This week in This Week In Movie Posters, we begin with All We Had, directed by… Katie Holmes? Oh my gosh, she’s come so far since Dawson’s Creek. Judging solely by the poster, I’m getting a glamorously unglamorous vanity project here. Where Katie Holmes so, so bravely goes without a hair stylist or whatever, a la Jennifer Aniston in Cake. Remember that one? Jennifer Aniston bravely went without makeup to bravely play a brave fibromyalgia sufferer or something? What a film, I never knew what a good actress she was until I watched her grunt and whimper for two hours. Only a true thespian can so consistently convey “Ouch, ouch. I am in pain again.”
I respect the fact that they didn’t put any of the actors’ names on this. This should just be a letter about why Neeson, Wahlberg, Vin Diesel, The Rock, et al turned it down. Renegades: We almost hired Jai Courtney but then we were like ‘nah, f*ck it.’
Or maybe that is Jai Courtney. I honestly don’t know.
Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, and their names are matched up with the faces. Could you want anything more? Great tagline too. “There is a reason they woke up.”
I’m hoping that reason is “to have sex.” Passengers. “First they woke up, then they had sex. Again and again. In every position. Weird ones, kinky ones, ones you hadn’t even thought of before.”
I’m not crazy about any poster with floating heads inside title text, but damn it if Idris Elba can’t make anything cool.
Sam Richardson looks like Barry Bonds starring in a 4 Non Blondes video. This is the first of a giant batch of Office Christmas Party posters, by the way. I really like that they highlighted the names of the people in the posters. I just like to know who everyone is.
They stole cops gun and tasers! Oh man, this is going to be the wildest office Christmas party ever. Also Jillian Bell sort of looks like a growth on her shoulder.
Even the nerd in tech support is going to get laid, imagine that.
I don’t know why Jamie Chung gets her own character poster when all she’s doing is dancing normally in normal party attire. Remember when she was on The Real World? She must have an incredible publicist. Also, it’s kind of mean that they don’t include the name of the actor inside the goat suit. I assume they just want to keep the Josh Gad cameo a secret.
Starring Jason Bateman as the passive-aggressive boss. I’m guessing. He’s doing that beer salute thing that always makes me think of the American Pie 2 ending video.
I think about this video every few days.
Randall Park and Vanessa Bayer as the two dorks who get drunk and end up doing it. I’m guessing. Sweater vests rule.
Olivia Munn as Frosty the Snow Lady. Frosti? Anyway, cool outfit.
I wonder if Kate McKinnon plays another space alien in this one. I mean, I love her, but I would like to see her play a human person at some point.
Jennifer Aniston! Oh hell yeah, now it’s a real party. I wonder if she has fibromyalgia in this one.
Don’t worry, this is the last one of these. Not that my commentary hasn’t been life-changing.
I don’t want to overhype this movie, but it is pretty much the greatest thing ever. I guess the poster’s pretty good too. It’s hard to say, anything that reminds me of La La Land just makes me feel all warm inside. Goslingy.
I don’t know what this is about, but it has Bubs from The Wire and it reminds me of that story arc where Dukie and the guy with the donkey walked around town selling scrap metal. Which is a good thing.
Matt Damon’s poor ponytail is all “Aw, come on, man, I didn’t sign on for this.”
Will Chris Evans be mentoring a young prodigy? I’d watch that. Also, this poster kind of creeps me out.
This poster is pretty strong on all levels, as you’d expect when all you have to do is tell us that Michael Keaton is playing Ray Kroc. Still, whatever contrasty filter they used to make his suit look like that they probably shouldn’t have used on his face. He’s got that folded laundry-lookin’ face.
The only thing I don’t get about this Bleed for This poster is why they chose to emphasize “for” in the title. Bleed for This. Bleed for This. Bleed for This. It feels like an actor practicing his one speaking line. These pretzels are makin’ me thirsty!
Wait, Bad Santa 2 takes place in San Francisco?! Cool, cool. I hope he robs all the tech billionaires and has sex with their pets. Also, I don’t know about this poster. When I think “fall down, passed out drunk” I don’t really think “giant stiff concrete boner.”
Nic Cage, a donkey, a samurai sword, that wig. It’s hard to go wrong when you combine those things. The image is so wonderful I almost didn’t notice the font emphasizing the least important word again. Army OF One. W NNNN bc. W NNNNNNN bc.
The house is alive! “You may have seen a haunted house movie before, but you’ve never seen a house THIS haunted! Amityville 2: It’s the Hauntedest!”
And finally, we’ve reached the climax of This Week in Movie posters, the 12, count ’em, 12 new character posters for xXx: Return of Xander Cage. Normally I wouldn’t post an entire batch of 12 character posters, but each of these make me immensely happy in their own way. Like this one, featuring UFC middleweight “champion” Michael “I always win decisions in front of a home crowd” Bisping. The best part is that he’s playing a guy named “Hawk” and could not look more like an actual hawk. The haircut, his wonky pupils, the eyebrows, the forehead creases… I can all but hear a hawk screeching when I look at his face. “Screee! Screeee! *machine gun fire* Screee!”
Looks like Toni Collette got to play the “real actor stunt cast in a xXx movie” role in this one. And she plays “Jane Marke,” who is such a marksman. She has Marke’d xXx for death. I hope every single character is holding a gun.
Oh hell yes, you can’t have a xXx movie without at least one exotic beauty. Ten bucks says she’s smuggling a cool knife in those boots.
And starring Tony Jaa as Talon! Are you sensing a theme? Hawk, Talon.. I hope the other characters are named Beak, Gizzard, Feather, Wings, and Cloaca. Starring Danny Trejo as Cloaca.
Oh snap, I never would’ve guessed that the first character not holding a gun would be the scientist played by the Bulgarian model with incredible hair whose character is literally named “Becky.”
Oh man. These just get better and better. First a character with no gun, now we have a character who’s so cool he has neither a last name nor a character name. “Nah, man, just Neymar Jr.” And his superpower is hip-hop dancing. He always has the coolest shoes and watches. Neymar. So hot right now. Jr.
“Also starring Ruby Rose as Adele.” Oh good. I had to look her up to see if Ruby Rose was a porn star. Sadly no. She’s apparently an “Australian model DJ.” xXx always has the coolest crew. He has one finger on the trigger and the other on the pulse of what’s hot right now.
I just keep repeating “Starring Nicky Jam as Lazarus” over and over, and it makes me laugh every single time. “Who am I? I’m Nicky Jam, homey, check the hat. It’s where I hide my fattest beats.”
Xander Cage doesn’t need a gun, because he’s literally riding up the face of a wave on his motorcycle. I love it when XXXtreme movies get so XXXtreme that they have to combine XXXtreme sports. Like in the Point Break remake when they skateboarded on a boat in 50-foot swells and then skydived into a cave. “It’s an air-to-ground transfer! So sick!”
Anyways, xXx is the best because he’s so XXXtreme he can alter the physical properties of things. “Oh snap, look at him shred that cloud!”
“By day, Nicks is Vegas’s hottest DJ. By night, transnational ninja assassin. Wait, no, no one DJs during the day. By night, Nicks is Vegas’s hottest DJ. By the next night, which he has off from DJing because he’s so hot, he’s a transnational ninja assassin…”
“I am Xiang. I always carry two guns. One gun is for shooting, one gun is for posing. I never shoot with my posing gun.”
“Torch?” Really? Has no one seen Top Secret? “Bring out za Torch.”
What I wouldn’t give to hear Vin Diesel smirk at the camera and growl, “No one sees the Torch.”
Courage in the face of sparks! Wonder Woman has what America needs. Vote Wonder Woman. Vote for the future. The Futura.
I love this one. Power! Breasts! Just perfection.
And she’s going to swing around a big ass sword? Yes, count me in.
I normally like the minimalist poster, but I admit that I’m going to need a little more than this.
Wait, how come Billy Crudup gets to hang out with the ladies? I bet if you go into any ladies changing room, Billy Crudup is just sitting there smiling in the corner. “Hey, pal, how’s it going?”
I’ll be honest, I did not expect to be this excited about the possibility of a second Trainspotting. I hope it’s still about Scotland and heroin.
I like that Run the Tide doesn’t at all explain what it’s about, it just restates the title in a way that makes it sound like a tagline. “Don’t Fight the Tide. Run It.” Don’t read the fiction, pulp it. Anyway, according to IMDB, Tayler Lautner plays a guy named “Reymund Hightower,” which is funny to me for some reason. I honestly can’t tell if this is a Christian movie or not. And it looks like Bob Ross painted his facial hair.