This week in This Week In Posters, we begin with Alone In Berlin, a title which seems like a blatant lie since there are clearly two people in the poster, possibly three. Maybe it’s an ironic title, like when you call a fat guy Tiny. Anyway, the look on Brendan Gleeson’s face feels more like intense scrutiny than yearning love, doesn’t it? I can’t tell if he’s going to kiss her or pull a pre-cancerous mole off of her jaw line. “Coom ‘air, swatehairt. Ah, dat’s da good stoof, gotcha ya lil fooker. …What? Why aire ya lookin’ at me loike daht? ‘Twas an unhealty lookin mole z’all.”
This looks like the direct-to-DVD sequel of Hell Or High Water. The girl with the gun at the bottom looks cross eyed. That would actually be an interesting twist to the Mexican standoff. “Go ahead and shoot! Your gun’s not even pointed at me–” (*shot dead*)
And here we have the first of another few posters for Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast. What’s the moral of this story, anyway? That the beauty is such a good soul that she can see past the beast’s animal head? Even though he’s clearly a wealthy prince who lives in a fabulous castle and wears fine coats of bejeweled sleeve? Because I’ve seen women just as beautiful fall for much uglier rich guys, and I never once considered it a triumph of true love.
The beast reminds me more of Will Ferrell playing the Devil than I’m comfortable with.
If the Beast plays Emma Stone “Fred’s Slacks” my enthusiasm for this film would increase tenfold.
Obviously, buddy-cop isn’t the most groundbreaking of genres, but this CHIPs poster does a pretty good communicating all the things we love about it in a single image. Did they have to unmatch the names though? It feels like they did that just to piss me off. Also, how many times has Michael Peña played a cop or security guard now? This, War on Everyone, Vacation, Gangster Squad, End of Watch, Observe And Report, Tower Heist, Babel, The Shield, NYPD Blue (two episodes), ER (three episodes)… It’s almost every other role. That’s not even counting Ant-Man (impersonating a security guard) or American Hustle (undercover as a sheikh during a sting operation). Has a great actor ever been so specifically typecast? It’s especially strange since I’ve never looked at Michael Peña and thought “This guy looks like a cop.”
This is kind of a cool poster, for a movie with the world’s dumbest title.
“Hey, you know what’d be great?”
“What?”
“If we gave our indie movie a title indistinguishable from that of a much bigger, more famous movie.”
The next steps in Dark Night‘s business plan? “???” and “profit.”
She seems too young to have invented kissing but she does have nice lips. This is one of those titles that’s intriguing and specific enough that the poster could be almost anything. Like this. It has a girl, with alluringly parted lips, and it looks like she’s being shoved up against a cop car by an invisible force. I have no idea what it means or what the movie is about, but who needs specifics when you’ve got implied sex?
Matthew McConaughey has New York on his mind and the jungle in his heart, I guess is the message here. Kind of a lame concept, but wild horses couldn’t drag me away from a movie where Matthew McConaughey is uglied up and chewing scenery. In fact I think there’s a correlation, where the more they ugly up McConaughey for role the more scenery he chews to compensate. It’s like the acting version of eating your feelings.
The Great Wall looks good, but I worry there won’t be enough things on fire.
The John Wick 2 marketing team continues to earn their paychecks with this one. That being said, I enjoy that they never bothered correcting the misworded title.
“His name is ‘Wick,’ see, because once he’s lit, ho ho, you better believe there’s an explosion coming!”
“You know, Jake, I think you might be thinking of a fuse.”
“No, like a wick! The thing that you light attached to the explodey thing–”
“Nope. A wick is attached to a candle. Candles don’t explode.”
“Aw crap. Well, the posters are already printed. I’m just going to lean into it.”
I still can’t get my Frotcast co-host Brendan’s thoughts on John Legend in La La Land out of my head. “If John Legend hadn’t shown up in a mustard-colored turtleneck, I’d be like ‘Where’s John Legend in a mustard-colored turtleneck?”
This Chinese IMAX poster for La La Land might be the best yet. It’s a piano key pier, get it?? Those were huge in the ’80s. Until all those kids died.
This pose is in half of La La Land‘s marketing, but I don’t think I would’ve used it. There are much better images in La La Land where Emma Stone is wearing that same nice dress and they don’t look like they’re making seal hands.
Can’t go through an indie movie transformation until you close your eyes to the sun and stick your head out a car window like a dog, I always say. Is this about Emily The Dog Woman? “This woman who thought she was dog taught me what it means to be a man.” —Pete Hammond, Christian Science Monitor.
It took me a while to understand that the thing underneath the boat is supposed to be an eyeball. All these monster movies trying to out “scale” each other, and I think this one might’ve found the point of diminishing returns. I’m getting more “Un Chien Andalou reference” than “huge monster.”
Also, I don’t know who any of these actors are. I like to imagine “Corey Large” is the name of the monster. And “Alexia Fast” is the boat.
This one’s a little better. It emphasizes the boat all alone on the ocean rather than the monster thingy that’s too big to tell is a monster thingy. Wait, “ninth passenger?” Does that mean there are only eight people on that big ass boat? Dang, I thought rich people were supposed to have lots of friends.
Sometimes I like to take a step back and think of Mark Wahlberg’s career as a whole. Like somehow we’ve gotten to a place where everyone’s fine with the delinquent who beat up a Vietnamese man and became an underwear model and then a white rapper whose more famous brother was in New Kids On The Block and now he’s playing an “everyday hero” who could be played by Tom Hanks. Life comes at you fast.
Oh good, another sci-fi movie about getting a younger body– wait, Rebecca Forsythe… is that… William Forsythe’s daughter?! Whoa, I had no idea. She and Peter Stormare’s daughter need to team up for Kevin Smith’s next movie. This next generation is going to be so weird.
Does this look weirdly cheap or is it just me? I’m convinced this was actually a lost Spin Doctors video from 1994.
What… what is he wearing? It looks like an Asian bath robe. Hey, maybe that’s it, this is actually a Chinese movie that they redubbed. Wikipedia says…
Rock Dog (Chinese: 摇滚藏獒) is a 2016 Chinese-American 3D computer-animated comedy film produced by Mandoo Pictures and Huayi Brothers. The film is directed by Ash Brannon, written by Ash Brannon and Kurt Voelker, based on the Chinese graphic novel Tibetan Rock Dog by Zheng Jun. It features the voices of Luke Wilson, Eddie Izzard, J. K. Simmons, Lewis Black, Kenan Thompson, Mae Whitman, Jorge Garcia, Matt Dillon and Sam Elliott. The film follows a young Tibetan Mastiff who leaves the village in the mountains to become a rock musician in the big city, when a radio falls from the sky.
Aha! We’ve cracked the code.
Is that Rock Dog’s girlfriend? And she’s pretty, so she’s… a fox? Very clever.
And here we have the shark dog named after a computer operating system.
I’m glad they put the Union Jack guitar in the frame, otherwise I never would’ve known the heroin-thin cat in the turtleneck played by Eddie Izzard and named “Angus” was British.
I’m convinced the secret to M. Night Shyamalan’s recent success is based on someone thinking, “Hmm, maybe if we just told people it was going to be silly straightaway they might enjoy the silliness more.”
The bigger question with Split is whether Shyamalan meant to write the Donald Kaufman movie from Adaptation or if it was an accident. This is about the coolest poster you could possibly give a movie about multiple personalities.
Holy crap, Gillian Anderson? I never expected to see her going all marigold hotel with the Downton Abbey guy. My favorite part of this poster is the mustache guy on the left, who has managed to communicated “impending dance number” using only posture and facial expression.
I don’t know what’s worse, the terrible Photoshopping of the people in the Jeep, or the fact that they lined up Frank Langella’s and Christina Applegate’s names and faces, but then slapped Billy Crudup underneath “Josh Lucas.” Poor Billy Crudup. Where I’m from, being compared to Josh Lucas is fightin’ words. Also, is Oregon a wildlife park? What’s happening?