This week in This Week In Movie Posters actually begins with a cool one, for American Pastoral. How much cooler is it to turn the perspective 90 degrees for a specific graphic effect than to do the dreaded diagonal, where you tilt the horizon line 45 degrees for no reason? I tell you, this guy is poster designing like a house on fire (sorry for that). I’m also curious who screenwriter John Romano killed to get his name before the director’s. You don’t see that one too often. Seems like Ewan McGregor being falsely humble. Yeah, yeah, you’re a man who needs no introduction, settle down, Trainspotting.
That’s a lot of words at the top, though they are important words I suppose. Also I imagine that those ridiculous jackets are what “normcore” looked like in the 60s.
Strong poster here for Bridget Jones’s Baby. It’s minimalist, because if you have Colin Firth, don’t mess about, just show us the Firth. My only advice here is not to stare into his eyes too long, unless you want your loins to burst into flames.
I like to think Colin Firth could make you feel underdressed during sex.
Big problem, eh? I assume this is Bridget Jones’s “surprised to be pregnant” face, then? Now, I don’t want to say this seems stale just because it’s old, but consider: Bridget Jones came out in 2001. That’s the same year as The Fast And The Furious. In that time, Dom Toretto went from sandwich shop owner to international terrorist hunter, while Bridget Jones went from single working lady to single working lady who may be having a child. I feel like I could use more of an arc here.
I like the idea that someone thought the way to keep Bridget Jones current was to steal a heartthrob from Grey’s Anatomy. Also, Grey’s Anatomy must have an incredible publicist, because I’ve never watched that show and still I know this guy is McDreamy. Good luck, McDreamy. This time you’ve messed with the wrong Firth.
Oh sure, it’s cool when Eddie Redmayne does it, but when I get photographed playing with my wand on the subway platform… Anyway, it seems crazy to think that throughout his entire career, Eddie Redmayne has never played a wizard before this. At least not officially.
This poster for Coy is like a fun visual puzzle. Who is Coy? Okay, it’s a child. What’s the child seeing? Cameras, it looks like. Why are people photographing the child? Because he or she is important, it would seem. Why is the child important? I need this movie to tell me! Like Sarah McLachlan, this poster did a great job building a mystery.
“Wedding’s off, party’s on.” An elevator pitch in four words, that’s impressive stuff. Though between this and Silicon Valley, I’m a little worried about Thomas Middleditch getting typecast as Guy Who Wears Hoodies. And never gets sex. If I wanted to watch that I could stay home, am I right, fellas?
The Land seems to be about some blue-tinted boulevard of broken skateboards. It also features the music of Machine Gun Kelly, who, if you’ll remember, looks like this:
Maybe the poster is a metaphor. If this is just two hours of Machine Gun Kelly getting his proverbial skateboard stomped, I’m there.
So I understand the upside down A iconography, sort of (Anarchy!), but what does the smiley face with X’d out eyes mean? Is this guy in the Suicide Squad with Jared Leto?
Young kids. Music. Drugs. Gritty urban stuff. I guess that’s all the hints we’re getting from The Land.
We’ve got a bit of the diagonal horizon line thing happening in this poster for Mechanic: Resurrection, but at least with the dizzy skyscraper perspective it sort of makes sense. This poster is cool, but not half as cool as if you’ve seen the trailer (it kept popping up on YouTube this weekend).
Okay, so to recap, there’s a rich Australian guy somewhere, who likes to take swims in a glass-bottom pool built into the top floor of a giant skyscraper, and the Stath shows up with suction cups on his hands just to kill him in the most ostentatious way possible. Count. Me. In.
“Oi, noice day for a swim, innit. Unfochinately Oy ‘as got some bad news, ain’t Oy, Tommy. Pool’s clovesed.”
I have high hopes for this movie. The ridiculous pool reminds me of the skateboard ramp yacht from the Point Break remake. So I’m imagining a bunch of ridiculous scenes like the skateboard ramp yacht party (floating in 50-foot waves during a surf contest) from Point Break, only with the added element of the Stath showing up to kill everyone. It goes without saying, but that would be extremely my sh*t.
Oh man. This poster designer apparently liked the pointless diagonal horizon line trope so much he tattooed it on Dave Franco’s face. Hoo boy that’s a bad poster.
Who would’ve ever thought that a board with letters on it would be enough material for two movies? The screenwriters should win some kind of award for squeezing a feature screenplay out of this little material. “You want me to adapt what? This is seriously just a shampoo label.”
Apparently this is a poster for the Power Rangers movie, though I only know that because of the file name. Very subtle. Also, shouldn’t the tagline be “together we are mighty?” Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the Mighty Ducks — it seemed like everything was mighty in the ’90s. Okay, gotta go.
“From the producer of 2 Guns comes… 5 Guns, starring Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell.”
This poster designer clearly comes from the school of “If one character holding a gun is good, every character holding a gun is better.” I kind of wish one of the characters was a dad holding a baby in a Baby Bjorn so that the baby could have a gun too.
This is a great pose. It’s believably casual, but also, you know, a great showcase for teh bewbz. Though I’m not sure why she’s standing in front of a giant tattoo. Cool character though, you can see why Kevin Smith named a child after her.
Here’s Will Smith’s Deadshot, also apparently standing in front of some kind of drawing. Is that of himself? Do they have a giant billboard in their layer with self portraits that they line up in front of? That seems very organized for a gang of wacky villains. Also, it looks like Will Smith is doing his best Suge Knight face.
Is this the girl from The Ring? It looks like a “Slutty Girl From The Ring” Halloween costume.
“Hey, it’s Robocop!” …is something we would say if anyone had actually seen that Robocop remake. Anyway, how many gruesome kills did this normal ass looking white dude have to perpetrate before he was allowed to hang out with the gang of goth murder clowns?
I’m so confused. We’ve got regular-looking guys in commando outfits and half skull-tatted firestarters wearing wifebeaters. This gang could use a more cohesive theme is all I’m saying.
Jai Courtney is… a guy who throws boomerangs with knives on them, apparently. You’d think having knifes on the ends would sort of defeat the purpose of a boomerang, wouldn’t it? Like, oh good, I’m glad this extremely sharp thing is flying back towards me.
And this is from a different batch of even more cartoony Suicide Squad posters. Does Will Smith shoot bullets from his wrists? After this summer’s superhero movies, I’m actually excited for a really cartoony one where the characters are super silly and the plot is more about “POW! POW!” than Ben Affleck explaining the one percent doctrine. But hey, that’s just me.
So the last guy’s name was Deadshot, leading me to believe he’s some kind of marksman. But now this guy is the one with the Robin Hood bull’s eye graphic? I think this guy needs a shtick.
See? Now that’s a shtick. Is that red dot in the background supposed to be a rising sun? It’s like they wanted to make it look more Japanese but worried it’d come off racist and just sort of left it in the background.
It’s Slipknot! And he’s got… a series of crampons and nylon ropes? Hold on, is this guy a rock climber? What’s next, a guy whose superpower is being into craft? What’s this guy going to do, rappel me to death?
And here they clearly went with the flying eyeball motif to represent the Joker. I think the eye is bloodshot because the Joker is so woke? Like, he sees society for the joke that it is. Rats in a maze, man. Rats in a maze. The Joker is the only one who gets it.
Almost the same pose for Harley Quinn as in the first poster, only this time, you can see that her shirt says “Daddy’s Little Monster.”
Now, is there a reason she’s Daddy’s little monster and not Mommy’s (other than because “Mommy’s Little Monster” was already a Social Distortion album, I mean)? Is there a substantive difference between monsters created by a mommy and monsters created by a daddy? What are the respective symbolisms? I expect your thinkpieces on my desk by noon. (My desk drawers are filled with Cheetos.)
Oh, college. Remember that? When everyone was nice-looking and white with a nice haircut and his shirt tucked in and girls stood around in tall shoes making kissy faces and Tom Green was there for some reason? Those were really the days.
In all seriousness, if you’re a long-time reader of this site, you know how much Burnsy and I love frat humor (RIP, Spinach, RIP, Blowjob Stacey), but with Total Frat Move, I could never (and still can’t) tell if it was supposed to be parody or serious. Long story short, this movie starring three non-descript dudes I’ve never heard of and Tom Green will definitely be good and not at all like those direct-to-DVD American Pie sequels starring Eugene Levy.
Regina Hall is coming between them, you see. It’s, like, symbolism. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Wait, no, apparently that’s Jaz Sinclair in the middle. Because God forbid you actually put the faces and names in order, that would just make too much sense. Anyway, I really hope When the Bough Breaks is a prequel to Cradle Will Rock, but somehow I doubt it. Wait, do I mean the Tim Robbins movie or the Van Helen song? Either one, really.
Whoa, this poster is dangerously close to showing the dongs going in! Weirdly, I think the sex is implied even if you couldn’t see their bottom halves. Their heads are sort of doing the “close-eyed headbutt” thing romantic movies always do, but the interesting thing is if you take the same pose and gently part the lips, visual shorthand for “passionate yearning” becomes shorthand for “lust.” Go ahead and put that in your thesis.
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.