THIS WEEK IN POSTERS: When Diagonals Attack!

After a few week’s hiatus, This Week in Posters is back, bringing you the latest in movie-related graphic design fun. Incredibly, I think this week’s batch may include more diagonal godd*mned horizon lines than Danny Boyle’s last three movies combined. As illustrated most bluntly by this poster for Battleship, which is perhaps the laziest piece of marketing material since anything that references “Got Milk.” Look out, Green Lantern! They took yerr jizz fogz! And hey, doesn’t this movie have
All I have to say to that is…
“Prepare to fire the marketing department.”
“Uh, which people in the marketing department, sir?”
“…All of them.”

Jesus, I spoke too soon. Perhaps THIS is the laziest poster of all time. Fitting that it’s a Brett Ratner movie. WHY IS IT SIDEWAYS!? YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE, DO YOU!

I never thought I’d say this, but that little dog isn’t something I added in Photoshop.

Here’s a Chinese poster for Apollo 18 (will we still understand it if we haven’t seen Apollos 14 through 17?). They were a little more subtle with the diagonal this time, and at least it sort of makes sense in this one. Because they’re in space, get it? Not standing on top of a building.
So you’re telling me this movie has Ron Perlman in a silly outfit? Sign me up! Just to refresh your memory, the premise on this one is:

“A cowboy, in a world without guns, and a samurai with no sword team up to defeat a common evil.”

It’s turning the concept of a weapon on its side almost!  Fine, fine, but tell me more about this “Gackt.”
Here’s the beginning of a series from Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, all with varying degrees of diagonalism. IT’S A PLAGUE, I TELL YOU! HOW CAN IT BE STOPPED?!?!
GET YOAH HANDS AWFF ME! WHATAYOU, QUEAH?
Oh sure, throw in one non-diagonal just to screw with me.
I heard Jude Law saved this outfit from the film and now he wears it around poor people.
My question: how does one keep his collar so nice while putting on a haz-mat suit? You can’t exactly adjust it once you’re in there.
STUPID, CAN’T YOU READ THE TEXT?? SHE’S PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE VIRUS’ PLAN!
“You’re saying my daughter did what? …And he said he was going to make her monkey fufu do WHAT?!”
Seriously though, where the f*ck is he sitting, on a space shuttle?
HAHAHA, I thought it was borderline offensive when I made a gif of Gwyneth Paltrow spazzing out on the operating table. Little did I know they were going to put it on the POSTER! Who knew Gwyneth Paltrow succumbing to a mysterious disease would be such a selling point?
She makes that same face when she sees processed cheese, or down-market cake slicers.
Hey, girl, me being tilted sideways, that’s nothing. I’d bend over backwards to make you smile.
I wear these gloves to keep my hands soft when I’m picking you flowers. Haha, call me, girl.
“Friendship is bigger than we know.”
What!? Not, “A whale of a friendship?”
HOLY SH*T THIS LOOKS ALMOST AS GOOD AS DOLPHIN TALE!
Don’t worry, I’ve never heard of this movie either. Apparently it comes from Sony pictures animation.

Arthur Christmas reveals the incredible, never-before seen answer to every child’s question: ‘So how does Santa deliver all those presents in one night?’ The answer: Santa’s exhilarating, ultra-high-tech operation hidden beneath the North Pole. But at the center of the film is a story about a family in a state of comic dysfunction and an unlikely hero, Arthur, with an urgent mission that must be completed before Christmas morning dawns.

I have a better idea. Arthur Christmas reveals the incredible, never-before seen answer to every child’s question: ‘So how does Santa deliver all those presents in one night?’ The answer? Angel dust.
YES! FINALLY AN INDIE FILM ABOUT A TEEN STRUGGLING WITH THE TRIALS OF ADOLESCENCE! Get it? Her dreams come at a “heavy” price because she’s a weightlifter. I hope there’s a scene where she’s giving her first handjob at a theater when BOOM! She accidentally pulls that dick right off. OH MY GOD, CHAD, I’M SO EMBARRASSED! DAMN THESE STEROID-ENHANCED FOREARMS!
Here’s another movie I’ve never heard of. I hope they move that car out of the road or else the cops are going to run it right over.
This poster for Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method kind of sucks, but whoever figured out how to get Keira Knightley to stop doing that weird thing with her upper lip should get a medal. Now get to work on Daniel Craig.
Oh hell yeah, Todd Solondz. I bet this is going to be awesomely weird and awkward.
Tits, guns, and Nixon masks? Okay, you have my attention. It’s like Point Break but with an important ingredient added.  Here’s the trailer. Let’s just say they weren’t just being clever putting a topless chick in a Nixon mask in the poster.

[FirstShowing]
Hey, girl, it’s me, Baby Goose! Haha, were you scared? I put a toothpick in my mouth to look scary!
In Russia, death cheats YOU. Man, those jokes never get old.I haven’t been able to post my review of The Guard yet, but to make a long story short, it’s awesome. It comes from the In Bruges guy’s brother, who last wrote Ned Kelly, which kind of sucked but whatever, and it stars Brendan Gleeson as an Irish, whore-loving policeman. I loved it.
Weird, I wonder who that chick with Sarah Jessica Parker’s name on her butt is.
Is the intruder lava? Because otherwise this poster sucks.
Killing Bono is based on a true story? Not true enough, it would seem.
F*ck baseball, this movie is about Brad Pitt. We’re not even going distract from him with balls, or players, or bases, or lines. Just Brad Pitt watching some grass. What else do you need? It’s Brad Pitt!This one came out longer than a week ago, but I’m include it because I like it. Really, the more muppets you can squeeze in there the better. Heh, that’s what SHE said. OH!
Oh big deal, I got stuff growing in my socks too. You don’t want to know why.

Get it, bro? “TRIP”? And there’s mushrooms everywhere? Haha, skate or die, dude.
Now there’s a good way to get a diagonal line in your poster without it annoying the sh*t out of people.
He should get a vanity plate that says “DRCT 2 DVD”. Are those condoms shooting out of his head?
Starring Rooney, Georgia, and Brie. Christ, doesn’t anyone have a real name anymore?

All the posters and marketing for 30 Minutes or Less keep making me wish the movie was any good. Hey, is that Andy Serkis in there?

How this movie can advertise anything besides floating cannon fights, I’ll never know. THIS MOVIE HAS FLYING PIRATE SHIPS FOR GOD’S SAKE! In light of the aforementioned facts, you think I give a f*ck about Logan Lerman?

Hey, is that an elastic waist band on that leather steam punk tunic? That’s a helpful invention.

Poor Joel Edgerton, everyone looks like the elephant man compared to that handsome son of a bitch Tom Hardy. He makes me look downright mongoloid, and I’m incredibly handsome.
EMILIO! Oh Emilio, I’d follow you anywhere.
I enjoy this poster. Though the title is a little to close to Searching for Bobby Fischer for my tastes.
Another cool poster for the same film. You had me at “explosion daughter.”
People be doin’ sh*t.
All right, a documentary about Stan Lee. I wonder if it’s like two hours of his dumb cameos. Not that I don’t love Stan Lee. I could never deny a man with a sweet belt buckle like that.
[All posters via IMPA]

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