THIS WEEK IN POSTERS – This Week in Posters & Stills is our weekly round-up (and critique) of all the posters, publicity stills, one-sheets, and set photos that hit in the previous week, a nice little early preview of what’s to come in the movie world. Posted every Wednesday, or as close as we can get. (Like Thursday, which is when we got to it this week).
PARADISE
This poster. Wow. Aside from the fact that it tells me absolutely zero about the movie and its most prominent feature is Julianne Hough, who’s basically weaponized blandness, what in God’s name is wrong with everyone’s face? The people in the picture next to Brand look like cartoons from a sexual harassment pamphlet. That bald guy in particular will haunt my dreams. [Update: Holy hell, that’s Nick Offerman?!]
I try to give Diablo Cody the benefit of the doubt, but between this poster and the fact that her directorial debut is premiering on DirecTV next week, something that was only announced this week, things do not look promising.
The tale of a young woman (Hough) who loses her faith following a horrific plane crash (she’s badly burned) and travels to Las Vegas to experience all the seediness the town has to offer, was originally scheduled for an October 18th release date but will now debut on August 8th in your living room.
So… Julianne Hough plays a burn victim. And yet she looks like such a doe-eyed Disney ingenue in the poster! Well, I hope for Diablo Cody’s sake that it goes better than 50 Cent playing a cancer victim.
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
I like this poster (even if referencing those snoozefest Bourne movies does nothing for me), and ballsy move not putting Tom Hanks’ face on it. Still, shouldn’t there be a comma between “here” and “survival?” Who are these pirates holding hostage, anyway, punctuation?!
Have you noticed that it’s really hard for American movies not to depict Somalians as yellow-eyed zombie cannon fodder? Good luck with that. So far… not looking good.
ENOUGH SAID
Aw, RIP, Gandolf. It’s doubly depressing sticking the dead guy next to the chick who doesn’t age. Seriously, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is hotter now than she was on Seinfeld 20-plus years ago. How is that possible? I’m pretty sure she’s a witch. Mmm, I’d drink from that cauldron. (I don’t know what that means either).
ESCAPE PLAN (trailer here)
TWO iconic action stars! DESATURATED of facial features!
FREEBIRDS
I know the poster says Relativity, but that turkey is Dreamworks facing pretty hard right now.
But at least we’ll finally have something to associate “Freebird” with besides Jenny trying to kill herself in Forrest Gump. Poor Lynyrd Skynyrd, you try to write a nice song about nature and look what people do with it.
GETAWAY
Dude, that is NOT how legs are supposed to look. Unless Selena Gomez has a dwarf Corgi leg on her left side, something went horribly wrong here. Nice work getting her pre-pubescent boy butt shoehorned into the poster there though. (Mmm, shoehorning prepubescent boy butts….).
It’s also sad that even in 2013, Hollywood is still objectifying muscle cars.
GRAVITY (trailer)
I get it, space is terrifying. You already have my 12 bucks, just stop, you’re going to give me a panic attack.
HAUNTER
Ooh, a scary movie about a haunted house, I wonder if anyone’s tried that before.
INSIDIOUS
I wish Insidious 2 could decide whether it wants to be called Insidious 2 or Insidiou2, like in the last poster. I fear the salad days of numbers used as letters in movie titles may finally be coming to a close. (*pours out can of vintage recipe Four Loko for Se7en and Scre4m*)
Oh yeah, here’s the trailer:
JAYNE MANSFIELD’S CAR
Robert Duvall holding a shotgun is EVERYTHING. It’s up there with Bill Murray holding an axe and a bottle of wine.
Directed by Billy Bob Thornton, Jayne Mansfield’s Car played film festivals in early 2012 and is finally getting a release.
Well, edgy title, anyway. I can’t wait for the 2043 family drama, “David Carradine’s Fishnet Stockings.”
LONE SURVIVOR
I reached out to Marky Mark for fake commentary: “In my new movie, I play the lone survivah, a real fightah with 2 gunz. POW! …Try my new Wahlbergah’s numbah one cawmbo meal, and Wahlbergah Nutrition’s expecially foamulated chawklit flavahed mass gainah, GO SAWX.”
This one’s directed by Peter “Join the army, motherf*cker” Berg. That guy can direct the shit out of a battle scene.
‘Lone Survivor’ is the true story of four Navy SEALs on an ill-fated covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative who are ambushed by enemy forces in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, and Eric Bana.
It looks like he even dropped the shaky-cam style from The Kingdom, which was the only thing wrong with an otherwise pretty awesome movie. Man, war-loving jingos make the best war movies. Nothing like laying down your life for the glory of the stars and stripes while a U2 cover plays.
BAD MILO
This one stars Ken Marino as a guy with an evil ass baby. Not an evil-ass baby, mind you, an evil assbaby. I don’t know what you’d need to know besides that.
NEWLYWEEDS
“A match made in stoner heaven turns into a love triangle gone awry when Lyle can’t decide which matters most, Nina or Mary Jane.”
Well, points for a cool poster, anyway. “Newlyweeds…” Who came up with the title, anyway, stoned Tyler Perry? Actually, if this was a Tyler Perry movie, the lead would be named “Wesley Newlyweed.”
PARANOIA
The pointless diagonals, the generic tagline, the completely emotionless facial expression, the badly photoshopped attempts to imply motion… it might be a tie between this and Paradise for the week’s worst poster. But it’s all okay because it stars box office juggernaut Liam Hemsworth.
PARKLAND
Courtesy of USA Today and Exclusive Releasing, here’s the first of a new batch of stills from the JFK assassination drama Parkland, from director Peter Landesman. It reportedly follows “the vital, smaller characters swept up in the drama.”
Jeremy Strong plays Lee Harvey Oswald, and that picture is disturbingly accurate. And according to the producers of Jobs, that’s more than enough for the basis of an entire film.
Also from Parkland, here’s Paul Giamatti as Abraham Zapruder. Paul Giamatti’s general creepiness makes it look like he’s spying on a junior high girls volleyball practice in this.
Billy Bob Thornton as a Secret Service agent named Sorrell, using the same face as when someone doesn’t ask him the right questions about The Boxmasters.
RUSH
Ron Howard’s Rush, starring the modern day Fabio, Chris Hemsworth.
THOR: THE DARK WORLD
Oooh, speak of the devil. Is it Chris Hemsworth that makes everything look like the cover of a romance novel, or do people just see Chris Hemsworth and immediately begin thinking in the form of a romance novel?
What can we expect from this one? Judging by the poster, a lot of shit flying around and burning in space.
WALKING WITH DINOSAURS
Nice poster. I had to sit through three hours of The Hobbit for this same shot.
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY
These stills from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty have sort of lost their luster after the trailer hit, but it’s still interesting to see a new landscape. LOL, you can’t skate there, silly!
YOU’RE NEXT
Compared to creepy little kids and haunted houses, scary killers in masks come in a distant third on the horror movie trope list, but still make up a not-insubstantial amount of poster fodder. I’d like to do a scientific experiment where we try to hack down a single, stationary banana tree while wearing a shitty plastic mask. I guarantee hitting a fleeing human with one is next to impossible.
[posters via IMPA]
