From the Vault: When Bad Posters Strike: Wind Child

I discovered today that I had a "When Bad Posters Strike" entry written up for Wind Chill saved in a word document that I just casually forgot to put into a blogger box and click "Publish" on. Perhaps I'll share them with you now because I can't think of anything else to write about. I don't ever remember this movie being released into anything more than a handful of cinemas so it's not even particularly mis-timed. Just consider it here for future reference.


I present to you a monologue spoken by Emily Blunt.

DEATH!!!!

What is it? Why is it? So many unanswered questions filter through my brain like the millions of neurons that surround them.

DEATH!!!!

Is it really as bad as they say? You see, I've been re-evaluating my religious stand as of late and I decided that yes. Yes there is a God. And if there is a God then surely there is a Heaven, right? Maybe in death we all do go to a magical afterlife. We go to a place surrounded by cool dead people like Marissa Cooper, Captain America and that hampster I had as a kid, Mittens. And there's people there who can hoola hoop for hours. Hoola Hoop while hopping on one leg. Omigod. Hoola Hoop Hopping. Try saying that ten times fast.

DEATH!!!!

Is there even such a thing as death? If there is a heaven then do we actually go through the process of death, and instead just have our souls transfered between one world and the next. You know. From the world of reality television and Wild Hogs-inspired remakes on to the world of edible palm trees and neverending meals-on-wheels.

DEATH!!!!

If this is really what death is like then, yes, sign me up right now. I want to skip the illustrious award-strewn career and the pink house in the Hollywood Hills as an old person who only comes out to celebrate the 75th anniversary of anything. I want to move straight from my current life of eye shadow and snarky comebacks and move right onto the other world.

Because I have indeed seen the light and I want to pass my newfound wisdom onto you. There are worse things than death!!!!

*cue trumpets*

Oh, wait. I'm trapped in a car and those are gas fumes not happy lala magical oxygen. Oh... so this is death. Okay, this is pretty shit. Oh, crap. I never thought I'd die because of a freakin' wind chill. Honestly. I feel ripped off. I blame Wild Hogs

{fin}

When Bad Posters Strike: The Other Boleyn Girl (Part II)

aka, the "It just gets worse!" edition.

IMP informs us (as does JD, which I only realised after the fact - thanks though!) that the poster for the Portman-Johansson-Bana period flick The Other Boleyn girl wasn't quite the final design. I apologise to those who were responsible for the Boleyn poster because I gave them a shellacking for that one - it was really poor.

But, as I said, that poster is no longer the official design. Now we have a new one!


And this time... IT'S WORSE! Didn't think that was possible? Well, they somehow managed it. How? Well, for starters the dress that Natalie Portman is wearing (the one that takes is 75% of the poster space) has been changed from a royal deep green to some sort of ecstasy raver dayglo bullshit green and all three cast members now have really red skin. It's like they turned the contrast on the image up from "neutral" to "wow, I can, like, touch the sky and the clouds are made of fairy floss. whoa."

Then they also decided for some unknown reason to crop the outer edge of the design so now not only are their foreheads chopped off now audiences don't even get the advantage of being able to ogle Scarlett Johansson's cleavage. And now, more than ever, Eric Bana's mysterious tit-grabbing hand looks even more like somebody just grabbed a prop hand prosthetic from a horror movie set and attached it to Portman's shoulder.

It just feels like they only had one image and they accidentally cropped it in Photoshop and saved it and they couldn't undo it. Surely this poster is a perfect example of how not to market your sexy period film, right?

Everybody now: Awww

Who else things the marketing people at Pixar and Disney are trying to - and I am being 100% serious here - make their new character "Wall-E" the ET of this generation? Just a quick look at the beautiful amazing poster below and I think you can see the connection, but then watch the newly released teaser then you can see they're going to be going for the jugular. And by jugular I mean the tear ducts of each and every cinemagoer. Obviously there is a Short Circuit vibe in there as well, but I think it's ET: The Extra Terrestrial that is the big point of reference. Cute adorable mini creature staring up into the heavens with doe eyes?

And from the makers of Finding Nemo? I think this one is going to be massive come America's summer 2008. The sort of the massive that Ratatouille should've been, ya know?


Who else just loves the way he says "WaaaAAAlleeeE"

When Bad Posters Strike: The Other Boleyn Girl

I've seen some shoddy photoshopping in my time (considering "my time" is about double the amount time that Photoshop has existed, but that's not the point) but the newly released (via) poster for The Other Boleyn Girl is just a bloody piss poor effort, don't you think?


Let's begin by pointing out the strange way the poster scalps all three of it's main castmembers heads off. It's not like they don't have plenty of space to move the poorly arranged cast down a centremetre or two. I keep trying to scroll the image up but I can't and it's bugging the hell outta me.

Now we can move along to the fact that whoever designed this didn't even attempt to make it appear as if these three people (Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana and Natalie Portman, obviously) were photographed together. Instead it looks as if they just got screengrabs of Scarlett and Eric and haphazardly arranged them around an image of Natalie Portman. An image, which it much be said, features Portman striking a very similar pose to another regal movie poster. And then they edited in Bana's mysterious tit-grabbing hand for added... allure?

I'm not entirely sure what exactly happened to this movie. It was originally set for release this year, but - as the poster says there at the bottom - it is now set for release in, of all months, February. A historical period film based on a famous novel being released in February? Bizarre, but true. The cast gives off the illusion of being hip and sexy (and, the more said about Eric Bana's pants the better) and Portman's name along with the prestige of the book gave it an allure of quality - I even had it down for several Oscar nominations including Best Actress for Portman in my year-in-advance predictions - but somewhere along the way I think it went over the rails, it got bumped for whatever reason to a dead zone of February and now it seems the marketing is getting off to a decidedly shaky start with this strangely cobbled together poster.

I just wish they didn't cut off their scalps like they did. Perhaps I wouldn't feel as negative towards it. It's just so... aah! Perhaps Portman's forehead extends for kilometres and kilometres. I guess we'll never know.

To see more of this series simply click the "When Bad Posters Strike" tag below.

Well Played, Poster: Funny Games

Speechless. I was, quite literally, speechless upon viewing the newly released poster for Michael Haneke's Americanised remake of his own Funny Games. I clicked on the thumbnail at IMP and just sat there staring. This poster makes me sad, but in the good way (not in the way that, say, the Hostel Part II posters made me depressed). It perfectly portrays the sense of helplessness and tragedy that is at the heart of Funny Games. If I didn't know the original movie is tragically misguided (in my eyes) then I would be instantly putting this towards the top of my Must See pile.


[click to enlarge Naomi's tear ducts]
As you can see, it is a very simple design, but the way that it has been rendered just makes it so much more than a simple movie-still-used-as-a-poster poster. The way the colours look just ever-so bleached from the image. The darkness throughout Naomi Watts' hair seems as black as midnight and her lips and iris look as if they are losing colour too. As if her will to live is slowly evaporating.

The equally simple, but oh-so effective, streak of tears is what really makes it so powerful. The most powerful moments in the original Funny Games (and by association Funny Games '08, considering it is a shot-for-shot remake) were when the husband and wife who have been taken hostage are by themselves and dealing what has transpired. The image used on this poster destills exactly what Funny Games should have been - an entirely serious tragedy. Alas, I am afraid to say that the movie itself plays way too much like a big gimmicky in-joke and not at all like the desperately soul-crushing experience that this poster promises.

Even the tagline - a line of dialogue from the film - "You must admit, you brought this on yourself" creates an incredible striking image in my mind, the opposite of it's intentions though. Whereas in the movie the line is jokey and as a laugh, but here it feels like a terrifying sinister omen.

One last observation. Does anybody else think this poster reminds them of a Criterion Collection DVD cover? In research for an upcoming thing I'm doing I've happened across many Criterion designs and they're, for the most part, quite excellent and often times better than the original movie poster. But this design is another to rank alongside Bug and American Gangster as one of the year's best posters, even though it is definitely the simplest and the most strikingly ordinary of the bunch, but that doesn't matter one iota. It's amazing how the simple image used on this poster can evoke so much more than a million crazy busy overflowing posters. And it could have been so very easy for the designers to fall into the trap of the empty space and merely had Naomi in the bottom right hand corner while the rest of the poster was filled with black empty nothingness. They actually utilised the space they have and, obviously I think, it has worked to their immense advantage.

...I still doubt I'll see the movie though because I had such an adverse reaction to the original and there's no reason to believe this one will be any different. Shame, really.

To see more of this series simply click the "Well Played Poster" tag below.

These Are A Few Amazing Things

There are so many amazing things about the poster for this 1979 movie called The Main Event. View it below and then ponder my suggestions.



Barbra Streisand vs Ryan O'Neill - Very uncommon in today's society.

"a Glove Story" - Best tagline ever!

Barbra's perm - It realy was massive back then.

Actually, that's about it. But those three things equal a lifetime of laughs. It was, wait for it, glove at first site! OMG so funny.

James McAvoy is a 12-Year-Old Boy

James McAvoy is a cutie. Despite not thinking that much of him as an actor in The Last King of Scotland, I like him. But whoever designed the latest poster for Atonement made him look like a 12-year-old Yu-Gi-Oh character. At least Keira looks amazing amongst all those flowers (that look like poppies, but I could be wrong).


[click to watch it grow, src]

Completely random, can I just say that I love the word "atonement". It sounds so... lyrical. Or something. I dunno. Feels like a very british word, too.

Hey, Hey, It's Keisha Castle-Hughes

Sometime after she had a God-approved baby in that movie about Jesus and, I assume, sometime before she had a God-unapproved baby in real life Keisha Castle-Hughes also made this movie called Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger (I know! I know!) I think it's meant to be a movie for young predominantly female audiences. I guess it could turn out to be good. I mean, I didn't have lofty expectations about Looking for Alibrandi and, well, you know how that movie turned out.

And it does have Toni Collette, after all. Although to what capacity is yet to be determined. She could have a major role like Gretta Scacchi in Alibrandi or it could be nothing more than a glorified cameo as some sort of repayment to the director. Who knows? Does Toni have a hidden secret and keeping it hush hush by starring it silly-named comedies? Hmmm.


Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger is out in March, 2008.

Australink Idol

Let it be forever known, Sunday the 17th of August was the worst night on Australian Idol ever. So very true. Scott to be Certain has the low down. The low, low, low, very low pathetically low down. Ugh. Tarisai to the rescue!

Awards Daily has the poster for Francis Ford Coppola's "comeback" Youth Without Youth, which you can view to the left there. The best thing about it is the title design. But, what's with all the roses lately?

Somebody tell Sarah Michelle Gellar to fire her agent, stat!

Apparently the Emmys were on yesterday? These are such a non-event these days in Australia (the programs rate even worse here than in America, The Sopranos and The Office are on at Midnight!) that the telecast is being edited to an hour and a half and being screened at some ridiculous time like 10.30pm after Californication. As long as they never do that for the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes then I won't give a hoot.

"He sells reproductions! His furniture's as fake as my orgasms!"

Somebody's decided to make a list of the Top 100 Actors who are still breathing and demanding bowls of green m&ms for their dressing room. It's to be updated yearly and whenever someone carks it and die they get booted off! How lovely. It's like Australian Idol or something. For the record #100 is Susan Sarandon. Whoever it is that has done this list has done the annoying thing of ranking upwards! Ugh. How silly. Still, it's sort of fascinating if not also an entire load of wank.

Lastly, the William Wyler blog-a-thon is on this coming weekend over at GoatDogBlog. I haven't seen enough Wyler movies if you ask me, but I do love love love the ones that I have.

Aussie Posters

I'm just posting these so they exist on the Internet somewhere. A google search shows that they're not out there. First is the poster for The Bet starring Matthew Newton and Aden Young, a sort of Aussie Boiler Room that was quite good. And then there's In the Company of Actors, a documentary with Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving about their production of Hedder Gabler (or whatever it's called).

Io Non Sono Qui

Here's the Italian poster for I'm not There curtesy Awards Daily. Lookie, Lookie! There's Julianne Moore!

How Strange

This is a poster for the upcoming Liv Tyler/Scott Speedman film The Strangers. I normally wouldn't bother mentioning a film such as this, but I'm intrigued by it because it is the American remake of the French horror/thriller Ils, which I recently saw at MIFF. This version obviously focusing in on the "Liv Tyler fighting for her life" angle...


...as opposed to the first poster, which is one of the silliest/oddest/creepiest/perplexing posters I've seen in a long time. They didn't wear those masks in the original!


If it has any of the suspence and chills of Ils then it should be heartily scary experience. And for anyone who has seen the film, (spoilers if you haven't seen it) can they really keep such a, well, downbeat (that's a good description) ending or will they give it a Hollywood ending?

Hmmm... If you're commenting and you've seen Ils please use spoiler tags.

I Think I Love This Poster

...and yet, I'm not quite keen enough on the poster for Pathology to reward it a "Well Played Poster" title. You're going to have to click it (below) to see it larger. I decided to put it in here in a smaller version because you kind of can't tell what it is in it's larger form when you're seeing it so close on a computer screen. I imagine seeing the larger version at a cinema, standing many metres away from it, the effect will be just as good, but up close it's like "wow, that's a lot of polaroid photos" and not much else. Yes?

I particularly love the tag line - notice the space between "no" and "body". As in "No body is safe" as opposed to the much lamer (and, thankfully, non existant) "Nobody is safe". Cause that would indeed be very lame. I think the movie has Milo Ventimiglia, which is alright I guess. It also, strangely, has Alyssa Milano.


A brief check of the film's IMDb page makes it sound much less interesting and creepy. "A group of medical students devise a deadly game: to see which one of them can commit the perfect murder." Hmm. They could just watch that episode of Veronica Mars where Veronica came up with the perfect murder and they'd be hunky dory, no?

Oh, the things you can find on Flickr!

It turns out it's a real movie title, too. I didn't even know it existed.


Amazing! Source

Linkalia

Here's some links to jog to glance your eyes over.

Time has an article about the lack of romance in cinema these days, with much of the early passages relating back to Baz Luhmann's upcoming (and very much anticipated by moi) romance epic Australia. Sleepless in Seattle was on TV yesterday and I recorded it because I was out, but I just love that movie. It's kind of sad that My Big Fat Greek Wedding is the rom-com that has stuck from the last few years. It's certainly no Sleepless in Seattle or Moonstruck is it?


I've been following the Melbourne Film Blog during MIFF to see what Paul has been saying. His thoughts on David Gordon Green's Snow Angels are very positive, so I'm a tad miffed (lol, pun not intended) that I forgot all about it. I was a fan of Green's Undertow afterall.

XO's Middle Eight has a review of the new Darren Hayes (discussed earlier) album This Delicate Thing We've Made. I have yet to get my hands on a pretty copy of the album, but when I do I will be expecting one of the best albums of the year/decade/forever.

Kevipod has the new Girls Aloud video. Sexy? Yes! Yes! Yes!

Electronic Cerebrectomy (I will never tire of typing that blog name) found a funny/disturbing thing at Roger Ebert's site. I admit to finding Rush Hour 2 a guilty pleasure of sorts, but I have no desire at all to see the third film. It's tired.

I'm not sure where JD got these billboard photos but they're funny as all get out! My favourite is the Christian Coalition of America, although it is true that only we can prevent bears in hats. Also, proof that Anna Faris can make anything funny.

I have to agree with Kenneth in the (212) about Pat Rafter. He's a dish. And even though we don't get to see him running around in small shorts anymore, he does still do underwear advertisements and, well, that's a-okay with me.

Victim of the Time takes a quick (well, 69 minute) look at Christopher Nolan's early film Following. I'd never heard of this and, shockingly (right?), I'm still not interested.

Have a peak at the poster for Paul Haggis' latest, In The Valley of Elah. It's... umm... well, it's sort of shit. I can't even tell that that is Charlize Theron. And there's no Susan Sarandon on the poster! It's all very rah rah Americah, isn't it?

And lastly, Ja at My New Plaid Pants discusses The Blair Witch Project. I concur with every letter of every syllable of ever word. That movie just taps into something that so few films can (for me).

Sleazy Todd

I'm sure you've already seen this all over the net, but here is the Sweeney Todd teaser. I like it, but it's nothing amazing. I still don't think it'll get a Best Picture nomination though.

Balls of Mayhem

I was puzzled when I saw the poster for the new Christopher Walken (?) comedy Balls of Fire because as I was looking at I couldn't help but notice it reminded me of something. At first I just couldn't think of what it was. And then it hit me: Suburban Mayhem.

As y'all know I covet the Suburban Mayhem poster. I do not covet the Balls of Fire poster. But do you see the similarities? Weird. The image below is much larger so you could see it better by clicking on it.

The Starf**king Compass

[click... bigger... you know the drill]

And the first version was so majestic. Darn.

From Classy to Camp in One Simple Step!

Observe:

From this...


...to this!



Simple!

Also:

Lust, Poster

I need to head out for work now so I can't type anything about it, but here is the poster for Ang Lee's latest film entitled Lust, Caution. It's certainly no Brokeback Mountain poster, is it?


[Source]