This week in This Week in Posters, we begin with Graduation, from the director of one of my least-favorite critically acclaimed movies ever, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. So it’s not surprising that they’re using critical acclaim to sell this one. Those quotes sound a lot better than “another bleak slog through the former Eastern Bloc!”
It was also really clever to make the main guy look like Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Not sure how they pulled that one off.
This might be the best of all the Beauty and the Beast posters to date. It’s minimal, gets the point across, etc. It makes it look like a woman-buffalo love story most tasteful.
Oh hell yeah, a biopic about a white boxer who’s gritty and good at taking punches? Has this ever been tried before? I can’t wait.
Also, they put way too many names in that picture. I had to Google it to figure out if Liev Schreiber was the one playing the bleeder. Come on, people, have you never seen a white boxer biopic before? You’re selling the actor transformation! You make people think “Gee, isn’t it crazy that this buff boxer guy is Liev Schreiber?” and then that way they’re too distracted with his amazing transformation to think about how it’s yet another white boxer biopic. Jesus, it’s like you’ve never sold a white boxer movie before.
Oh damn, this looks serious. I bet Emma Stone has a cathartic moment while staring at some sand dunes or something. Also, this is Tom Hanks’ second Dave Eggers movie. Remember the first one? Of course not, because no one saw it. I didn’t even realize it was possible to hide a Tom Hanks movie so thoroughly. If they hide this one we’ll know that Hollywood hates Dave Eggers.
I normally hate movie posters that force me to tilt my head sideways, but this one is pretty cool. It’s a negative space tower! Phallic symbol! The only thing I’m confused about is which one of the silhouettes down there is Idris Elba and which one is Matthew McConaughey. One is clearly smaller than the other, which is odd because I always assumed both those dudes were roughly the same size. Is Matthew McConaughey playing a small CGI boy? If so, don’t bury the lede, I would watch the hell out of that.
It’s Twins! For kids! They look like total opposites, except that they both really love scarves, I guess.
Clearly this is a movie about guys in cool hats playing dominos. While drinking scotch. Come to think of it, that looks like a pretty nice life.
This is a teen romance adaptation, so I guess the only question is which one of them gets cancer. The poster is a nice twist on the old “close-eyed headbutt” trope (it’s visual shorthand for yearning) where the characters clearly want to close-eyed headbutt each other, but there’s something preventing them. Is it cancer? Is one of them dead or a vampire or something? Also, would it have been so damned hard to put the names in the right order?
This is sort of how I imagine Sam Elliott’s real life: just napping with his cowboy hat over his eyes with craft services bringing him sarsaparillas until he saunters over out of nowhere to give some folksy advice. So basically this looks great. Probably this week’s best poster.
Oh damn, does the Young Pope have a chain mail miter? Jeez, popes get all the coolest hats. Wait, no! This is for Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur movie! I guess Jude Law plays the villain in that? Though if you ask me, it’s never too early for a King Arthur Vs. Young Pope crossover. You think Jude Law is worried about getting type cast as “sneering guy in elaborate head piece?” I hope not, because he’s great at it.
Are you kidding me? This could not possibly look more Young Pope-y. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Also, I think Guy Ritchie’s strategy for reimagining King Arthur was to just turn up the contrast really high.
UNCLE SAM:
GUY RITCHIE’S UNCLE SAM:
Higher contrast = more badasserer.
Hmm, I’m not too familiar with the Avett Brothers, but I’m going to assume folk band? Can’t have folk music without train tracks, I always say. And at least one pocket.
This looks like they combined that “giant eyeball” poster trope with the “floating heads” trope and made a halo thing out of it. Cool, cool. Also I had to check, and that is apparently not Richard Gere on the right.
Oh hell yeah, another dog marine movie? Dog marine is my favorite genre of war movie.
The Promise is about the Armenian genocide, and this poster seems to be really overestimating Americans’ knowledge of the Armenian flag and geography.
What the hell are they even looking at? Is this just two hours of people staring concernedly off into the distance?
This looks like a ’70s poster and I’m not 100% sure why. Is it the burnt orangey color scheme? Dry hair? Also, do you think “snatched” is a play on the “Amy Schumer always talks about her vagina” joke? Discuss.
Damn, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle Gemma Arterton’s moxie. It looks like Bill Nighy and Sam Claflin are just dumbfounded, agog, flabbergasted by Gemma Arterton’s moxie. He’s positively chuffed to the ascots he is. I bet she’s going to say something spunky and turn to the camera, and then it will cut to Bill Nighy giving a wry smirk.