This week in This Week In Posters begins with Friend Request. I don’t speak Italian (mama mia, I only-a speak-a inna di bad-a Italian-a accent!), but this might be the most perfect graphic representation of a local news-style, “and-your-kids-could-be-doing-it!” scare piece I’ve ever seen. It took me a minute to realize the outline was supposed to be the Facebook logo. At first I thought it was a cross, being Italian and all. Maybe that was intended, they get the Biblical symbolism and Facebook satire in one go.
The film, by the way, isn’t Italian, just the poster. I had to look that up. The leopard-print iPhone seemed very Italian. “Mama mia, come-a look-a atta thees-a iPhone! She look-a just-a like-a the big-a cat, bellissima, belliiiiissiimaa…”
Honestly, they must’ve switched the names just to piss me off. But okay, okay, most of us can probably tell the difference between Nic Cage and Elijah Wood without the visual aid at this point. Other than that, the poster is pretty good. All I really need to know is that these two weirdos are teaming up, and the poster dutifully sells that fact. In fact, it kind of makes me wish there was a version of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans where Cage’s character teams up with the weird perverted creep Wood plays in Sin City. Elijah Wood is the perfect creepy little perv.
And here’s another one. Leaving aside the strange choice to make Nic Cage’s heart a bank vault (“this is actually where I keep my snake venom and dinosaur skulls“), that might be the smallest pull quote attribution I’ve ever seen. Even magnified three times I still can’t tell who the critics are:
I think one of them might be Hey U Guys? We may have to use radio carbon dating on this.
Apparently all you need to sell a movie is Dan Stevens staring at people. I’m not saying this is incorrect.
Because I was just too curious, here’s the synopsis:
A blind man who regains his vision finds himself becoming metaphorically blinded by his obsession for the superficial. [IMDb]
Huh. Did anyone else get “blind” from the poster? I got “hot guy who wants to do it,” but I admit I could be projecting.
Here’s another one where the design (sound waves?), subject (a nun?), tagline and title (a root vegetable good for purées) don’t seem to have any relation to each other. Is this about a recording-spinning nun who reinvents farm-to-table cuisine? I hope so.
Wow, an Oliver Stone poster utilizing American flag imagery in a non-patriotic way! I never saw that coming. I like to imagine Michael Bay and Oliver Stone as two rival middle schoolers, where Michael Bay is the popular jock, who walks around putting flag stickers on everything, and Oliver Stone is the outcast who goes by flipping them all upside down because he’s such a rebel.
If you told me there was going to be a movie called Puerto Ricans In Paris executive produced by Pitbull, I’d probably tell you to “dale” the hell out of my office (…slash mom’s basement). But you throw in Luis Guzmán in a Hawaiian shirt and a beret and all of a sudden I’m right back onboard. Not to mention, that is a fantastic tagline. And they lined the faces and names up properly. Damn you, Pitbull. You are a God among dog men.
I’m getting “off-the-grid livin'” from this poster, and I’m intrigued enough to seek out the synopsis:
Two misfit brothers hustle cash and chase dreams in the desert. When a mysterious woman threatens to repo their beloved houseboat the brothers cook up an epic con to finally leave their dusty town and sail off on a beam of sunshine to California. [IMDb]
(*tentative Zoolander voice*) …Sounds cool.
Kubo and the Two Strings continues to look weird and cool, but come on, you’re just going to steal the Titan of Braavos like that? I hope Kubo becomes the water dancer I’ve been waiting for Arya Stark to become all these years.
Still more Game of Thrones imagery here, what with the big throne and the walls covered in bones. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I don’t know what’s happening here, exactly, but I like it.
The explanation I always get for why the names on posters often don’t match up with the faces is that the actors’ reps negotiate fiercely over who gets top billing, and the order the names are mentioned is very important. If that’s true, who the hell is Art Parkinson? Why does he get his name before three multiple Oscar nominees?
Subsequent Google reveals that he’s a kid:
Someday I’m going to start a non-profit dedicated to helping child actors get the haircuts they need and tracking down the stylists who did them up like Ace Ventura. Those people should be jailed.
Here’s the latest Keanu poster, this one a take off on Deadpool, obviously. At this point I’m actually kind of charmed by the laziness of these, where they just threw the same cat head on every poster they could think of and gave it a pun tagline. Hey, why not? That’s an impulse I understand.
Xavier Dolan, Lea Seydoux, Marion Cotillard… dreamy, gauzy, photography… a provocative title… poster that openly recalls childhood memories… Man, this is going to be so arty and French that they’ll probably pass out baguettes and cigarettes at the premiere.
A few things about this poster:
One: John Travolta, Bruce Willis, and some other actors should be paying Liam Neeson royalties for creating a niche where they can all make paycheck action movies well into their seventies.
Two: What is going on with Travolta’s bizarre hairline? In a poster this stylized, couldn’t the designer fix that weird pompadour Dracula thing he’s got going on up there?
Three: Or, is Travolta’s Dracula pompadour now so compelling that it’s a draw all its own, and deserves the prominent poster placement? Discuss.
Here’s the first of a series of Green Room character posters. I like these, but I don’t fully understand the aesthetic reference. Anyone?
I was pretty into punk all through my teen years, yet I didn’t know this haircut was called “Chelsea” until this movie came out. Imogen Poots might be the only person in the world who can pull it off. She also may have had the most convincing accent in the movie, despite being British.
Oh no, it’s angry Anton! These posters are cool, but I kind of would’ve liked to see one in the style of the hand-drawn punk rock flyers like the one for the Ain’t Rights show in the movie.
My first thought was, “Simon Helberg, who’s that? He’s important enough to put on a poster?”
So then I looked him up and realized he’s one of the actors from Big Bang Theory, which explains both why he’s important enough to get his own poster and why I didn’t know who he was. He looks so much different without the stupid haircut that makes me want to punch him.
Florence Foster Jenkins, by the way, is about a famously tone-deaf socialite who used her money and connections to con her way into a life of opera singing. I actually can’t wait to see Meryl Streep play a plucky dingbat and this poster conveys it perfectly.
Hugh Grant looks like he’s watching you pee, and he likes it.
I have no clue what this is about, and I’m not sure what this background is supposed to convey. Is she in space? In a space simulator video game? That being said, credit where credit is due, “woozy dollops of magical realism” is some compelling imagery. It manages to be both sensual and evocative yet still largely meaningless. That’s just good pull-quotin’ right there. You think we could develop some kind of indie movie pull-quote generator?
“A flaccid thunk of dramedy, with creamy, de riguer hillocks of moral relativism.”
Is it just me, or does the gun look extra dick-like in this poster? You could always argue guns as phallic symbols, but more so when you’ve got two actors heads mimicking testicles. Even Liam Hemsworth’s facial hair looks like a secret scrotum.
A strange boy and his chicken! Okay, I’ll bite.
15-year old Richard has learning difficulties and lives with his restless and destructive brother Polly. When the land they live on is bought by a new landowner, and the electricity supply to their caravan is cut, their already precarious living conditions get even worse. [BoldTurtleProductions]
Hmm, so… Of Mice And Men meets What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, say? Sure, why not.
I don’t know what Cell is about, is it zombies? A zombie-like menace? “Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack star in… The Walking Dad.”
The color scheme, the composition, the pull-quote layout… this poster is pretty damned well done. I’m getting an Into the Wild meets Little Miss Sunshine vibe.
Let’s see… two indestructible man tanks, a levitating robot demi-God, and… uh… a cat guy? A lady with night sticks? Superhero teams always run out of cool powers and start to yadda yadda. It’s like when you’re drawing a sign and you start out making the letters too big so then on the right they end up all small and squished together. It’s the same with superheroes. You waste all the good powers and the first few, and then you get down to the sixth or seventh character and it’s like “he… uhh… can talk to goldfish or something? He speaks seven languages and can instantly recharge iPhones with his fingers!”
Seriously though, can someone tell me how the f*ck the guy with the wingsuit is going to be helpful in this fight?
Just to recap, we’ve now had a bad Santa, a bad teacher, a bad grandpa and a dirty grandpa… how many of these do we need? There’s even already been faith-based version of this movie (Moms Night Out), and when the people who put out Christian rock starting beating you to the artistic punch, it’s time to have a good long look in the mirror. The only saving grace I can see is that they’re finally treating Kathryn Hahn as the hot one. I’ve always had a weird crush on her, I think it might’ve been the bathroom scene in Stepbrothers that did it, though I’m afraid of what that says about me.
It’s Gravity! Wait, no! Interstellar! Wait, no!
Anyway, I was just wondering where Luke Wilson has been, so I looked him up on IMDb and remembered he was Roger Goodell in Concussion. Great casting.
Vince Mancini is a writer, comedian, and podcaster. 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.