This week’s holiday-delayed edition of This Week In Movie Posters begins with Abattoir, from Saw II, III, and IV director Darren Lynn Bousman. “Abattoir” is a fancy French word for “slaughterhouse,” so he’s really branching out, thematically. The word “abattoir” kind of reminds me of my favorite Moe line from The Simpsons.
“‘Abattoir.’ Hey, fellas, ‘abattoooooir.'”
“Why, what do you call it?”
“Death hole.”
Anyway, they were clearly going for an “evil Willy Wonka” vibe in this poster. Which is nice, because I like my torture porn like I like my Christmas trees — campy and playful, with extra canes.
This poster is kind of perfect. It helps that Rami Malek is an easy poster subject, but it feels like they really took his frog-like eyeballs as inspiration and ran with it. He’s just sort of popping up from his office lily pad back there, ribbit ribbit. I don’t really know what this movie’s about, but the poster fills me with this anticipatory energy, like he’s about to snatch a fly with his tongue. I want to be there to see that. Long live the frog man.
“Cardboard boxer.” Wow. Sometimes there’s a title, I mean a title… so… pungent, that it just overwhelms everything else. That is sure a play on words. “Now he’s in for the fight of his life… with homelessness.”
Terrence Howard was also in The Fighter. Is there some kind of award he could win for always being in the most movies that use boxing as a metaphor for life’s struggles?
I also appreciate the meta aspect to this poster, where Thomas Haden Church’s face looks like he’s seeing this poster for the first time.
So the film is called “Certain Women” and this poster certainly depicts certain women. But… perhaps we need more than that? Some kind of hint? Is this movie a secret? Maybe that’s it, they’re trying to keep it a secret. Great marketing strategy. Maybe we’ll hear about it a few years after the release.
The guy who wrote Traffic wrote a movie about gold starring Matthew McConaughey? Hey, why not put that on the poster? Anyway, I’m going to see the hell out of this, and if nothing else, this poster leads me to expect Matthew McConaughey to look even stinkier than he usually looks. Is Matthew McConaughey our most stinky-looking celebrity? Discuss.
A lot of people argue that Johnny Depp is smellier-looking than Matthew McConaughey. My personal feeling is that while Johnny Depp looks like he smells worse (patchouli, incense, herb-flavored vape fumes left to fester on leather and bead work), McConaughey’s is more of a pure BO scent that can be detected from further away.
Yes. I vote “yes” on this poster. As I’ve been saying, the new action-movie poster trend is “particles and debris flying everywhere.” This one takes that and adds a smoking gun and a bullet hole. Because it’s called “headshot,” get it? Sometimes an on-the-nose poster is the best poster.
I call this poster “deconstructed Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Mr. and Mrs. Smith asked, “what if an international assassin and a domestic husband/wife were the same person?” What Keeping Up With The Joneses presupposes is, what if they weren’t?
I’m curious how these couples even know each other. Not curious enough to see the movie, mind you.
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are already such golden era throwback sweethearts that the art deco font and Gene Kelly musical aesthetic are perfect. I can’t decide if I’d rather watch Baby Goose and Emma Stone be chaste and wholesome together or do filthy graphic sex to each other. I guess that’s the dramatic tension here.
“Justice has a number?” Really, that’s the best we could do? That sounds like a slogan for that bus ad lawyer whose phone number is all twos. “Have you been injured on the job or in a transvaginal mesothelioma mesh accident? Justice has a number!”
Oh well, at least this one isn’t tilted to the side for no reason. And offers a better look at Vincent D’Onofrio’s big fat Native American-influenced assassin character. I like to imagine that he’s the most woke cowboy because he wears Native American stuff.
Ughhhhh and just when I thought we were done with the pointlessly-sideways posters. Am I going to have to watch this movie with my head tilted 45 degrees to the side? Should I bring one of those inflatable neck pillows just in case? No thanks.
I would not have expected Denzel Washington to look so fantastic in cowboy clothes. You could bring back vests with lapels with an image like this. He looks so dapper, but also has his arms free for shooting!
Hahaha, Chris Pratt’s face looks like he’s trying to squeeze out a fart, and there’s a big wet splatter behind his butt. Nice.
How did dudes in the cowboy days decide on a hat? That was like your entire persona. I’m thankful not to have to deal with that kind of dilemma.
Of course the Asian guy has to use knives. Poor bastard. Why do we always curse the exotic member to obsolete technology? Just once I’d like to see an Eskimo with some kind of steam-powered bazooka. Free idea for you guys.
I’m expecting some intense Mass accents in this one. Hold on, I think I found a rough cut of this:
Oh good: For a second there I was worried we were all out of inexplicably diagonal posters for the week. If you can’t read Korean (?), this is a poster for Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. True story: I was so convinced that this had already come out that I had to check IMDb. Apparently it hasn’t. So… cool?
This better be some kind of futuristic sex movie. Is one of them a robot? Perhaps. I hope it shows the dongles going in.
Hold up, Pamela Anderson?! I haven’t seen her in anything since… you know, forget I mentioned it. Interesting poster, though I legitimately can’t tell whether it’s a period piece.
The steam is people!
They’re “cowboys,” and they’re riding off into the sunset, get it? At this point, I think we might need a better system of metaphors that doesn’t ask us to think of these pocket protector dudes as cowboys, or rock stars, or ninjas, or whatever.
I think I get this one. It’s about two schools of American blues on a collision course, right? On a track made of guitar strings? And the flag motif actually has a purpose in this one? Nice. Still, if the second train is coming from Mississippi, it’d be nice to be able to see where the first train came from. Michigan? Delaware? Who could know what blues would be like if Delta blues had never been influenced by Delaware blues?
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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.