Well folks, it’s Tuesday*, and you know what that means. It’s time to learn about some movies through graphic design. Let’s get into it! (*I realize that it’s Wednesday now, but you have to understand, there are times in a man’s life when he has to drop everything and go see the end of Interstellar).
As soon as I saw this poster for Dough I knew that was going to be the lead image. There’s so much going on here. First of all, the tagline: “It’s not just the bread that’s getting baked.”
With that kind of tagline, you’d expect someone to be smoking a joint, or holding a bong, or looking high, or generally doing something that would sell the double entendre. Instead, it’s as if we’re just supposed to infer that someone in the poster is baked for some reason. Is it the black guy? That would be the racist way to read it, but you could make an equally strong case for the wild-eyed lady in the pearls.
Setting the tagline aside for a moment, I assume this is some kind of cross-cultural odd couple comedy, what with the mosque backdrop and the Jewish baker. And I enjoy that they weren’t confident that just the bearded guy in the yarmulka with the challah loaves in the background was enough to read “Jewish,” and so they added a pink Star Of David wallpaper. It’s the movie poster equivalent of the newspaper cartoonist who just writes “OBAMA” on a guy’s shirt in case you don’t know who it’s supposed to be.
Okay, here’s the synopsis, since I know the suspense is killing you.
An old Jewish baker struggles to keep his business afloat until his young Muslim apprentice accidentally drops cannabis in the dough and sends sales sky high. [IMDB]
Ohhh, now it all makes sense. I’m guessing the young Muslim teaches the old Jew to loosen up? Maybe throws his Blackberry in the Red Sea? “Oy, but my whole life was in there!” shouts the Jew. “It is haraam,” says the Muslim, “Allahu Akhbar!”
Either way, I’m guessing everyone in the film will learn an important lesson. And judging by that last graf, the poster has already taught me that I’m kind of racist. Speaking of which, what’s the over/under on the number of people who see this mistakenly thinking it’s about Jewish bankers? Inside that theater is where the real comedy of cultural misunderstandings is going to take place.
Austin to Boston? Isn’t that the plot of Road Trip? Also, am I wrong in assuming that The Staves and Bear’s Den are indie bands? Or am I just uncool for not knowing? Whatever, dude, I totally saw Bear’s Den open for Horse Drawn Sailboat at the Gas Palace before they stopped playing shows back in ’09.
Folk! The correct answer was folk! Dang, I should’ve known. All the folk music and VW vans raise the question: can a documentary be a period piece?
Here’s the poster for The Better Angels, AJ Edwards’ movie about the early life of Abraham Lincoln. Terrence Malick “presents,” which leaves ambiguous how much Terrence Malick actually had to do with making it. If Terrence Malick had a lot of creative input, that sunbeam’s definitely going to get more screen time than the kid.
Here’s the trailer, incidentally. It is in black and white, so at least that part of the poster isn’t false advertising.
Well it certainly looks dramatic and emotional and lyrical and poetic and Sundance. I don’t know if I’m a deep enough person to enjoy this.
Here’s a Spanish poster for Big Hero 6, which also doubles as a PSA to turn off your cell phone. I love Baymax. It’s pretty amazing that a team of hundreds of animators created an awesome character simple enough that I could probably draw.
Yes, yes, and more yes. That there’s just casually a gun on the table is a perfect representation of Neill Blomkamp’s movies. I want to turn this movie into a lotion and rub it on my nipples.
Here’s the Italian poster for Eli Roth’s Clown. Fitting that it’s in Italian, since I’m pretty sure Italians have been providing at least 65% of the entire world’s collective interest in clowns for the last 50 years. By the way, my grandmother had both a crying clown painting and a couch covered in plastic, if you ever feel like questioning my Italian-American bona fides.
Anyway, that’s a scary-ass poster, but it makes the film look a lot more conventional than it actually is.
Also, it has Peter Stormare in it. Far as I’m concerned, if you’re trying to sell a movie like that to me, you put “KARL HUNGUS” above the title.
Didn’t they already make this movie when it was called Sliver? I remember sneaking over to the screen playing Sliver at a drive-in to catch glimpses of Sharon Stone’s boobies while she was hooking up with Billy Baldwin. That may be the most anachronistic story I’ve ever told.
Anyway, the world maybe not be ready for a Jasonnaissance of the Patric variety.
“To erase the line between man and machine is to obscure the line between men and gods.”
Cool quote, and cool poster. I kind of wish they’d used it to sell Transcendence.
Now THAT’S how you sell an awards movie. I couldn’t disagree with that pull quote more, but this poster would definitely get me fired up to see the movie if I hadn’t already seen it. As it is, I just really want one of those jackets.
Serious-looking guys in silly wigs while a bunch of convoluted crap goes on in the background? Yep, looks like a Peter Jackson movie.
This is just one of a series of new character posters from Insurgent, the sequel to Divergent, that one YA ripoff, the one that doesn’t star Jennifer Lawrence. These are actually motion posters that let you move the particles around with your mouse over on the official site. Isn’t that exciting?!? I don’t get it, is moving particles around a superpower “Divergent” people have? Other than the ability to get unnecessary sequels greenlit, I mean? Is this even about superpowers? And who is Tori? Where am I? What is the meaning of life?
No way a movie called “insurgent” would’ve flown four years ago. Do teens find this interesting, by the way? This kid doesn’t even have fluffy bangs, which seems to be the key to popularity these days. One of these days “white guys with Jew fro” is gonna be the style, I’m telling you. We’re due. And it’s going to make all those hurtful comments worth it. Yep, I’m gonna be about 65 years old and the hottest piece of ass around, you just wait.
This Interstellar poster by Kevin Dart will be handed out at IMAX screenings this Friday, and yep, I would put that thing on my wall. It’s probably a little high art to go between my naked girls painted like Pink Floyd and John Belushi chugging Jack Daniels, but I think I could make it work. Hey, don’t make fun of my wall art, bro, those were gifts from Spinach, who passed away after the great Take Back The Night Counter Protest bonfire of Spring 2012. RIP, Spinach, you’ll be missed, bro.
I almost missed “not your neurotypical love story.” I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked Wikipedia:
Neurotypical or NT, an abbreviation of neurologically typical, is a term coined in the autistic community as a label for people who are not on the autism spectrum.
Ahh, so it’s like the autism version of “cis-gendered.” Eliza Dushku, who I’ve been in love with since True Lies, plays the sister. Is it wrong to hope that they include a long Eliza-Dushku-showering scene? But, you know, still true to the story, I’m not some sicko.
Don’t ask me why, but for whatever reason I find the Minions 10 times more endearing than the Madagascar penguins. Animation is so much better when they’re just making up creatures.
This poster for the otherwise awesome-looking A Most Violent Year has been rightly ridiculed for that tagline. Maybe the movie is about fate? Without having seen it, it’s hard to know what to make of “The result is never in question.”
Maybe it’s a Calvinist movie? I don’t know. Or maybe by “the result,” they’re thinking really big. Like, black hole suns, the molecules of the universe eventually pulling themselves apart, ultimate entropy. Jeez, that’s dark. I just want to watch Jessica Chastain play a tough broad.
Well doesn’t this just look like a smirk-a-minute quirkathon. I appreciate that the names and the faces are in corresponding order, but why is Blythe Danner making eyes at me while everyone else looks perplexed and horrified? Did Blythe Danner just flash those people? Okay, now I’ve come back around to being intrigued.
Shoot, did I mention that when the actual box office numbers came out yesterday, Ouija beat Nightcrawler? Yeah. Bummer, right? I know. Was it a Halloween bump, or did Michael Bay sell his soul to the devil? I know dumb people like crap, but this crap didn’t even seem smelly enough to the real crap lovers. Just a bland copy of a copy of a thing of a thing. It’s barely a movie. It’s barely a noun. I don’t get it.
Horror movies love eye imagery. Do mummies even have eyes? And yes, I assume this is about mummies.
Still looking like a mummy movie.
Well I give up, I don’t know what I’m looking at here. A pulp novel about… a lady with a weird hip?
I was hoping a second poster would make things clearer, but… nope.
It’s like Buried, but underwater! And someone has a gun for some reason! Coming to a bargain bin near you. (Here’s the trailer, in case you were wondering.)
This seems like as good a time as any to ask, but… Did you guys know there’s a movie called “Dragon Blade,” starring John Cusack, Jackie Chan, and Adrien Brody? Because yep, that’s happening.
Also, it’s “one of the three costliest Chinese films of all time,” at $65 million.
Cusack will play Lucius, a Roman general who leads a legion of soldiers into China. Brody plays power-hungry Tiberius, who has killed Roman Consul Crassus and chases after Lucius with 100,000 troops.
The previously announced Jackie Chan stars as commander of the protectorate of the western regions, who teams up with Lucius to protect China’s borders and sovereignty. [Variety]
Why so expensive? Well, Adrien Brody doesn’t work without real gold. He’s very method.
Good ol’ Jackie Chan, protecting Chinese might and sovereignty. Hey, didn’t this guy used to do comedy?
The trailer for this led me to believe that Kevin Hart was in it, and everything Kevin Hart touches with his tiny, tiny hands turns to gold, so it’s strange that he isn’t in the poster. I legit thought that guy in the middle was Dave Couliet. Black dudes love doing that too, by the way. Like the producers tell them they have to include at least one white guy, so they hire the dopeyest white guy they can find out of spite. It’ll be five jacked, six-foot-five black male models with six packs and Jerry Ferrara. I assume it’s payback for the black guy dying first in every action movie for 50 years. Not as applicable here, I suppose, since they’re all funny dudes and that isn’t even Dave Couliet, but the point stands.
Also, I don’t know what Jay Pharoah is doing with that bottle, but it’s hilarious:
Ooh, a white person staring morosely off into the distance while a gentle breeze blows his (I think?) hair. No wonder this has so many laurels.
So the usual poster cliché is a tough guy standing their with a gun for some reason. I appreciate that Jason Statham only needs a clenched fist. “Oi stand back, oy’s about ta give some conts a bashin’, ain’ dat roight, Tommy.”
Whoa whoa whoa, is that a haunted house AND a creepy little kid? They really broke the horror movie idea bank for this one.
That’s all for this week, folks! (Phew!)