The trailer for The Menu is an exercise in precision. Directed by Mark Mylod and starring Ralph Fiennes (who’s starred in a wide filmography, from The Grand Budapest Hotel to the Harry Potter movies), the horror-inspired take on conceptual dining was bound to be different, and this trailer’s design follows suit.

This trailer wastes no time in putting the music front and center, with The Weeknd’s recent (2019) hit “Blinding Lights” setting the tone: at eight seconds in, the first frame of action coincides with the downbeat of the drums, synched to the clicking of a pen. An instrumental version of the track serves to underpin a variety of dialogue. At 0:26 the music pauses for a punchline. As the music returns, some extra accent hits punctuate the scenes where Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani, as Kamala Khan) makes an appearance. A clock that appeared earlier in the trailer comes in at 0:33, where a ticking sound rises to the fore in the arrangement. For whatever reason, as we’ve noted before, ticking has become a go-to sonic element in the trailer’s musical arrangement; it could simply be for the sense of presence and vitality it suggests, or it could be that the pandemic has made us more conscious of passing time.

As we’ve noted fairly often in this blog, musical biopics have experienced considerable popularity in recent years; it stands to reason given this context that eventually, after perhaps the more obvious choices (such as Whitney Houston, Elvis, Queen, or Elton John), attention would turn to those a bit outside—the provocateurs. And among that crowd, there are vanishingly few who have commanded the limelight as consistently as Al Yankovic has.

How far can one take two musical notes? The trailer for Jurassic World: Dominion seems determined to answer that question. The B-flat / A / B-flat motif has been a part of almost every film in the franchise since its 1993 debut, but usually the melody is harmonized in a way that emphasizes wonder. Not so for this trailer: it takes about seven seconds for a note in the lower register to indicate a much more dour, even sinister mood. The melody then veers into new territory around 0:15, moving upwards as epic percussion batters the senses.

For Tom Cruise, it’s not as much a reboot or sequel as it is a return: a startling thirty-six years have passed, yet Cruise shows no sign of slowing down. For the trailer, however, the star is a sound—namely, the sweeping whoosh of fighter planes. After a six-second micro-teaser, the trailer wastes little time (re)establishing the characters, partly to induce drama (“What the hell kind of mission is this?”, a pilot intones)—but the chatter is more of a set-up to the main attraction at 0:22. A jump cut to a precious few seconds of fighter plane action, with every turn of the plane accentuated by the sonic design, steals the show.

Released (when else could it have been?) April 20th on Showtime, Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain captures the seminal Californian hip-hop group as they blazed trails—and simply blazed—through the ‘90s and beyond.

Based on the best-selling novel by Lauren Beukes, the upcoming series Shining Girls follows Kirby Mazrachi (Elizabeth Moss, who is also executive produces), a reporter based in Chicago who as a victim of assault attempts to track down her attacker. Things become more complex when she learns that a murder in the area is linked to her case.

Disney continues to use its streaming platform to expand on various corners of its vast intellectual property empire, and the latest television series in the Star Wars universe promises to answer a simple but intriguing question: just what exactly happened with Obi-Wan Kenobi in the thirty-odd years between Episodes III and IV?

On the eve of the summer blockbuster campaign season, the pace nevertheless continues steadily for trailer drops for television series, whether on streaming or cable. Among them is what might be fairly put as Kaley Cuoco’s second act post-Big Bang Theory, The Flight Attendant. It’s a dramedy that put the actor in a new light in the first season and promises to extend that premise in the next one.

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.