drop a retrospective of one of the most bombastic acts to have come out of the hip hop world in the past few decades.

The zeal in the zeitgeist for all things 80s—whether Stranger Things, the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984, or the recently-released Onward—coincides with the latent interest in musicals and/or musician-centred biopics, most recently observed in the upcoming remake of 1983’s Valley Girl.

Launched to much fanfare online—in part due to the shift in marketing budget allocations necessitated by the ongoing quarantine around the world—Quibi is a new streaming service with much in the way of style. The question, however, is whether a ceiling of ten minutes per episode is enough to give the so-called “quick bites” that stack the platform with enough substance.

While not necessarily the most concerning or impactful aspects of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the strident (and prudent) physical distancing measures implemented worldwide have nonetheless also impacted the film and television industry in a profound way.

Films such as Pixar’s latest, Onward, have been granted startlingly short windows from theatre to screen, having made the jump to Disney Plus in about a month. Elsewhere, films like Artemis Fowl (originally due May 29th) are skipping theatres completely, instead bolstering this year’s Disney Plus release schedule; higher-visibility franchises such as Mulan and Black Widow are being pushed to later in the year.

From Alan Yang (Master of None) comes Tigertail; due on Netflix April 10th, the upcoming feature focuses on a Taiwanese factory worker’s move stateside. It’s an intergenerational drama—Grover (Tzi Ma) moves stateside and grows up unsure of this decision, having left his love and home in Taiwan. His daughter, Angela (Christine Ko), appears to be going through a parallel struggle.

The coverage of comedy trailers continues for the time being with a new series by Greg Daniels (SNL, The Simpsons, Parks and Recreation, King of the Hill, The Office) for Amazon, Upload.

In these days of quarantine, it feels almost eerily prescient to have a comedy series in some sense emulate a life entirely lived online; the premise here is that your consciousness could be uploaded digitally to avert death.

Talking Heads’ 1980 hit “Days Go By” is the key musical track here, not covered or otherwise rearranged, but assiduously spliced and cut to match each scene and moment.

The initial teaser trailer for Pixar’s latest, Onward, used The Cars’ 1984 track “Magic,” with the lyrics making obvious reference to the movie’s fantasy setting while also fitting the film’s mix of 1980s nostalgia and aesthetics. This itself is something that has been a bit of a trend, whether looking at Wonder Woman 1984, the Stranger Things franchise, or others.

From Nisha Ganatra (director of 2019’s Late Night), The High Note follows the career of successful singer Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross), whose proposed later-career album her assistant Maggie (Dakota Johnson) has ambitions to produce. It’s a drama following career ambition behind the scenes of the entertainment industry, not unlike Ganatra’s last film. The casting was almost certainly made with Ross’ mother, Diana Ross (of The Supremes fame), in mind—and Tracee Ellis certainly channels her mother’s spirit here.

Much like Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson has maintained the mantle of the auteur director, rightly earning the distinction of becoming somewhat of a genre unto himself. In addition to the distinctive visual palettes and impeccable sense of mise-en-scène, the musical landscape of Anderson movies tends to cleave to some key collaborators and aesthetic markers.

Chief among these would be his partnerships with composers such as Mark Mothersbaugh— and, in this case, Alexandre Desplat— the latter of whom has taken up scoring duty since 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Due in North American theatres this March, the British production Radioactive is a dramatic biopic about the discoverer of radioactivity and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. While the trailer score is relatively standard fare considering the genre and subject matter, a few key synch points and a clever, aurally ambiguous moment distinguish this trailer from others like it.