This Week In Posters: The Best Posters Of 2016

Here’s a poster for The Boy, with descriptions in French. The title remains untranslated, oddly. I don’t know what any of those words mean, but the language of “this is a horror movie about a creepy little kid” is universal.

Actually, according to IMDb, it has another twist:

An American nanny is shocked that her new English family’s boy is actually a life-sized doll. After violating a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive.

Okay, but what would really be creepier here: the idea that the doll is alive, or the idea that a family has a Real Doll designed to look like a young boy?

Oh look, there’s a Stan Lee cameo in the poster. Does that mean we won’t need one in the movie? Please say yes! I’d love to avoid that moment of the “nerds” “nerding out” over the least-nerdy nerd thing ever. Anyway, I still don’t get this poster campaign, but at least there’s a trailer now.

I thought it was Marvel who really hated black SUVs, but Deadpool is a Fox movie, so apparently the phenomenon transcends distributor. Is the SUV industry over-reimbursing for crashed SUVs or something? I can’t turn on the TV without watching a black SUV get in a rollover crash.

It looks like she’s recharging from him through her nose. Also, knowing nothing about the Divergent series, all of their posters look like ads for really dull clothing. “WHAT IF: You were a really hot teen working backstage at the Met Opera for the weekend?”

This guy is perfect, because he looks kind of like at least four different actors, but I don’t know who he is. When black guys say all white people look alike, this is the guy I imagine them picturing.

Twelve guys and one girl, I’ve been to a few parties like that. Also, all my life I’ve wanted to live in a house with a front porch and a lawn chair on the roof, which you think would’ve be a pretty attainable dream. And yet I’ve never been able to make it happen. I blame movies like this for teasing me with things I can’t have.

This is a poster for Extraction, which stars Bruce Willis and Kellan Lutz inexplicably standing sideways. Maybe it takes place in a windstorm? I’m not sure. IMDb claims this came out December 18th, but I’m pretty sure they’re lying. It also allegedly stars Gina Carano, which seems like a thing you’d want to show in the poster.

Kellan Lutz has that look on his face that says “The name’s Straight-To-Video. Dave Straight-To-Video.”

The forest is going to kill you! I’ll give them this, it’s not about a haunted house or a creepy little kid. But is a killer forest really enough material to fill up 90 minutes or so? Even in the Wizard of Oz, the killer trees were only good for about five minutes. I hope there’s some other hook, like an ancient Indian curse or a plucky assistant DA trying to make good. She’s cute, but kind of klutzy!

The concept of the slob/slacker/funny guy becoming a secret agent is as old as Larry the Cable Guy, but I chuckled at this anyway. And from a design perspective, this composition is way better than the usual stand-them-diagonal-to-make-it-look-dynamic thing. Plus you get the entire outfit in the poster without putting them in some weird pose. Nicely done.

Anyway, as good as Sacha Cohen was at making fun of American stuff, I’m excited to see him go back to his roots making fun of British stuff. I’m laughing and I’m learning.

Here’s your fairly straightforward poster for Amy Berg’s Janis Joplin documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue. Jesus, no one gets the romanticized treatment like musicians. It’s a weird aspect of human nature — at some sub-rational level I think we’re all still cavemen who secretly believe music is magic.

Also, 30 Rock has ruined me, because now I can’t look at a Janis Joplin movie without thinking of Jackie Jormp Jomp. There’s no way I’ll be able to watch this without translating everything into royalty-free versions in my head.

Here’s a fun game you can play with this poster: look at each character individually and try to decide which one looks most torn from 1993.

I also like that they used the Greek font. It really lets you know that it’s Greek. Speaking of which, they couldn’t squeeze some columns in there somewhere? When people see Greek, they expect columns.

It’s interesting that Nia Vardalos gets to exist in the real world, with a sky, and sea, and buildings, but the Greeks all exist in this shapeless, formless, gravity-free purgatory. Is there a mythological component to this? Is Joey Fatone Nia Vardalos’ Poseidon?

Is it still cool to tie your sweatshirt around your waist in Japan? Because whenever I do that here everyone in my life tries to talk me out of it. Yeah, laugh it up, jerks, when someone yells “think fast!” and tosses you a watermelon, I’ll be the “uncool” guy with both of his hands free.

I saw a trailer for this on TV the other day, so I already know that it’s about old men murdering Nazis. (I approve this premise.) I’m not sure I’d get that from the poster alone. On another note, is it just me or do the hands and the gun look like an unmistakable visual metaphor for a cock and balls? That couldn’t have been unintentional, right? It’s like he’s whispering “Hey, pussy. Come man up and kill this Nazi.”

This is the first of two special edition IMAX posters for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which are clearly awesome. I like this pop-up book looking animation better than the actual 3D. Could they make an entire movie like this? I guess the Peanuts movie is the closest they’ve come.

This one is even cooler than the last. I would hang it on my wall. Also, next time I’m at a job interview and the interviewer asks where I see myself in five years, I can just show him this picture.

Triple 9 is a John Hillcoat movie, a director who still has an air of “cool” about him, which makes it disappointing that this poster looks about as generic as Heist or Extraction or whatever cops and robbers movie with an inexplicably great cast is opening this week. The poster needs a lot more mood setting and a lot fewer floating heads. Strangely enough, a weirdly Photoshopped picture of Aaron Paul in a turtleneck doesn’t really set a mood.

This definitely made me laugh out loud, which in turn made me feel bad about myself for laughing at loud. Mild sexual assault can still be funny, right? I’d like to think so. I just can’t look at him squeezing her boob without hearing the sound of a Vespa horn. If a lady’s boob going “beep beep” is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

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.

 

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