This Week In Posters: ‘The Nice Guys’ Can’t Come Out Soon Enough

This week brings us new posters for Star Wars, Angry Birds, The Nice Guys, and more, but it looks like the ever-fickle Gods of WordPress are going in reverse alphabetical order this time. Meaning we’re starting with Zoolander 2. Silly costumes, Futura font, this one really has it all. I’m also digging Mugatu’s twin spit curls. I can’t tell if the scary Russian (German?) lady is supposed to be trying to make bunny ears on Hansel and she’s missing, or if that’s just a claw thing she’s making. That’s the kind of subtle ambiguity that keeps me staring at a poster for way too long. I normally hate the idea of comedy sequels, but it just seems like there’s so much to work with here. The first one was about narcissism, and it came out three years before even Facebook, four before YouTube, to say nothing of Instagram models and Vine superstars. There’s almost too much material.

Did someone say Futura font? MORE FUTURA FONT! Boy, all those pull quotes, and they still chose to use Pete Hammond in the top position. That’s an… interesting decision. He really liked it, so it must have a beautiful actress with dirt on her face in it somewhere. Hammond’s a fool for any film where the glamorous folks get some fake dirt under their fingernails.

Sci-fi costumes with a little dirt and grit on them are surprisingly rare, and give me a big ol’ boner every time. Also, you can really tell the first Star Warses came out in the late ’70s/early ’80s. The burnt orange, the life-preserver-style vest… Weird how their vision of the future seemed to coincide perfectly with cutting edge trends of the Gerald Ford-era. The costume designer on The Force Awakens one must’ve embraced this — it looks like they even embiggened Oscar Isaac’s hair to make it more era appropriate.

Looks like they weren’t afraid of hyperbolic pull quotes, huh? “It altered the very fiber of my being at a molecular level.” “I’ve just witnessed cold fusion.” “BRIE LARSON TRANSCENDED SPACE-TIME AND BECAME A BEACON OF PURE LIGHT. I ENTERED A FUGUE STATE AS MY MIND ATTEMPTED TO PROCESS WITNESSING FOUR DIMENSIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY.”

Calling a little kid a “startling revelation” is my new favorite turd nugget of breathless critic-ese. I like to imagine that critic puked in his popcorn bucket three times and started speaking in tongues. “Jacob Tremblay is human ayahuasca! I spent 90 minutes discussing Kierkegaard with my dead grandfather. Three thumbs up, shambalalala juggudded shalalalalalalaalalal…”

I like that the one guy’s hair is blowing sexily in the breeze, while the other’s Australian surf champ main sits perfectly still. GRR, XXTREME MICRO-CLIMATE! Also, I know those are supposed to be guys in squirrel suits in the background, but they sort of look like flying CD cases.

Wait, some wacky cartoon animals invade New York? Has this plot ever been attempted before? I kid, I kid. Truth is, the fat little lemmings look silly and I eagerly await their antics. The top lemming is stepping on the middle lemming’s eye!

This is one of those times when a cute tagline is completely unnecessary. The “nice pair” is implied. Has Shane Black ever done a period piece before? I don’t believe he has. I’m imagining a Shane Black take on Inherent Vice, stripped of its Pynchon-ness and with dick jokes and Christmas references added. Basically, I want to open a vein and put this movie directly inside it.

They really aren’t giving us too many hints with Joy. I assume this is basically Silver Linings Playbook 2? So far, all I know is that Jennifer Lawrence can get snow all over her hair and it never gets wet and stringy because she is an angel.

Can Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence just screw already? We’re going on nine hours of foreplay at this point.

Here’s a baseball card-style poster for The Hateful Eight (aka The H8ful Eight, apparently). I could definitely see people collecting Tarantino baseball cards. I’d use the Michael Madsen ones in my bicycle spokes to make it sound like a motorcycle.

A+ for lining up the faces with the names, though I’m not sure it gets an A for anything else. It looks Reeves and Armas are playing Siamese twins. Which would be an awesome premise, though I’m pretty sure it’s accidental here. It also looks like someone told the designer, “I dunno, man, this poster is pretty boring, maybe stick a gun in it somewhere?”

“Where? There’s no room.”

“What are you talking about? Just put it anywhere. Replace her right arm with it if you have to.”

“They’re hitting the road… and everything on it!”

OH SNAP. Like, you know how sometimes you’re chillin’ with your bros, watching some football, and you see a piece of ass so tasty you just wanna smash it with your car? Oh man, I’d hit that, bro. Would you hit that? Up top!

I enjoy when movies have to take things way too far so that you know the characters are opposites. Just look at Efron’s face. Poor Zac Efron! He hates ladies’ butts! Not like his grandpa, that filthy old perverted butt lover!”

Do these Deadpool posters make more sense if you read the comics? Because I haven’t, and to me this entire campaign seems super weird.

Here’s one of the character posters for Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq. Featuring my favorite recurring Spike Lee character, Evil White Guy. To be fair, this actor is really good at looking like every white guy. He manages to look like 10 different white guys in one, but none of them specifically.

I know Chi-Raq is about the women of Chicago withholding sex until the violence stops (BTW, I’m not sure this premise is considered “empowering” anymore…), but I’m not sure what that has to do with “empty stripper poles,” like it says on the poster. Why would they close strip clubs? Strip clubs are the ultimate example of withholding sex to modify behavior.

I feel like this movie is going to involve a lot of people talking straight to the camera. I do like the idea of Wesley Snipes in a bejeweled eye patch though, I can’t deny that.

Fierce. Sexy. Crucifix.

That necklace thing seems like it would be really hard to put on.

John Cusack is surprisingly perfect as a priest at this stage of his career. He has that face that looks like it smells of too much aftershave.

Here’s the first of a new batch of posters for the Angry Birds movie, which opens May 16th (as you may have read on this poster). Do you think they missed their window with this one? Do kids still play Angry Birds?

Maybe this is designed for people my age, for us to look back nostalgically at those heady days of two years ago, when we got obsessed with Angry Birds and spent half of Thanksgiving hiding in the bathroom to play it on the toilet.

As for the posters, it’s scary how realistic CGI has gotten with feathers and hair. Does that take a really long time? It seems like it would.

This is the subtlest DreamWorks face I’ve ever seen (even though it’s a Sony film).

The pig design isn’t nearly as interesting as the birds. Also, this one looks a little Amish. Might want to change this up a bit, you don’t want to spark an Amish boycott. That could kill the opening weekend.

I’m a sucker for any character whose eyebrows are bigger than their face. It reminds me of my grandpa, who was small and very hairy.

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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