This Week In Movie Posters: Phallic Symbols, Magician Crime, And You

This week in This Week In Movie Posters, this poster for Tomboy slipped in just under the wire, and I put it first because I love it so much. It’s rare that you can fit shooting phallus and menstruation imagery into the same image, and using the same subject. And in a way that’s perfectly theme-appropriate. Wonderful.

“All right, look, Dave, I’m going to need a gun penis and a title that’s menstruating.”

“Say no more.”

(*sound of mouse clicking*)

And here we have 2307: Winter’s Dream, which seems to be about a pervert in commando gear spying on a hairless man and his gang. Hey, no one paid me for my life rights! Get me my lawyer!

It actually reminds me of the awesomely terrible Canadian boy band video someone sent me a few years back, where a guy looks through binoculars and sees another dimension full of sexiness. That premise never goes out of style.

You think Shiraz refers to the wine here, or something else? Also, Salma Hayek has a hyphen name now, apparently.

Anyway, I hope this is set in the Middle East. “So we’ve got this script about the Iranian revolution, who should we cast?”

“Well, I’ve got a Hungarian Jew and a Mexican lady.”

“Perfect.”

(Salma Hayek is half Lebanese, according to Wikipedia, but if you think I’m changing my throwaway joke to reflect that you’re crazy.)

This is like the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s if the only person you recognized was Ron Jeremy.

The odd thing about Kristen Stewart is that the general public seems to have decided they were done with her at the exact time every arthouse director decided she was their personal muse. I’m not saying either is correct, but if I was going to use Kristen Stewart as the sole selling point of my movie, I’d try to make sure she wasn’t doing that heartburn face.

This is my favorite poster for Our Kind of Traitor so far.

Every time I see something about Now You See Me 2 I get re-infuriated that it isn’t called “Now You See Me Too.” Really dropped the ball on that one, guys. Also, what’s happening, they’re standing in front of a projector projecting the NYC skyline? And that’s supposed to be a representation of magic and grand illusions? I guess that’s the potential audience demographic for Now You See Me 2, “anyone impressed by the mere act of projection.”

Aw, Daniel Radcliffe is wearing a normal-sized person’s jacket, hilarious!

“Are we done? Is it lunch time yet? Can I go? Aw, hell, can’t you just add the hat in post?” -Morgan Freeman

Here’s a simple yet effective poster for Nerve. My brain interprets the backwards text as a puzzle I have to solve, for whatever reason, and I end up having to stare at it longer. Now I think I’m in love with Emma Roberts.

All I can focus on here is Dave Franco’s porn ‘stache stubble. How does a man with eyebrows that thick have such sparse facial hair?

Here’s the latest poster for The Neon Demon, which manages to be nothing like Drive, thematically, but unmistakably have the exact same aesthetic. Refn is so good at that. I like to imagine him as the world’s most sought-after interior design who insists on staging his houses with fake blood-covered models playing dead all over them, much to the chagrin of his clients.

OH MY GOD LOOK AT THAT GROWTH ON JEREMY IRONS’ SHOULDER GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!

You wake up with a growth on your shoulder and the next thing you know it’s drawing equations on a window. Damn these cinematic birth defects, this is why you shouldn’t watch Aaron Sorkin movies while pregnant.

The Lovers & The Despot is clearly about the time Kim Jong-Il kidnapped his favorite movie stars and forced them to make propaganda in North Korea. If you remember, I did a BookDrunk with a guy who wrote a book about this very same subject. It’s such a great story I’m not sure how you’d screw it up. Then again, I also thought that about Unbreakable.

I enjoy this poster very much, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because they’re not posed standing near anything wacky? Or that neither of the child actors make me want to hold them down and give them a haircut? That’s so rare these days. I kind of want to wedgie the “achingly humane” guy though.

Now that’s how you make a poster. I like how he’s punching a fuel tanker and the explosion just barely covers the bare breast. It tells me two important things: In this movie world, there’s a guy who punches fuel tankers in half, and also ladies walking around with bare breasts. Sold.

Evan Rachel Wood is really pretty, but she apparently has very tiny hands. Look at that creepy little thing! It looks like she’s holding a doll’s hand attached to a stick, just out of frame.

They lined up the faces with the names though. You know how I appreciate that.

So Ice Age has moved to space and now there’s a lady mongoose. I give it one more movie before all the characters are wearing those rainbow afro wigs.

It’s Mount Dudemore! Clearly I’m easy to please, but Jeff Bridges making that face like he’s barely hiding some cowboy secret is enough to sell me. I’d buy a ticket to this mustache party, just sayin’.

What is dangerous about this? Does one of the pedals shoot fire? “Gimme Fue, Gimme Fie, Gimme Jabba Dabba Zi: The Metallica Story.”

Is it too penis obsessed to note that their faces and the wolf nose look very dick-and-balls-like? Because that was the first thing I thought of.

I’m guessing a “buddymoon” is a honeymoon you take with your buddy, and it’s a wolf because they’re “wolves on the prowl,” metaphorically speaking. Also, wolves howl at moons. So much interlocking symbolism!

When a former child actor is dumped by his fiancé days before the wedding, his excitable German best man takes him on the honeymoon instead: a backcountry trek in the remote mountains of Oregon. [IMDb]

Is Flula Borg the first funny German? Or do we give that to Christoph Waltz? (Subsequent Googling reveals Waltz is actually Austrian. Advantage: Borg.)

More Kristen Stewart, hooray! In all honesty, this must be one of the strangest casts ever assembled. Quick, before I check IMDb, which of them do you think is playing Billy Lynn? Gotta be the unknown guy, right?

19-year-old Billy Lynn is brought home for a victory tour after a harrowing Iraq battle. Through flashbacks the film shows what really happened to his squad – contrasting the realities of war with America’s perceptions. [IMDb]

And yes, Joe Alwyn plays Billy Lynn. How far back do these flashbacks go? If Garrett Hedlund is in it, they must go back at least 40 years. Garrett Hedlund never takes any role set after 1960.

What’s going on with that dress, is the giant’s friend a pioneer woman? Maybe she’s in that Warren Jeffs cult with the long hair and the puffy sleeves? I guess the giant is also dressed as a gold prospector, this must be a period piece. Okay, moving on… can anyone in the world see this title and not automatically think “Big F*cking Giant?”

Is Matthew Espinosa the new Justin Bieber? Because the top of this poster looks like Justin Bieber’s concert film and the bottom looks like a Nicholas Sparks movie.

By the way, I just IMDb’d this and Matthew Espinosa is a Vine star. Check please!

I’m not a gamer, but this is basically the same as some of the video game ads, correct? How the hell did they get F.Assbender to star in this?

This looks like they stripped a superhero movie of anything valuable like an abandoned car and the only thing that was left was the space laser.

I’m intrigued by the imagery, and the lack of clothing, but is it just me, or is “American ____” and stars and stripes imagery basically meaningless at this point? I mean, not meaningless, maybe but don’t try to sell it to me as potent imagery.

It’s definitely a power move when you just put the names of the cast in the poster. I respect that, but at the same time, this movie is about Ben Affleck playing a badass accountant. All I want is a poster that features a green visor, a gun, and a scowl.

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.