This week in This Week In Movie Posters begins, fittingly, with this foreign poster for The Accountant. Obviously I would’ve known this movie was called The Accountant without already having seen the ads for it, because nothing screams “accountant” like a 6-foot-4 dude with a cleft chin holding a big ass gun. DAWCTAH SAYS I GAWT ASPERGAHS, NOW I LAUNDAH MONEY FA FACKIN DRUG CAHTELS. HEY CHAHLENE, WATCH ME ICE THIS HAHD ON FROM FIVE HUNDRID YAHDS WITH MY SNIPAH RIFLE.
Here we have one of those “cool, but I have no idea what it’s about posters” for The Alchemist Cookbook. There’s a lot of that going around come festival season. Always a big secret! I know you want to retain that cool, indie films, but if you want to make some money, err towards overexplaining. Sellouts have no secrets.
Suffering from delusions of fortune, a young hermit hides out in the forest hoping to crack an ancient mystery, but pays a price for his mania. [IMDb]
I’m guessing the ancient mystery is how to turn stuff into gold?
Here’s a pretty straightforward poster for Bastards. Proof positive that if you have a simple concept (and all studio comedies seem to contain the entire plot in the title these days) you might as well go with a simple poster. But hey, didn’t they already make this movie with Vince Vaughn a few years back? It sort of bombed, and everyone said it was bad? No, not that one, the other one.
“The James Dean of the ballet world.”
Ooh, and he’s got SICK STOMACH TATS. This looks like they let the guy who did the Point Break remake direct a ballet movie. An idea I’m behind 100%, by the way.
It’s hard to imagine rebels in certain professions. “He’s like the Malcolm X of the symphony!”
Who would’ve ever thought that the 2010s would bring us TWO movies about ballerinas breakin’ all the rules? What a time to be alive. Also, do ballerinos wear protective cups now? Has that always been a thing? Everything I know about ballet I learned from Black Swan and Top Secret!
I’m glad I can’t tell who called Dog Eat Dog “the best thing Paul Schrader has done in decades,” because that is quite false, even for a guy who hasn’t done many good things in decades. But okay, let’s focus on the poster. What is happening with Willem Dafoe’s wardrobe? He looks like an action figure where someone switched the torsos. What’s happening here? Do Photoshop layers take up actual physical bulk now? Willem Dafoe’s wardrobe was the only thing I actually liked about this movie.
Breathtakingly elegant. Continually surprising. Delectably perverse. Marvelously deft. Boy, this guy really isn’t worried about burning out the adverbly adverb construction, is he.
In any case, I’m intrigued by the cat. Is it an evil cat? A magic cat, like Inside Llewyn Davis? Every movie should have a magic cat.
I’d never heard the word “Terabithia” before Bridge To Terabithia, and it still sounds like it has a lisp. Anyway, this looks like Little Miss Sunshine without the perverted grandpa. Pass.
Right on cue, here’s another indie poster that’s graphically beautiful but pretty vague on subject matter. “Hello Destroyer” sounds like a movie about ships, and yet the poster looks like it’s about… prison? Boxing? Prison boxing? Waiting rooms?
A young junior hockey player’s life is shattered by an in-game act of violence. [IMDb]
Ohhh, it’s a hockey movie. You should’ve just said that. I love hockey movies. In fact, I think I saw my first movie boob during Youngblood.
Frowns and cities and cities and frowns, travel to a city and learn to frown! These are exactly like Steven Seagal posters except no one has a gun. They’re almost like Nic Cage posters, but the hair isn’t silly enough. Silly hair is to Nic Cage movie posters as guns are to Steven Seagal movie posters. Wait, but Steven Seagal also has silly hair. Hmm, I may need to rethink this analogy.
The LEGO Movie should’ve been the worst thing ever, to say nothing of a spinoff of a LEGO movie. And yet here we are with one of the coolest posters of the week. These guys make it look easy.
I don’t really know how the top of the poster relates to the bottom in this one. Up top, I see Joe Strummer biopic starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Down at the bottom I see two kids starring in a late night commercial for Now That’s What I Call Music!: New Wave Edition.
When you have a tagline as good as “She Loved Men… To Death.,” you can kind of just sit back and let it do all the work.
Ooh, Jessica Chastain as Miss Sloane. I don’t know who Miss Sloane is, but I gather that she’s a variation on “the motherf*cker who found him, sir.” Jessi Chastain is Jessi Chastaining pretty hard here. “Jessi Chastain stars as Jessi Chastain in her most Jessi Chastain performance to date. ‘Chastainingly Chastain,’ says the Village Voice.”
You know, I really thought Disney had turned a corner after Zootopia was so wonderful. This sort of looks like they thought, “Hey, you know what we should expand on? That Lava movie.”
I guess the character design is pretty cool, though I always prefer anthropomorphic animals to humans. I’m not sure what’s going on with all the little Pikachus up in the trees.
I actually thought this was Adrien Brody until I read the words. Normally I could take or leave Jim Jarmusch, but between the nice review quotes and the fact that they actually lined the faces up with the names this time maybe it’s worth checking out.
Well well well, this certainly looks like a film about rats. I know that rats exist. Is there something this film has to say about rats that I should know?
“Haven’t you always wanted to know about rats??”
“Uh, I mean… sorta?”
“Rats! Rats! Rats! We got ’em! It’s everything you ever wanted to know about rats!”
“Hey, are you okay? Your eyes are turning a weird color.”
This is strangely similar to the Magnificent Seven posters from last week. Does the Asian guy have a crossbow? Why does the Asian team member always get saddled with obsolete weaponry?
Oh good, the Death Star. For a minute there, I was worried there might be a space movie where someone doesn’t have to blow up a big thing in the sky.
Uh oh, who did they kill? That title sounds like a mumblecore movie, but none of the characters look like they could work at a brewery. A mystery.
Well, at least we know what it’s about.
This title sounds like it’s the opposite of my love life! Thanks folks, God bless.
On a serious note, I love the straightforward promises in the tagline. And also the implied nudity.
I’m not sure about the grey wall, but otherwise they nailed this poster. It sums up the tone of the film perfectly.