"The Birth of a Nation" Trailer Jumps With Ferocity and Purpose

Scene from The Birth of a Nation

With the year only being four months old, there's few films that already have an Oscar conversation around it quite like director Nate Parker's The Birth of a Nation. For starters, it was an immediate success when it premiered at Sundance and even acquired one of the highest buys in the film festival's history. With little known to the public other than its plot about Nat Turner's slave rebellion, it has been curious to see if it will escape the festival circuit buzz and strike a chord with audiences. From the looks of the first trailer, it's definitely trying to hit all of those marks.

"Lincoln" Officially Joins the Oscar Race with Trailer #2

Daniel Day Lewis

*UPDATE: A review has been posted here.

As I reported a few weeks back when the original teaser trailer for director Steven Spielberg's Lincoln premiered, I was convinced that this was going to be a hard sell. The trailer looked almost like a Civil War equivalence of the heart-string tugging War Horse, which has been a sign of Spielberg choosing sentimentality over narration. I expected this to be the case after that trailer made the rounds. However, upon the release of a new trailer, it may be time for reconsideration for every field possible.