With David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2) presiding over directorial duties and Brad Pitt in the actor’s seat alongside Sandra Bullock, Brian Tyree Henry, Joey King, and Hiroyuki Sanada, Bullet Train looks to be equal parts action-packed and irreverent. Building on a heritage of train thrillers such as Silver Streak and Murder on the Orient Express, Bullet Train looks to extend the subgenre with a sardonic twist.

Now that we are officially some two years into the pandemic, it makes sense that we might begin to see a film or two that fully reckon with COVID-19 in whatever way the studios best see fit. It’s a question that most are avoiding: do you acknowledge the pandemic’s existence in film? While most don’t, Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Trainwreck) evidently saw the opportunity for potential comedic gold.

Nope is the latest from Jordan Peele, a comedy stalwart who became a household name in horror in recent years thanks to Oscar winner Get Out (2017) and its follow up, Us (2019). By way of Blumhouse and Universal, Nope promises to carry on this successful formula.

Mid-winter isn’t usually the busiest period on the annual trailer release schedule, with holiday releases lingering and the potential summer blockbusters on standby. Trailers seems to take a back seat to the awards ceremonies for the prior year. However, there is nonetheless a fair amount still underway, thanks in part to the steady drip of new content for streaming services. Here’s our latest roundup of recent trailers that caught our ears.

Now coming from you from the department of “things you didn’t know you needed”, the Foo Fighters have neatly side-stepped the influx of musical biopics in recent years with an unabashedly campy, B-movie horror film. In a way, it was always in them: one need only glance at the music video for their best-known hit, 1997’s “Everlong”, to find a strong homage to the Evil Dead movies.

Another year has passed, and with it, well over four dozen trailers written up at Trailaurality as part of our weekly review. Film trailers continue to be a fascinating showcase for audiovisual editing techniques that, partly as a result of the genre’s short form and advertorial purpose, strive for memorability and notability. This can be achieved in a variety of ways: some offer remarkable instrumentation; some involve a particularly striking edit. In addition to library and original music, trailers are often the domain of some truly unique cover songs and rearrangements. This latter trend is in particular a hallmark of more recent trailers, with a choral arrangement of Radiohead’s “Creep” for The Social Network (2010) often referred to as a watershed moment. Here are a few trailers released in 2021 that we think are particularly worth a second listen, as this small format continues to advance the craft of editing in measurable ways.

Welcome to 2022—and with the new year, there’s no slowdown in trailer activity coming off of the holidays. Although it appears Omicron has stifled theatre activity in many parts of the world, there still appears to be an overall expectation that theatres might be back in full force at some point this year; indeed, there are many deferred releases from the past two years or so set for release in the near future. In keeping with recent posts, here are a few recent trailers that caught our ears.

Unsurprisingly, the holidays are a particularly busy time in the realm of film trailers. For its brief window of opportunity before Omicron begins to dig into box office profits, Spiderman: No Way Home has returned blockbuster revenue to heights not seen since 2019. It’s a somewhat surprising affirmation of the theatrical release: for all the hand-wringing about balancing exclusivity between premium-tier streaming platforms (such as Disney Plus Premier Access) and other alternate methods of windowing, it does appear that—variants be damned—people have also just wanted to go to the movies. That being said, streaming television series with high production values are also clearly here to stay. Here are a few that caught our eye—and ear.

Everything Everywhere All at Once looks both admirably understated in its ostensible theme and wildly ambitious in its execution. The film stars Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and is co-written by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known simply as “Daniels”, and perhaps best recognized for 2016’s Swiss Army Man). A thematic mix of underpromising in its setting and premise and overdelivering in its execution and exploration is at least partly a key to its positive reception thus far. Specifically, the way the audio is edited in this trailer lends much to this overall impression.

While we do try to cover most every major trailer release week by week as they premiere, there will always be a few that escape notice. As we approach the holidays, here are a few write-ups about music and sound in trailer releases worth catching up on or looking forward to.

Starring the ageless Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, and John Bradley, Moonfall’s concept is decidedly different, as far as disaster movies go: as one might guess from the title, the moon has been knocked out of orbit, and is now on a crash course with Earth. The how and why of it, however, remains an intriguing mystery that promises to lend the film a bit of depth.

We last covered Morbius in January 2020; while it’s perhaps obvious why there was a delay of nearly two years, the wait is almost over. Whereas in a previous trailer the musical conceit was a play on Beethoven’s über-popular “Für Elise”, this time we get a trailerized cover version of The Doors’ “People Are Strange” (1967, from Strange Days). The lyrics are on point—“people are strange, when you’re a stranger”—and while there’s an element of obviousness to it, it’s clever enough of a turn on the meaning of the original tune, and the vocals are partly obscured by orchestral atmospherics anyway.

While we have seen biopics covering the lives of famed musicians, politicians, athletes, and so on, relatively rarely do we see the ambition and hard work of those around the stars. King Richard, promisingly, seeks to challenge the trend, focusing on the life of famed tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams’ father—Richard.

Pixar’s next foray in essence imagines the movie that Andy, the boy from Toy Story (1995), may have seen to inspire him to want a Buzz Lightyear toy in the first place. It’s a clever way to expand and extend the Toy Story franchise, not unlike what films such as Solo have done for Star Wars; the interest is unapologetically steeped in nostalgia, while also being used as a base for something new.

Aaron Sorkin’s latest covers some of the inside story behind the classic sitcom I Love Lucy. It presents a short and tumultuous period around September 1952, offering a behind-the-scenes view regarding Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’ relationship, both as business partners as well as in marriage. Their daughter, Lucie Arnaz, had extensive input on both script and casting.

Directed by Peter Jackson (best known for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, among others), The Beatles: Get Back is not unlike Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s Summer of Soul, in the sense that it takes forgotten or otherwise never-before-released footage from 1969 and offers nothing short of a deep and intimate look at its musical subject matter. In this case, obviously, it’s the Beatles—and not just that, but with a focus on a pivotal 21 days in January 1969, in the midst of the sessions that would become the albums Abbey Road and Let It Be.

The return of The Matrix was always going to be a much-vaunted event, not least due to Keanu Reeves’ upward trajectory since (see: John Wick, from which Reeves retains the hair). The eighteen years since the last instalment has seen an immense increase in the amount of time with which we live our lives and depend on digital spaces. Moreover, the series and those around it has been a cultural touchstone, for better or worse: since the original trilogy, the Wachowskis have specifically said “the Matrix is a ‘trans metaphor’”; meanwhile, the term “take the red pill” has been co-opted as a dog whistle by the alt-right.

The recent surge of film adaptations of musicals—such as In the Heights or the upcoming reimagining of West Side Story—continues unabated with Dear Evan Hansen. Having premiered on stage in 2015, the coming-of-age story won six Tony Awards; the plot follows Hansen, a teenager suffering from social anxiety and seeing a therapist, who writes letters to himself as a part of healing. Original writer Steven Levenson returns for the adaptation, while Stephen Chbosky directs.