This year’s Oscars are finally over, so it’s time to move on to … next year’s Oscars. An early peek at a film that’s expected to be a contender leads the lineup of this week’s best and worst trailers.
‘The Irishman’ (Due This Fall)
Netflix didn’t even wait for this year’s Academy Awards telecast to finish before rolling out a teaser for the director Martin Scorsese’s much-vaunted return to the mob genre, which reunites him with “Goodfellas” alums Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci and teams him for the first time with “The Godfather” veteran Al Pacino. The 45-second spot features zero footage, only a few snippets of cryptic dialogue (including “I hear you paint houses,” not coincidentally the title of the book that inspired the film). A spinning bullet casing cleverly forms the ‘i’ in the names of the filmmaker and his cast, which also features another frequent Scorsese collaborator, Harvey Keitel (“Mean Streets”). The promo ends with the words “In Theaters This Fall,” perhaps indicating a wider big-screen release than the one that may have hobbled “Roma” in its best picture race against “Green Book.”
‘Dark Phoenix’ (June 7)
The second trailer for the latest installment in the “X-Men” franchise gives off a serious “Venom” vibe, as young Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) grapples with an alien force inside her that causes her to wreak havoc. It’s up to her fellow mutants to help rid her of this cataclysmic force — without taking her life in the process. O.K., Magneto (Michael Fassbender) wouldn’t mind killing her, but Professor X (James McAvoy) and the rest of the gang seem to be on the side of saving her. This exhilarating clip taps into the dark side of the female-empowerment theme that will be explored this month in “Captain Marvel.”
‘Finding Steve McQueen’ (March 15)
Not to be confused with the actual Steve McQueen biopic “Chasing Bullitt” (due March 5), this fact-based heist thriller follows a Bullitt wannabe (Travis Fimmel, formerly of TV’s “Vikings”) who leads a ragtag band of thieves on a job to steal $30 million in illegal campaign contributions to Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 re-election fund. The trailer for this crime dramedy from the director Mark Steven Johnson (“Ghost Rider”) owes a whopping debt to Quentin Tarantino, but it is a treat to see such an array of fine character actors, like William Fichtner, Forest Whitaker, Rhys Coiro and Louis Lombardi.
‘Pokémon Detective Pikachu’ (May 10)
After a confusing initial trailer released in November, the live-action/animation hybrid returns with a follow-up promo that explains the film’s premise a bit more clearly. The titular pocket-monster P.I., voiced by Ryan Reynolds, wakes up with amnesia and seeks out his missing partner’s son (Justice Smith) to figure out … wait, I got confused again. A film noir spoof with both human and inhuman characters, this could be the next “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” — or the next “Happytime Murders.” Either way, it’s a mystery to me.
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