Kicking off this week’s This Week in Posters, it’s Fifty Shades Of Grey, the movie adaptation of that Twilight fan fiction-cum-international bestselling book series. I still can’t believe that sentence is true. What a world, man, what a world. It opens February 13th, and stars Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, who won’t hang dong.
Anyway, if biting your lip wasn’t universal code for “I want you to do me now please” before, it is now. So be careful, ladies, and God help you if you just happen to have an itchy lip one day. Guys love to complain about women claiming they want to be so self-sufficient and independent and then turning out in droves for every movie/book/TV show where a dude in a suit makes the female protagonist obey his every word.
I suppose I can understand how that might be confusing, but I think the easy way to clear up this confusion is to remember that the fantasy isn’t so much about a (hot, rich, impeccably dressed) dude who orders a woman around, it’s about a (hot, rich, impeccably dressed) dude who can always read a woman’s mind and tells her to do exactly what she wants to do before she even knows she wants it. Can’t decide on a lunch restaurant? Just ask the magic rich dude, who knows your true desires before you do. He’s not domineering so much as empathetic to the point that it’s a superpower. Of course, I am neither hot, rich, nor impeccably dressed, so what do I know. You ask me what outfit you should wear to the party and I’m just going to get wide eyed and start sweating, convinced that this is some kind of trap.
As for the poster, specifically, I know the focal point is supposed to be the lips, but all I can think about is her creepily featureless chest. Is there supposed to be a hint of an hourglass figure in the white space, or does she just have a chest like a Ken doll’s crotch? Anyway, if you need me, I’ll be checking under my laptop for the boobs.
“It takes a team to build a dream” would’ve been a great tagline for Inception. As for the poster, I don’t know how many Oscars Marisa Tomei has to win before they’ll put her on the damn poster. Also, why are they carrying George Lopez through an empty field? I bet George Lopez would have a great joke about this. I could think of it for him, but it’d just seem racist.
We’ve already had a lot of fun with this poster.
Look, you can’t give us that much crowd space to work with and expect us not to work Channing Tatum in there, you just can’t. Anyway, great poster, but I’d like to think we made it even better. It was all awardsy and serious before, now it’s just fun, you know?
I am very sorry for this.
I was trying to figure out what city this is – the needley building looked sort of like the TV tower in Berlin, but then the building on the right with the square hole in it looks like one in Dubai. But if it’s Dubai, where is the Burj Dubai and that one hotel shaped like a sail? I know this is a movie about a giant octopus attacking some penguins coming out of a manhole, but for some reason the geography was really important to me. Anyway, that’s how I spent 30 minutes of my day.
I chuckled at this poster before I even knew what it was. Does that make me a monster? Am I wrong for chuckling at Paddington and his droll reaction to the hijinks around him? Because based on the hip, shorthand-style name “Paddington” and the fact that Colin Firth dropped out in post-production, I assumed this movie was going to be soulless and horrible, but God help me, I’m finding it strangely charming.
FUTURA FOR LIFE, YO.
Yes, this is a movie about the dangers of social media, and the tagline is “Everyone’s searching for a better connection.”
This reminds me of when I was trying to come up with a headline for my Interstellar review. The obvious headline was “Christopher Nolan Shoots For The Stars,” because the movie was about humans exploring distant galaxies, and the gist of the review was that the film was insanely ambitious. PERFECT DOUBLE MEANING! We writers live for these kinds of situation. Anyway, I went with something else because, as I think this poster proves, there is such a thing as too apt a play on words.
Also, how does Ansel Elgort get top billing? I don’t even know who that is. I’m pretty sure that’s not even a name, it’s an anagram.
Voice work is the easiest paycheck an actor will ever get, so it speaks volumes when Rob Schneider gets top billing.
“Norm of the North: Animation just got cheaper!”
“Champions can come from anywhere,” even McFarland, a town near where I grew up. Which is nowhere near the beach, by the way. In fact that’s probably its defining characteristic.
Disney: Let’s see how much we can patronize the people we made a movie about. “McFarland, the charming tale of some sh*tkickers from some sh*thole we didn’t even bother learning about who against all odds managed to be exceptional at something.”
All I can think about is that movie where Manny Pacquiao fights a giant crab.
1. World’s most generic YA fiction title? Check.
2. BooBoo Stewart? Check.
3. A tagline that shares its name with an infamous Florida law commonly referenced in murders of unarmed black people? Check.
Yes, this poster really has everything. There had to be at least three people involved in make this poster, and not one of them thought “stand your ground” might be a bad tagline? Or was the guy who thought of it just so adamant about it that everyone else fell in line? That must’ve been a real triumph of the will.
I’m guessing the “one soldier” battling for survival isn’t the one walking in front of the tank straight into a machine gun nest because he is surely dead now. What is he shooting at? The machine gunner is right in front of you! This would make a great poster for “The World’s Worst Soldier.”
I don’t recognize any of those names.
Here’s one of a series of new Portuguese posters for Into the Woods. Meryl Streep plays the witch, or the “bruxa.” “Bruxa” is a way better word than “witch.” Also, I feel like this movie would work a lot better if it were a series of posters. I look at the posters for this and think “Okay, I get it.”
I find The Hobbit posters exactly as dull and self-serious as the Hobbit movies, so I guess that’s something.
Oh look, there are those giant eagles who wasted two and a half hours of my time in the first movie before they finally showed up and won the battle.
Who is Cameron Dallas and why does he have his name above the title, you ask? If you answered “Vine Star,” go to the head of the class and collect your “Awesomeness TV” tote bag.
CAMERON DALLAS: He wears cool shades, leaves his hoodie unzipped, spikes his hair, and takes a relaxed attitude towards school work. I mean whoa! This kid is totally in my face. “Eastwood High” is never going to know what hit it.
Wait, wait, this is me, updating from five minutes in the future, after I’ve fallen down the Cameron Dallas rabbit hole. It seems he may not be anti-school after all. In fact, he even has a book club.
“It might seem a little old school, but reading a good book is a great way to fill your head and your heart with ideas, experiences, and perspectives that will be there for you for your whole life.”
“Reading lame-o books might seem old fashioned, but you know what else is lame-o and old fashioned? The human heart. And that’s what I use to love my fans and my grandma. Haha, I love you, grandma. Lol.”
I really want to know why he’s wearing a shirt promoting a forgotten Farrelly Brothers movie from 2011, but if I dig, I’m afraid of what I might find out. Anyway, I hope Expelled has a Curb Lurbes cameo.
@robwhisman pic.twitter.com/iSq3xKxKYf
— leon (@leyawn) March 18, 2014
This says “from the director of Gladiator.” Did they actually mean Independence Day? Because this is a Roland Emmerich poster if I’ve ever seen one.
He defied an empire and changed the world. He turned it into a tornado ravaged hellscape and then he got sad for a while.
By the way, I looked it up, “In de bioscoop” is how you say “at the movies” in Dutch. Is there a sillier-sounding language than Dutch?
“Enter if you dare.” As in, pop quiz, hotshot: you can have sex with Salma Hayek, but there’s a one in six chance she’s going to murder you. What. Do you. Do.
Also, it looks like she’s got some kind of black light poster tattooed on her back.
The seems like a good example that having a fully realized theme doesn’t necessarily make your movie scary.
Most movies market how much the star did to prepare for a role, all the weight they lost or gained, the sacrifices they made, etc. The twist for Cake is that Jennifer Aniston is being hailed for her bravery in appearing without make up. I’m not saying doing a movie without make-up isn’t brave, but if just showing up the way you rolled out of bed is something to be celebrated now, Vince Vaughn should get a nobel prize.
Also, I think “Cake: What’s eating you?” would’ve been a really awesome tagline.
This is a cool poster, but am I wrong for thinking it would make an even cooler Jazzercize sweater? I can’t help but envision this graphic on the torso of a woman in tights with lots of bangles on her wrists.
Here’s the trailer: