This Week's Three Trailers Will Make White People Uncomfortable Over The Holidays

By Jen Maravegias | Film | December 22, 2023 |

By Jen Maravegias | Film | December 22, 2023 |

It’s the winter solstice and Christmas weekend. It’s a time to celebrate the coming of light amid the darkness with feasts and the giving of gifts. We’re all mentally checked out of decision-making when it comes to anything beyond wrapping paper and cookie choices. Let’s all sit back and enjoy some movie trailers. Consider them as potential conversation starters for the holiday dinner table.

Ava DuVernay brings Isabel Wilkerson’s New York Times bestseller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents to the big screen next month with Origin. The movie stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Niecy Nash-Betts, Nick Offerman, and Blair Underwood.

Depending on your family, you’re either going to be able to lean into discussing this one over the holidays, or you should maybe you should avoid discussing Origin altogether. It opens in theaters on January 19th.

Written and directed by Kobi Libii, known as an actor from The Opposition with Jordan Klepper and Madame Secretary, The American Society of Magical Negroes looks like it’s going to make a lot of white people very uncomfortable while they laugh at themselves. It’s a skill David Alan Grier has spent his career honing like a knife.

The movie stars Justice Smith (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), Aisha Hinds (9-1-1, Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Nicole Byer, Gregor Manns, Maurice J. Irvin, Rupert Friend (Astroid City), and Michaela Watkins (Werewolves Within).

Enjoy explaining that trope to your drunk uncle this weekend!
The American Society of Magical Negroes opens in theaters on March 22.

Snoop Dogg should be safe for holiday discussion, right? He’s a rapper, he’s Martha Stewart’s bestie, an entrepreneur, and a football enthusiast. Now he also has a starring role in Prime Video’s The Underdoggs.

Along with Snoop, The Underdoggs also stars Tika Sumpter (Southside With You, Sonic The Hedgehog), Mike Epps, George Lopez, and Andrew Schulz.

The Underdoggs premieres on Prime Video on January 26th. And it looks like exactly what we’ll need to recover from the holiday season.

I was trying to find something spectacularly stupid for this week’s lagniappe. But I might have drained all of the dumb previews out of the year already. We do have the third trailer for Dune: Part Two, though. Are we still excited about this movie? Were we excited about the first one? It’s lost all of its momentum. And, while beautiful, the first film didn’t exactly change the world. I’m sure this one will be fine. And then it will be done and we can all stop thinking about Dune until someone comes along with an idea to adapt God Emperor of Dune into a mini-series or something.