Poster Perfect

I don't know anything about this movie, and to be honest it's probably not for me.

That said, I love it because it features an honest to goodness ILLUSTRATED poster! Holy smokes! When's the last time we saw that happen? 

And what a glorious painting it is, too! I love everything about it, from the colors to the composition. It reminds me of old school paperback novel covers. It's definitely far more interesting than the usual Photoshopped heads on an orange and teal background that we see everywhere these days.

It was painted by British artist James Paterson, who I have to confess I've never heard of. I checked out his other work here, and was blown away by his talent. I wish I could paint like that.

I honestly hope this film starts a trend, and we start seeing a return to illustrated movie posters again.

Of course the studio just couldn't help itself, and had to prepare a typical Photoshopped monstrosity as a backup. Feh.

Someone Call The Design Police!

Check out this amazing new poster for the upcoming movie, Men In Black: International.

Wow, that's... that's really something. I have a feeling the design process went something like this:

Graphic Designer: "Holy crap! I forgot all about the Men In Black: International poster the boss assigned me last month, and it's due in fifteen minutes! What the hell am I gonna do?"

"Okay, okay, let's just calm down. Say, this website has two separate photos of the stars that I can use. The lighting's flat and unprofessional on both, but they'll have to do. I'll just download 'em and slap 'em onto a plain black background."

"Now I'll just use my phone to take a quick pic of my own hand from an incredibly awkward angle, and Photoshop it in the exact center of the poster. The fact that it's lit from a totally different direction than the faces will be a nice touch."

"Hmm... It needs something more though... but what? I know! I'll grab that drawing of a gnome that my little niece drew a couple years ago and stick that in there. Perfection!"

This was a true story.

I Ain't Afraid Of No Burn

Recently saw this teaser poster for Ghostbusters 3, which is a sequel to the ORIGINAL films that will feature all the surviving cast members.

Take a look at that top tagline. "You Know Who To Call." Wow. That's definitely a little FU to the execrable Ghostbusters 2016.

Don't agree? Then check out the second tagline. "You've Waited 35 Years For This." Ouch! Now that's a burn! Somebody get Ghostbusters 2016 some Solarcaine, stat!

Entitled

Saw this new poster for the upcoming live action Dora The Explorer movie.

Wait, what? Something's wrong with that tagline. "Explorer Is Her Middle Name?" How so? Wouldn't her middle name be "The?"

Thank kew, ladies and germs. I'm here all week.

Stay Classy, Lionsgate!

In movie news, today Lionsgate studio just released the teaser poster for their upcoming Hellboy reboot. I still don't understand why they're restarting the series instead of finishing up Guillermo Del Toro's trilogy, but whaddya gonna do? 

 Anyway, the poster looks fine I guess. Except for one thing. Take a look at that tagline above the logo. The one that reads "Legendary AF." I'm not up on all the latest hip lingo, but I'm pretty sure that means "Legendary As F*ck." Right there on a poster that'll soon be lining the walls of cineplexes nationwide. Stay classy, Lionsgate!

This reminds me of a bit of Blockers, the terrible teen sex comedy that premiered earlier this year. That poster featured a large silhouette of a rooster above the title, which of course was a sneaky way of calling the film "Cock Blockers" and getting away with it. Again, right out in the open in theaters across the country.

We're very near the end of civilization.

Stay Classy, Universal!

Went to the movies last night and saw this poster in the lobby. It's for Universal Studios' new film Blockers, a comedy about a group of parents who try to stop their various daughters from losing their virginity on prom night.

Take a closer look at the poster. Note the large rooster icon at far left. Get it? A rooster, which is sometimes known as a "cock." As in Cock Blockers. Obviously the MPAA wouldn't let Universal come right out and actually use that title, so they got creative and went the rebus route.

Congratulations, Universal Studios! You just brought the term "Cock Blocker" to the nation's theater lobbies! You ought to be brimming with pride right about now. Stay classy!

That's No Moon, It's A Poster!

Welp, Disney released the official poster for The Last Jedi today.

I like it! It's definitely one of the better poster designs I've seen in a long, long time (although it wouldn't take much to outdo the mediocre crap hanging in most cineplexes today). It's an interesting layout, and has quite a striking color scheme.

Best part about the new poster— there's no goddamned Death Star anywhere on it! Huzzah! I'm hopeful that means the film's plot won't revolve around blowing up yet a FOURTH one.


Since The Force Awakens was a remake of A New Hope, I'm assuming The Last Jedi will be a shot for shot recreation of The Empire Strikes Back, so we should be safe. They'll save the blowing up of the fourth Death Star for the remake of The Return Of The Jedi.

Shameless Or Genius?

Went to the cineplex this weekend as I always do, and while I was walking through the lobby I spotted this poster for the upcoming movie The Snowman. It's a film about a serial killer (dubbed "The Snowman" of course) who leaves notes on his victims that taunt the police.

Obviously the poster's supposed to look like one of these notes, which I have to admit is kind of clever. On the other hand, it couldn't have taken the graphic designer more than five minutes to slap this thing together. He probably knocked it out around 9am and then took a four hour lunch before going home early.

I don't know whether to denounce the artist as a shiftless and brazen hack, or praise him as a bona fide genius.

I WONDER What They Were Thinking?

This is the new poster for the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. Among other things, it's the perfect visual representation of the word "afterthought."

Graphic Designer: "As promised, here's the Wonder Woman poster you hired me to create."
Warner Bros. Executive: "It's perfect! We absolutely love it! It's just what we wanted! We just have one small change."Graphic Designer:  "Uh-oh."Warner Bros. Executive: "We need to remind people that Chris Pine's also in the movie. Our research shows that women respond positively to him, so we need to include him in the poster."Graphic Designer: "But... but it's finished. I can't add another character to it NOW."Warner Bros. Executive: "Sure you can! Just drop him in there! How hard could it be?"

Graphic Designer: "It's a character poster. As in ONE character. If I add another person, it'll throw off the entire composition! I'm gonna have to start all over and it's gonna take another week at least!"

Warner Bros. Executive: "Why are you making such a big deal about this? Just add him to the poster!"

Graphic Designer: "Fine. You want Chris Pine on your poster? You got 'im!"

(works in Photoshop for literally thirty seconds)

Graphic Designer: "There ya go!"

Warner Bros. Executive: "Pefect! See? Was that so hard?"

I am 1000% positive that the above conversation took place verbatim at some point at Warner Bros. Studios.

You know, if they deleted the Chris Pine layer in Photoshop, this would be a nice poster, with a fairly striking design.

Why does it just say "Wonder?" What happened to the "Woman" part? Did they have to delete that to make room for Chris Pine's intrusive head? Why aren't the SJWs complaining that a Wonder Woman poster doesn't have the word "woman" in it?

Lastly, is... is she generating sparks by scraping her sword on her boob armor? Yes. Yes she is.

The Horror... The Horror...

Today Warner Bros. released this new poster for their upcoming Kong: Skull Island movie.

In an unusual twist, it appears to be an illustration rather than the typical Photoshopped collage posters that litter the cineplex these days. So kudos for that.

It's a nicely done poster, but I dunno... something about it seems familiar somehow. I get the nagging feeling I've seen it somewhere before. But where could I have seen it?

Oh yeah. NOW I remember. Get it? "NOW?"

Surely the Kong poster is an homage to Apocalypse Now, right? It has to be, as there's no way in hell any jury in the land would believe this happened accidentally.

So, can you really do this? Can anyone just decide to copy the exact layout of an existing design and call it their own, and get away with it? I thought we had copyright and trademark laws in this country? Apparently not. I guess these days if you copy someone's design and they call you on it, all you have to do is say, "Oh, this isn't theft, it's an homage," and everything's cool.

Legalities aside, I'm honestly not sure why the Kong producers decided to ape the Apocalypse poster (see what I did there?). I don't quite get what one has to do with the other.

Both movies are set during the Vietnam War, so maybe that's the connection. Apocalypse Now is about a group of soldiers who journey up a river to confront a gigantic Marlon Brando, an army officer who's gone nuts and set himself up as a god in a local village. Not much is known yet about the plot of Kong: Skull Island, but I think it's about a group of soldiers who journey up a river to confront a gigantic ape who's worshiped as a god by the locals. Giant Marlon Brando, giant gorilla— it's all the same.

Seems to me the Kong producers are just asking for trouble by stealing the Apocalypse poster design. Apocalypse Now is widely considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. It seems unlikely that a film about a giant ape who swats helicopters out of the sky could top it. It's never a good idea to remind the audience of a much better movie while they're watching yours.

Beach Blanket Star Wars!

Last week Disney released the official poster for their upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story film. Brace yourselves, because it's a doozy.

Wow. This may be one of the worst examples of movie poster art I've ever seen. Hard to believe it comes from Disney, a hundred billion dollar media conglomerate (emphasis on the glom).

If you told me this was a piece of fan art created by a mediocre student just learning to use Photoshop, I'd place my hand against my chin as if stroking an invisible goatee, nod knowingly and say, "I have absolutely no problem believing that statement."

Rarely have I seen such a poor design. It looks for all the world like the artist had a month to design the poster, goofed off until the day it was due and cobbled it together on his laptop on the way to his meeting with Disney. It gives new meaning to the word "slapdash."

Despite the fact that the Death Star is looming large over the horizon, this does not feel like a Star Wars poster to me. Where's the epic scope? Where's the classic space opera feel? Most glaring of all, where are the iconic character portraits illustrating the heroes and villains of the film? 

I get that this film is a side story that features all new characters, so Disney might be wanting to distance it from the main Star Wars saga. If so, they went way too far in the opposite direction. Instead of an epic space adventure, this poster tells me the climax of the film apparently involves a beachside volleyball game between the Empire and the Rebels.

This is a textbook example of how not to create a movie poster. The colors are pale and lifeless, the figures are so small they're hard to see, and the layout is nonexistent. Worst of all, the figures in the foreground, which I assume are the main characters, are showing their backs as they run away from the viewer. That's a huge no-no in poster design!

My favorite little detail in the poster— the palm tree on the left side that's cloned, flopped and placed on the right side. If there was ever a doubt that this monstrosity was hurriedly pieced together in Photoshop, that little detail settles the argument. They might as well have typed "MADE WITH ADOBE PHOTOSHOP" across the top of the poster in 200 point text.

I'm assuming the massive size of the Death Star in the poster is supposed to be symbolic rather than literal. It pretty much has to be! OK, this movie's all about the construction of the original Death Star that we first saw in A New Hope. A quick check around the interwebs tells me that the Death Star was about 75 miles across. The Earth is about 8,000 miles across (give or take). See the illustration above for an idea of those two scales.

So how close would the Death Star have to be to that planet to look that big in the sky? Even if this Beach Planet is substantially smaller than Earth, the Death Star would still almost have to be touching the surface to loom that large.

Where's Drew Struzan when you need him?

Anatomy Lesson

This is the poster for the upcoming Disney movie Pete's Dragon. It's a remake (natch!) of the 1977 film that starred Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney, Red Buttons, Shelley Winters and Jim Backus.

The original film combined a cel animated dragon with live action. Of course this new one features a CGI dragon. An inexplicably furry dragon.

But enough about all that. What I really want to talk about is that poster. Take a good long look at it, I'll wait. Are you back? Good. Now, based on the way Pete is sitting on the curled underside of Elliot the dragon's tail, what part of its anatomy do you think he's gazing at there? 

"Gosh, Elliot, what a big cloaca you have!"

To Blankly Go

Last week Paramount Pictures released a series of nine character posters for their upcoming film Star Trek Beyond.

They're definitely colorful and striking, and reasonably well designed. That said, after I saw them altogether like this, something about the layout jumped out at me. There's something... missing from the posters. Can you spot what's been left out?

THE TITLE'S MISSING! There's no title on any of the posters! Sure, they're emblazoned with a big, bold BEYOND, which is the subtitle of the film, but nowhere on any of the posters does it say "Star Trek!" What the hell?

Why, it's almost as if Paramount was ashamed of their long-running cash cow of a franchise!

The omission is especially puzzling considering this year marks the 50th Anniversary of the original TV series' premiere. Surely some sort of commemorative Star Trek 50th logo was in order here?

Maybe Paramount thinks these characters are so iconic and instantly recognizable that the posters don't need a title. If so, they're dead wrong. This is only the third time around the block with these particular versions of the characters. Without any context, I seriously doubt the general public is going to know who they're all supposed to be.

OK, so most people would probably recognize the Spock poster because of the Moe haircut and the ears, but what about the Dr. McCoy one? You can't see his blue uniform under all that visual static, so to the average moviegoer, it just looks like a poster of a mildly annoyed Karl Urban staring into the distance. And only the most rabid of fans would be able to identify Anton Yelchin as Chekov.

And what the hell's going on with this Scotty poster? Is that John Hamm as everyone's favorite excitable engineer, or a horribly Photoshopped and virtually unrecognizable Simon Pegg?

There definitely needs to be some sort of identification here. Whoever thought it was a good idea to release nine title-less posters is an idiot and needs demoted to the mailroom.

Buy your tickets and get in line today for Beyond!

We're Doomed!

Welp, looks like we're doomed. 

In the 2007 movie I Am Legend, Robert Neville (played by Will Smith) is the sole human inhabitant of Manhattan, after a vampire plague infects the city.

As Neville wanders about the post-apocalyptic ruins of the Big Apple, he walks past a movie theater displaying a large movie poster that looks suspiciously like the one for Batman V Superman.

Guess what movie just premiered this week? Yup. Batman V Superman.

We're doomed! Better start boarding up your doors and windows at night to keep the mutated vampires out!

The Which?

I was in my local cineplexery this past weekend and saw this poster for the upcoming movie The Witch.

That's certainly an... interesting font choice there. I assume they're going for a Puritanical look with that scratchy, archaic typography, but... I defy anyone to look at this poster and not read it as The V V Itch.

Pandamonium!

I was in my local cineplexery last weekend and saw this poster for the upcoming film Kung Fu Panda 3: Electric Pandaloo.

In the poster, Po, the main character, is eating a bowl of steamed dumplings while striking an impressive Jean-Claude Van Damme-style pose. 

As I waited around in the lobby staring at the poster, something became apparent...

Note that four of the pandas in the crowd below look suitably mortified by Po's prominently displayed nether regions. Obviously the sight of his massive taint and provacatively splayed ass cheeks has sickened and horrified these members of reserved Asian society.

Especially the female panda on the left. Look at her! She looks like she's gonna need months of intensive therapy!

These two on the right though are a different story. Get a load of the older one! He can't believe his good fortune! He's positively enraptured by the sight of Po's dangling junk, as his eyes narrow in ecstasy! Don't ask, don't tell, Mr. Panda!

Once again I have to ask: Does anyone at these studios ever glance at their posters before they print a million of them?

False Advertising

This is a public service announcement for anyone out there who's thinking of seeing the new film Creed over the holidays:

Do not waste your money! I was expecting a lighthearted comedy, but instead I got a drama about professional boxing of all things!

I sat through the entire goddamned film and this gentleman didn't pop up even once during the 133 minute runtime. Talk about a letdown!

And With Arms Wide Open didn't appear on the soundtrack even once! Who's responsible for this outrage?

Talk about false advertising! I immediately complained to the cineplex management and got a full refund of my ticket price. Next week I'm going to use that money to go see Spectre, which sounds like it ought to be a good old-fashioned horror movie! Wish me luck!

The Force Awakens, Rolls Over And Goes Back To Sleep

Welp, here you go: it's the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens poster that's causing much soiling of clothing throughout fandom.

I'm sad to see that it appears to be yet another Photoshopped collage rather than a painting by artist Drew Struzan. In the past couple of decades Struzan became the go-to Star Wars artist, illustrating the posters for the Special Editions as well as all three of the Prequels. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't have used him here. Especially since it looks like they were trying to ape Struzan's style and sense of composition here.

Is... is that some sort of planet sized weapon in the upper right corner? If so, what an ingenious and imaginative idea! We've certainly never seen the bad guys use something like that in any of these movies before!

SPOILERS AHEAD, AS I DISCUSS PLOT POINTS AND THEORIES! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

The poster crams a whopping fourteen characters into it, but fans have noticed one conspicuous absence... namely one Mr. Luke Skywalker. 

We know for a fact that actor Mark Hamill is in the film, so it does seem a bit odd that he's nowhere to be seen on the poster.

Or is he? Actually he is in it. That's him right there in the upper left corner. Well, that's my theory anyway.

If you watch the newest trailer (that everyone is also soiling themselves over), there's a shot of new character Kylo Ren. He's seen wearing a very Vader-like mask and has a deep, electronically distorted voice. 

It's Movie Making 101— any time a character wears a mask, his true identity is supposed to shock and surprise the audience. So what could be more shocking then to have Kylo Ren whip off his mask and reveal he's really Luke Skywalker? And if he's not Luke, then what the hell's the point of hiding the identify of a character the audience has never seen before?

Kylo also stares at the burned remnants of Darth Vader's helmet and says, "Nothing will stop us now. I will finish what you started." This implies he's got some sort of connection with Vader. Again, Luke fills that requirement.

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree in the forest on the other side of town, but it makes sense to me, and seems like something director JJ Abrams would do. We'll find out in December if I'm right.

NOTE: Several people have pointed out to me that actor Adam Driver is playing Kylo Ren, and has even been seen on set unmasked. Fair enough. But JJ Abrams also swore an oath that Benedict Cumberbatch wasn't playing Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, and we all know how that turned out.

I've been a huge Star Wars fan from 1977 to 1999. That's the point where the Prequels killed my enthusiasm for the entire franchise. I'm hoping this movie will be so amazing and awesome that it'll rekindle my love for all things Star Wars, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

First of all I have absolutely zero confidence in JJ Abrams as a director. I liked his earlier works such as Cloverfield and Super 8 OK, but he lost me forever with his dreadful Star Trek Into Darkness.

Secondly, everything I've seen so far from this new film is a rehash of what's gone before. Everything.

We've got yet another desert planet, and another cute robot that speaks in beeps and boops.

We've got armies of Stormtroopers in slightly altered armor.

There are even updated Snowtroopers in the film as well, just like in The Empire Strikes Back.

There are TIE Fighters, but in a burst of creativity, they've now got red markings on them. So they're totally different than the ones we've seen before, right? Right?

We've got a star destroyer bridge that looks pretty much identical to the ones in the Original Trilogy.

TIE Fighters chase the Millennium Falcon through familiar canyons and debris...

We've got X-Wings that look just like the ones from the older films.

As well as X-Wing pilots with customized helmets.

There's even another snow planet! And... is that some sort of trench dug into the surface? Jesus Christ, are you kidding me? A trench? Gosh, I bet there's no way X-Wings and TIE Fighters will chase one another in the closed confines of those narrow walls!

See? Everything in the new trailer has an analog in the earlier films. It's like they're hedging their bets. "If they liked this stuff in the Original Trilogy, they'll love it with a new coat of paint slapped on it here!"

I know this is blasphemy, but to quote many Star Wars characters, "I have a bad feeling about this." 

Spoiler Alert!

WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

This is the poster for the upcoming summer blockbuster Terminator: Genisys. How about that eye-rolling spelling, eh? Why'd they stop there? Why not go all in and spell it Termynatyr Genisys?

Supposedly this film is a throwback to the very first one— Kyle Reese is sent back in time to 1984 to save Sarah Connor, but when he arrives he finds the timeline has been drastically altered.

Let's take a closer look at that poster, shall we? As is required these days, it's made from disparate images of the various actors, none of whom were in the studio at the same time, that have been crudely Photoshopped into something vaguely resembling a design.

See the figure in the center? That's actor Jason Clarke, who's playing John Connor in this film. It appears that his flesh is being burned away while he stoically strikes a dramatic pose. So I guess in this film, John Connor, the leader of the human rebellion against SkyNet, is actually one of the very same robots he's trying to destroy. 

I assume this is supposed to be the movie's brain-melting plot twist. So why the hell would they broadcast it on the goddamned poster? I don't get it. The various Terminator films have already traveled some pretty well-worn ground, so you think they'd jealously guard any surprises like they were precious jewels.

It's bad enough that modern trailers are basically two minute versions of their films and give everything away— now you have to avert your eyes in the lobby lest the posters spoil every surprise for you.

Thank Thor films like Psycho, Chinatown, The Empire Strikes Back, Fight Club or The Sixth Sense weren't filmed today, or their twists would no doubt be tag lines on their respective posters.

This Week In Movie Posters

Check out this character posters for the upcoming movie Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, featuring actress Eva Green. Va va va Voom! Unfortunately the MPAA, that ultra secret rating organization that knows what's best for each and every one of us, has banned this poster, claiming it's too risqué.

Because god knows if the general public ever caught a glimpse of a gauzy boob on a movie poster, this would happen.

In the words of the MPAA themselves, they banned the poster "for nudity-- curve of under breast and dark nipple/areola circle visible through sheer gown." Mercy, their description of why they banned it seems more R-rated than the poster itself. 

Note that typically they have no trouble with the fact that Green is holding a gun; their beef is strictly with her breasts.

Dimension Films, distributer of the film, has decided to rework the poster to meet with the MPAA's standards. Pussies.

Next we have the poster for the soon to be released Nicholas Cage film Left Behind. A few things here.

First of all, didn't Super-Christian Kirk Cameron already make the hell out of these movies back in the 2000s? Didn't he do a whole series of them? Left Behind, Left Behind 2: Even Behinder and all those? So why are they making them again already? Because bible movies are hot this year? Because these literary masterpieces demand a proper Hollywood budget?

Second, why do so many of these religious films involve the end of the world? The entire Left Behind series is about the Rapture and the End Times. Earlier this year we had Noah, another religio-disaster film. Cage himself even starred in 2009's Knowing, a disaster of a disaster film with ill-advised religious overtones. Jesus, why are Christians so obsessed with the destruction of the world? Aren't there any nice stories in the bible?

Lastly, take a good long look at Nicholas Cage's face on this poster. What first day on the job graphic designer picked that headshot to paste onto someone else's body? His befuddled expression makes it look like for all the world like someone ran up and snapped his photo while he was waiting in line at the bank.

If you've ever wondered what someone would look like if you hit them in the face with a fish, look no further than this expression right here.

Chad Michael Murray, seen behind Cage, looks similarly confused by his presence on the poster as well.