Skip to main content

Trailer Reviews: Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac

I've seen hundreds of movie trailers before. I've seen funny trailers for movies. I've seen trailers that scream Oscar-bait. I've seen trailers containing crude and grotesque violence that I can't help but under who would be interested in watching the equivalent of a snuff film.

I haven't seen anything like the trailer to Nymphomaniac.

If you're familiar with the project, chances are that you've either heard from sites like The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline that the film will depict scenes of hardcore graphic sex and sex acts, or follow the career of Danish auteur/provocateur Lars von Trier. Before reading the stories of what von Trier id doing for his latest drama, I've actually seen some of his work, mainly the two movies from his "Depression" trilogy: Anti-Christ, and Melancholia. I'll go into both those film in later reviews, but judging from what I've seen, and from reading the reviews from his other works on Rotten Tomatoes, he's a mixed bag: When he's good, he's great (like Melancholia, which features a riveting performance by Kristen Dunst) and when he's not, he's at least interestingly bad (like Anti-Christ, which might be one of the most artfully shot, yet utterly idiotic and borderline mean-spirited art-house films I've ever watched). This latest film, which depicts a woman named Joe (played by von Trier regular Charolette Gainsbourogh) who retells her life story after being rescued from being brutally attacked, which includes various acts of physical intimacy.

It seems that all the stories of graphic, on-screen sex and nudity wasn't just whispers and chatter: von Trier is cashing in on those promises, and the trailer all but confirms this. 

WARNING: This trailer shows explicit scenes of sexuality and nudity. If you are offended by these kind of depictions, do not watch the trailer below. 



Well, I'll say this about von Trier: he has my attention and I'll probably end up watching this. My main complaint about this trailer boils down to this: for a supposed "erotic" character drama, why did Lars use a heavy metal song to accompany the trailer? You know, what many porno movies do in their flicks???

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cowardice

I was looking forward to watching the James Franco/Seth Rogen comedy The Interview  on Christmas Day, even more so than Angelina Jolie's WWII drama Unbroken , or Rob Marshall's Into the Woods . I like what the writing and directing duo of Rogen and his pal Evan Goldberg have done with comedies like Superbad , Pineapple Express and their debut feature, This Is the End . In light of Sony being hacked (which now appears to be North Korea's doing) and threats of attacking theaters that carry the comedy, three things happened today: 1.) Every major theater chain - AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Arclight, etc, had decided to pull out from showing The Interview  on its scheduled release date. 2.)  This prompted Sony Pictures to basically cancel the release date of the film amid threats of blowing up theaters. 3.)  Both Sony and the theater chains basically caved into the demands of cyber terrorism from North Korea. Are you fucking kidding me? We just caved into terrorist d

I'm Dreaming of a White Oscars

What does Stephen Hawking, the godfather of computer science, a hotel manager breaking out from prison during the first World War, a young boy and his family growing up through 12 years and the battle of wills between a aspiring musician and his near-abusive professor have in common? On the surface, these are different films ranging in different subjects. But when you look at the people who stared, wrote and directed these various movies, A few patterns begin to emerge: 1. The cast is predominately white. 2. The story mostly centers on a male protagonist. 3. The filmmakers behind the project are white and male. And all of those films I've mentioned:  The Theory of Everything , The Imitation Game , The Grand Budapest Hotel , Boyhood  and Whiplash  - have all been nominated for Best Picture for this year's 87th annual Academy Awards. Before I go any further, I just want to say that this is not an attack on the films themselves. Most of the films mentioned I really enjoy

Mad Max and the Awards Season Or: Let It Go, Let It Go...

And so, the Oscar race has officially begun, with the Nation Board of Review's annual best of list, applauding and honoring the creme de la creme in film for 2015. I definitely didn't expect to see films like Sicario  and Straight Outta Compton  to be on their list of the 10 best movies of the year, so big brownie points to them for their inclusion. Drew Goddard winning Best Adapted Screenplay was a shock, and well-deserved for taking the source material and creating a funny, exciting script where Matt Damon "has to science the shit" out of being stuck on an unforgiving planet like Mars after being marooned by mistake by his fellow astronauts. I think The Martian  is easily Ridley Scott's best and most enjoyable film in years (yes, I'm taking into account that I liked Prometheus ) , and it's fun to see the director this playful, though I think Damon winning Best Actor and Scott taking Best Director is a bit of a stretch. But then came the pick for Bes