This Week In Posters has been in extended hiatus, but enough people whined, whinged, and bitched about its absence to convince me to bring it back. See? I do listen to you! Don’t ever let your boss, mom, or conscience tell you you aren’t important, FilmDrunk reader.
An added benefit is that our new auto-loadin’ pages should make it easier to read, AND this week’s crop of posters (all via IMPA) just happens to be especially awesome. We’ve got a truly epic Nic Cage face, subliminal crotchvertising, mismatched names/faces, a closed-eyed headbutt, and dare I say it, some legitimate art. Read on, bro. Read on.
First up alphabetically we have Ashby, which might have some interesting things going on, but all I can focus on is Mickey Rourke’s face. I’ve seen Mickey Rourke’s face. I’ve been scared by Mickey Rourke’s face. My college roommate was Mickey Rourke’s face. You, sir, are no Mickey Rourke’s face.
Remember a few years back when Mickey Rourke, in one of the best acceptance speeches of all time, pleaded with Hollywood to give his bro Eric Roberts another chance? Well, now Mickey Rourke is working with his hot daughter. So, partial success?
This is part of a series of new character posters for Netflix’s Beasts of No Nation, from True Detective Season 1 director Cary Fukunaga, based on the novel by Uzodinma Iweala. So, African child soldiers, Cary Fukunaga, and Idris Elba playing a charming but terrifying warlord? You’d have to make a pretty terrible poster to keep me from watching that.
Yes. Yes. Mmm-hmm. Definitely.
I just threw money at my laptop screen and I already have a Netflix subscription.
I’ve stared at this for a good seven minutes now, because the poses are just sort of off and it’s like a scab I can’t stop picking. What is she doing with her arms? Where is her foot? Why is this guy grabbing her back-handed? It looks like he’s trying to give her leg “the stranger.” Then again, if they were posed in a different way I probably wouldn’t have stared at the poster nearly as long, and now it’s in my head. That’s #Brand recognition. So, success?
I saw The D-Train at Sundance, and it is legitimately one of my favorite comedies of the year. It flew criminally under the radar and I wish more people would’ve seen it. And yet this poster is… my God, it’s so terrible that it’s majestic. This looks like a last-minute high school video productions assignment that someone got a D on.
ERMERGERD, GERSEBERMPS!
Stupid memes, I’m going to be 75 and still hearing that in my head every time I see “Goose bumps.” Also, who would’ve thought we’d get to Jack Black posters back to back this month?
This is Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film… if you don’t count Four Rooms, any of the movies he wrote but didn’t direct, and count Kill Bill as one movie. In any case, this poster accurately predicted that you don’t need much more than Samuel L. Jackson, Tarantino’s name, and some guns to sell this movie. As Jules Winnfield would say, “well sh*t yeah, negro, that’s all you had to say.”
Hell and Back is apparently a stop-motion animated movie directed by guys who’ve worked on Pretend Time and Robot Chicken. I’m hoping this is just the teaser poster, but if so they should start selling harder soon because it opens in October.
I have about zero interest in some kind of slasher movie about creepy clowns, but this poster is a damned fine piece of work. Clear concept, well-executed, solid tagline. It’s going to be a bummer when it comes out and gets destroyed by Blumhouse’s latest haunted house movie.
THE CLOSE-EYED HEADBUTT STRIKES AGAIN!
Also, whenever I complain about a poster not matching names to faces, the explanation people always give is that the bigger stars’ names are supposed to come first. My question: Is Jamie Blackley a huge star in Turkey or something? Because I barely remember who that is, and I saw the movie.
I used a crop of this for the banner image, for obvious reasons. That’s a pretty great poster right there. It’s has a weird Fifty Shades of Grey vibe, plus Kick-Ass-style yellow text and a clear message that I should go f*ck myself. Art that unsubtly tells me to go f*ck myself is my favorite art.
SCIENCE, BRO! THE SINGULARITY IS HERE! I wonder if studios are starting to notice that almost every movie about AI/the singularity/consciousness is a bomb. And I say this as someone who loved Chappie and kinda sorta liked Transcendence.
I laugh every damn time I read “The Scorch Trials” and these teen stock image models from the cover of my college course catalogue are just the icing on the cake. I believe this is the second Maze Runner movie, but I admit I haven’t been keeping track.
The Maze Runner 3: The Second Scorch Trial, Still Scorchin
The Maze Runner 4: The Scopes Trial. “Gettin’ scorched was just the first evolution.”
The Maze Runner 5: Still F*cking Maze Running, Oh God I’m So Tired
The Maze Runner 6: Bro Do You Even Maze Run?
The Maze Runner 7: Bonerghost’s Revenge, starring Eric Roberts
I don’t find Drew Barrymore’s acting believable and I’m looking at a still frame.
No Escape opens this weekend, and I very much enjoy this James Bond-esque, minimalist animation-style poster. That is all.
So, first of all, the English title of this incredible-looking film is “Pay the Ghost.” In case you were wondering if that’s some kind of fancy idiom, the synopsis is “A professor frantically searches for his son who was abducted during a Halloween parade,” leading me to believe that this abductor was dressed as a ghost and that Nic Cage’s character literally has to pay him, either ransom money, or back, for taking his son. But bottom line, as long as Nic Cage is holding a glowing thing in the poster, I’m in.
This poster designer had to pull some fancy tricks of perspective to squeeze all three leads into this. And yet, all I can focus on is how much cooler assassin sounds in German. “Auftragskiller.”
Boy, Rachel McAdams is sure looking manly these days. And disheveled.
This poster might belong on the all-time mismatched names and faces hall of fame. Why wouldn’t you match them up!? This is mind-boggling to me. The only thing I can think of is that they were trying to take my attention away from the tagline. “Read between the lies.” I think Oliver Stone just jacked off onto a 9/11 truther pamphlet when he read that.
Break the story. Break the silence. Break the internet. Starring Liev Schreiber and Kim Kardashian’s butt shelf, coming this May.
I think this might be the set from Mad Max. Also, I wonder if “E. Nina Rothe” really wrote THEEB IS A JEWEL in all caps like that. If so, I’m using it as my defense next time someone gives me a hard time for emphasizing points in all caps. If it’s not too lowbrow for a critic with a fancy initial for a first name and regal extraneous E in her last name than it’s not too lowbrow for me.
I don’t really know how to explain this, but I find Daniel Radcliffe’s face deeply unpleasant at some sub-verbal level.
GAH, GET IT AWAY FROM ME! SHOO! SHOO! (*hits laptop with broom*)
This new batch of character posters for We Are Your Friends is the subliminal crotchvertising I was talking about at the beginning. “Bro, just put the tagline over Emily Ratajkowski’s boobs and the title over her vadge. It’ll be so tight.”
I love the pose too. This is not only the poster for We Are Your Friends, it should be the recruiting poster for EDM as a whole. “You think this music sucks? Well guess what, this super hot chick doesn’t. Put up with it for two or three hours and she might even rub up against you.”
Look how serious he is. That’s a face that says “I am an earnest millennial and this music is my life, bro. I don’t even take these headphones off in the shower. I don’t actually put them over my ears though cause that’s lame stuff for grandpas.”
LOOK AT MY SHARK SHIRT! LOOK AT IT! IT’S A SHARK! THERE IS A SHARK ON MY SHIRT! A SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK UTZ UTZ UTZ UTZ UTZ UTZ UTZ….
I saw The Witch at Sundance (only one I never finished the review for, I am sorry) and it may be the first period horror movie/thriller that’s too faithful to the source. They actually talk like people in the colonial days talked and everything about it feels incredibly authentic and it’s legitimately terrifying without much supernatural stuff. Yet one of my main takeaways was how awful being an English colonist must’ve been. Their lives suuuuucked. That said, this poster is awesome and beautifully done and at the end of the day I will watch absolutely anything with a spooky goat in it. Goats manage to be the scariest animals, the funniest animals, and the most skillful animals (when climbing) all at the same time. Goats contain multitudes.
Vince Mancini is a writer and comedian living in San Francisco. A graduate of Columbia’s non-fiction MFA program, his work has appeared on FilmDrunk, the UPROXX network, the Portland Mercury, the East Bay Express, and all over his mom’s refrigerator. Fan FilmDrunk on Facebook, find the latest movie reviews here.