J. Edgar

For someone who kept extensive tabs on the citizens he ostensibly protected, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover reportedly kept a lot of skeletons in his own closet—skeletons which Clint Eastwood’s upcoming J. Edgar looks to flush from their hiding places with so much biopic dynamite. If the film’s first trailer is to be believed, paramount among those juicy, “based on a true story” details are the rumors that Hoover maintained a secret romance with his associate director Clyde Tolson—the Armie Hammer character seen engaging in some backseat canoodling with a more jowly than usual Leonardo DiCaprio. The decade-spanning trailer splits its running time between slash-fic-worthy DiCaprio-Hammer tension, Oscar-baiting footage of Dame Judy Dench as Hoover’s mother, and a voiceover which, were it not for the archival footage splaying out underneath, could almost be mistaken for a monologue from one of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies. Which, given the issues of surveillance raised by The Dark Knight (and Bruce Wayne and Hoover’s shared predilection for playing dress-up) doesn’t seem that far off.