This Week in Posters: Electro, Bill Murray, & Old Boy

Here’s the first official shot of Jamie Foxx as Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Or, as I like to think of it, (Spider-Man 3B)2. I’m not sure anything could get me interested in seeing another one of Marc Webb’s movies, but in any case, I don’t know much about veiny, purple-headed space dudes, but I’ll simply give Spider-Man the same advice I’d give any of bros at the bar: don’t mess with the guy with the cauliflower ear. He’s probably an experienced space grappler. So if you absolutely must fight him, work on your sprawl. And try to shoot your webbing on his back. That’s what I do.

[via EW/Movies.com]

Here’s the poster for the James Franco-directed adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (trailer here). Let’s review: bad accents, classic literature, an atmosphere of extreme somberness, handsome famous guys with dirty clothes and faces… All signs point to this being a serious Oscar contender, unless it’s really terrible. It’d have to be a dicknose of monumental proportions not to get some serious awards consideration.

I’m usually not a fan of the “stuff happening inside a silhouette” style of poster design, but leave it to two chicks kissing to change my mind. Mmm-hmm, yes, please tell me more. Or, wait, are they actually Eskimo kissing? Hey, you think their bewbs are touching underneath the water? Can lesbians Eskimo kiss with their nipples? This poster is raising some important questions. I need to go do some research.

And as long as we’re naming it after songs off Blood Sugar Sex Magic, wouldn’t “Suck My Kiss” have been more accurate?

Okay, I know I said that James Franco poster was Oscar bait, but did you see the trailer for The Butler the other day? George Clooney could play a dyslexic Holocaust cripple who plays the cello in the sewers of Warsaw and it wouldn’t be as blatant Oscar pandering as this. This looks more like parody than The Reader and The Iron Lady put together. I think Harvey Weinstein just really likes statues, I imagine his office like Smaug’s lair.

…Is that period?

I kid, I kid. This is, of course, a poster for Neil Jordan’s vampire movie, Byzantium.

Residents of a coastal town learn, with deathly consequences, the secret shared by the two mysterious women who have sought shelter at a local resort.

Ooh, I wonder if the vampires are all young and sexy. That would be a twist, no? (*sigh*) After hearing the title, I was really hoping this would be a film about the Byzantine Empire. I need something to fill the hole Rome left when it got cancelled. Ha, that’s kind of what the Byzantine Empire did in real life.

Here’s Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks, courtesy of Francois Duhamel/Disney/Time Magazine.

The movie, coming out this holiday season, is Disney’s take on Travers’ life and, eventually, the stormy relationship she had with the studio’s own mastermind, Walt Disney. Here, TIME presents an exclusive first official look at Emma Thompson as P.L. Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. In the scene shown here, Travers has come to Disneyland, in 1961, to meet with the man himself.

Of course, today’s audiences have long enjoyed their resulting cinematic collaboration: Disney’s 1964 Mary Poppins movie. But the film was a struggle to make: even though Disney had a personal interest in Travers’ tale of a magical nanny, it being one of his daughters’ favorites, the author was not interested in her work being changed by a movie studio.

You can read more over at Time, and it’s a great piece, if you like actors and their lengthy analyses of their subjects. Actors are truly our most valuable historical resource. Do you think when Sean Connery dies, lots of people are going to look to Will Ferrell to tell us what he was really like?

OH MY GOD, IT’S CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD FROM THE WINTER SOLDIER! Pretty much every movie site posted this the instant it hit, as if it was the shroud of Turin. We’ve already seen the shield, haven’t we? I swear, Marvel could release Chris Evans’ chest hair shavings and people would freak out.

Okay, wow. I think you guys need to see the trailer for this to truly understand how ballsy comparing this to Seven is. Although a tagline like “When the hunter… becomes the hunted” would seem to encapsulate the genericness pretty well on its own.

I wish it was called “On Frozen Ground” and it was about Steven Seagal as a badass ex-green beret figure skater.

Wait wait wait, Gillian Anderson and Haley Joel Osment star in a film named after a Gin Blossoms song? Jesus, what year is it? Also, why is it set in math heaven?

You think the “not that far” in “follow you down but not that far” was the same thing Meatloaf wouldn’t do when he said he’d do anything for love but not that? What kind of gross stuff were chicks trying to get guys to do in the nineties? I feel like I missed out.

Here’s Killing Season, the new movie that answers the question “How bad would a movie starring Robert DeNiro and John Travolta have to be to get a same-day VOD release?”

This poster is a masterpiece compared to the trailer. I’m not sure if it’s John Travolta doing a Serbian accent in this, or if it’s just a symptom of his real-life transformation into Dracula.

Oh good, another young adult novel starring some white kids they found at the mall.

I know I’m a sucker for powdered wigs, but is this not the coolest poster design you’ve seen in a while?

A journey across America’s Route 66 finds a country united in disappointment with the status quo in Washington. Citizens from all walks of life discuss money in politics, divisive campaign tactics, broken promises and the helpless feeling that as the election nears they must choose between the lesser of two evils. Of By For features in-depth analysis and candid conversations with some of the country’s most notable politicians, campaign consultants and psychologists. Uncovering the powerful interests that corrode our political system and divide the people, Of By For finds that hope for real change still exists – we’ve just been looking in all the wrong places.

You want to see real change? I’ll show you real change. (*reaches hands in pockets*) …Okay, I lied, it’s just a frog.

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?! I actually like the visual, though I’m not entirely sure why, or what’s going on. And poster aside, I will say that handing Spike Lee the keys to a movie that didn’t need a remake sounds like the worst idea ever. This is a guy who almost got a random family firebombed when he decided to try to play hero on Twitter, after all. What a colossal A-hole.

I was pretty sold on Only God Forgives based on Baby Goose looking forlorn alone, but a random lady with a million wine glasses is just icing on the cake.

I’m not quite sold on Sharlto Copley separate of Niall Blomkamp, but at least the poster gives me some idea of what the movie’s about. By the way, do you think necrophiliacs hear “open grave” the same way I hear the words “open bar?”

A man wakes up in the wilderness, in a pit full of dead bodies, with no memory and must determine if the murderer is one of the strangers who rescued him, or if he himself is the killer.

(Zoolander voice) …Sounds pretty cool.

LEAVE CHRISTIAN BALE ALONE, SPARKS, YOU’RE MAKING HIM SAD!

Even when it’s a cartoon, there’s still something menacing about a squadron of planes yelling at me in German.

Whoa oh ohwhoaoh, whoa oh ohhhoh. Whoa oh ohwhoaoh, whoa oh ohhhoh. Thanks for putting a New Kids on the Block song in my head, you assholes.

Hey, do you think they’re going to have to destroy a portal to another world? I feel like I’ve hardly seen any movies like that recently.

This is the poster for Runner Runner, that movie where Justin Timberlake learns the shocking truth about the seedy world of offshore gambling, which involves Ben Affleck feeding people to crocodiles.

Based on the tagline, I like to imagine Ben Affleck leading you inside his private plane, which of course is filled with thumping house music. “Get it? The house always wins, ya fackin get it?! Awright, awright, it’s pretty stupid. Anyway, ya see that crawk down theyah? I named ‘im, Sawx. He suhvives exclusively awn Yankees fans. Hahahaha, I’m just fackin’ witchoo, heah, have some pizzer.”

Sizzle me, Timberlake. Sizzle me raw.

By the way, is it just me, or does Gemma Arterton have a really grating voice?

Here’s Bill Murray on the set of St. Vincent de Van Nuys in Brooklyn this week.

Here’s the photo description, from Getty:

NEW YORK, NY – JULY 09: Bill Murray on set for the movie ‘St. Vincent de Van Nuys’ on July 9, 2013 in Brooklyn, New York. (Photo by Bobby Bank/WireImage)

And here’s the synopsis of the movie:

A young boy whose parents just divorced finds an unlikely friend and mentor int he misanthropic, bawdy, hedonistic, war veteran who lives next door.

Honestly, they had me at Bill Murray holding a broken mailbox, but now that I know he’s being bawdy and hedonistic in front of a young boy? The SWAT team couldn’t keep me away from this movie.

[Bobby Bank, Getty Images]

Short Term 12 is deservedly getting great reviews, but like I said, it’s pretty emo. It’s going to try to squish up your feels.

Looks like an Asian poster for Smurfs 2. No, I have no idea who those people in the corner are. Though I can just hear a marketing exec asking “Hey, what if one of the smurfs had dreadlocks and BASE jumped and was totally radical? You know, for the kids!”

[Posters via IMPA, except where noted]

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