I’m very excited to start this week’s This Week in Movie Posters with Blood Father, the movie where Mel Gibson plays a tattoo artist version of Liam Neeson. I know this because I already saw the trailer, I didn’t just glean all that from the poster. Though it is pretty cool that the bottom of the poster looks like a tramp stamp. Get it? “Blood father” is like a tattoo pun.
Being super grizzled really suits Mel Gibson. He sort of had that awkward phase between hot heartthrob and old badass, but I think he’s finally settled into leather-skinned ass kicker mode. And this looks like an absolute classic of the scared-daughter-on-the-phone genre.
Is this about three kids with super cool hair who start a band? That’s what I’m getting. And fair enough, I’m intrigued.
BREAKING A MONSTER chronicles the break-out year of the band UNLOCKING THE TRUTH, following 13-year-old members Alec Atkins, Malcolm Brickhouse and Jarad Dawkins as they first encounter stardom and the music industry, transcending childhood to become the rock stars they always dreamed of being. [IMDb]
Yep, that sounds great. Also, “Malcolm Brickhouse” is a fantastic name. Apparently they’re a seventh-grade heavy metal band.
Two brothers, separated at birth. One became a gangster and the other… uh… a draftsman?
Dear poster designers: See what you can do without turning horizon line sideways? Great stuff. Also, it’s a powerful move when you’ve got a pull quote from Meryl Streep and you just leave her font the same size as everyone else’s. It’s Meryl Streep! The woman is an institution! If she said something nice about me I would get it tattooed on my forehead.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this movie takes place in Asia. Apparently that’s all we should know about it.
Yet another beautiful poster for Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon. That being said, all you’d need is another one of those couches with a dude in it for this to become the world’s artsiest Cialis ad. Just imagine noodly blues guitar and some husky voiced announcer saying “You know what you want…”
I’m intrigued by “the world of ultra senior tennis,” but everything else about this poster is just sort of confusing. Are the balls supposed to be a testicle metaphor or Christmas ornaments? And if these are “ultra senior” balls, shouldn’t they be danglier? Old people have the dangliest balls, it is known.
Okay, I just watched the trailer. Apparently the thing on the poster is the trophy they’re trying to win. Sometimes I wonder if the people designing posters know that you don’t get any points for being coy. It may not sound that creative, but maybe just put an old person playing tennis in the poster? I’m just spitballing here.
Yes! It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a good example of this particular poster cliché, which I like to call “the close-eyed headbutt.” Apparently when you love someone, you close your eyes and put your head close like you’re about to headbutt them. It shows up all the time.
“Full-bodied and passionate.”
How would a movie be “full bodied,” exactly? Is it about two full-figured love birds? I would watch that. But “full bodied and passionate” sounds more like a description of a wine than of a movie. “Full-bodied and passionate. It’s assertive without being pushy. It really made love to my throat.”
Oh good, I love being super depressed.
Is it just me, or does the alien ship look sort of like a Decepticon with a circle for a mouth? Also, what’s the plan here? Build a giant pile of trash and then stab the alien ship with a flag? I’d like to think the entire Earth could come up with a better plan than that.
This is such a chaste poster, and then you scroll down and see the title is “Indignation” and it’s based on a Philip Roth novel. Now all I can think about is Logan Lerman fantasizing about this nice lady while he f*cks a chicken liver. A great example of how just a few words can turn your imagery tense.
Werner Herzog meets the internet. Encounters at the End of the Internet, I assume. Yes, I will watch this. “And ven I look eento za eyes uff za eentanet commentah, I see za cold eendeeference uff nature. Eez eet za commentah who ist fake oont gay, or eexeestence? Za poet must never look away.”
“We’re being robbed! Quick, gather our most intense bald men!”
Also, is there like a scary mask depot that only the best criminals can go to? “So, you want this nun gargoyle, eh? Gee, I don’t know, how profesh is your crew? Do you use a stopwatch? How many of you are extreme sport polyathletes? We don’t sell to just any scumbags, you gotta at least have a theme.”
Is that Norman Lear meeting the new version of him? That’s cool. And the kid’s looking at him all sad, like “Jeez, is this what I’m going to turn into?” Yeah, welcome to hell, kid.
Here’s a Now You See Me 2 poster featuring some kind of cyclops man. The question is, is this bad Photoshop or an actual cyclops? I bet it’s a real cyclops. I bet they did a magic on him. They did a magic on him and now he’s a monster.
So it looks like this kid is either abnormally freckly or he has a five-o-clock shadow across the middle of his face. Honestly, I don’t get much from the poster, though “from the directors of A Cat in Paris” has me mildly interested.
Let’s pause for a second and reflect on how awesome it is that The Purge: Election Year is called “American Nightmare 3: Elections” in France. Also, I still have no f*cking clue what crime being legal once a year has to do with dressing up in silly masks, or why the masks are colonial themed in this one.
Let’s see… old claw-like fingers on your shoulder, an Ouija board, giant pupils, mouth sewed shut, a Satanic star… what other scariness tropes can we throw at this thing? If only there was a creepy little kid…
Hmm, celestial light, Tim McGraw… I’m going to go out on a limb and assume this is a story about God?
IMDb says…
A grieving man receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called “The Shack.”
Boom, nailed it! Okay, so it wasn’t exactly hard. But take a lesson, Gold Balls, the plot shouldn’t be hard to figure out.
Great design on this poster for The Shallows. I’ve always said that Blake Lively is even sexier when she’s diagonal for some reason.
That enemy’s weapon is… a very small man in a leather jacket. He’s well dressed and oh-so-tiny! I’m just imagining Mugatu telling him to assassinate someone. “In your little leather jacket and your mussy black hair… kill!” (*cut to mini Dom Cooper throwing karate kicks*)
“Should we bother getting different gorillas?”
“Nah, just clone it, no one will notice.”
Here’s Martin Sheen looking forlorn in a movie executive produced by Terrence Malick. Which makes me think the whole movie is just going to be Martin Sheen with this forlorn look on his face while his hair gently blows in the breeze. A cathartic breeze.
And finally, here’s the poster for Kevin Smith’s Yoga Hosers, starring his and Johnny Depp’s daughters. See, it’s about two Canadian girls named Colleen who work at the “Eh 2 Zed” who have to do battle with Nazi sausages. Also it’s for kids. I believe it’s the middle film of the “Kevin Smith needs an intervention” trilogy.
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.