Movie Mazzupial's best movie posters of 2010

I’m quite the movie poster fiend, as discussed previously on this blog with my best and worst all time lists of movie posters. And although I may regret some of the choices I made on those, the best movie posters of 2010 list is a little more carefully considered. Unfortunately some of these films haven’t yet been released in Australia, but since their posters are out I feel it’s fair to include them. Here’s the eye candy:

Hesher
This falls into the category of films us Aussies are hungrily waiting for, even more so when you consider this grabbing piece of poster art. And that's what it is - art. It's an image so arresting it couldn't fit more perfectly into David Michod's tale about an anarchist.Kick-Ass
Posters for action blockbusters so often fall into the lazy category (hello there Unstoppable), but Kick-Ass is the exception. With the block black background and yellow lettering, the creators leave all the awesomeness to the film's characters literally jumping off the wall at you. The neon paint splashes are also a clever way to substitute more graphic blood splatters AND throwback to its comic book origins.You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
I'm a stickler for simplicity and Woody Allen's latest film led the way for several other movie posters that rely on simple, bold graphics. Less is, as they say, more.The Loved Ones
From the Pretty In Pink lighting to dishevelled torture victim, this poster for The Loved Ones sums up the movie perfectly - stylish and sinister.Machete
This is just one of a series of posters promoting the film, most of which relied on using images of the A-List cast. However, the direct 2D graphical style of this had me sharpening all sorts of artistic kudos.Blue Valentine
Dark and romantic is Blue Valentine, and this single image of the love enamoured leads gets all of that across and more. The hand-written style font is also a nice touch, along with love heart V.The Social Network
From the clever border to lone image of Jesse Eisenberg as the Zuker, The Social Network poster did much to intrigue people. But for me, the element that drove it home is arguably the best tagline of the year. It's so good in fact; the makers blew it up to cover the entire poster. Like.The Virginity Hit
Again, simplicity triumphs!Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
The studio thought a collage poster featuring the film’s stars was more marketable, which stands to reason. However, it was Bryan Lee O'Malley’s fully drawn character poster that ticked all my boxes. Its appeal is almost strictly for fans of the graphic novel, which is fine by me.Let Me In
In a similar lone image vein to Blue Valentine, this succeeds due to the conflicting colours and themes. Although I still think the artists version at Fantastic Fest is superior.Winnebago Man
Oh-so perfect in every feasible way. Simply super simple.The Runaways
The tag is catchy, but for a film starring two of the hottest up and comers as the female demi-God's of rock n roll, it’s a pretty ballsy move NOT to picture them in the poster (this one at least). It’s the right move I think, as this grimey graphic alludes to The Runaways biggest hit - Cherry Bomb.And the best . . . Black Swan
The poster being flashed up in the theatres is of course the lone headshot of Natalie Portman looking quite, well, evil. However, the superior ones are the series of posters released in the lead up to the film’s premiere. Don't be fooled by the simple, block shapes - the artwork is deceptively complex and has an almost M.C. Escher-like quality. Notably, they are also draw-droppingly beautiful.

In other poster related goodness, for Tyler Stout’s take on popular movie posters click here, for Killers shizzle here, The Dark Knight Rises wannabe posters here, Lego posters here, Jossing around goodness here.

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You win some, you lose some

Although it is adapted from a cult series from DC Comics, The Losers is not your run of the mill comic-book movie. There are no capes here, no kid-friendly content and you can hardly see an action figure being made out of the films heavily tattooed, machine gun-totting heroine. Thankfully, this makes it all the more appealing.

Led by their Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Roque (Idris Elba), Jensen (Chris Evans), Pooch (Columbus Short) and Cougar (Óscar Jaenada) make up the Losers: a CIA black ops team (above). They are the Spice Girls of action movies, each with their own unique personality and character twerks. After being betrayed and left for dead in the jungles of Bolivia, the Losers team up with the mysterious Aisha (Zoe Saldana) who helps them seek out Max (Jason Patric), an evil mastermind who targeted them for assassination.

With its promise of sufficiently quirky bad-asses, stylish violence and adult humour stemming from the original comic series, I wanted so badly to like The Losers. Yet something about it feels hollow, which is ridiculously frustrating because there is potential here for a great action movie. Instead, The Losers just ends up being moderately entertaining.
There are some beautifully stylish action sequences in the film that point to its comic book origins and the accompanying soundtrack features the best use of a Journey song since Glee. The performances too are all excellent, with Saldana ditching the blue CGI in favour of some tatts and a facial piercing (above) and JDM proving his charismatic turn as an action-lead in Watchmen wasn't a one off. Surprisingly though, it's Chris Evans (aka the human torch from the Fantastic Four series) who really stands out. He steals the show as the Losers quick-witted and somewhat daggy tech expert, with his delivery of some of the best lines in the film receiving applause from the audience in the screening I attended. Pooch, the team’s “Black MacGuyver” or “Blagyver” is also particularly entertaining. Oh, and did I mention the sex on a stick that is Cougar (below)? Move over my Mark Wahlberg obsession, because now I have a fictional character to fall in love (why should the Twihards have all the fun*?). Jaenada’s turn as Cougar is so incredibly sexy, it had me and several other ladies in the audience omitting a little squeal every time he came on scream.
But where the film falls down is, despite moments of unpredictability, the generic plotting and villain, who is like a left over Bond bad guy. Sure, he has some okay moments (particularly his delivery of “It's like giving a handgun to a six-year-old, Wade - you don't know how it's gonna end, but you're pretty sure it's gonna make the papers”) but essentially he is your typical `evil' bent on destroying the world and starting a war, despite a lack of clear motivation or vendetta. The plot turns you can see coming a mile off and the final action scenes verge on boring, a flaw that could have been cured if they let the actors spend less time in slo-mo with machine guns and more time in combat or scurrying along rough tops. If not for films humour and style, The Losers is worth seeing just so you can get to know the well-acted, multi-dimensional characters and witness the family dynamic created between them. This will lead action fans to overlook its many flaws and the open-ended conclusion leaves room for what will hopefully be a superior sequel.

A sequel I'm cautiously optimistic for. Okay, okay I just want to see Cougar all sweaty and Spanish again.


*Fun: in relation to `Twihard fun’ I mean staying at home on a Saturday night and making out with your cat. You know they all do it.

While we’re on the subject of The Losers, now is as good a time as any to gush over the poster art accompanying the movie. While the Kick-Ass poster is still my favourite of the year so far, these variations are coming dangerously close to the top spot. My only criticism is that there are so many, audiences don’t have the opportunity to be exposed to them all…which is the artsy fun of it, like The Dark Knight. The first is a real-life depiction of the comic cover, so it’s doubly clever as an eye-catching promo and a nod to fans of the series.

The second takes a more pop-art, Reservoir Dogs approach, but is just as effective.And finally, I always dig a cast breakdown and this series of posters does that, while capturing the personalities of the characters in suitably action-packed poses.
The Losers opens Thursday.

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When an imitation of life imitates art

At face value a movie poster is a means to sell a film to the audience with a single image. At a glance, the poster is supposed to intrigue, entice and captivate the potential viewer. Sometimes they do more. Sometimes the poster is so clever, so beautiful and so unique the poster itself becomes iconic and a stand-alone feature from the movie (think Jaws or A Clockwork Orange). A creative movie poster combined with, but not necessarily needing, an awesome tagline can save studios millions in advertising. I’m personally an avid collector of movie posters and am intrigued by the idea of trying to summarise the integral themes, images and tone of a movie with a single poster. Just the very thought of trying to do that to some of my favourite movies seems impossible. For a while I’ve been trying to put together a list and finally here I’ve compiled a catalogue of my favourite movie posters of all time. I’ve tried to keep it to 20 but there are seriously hundreds out there I adore for one reason or another. However, the ones listed below are what Movie Mazzupial considers stand-outs. In no particular order . . .
Funny Games Probably my favourite move poster of all time. Err, actually that’s a big call but it’s definitely up there. The horror, the trauma are all captured beautifully on Naomi Watts’ teary and pained face. The tussled hair and mouth poised for . . .a scream perhaps? Action? The brilliance is in the sheer simplicity of it. Funny Games itself is more than a by-the-numbers horror movie and the poster eludes to that. The movie explores the very depths of human cruelty and the effects of emotional torture as well as physical. However, what makes this poster significant for me is the sinister tagline which echoes the madness and malice of the two perpetrators in the film. Fitted in neatly beside Watts’ tragic face and the title it reads; `You must admit, you brought this on yourself’.
Paris J’taime What better way to portray a mish-mash of short films about the world’s most romantic city than with a mish-mashed piece of funky art? I love the understated effort put in to the design of this poster but most importantly I love the detail and how every time you look at it, you notice something different. The poster works on two levels here; not only does it represent the nature of Paris itself (a trendy, iconic, arty city) but it shows the audience what to expect from the film (one city shown from dozens of view points by unique filmmakers). The people of Paris all have different stories and Paris is viewed very differently throughout the world. For a movie that wanted to demonstrate that, the poster art does the mission justice. High fives also have to be given for managing to fit all the filmmakers names creatively around the central image as a border.
Wolf Creek If there’s one poster that somes up the atmosphere of a movie perfectly – it’s this one. With one image the poster captures the horror of the situation experienced by the feature character. Her isolation and the literal isolation of the Australian outback is framed beautifully here. Combined with the eerie lettering, the poster found the perfect balance between being horrific to the viewer but not too much (as has been the mistake with the Saw posters). The Wolf Creek poster is just horrific enough that the audience would be interested to find out how this nameless woman ended up in the dire situation and whether she will get out of it. Plus with the tagline `How can you be found when no one knows your missing’ audience intrigue and the shiver-factor are boosted. Part of the brilliance here is the poster didn’t do what so many horror movie posters tend to do and that's overload the poster with too many images (i.e. Thirteen Ghosts etc). Wolf Creek was a huge success commercially, critically, domestically and internationally. In many ways it’s credited with reinvigorating Aussie horror. This image created a lot of hype for the low budget flick pre-release and larger Hollywood movies have made several attempts to copy the concept. For example The Strangers pretty much copy and pasted the basic character figure from one scenario to another, as pictured below. Pffft, lazy. Identity One of the smartest and most underrated horror thrillers of all time, Identity also stand outs for the clever poster art. The poster points to the complexity of the plot and cleverly juxtaposes the shadowy identities of the central characters. Tagline: `Identity is a secret. Identity is mystery. Identity is a killer.'
Sin City Where countless comic book movie posters have failed, the Sin City poster succeeded in keeping with the tone of its subject material and the film itself. Unlike majority of comic book posters Sin City didn’t overdo the colour component of the artwork and managed to keep the mood dark, like the narrative. Further kudos have to be given to the designers of the poster who managed to fit the films most recognisable stars in to the poster in poses that capture the essence of their characters perfectly. Finally, in case you were curious as to what film could have all these superstars dressed in peculiar attire with guns and gals, Sin City is foregrounded with the only spot of colour on the poster. Tagline? Ha, sooo unnecessary.
Secretary From the moment you look at this poster it reeks of kinky office sex. It would have been easy for the design of the poster to fall in to the exploitative category but luckily the lone image maintains a dignified simplicity which appealed to the indie audience of this film. Again, the key here is keeping the image basic but the concept complex if you dig me. Oh, and did I mention the wicked tagline? `Assume the position'. Brilliant.
The Dark Knight
Ahhh The Dark Knight. Not only one of my favourite films of all time but one of the most brilliantly marketed and presented. The problem I had adding it to this list is there were sooooo many freakin posters for this movie it could have it’s own top five list. Personally I have six different The Dark Knight posters in my room but there are literally dozens more out there. Here I have included my two favourite but I STRONGLY recommend you Google The Dark Knight movie posters because you will be blown away by the number, brilliance and creativity of each one. Above is my favourite poster for the film and below is the close second. Both capture the madness and psychopathic nature of the Joker while eluding to the darker tone of this Batman film. Of course, I would be a complete douchebag if I didn’t mention the now famous and constantly quoted tagline `Why so serious?’ With the bigger budget of this masterpiece no expense was sparred composing the posters and in all honesty it didn’t matter. Because, as different as they were from each other, each poster tied together perfectly and were united by the underlying themes/tone of The Dark Knight.
Savages How do you promote a film that deals with adult issues? With a cartoon (of course) that not only appeals to the artsy crowd it’s marketed at but one that draws-in film buffs who follow the bright lights of critical praise featured at the top of the poster.
Desperado

The poster for Robert Rodriguez’s action loaded exploitation flick Desperado is wicked. I adore the whole brooding-killer/sensitive-badboy vibe they’ve tried to get going here and the photography is quite beautiful. A basic concept, presented well. Plus, nothing says exploitation flick like the following tagline; `He came back to settle the score with someone. Anyone. EVERYONE.’
Choke
At the risk of sounding like a broken record I must preach the brilliance of simplicity in movie posters. I particularly love this one because of the mod colour scheme and clever use of silhouettes to punch home some important points in the plot. Silhouettes are rarely used for movie posters mainly because they show so little and are rarely executed well. This Choke poster, however, is the exception.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Sigh. Just looking at this poster I get warm and fuzzy. It’s hard to describe why I like this so I’ll just say it has an x-factor for me. Whether it’s the pastel tones, peek-a-boo shot of the three main stars or how it manages to capture a fragment of the beauty of Barcelona in the poster, I'm not sure. Visually this Woody Allen film is gorgeous to look at and the poster is no exception.
Grindhouse
It’s on the verge of ridiculous how many posters there are for this double-bill of films which pay homage to the Grindhouse phenomena of the 70s and 80s. Instead of choosing a poster from one of the individual films shown in Grindhouse (Quentin Tarantino’s Deathproof and Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror) I’ve gone with one of the first pieces of artwork put together, before the films were split and released separately. The artists have done such a good job of making this poster look like an authentic Grindhouse original it would be easy to think this had been ripped straight off the wall of a cult cinema in the 70s. From the lettering to the scantily clad woman this poster encapsulates everything exploitation films are about and is a true piece for the collectors out there.

Zac and Miri Make A Porno
Like The Dark Knight, there were several posters made up for this Kevin Smith comedy. But unlike the Batman blockbuster Zac and Miri Make A Porno didn’t have a monster budget. Why so many posters then? As explained on a post I wrote back in February, Smith and co. ran in to major hurdles with the US censorship douchebags for not only the title but various drafts of the poster they had submitted. Despite the issues with the use of the word `porno’ and some of the themes in the movie, Smith and his creative buddies made the poster a joke about how they couldn’t actually release a poster. Above is just one example of the posters they released which are not only clever but when teamed with the other two. . .hi-freakin-larious. The above excellent tagline reads `A poster for everyone who finds our movie a little hard to swallow'. Click here to view the other Zac and Miri Make A Porno posters.
The Descent
A good, not great, film I saw purely because the poster art was kick ass. It makes it clear right off the bat it’s a horror movie but promises more to the viewer thanks to the very clever composition of bodies which pays homage to the image at the centre of the moth on the Silence of the Lambs poster - which, in turn, references the famous Salvador Dali image Skull Women. The unfortunate thing is the poster is easily 100 times better than the movie.
Where The Wild Thing Are

The most recent poster to be added to this list, Spike Jonze’s adaption of the popular children’s book doesn’t waste space showing viewers things they already know (like the complete appearance of the main monster). Instead, it focuses on capturing the quirky tone of the book and film. Throw in the knowing tagline `There’s one in all of us’ in a childish font and you have potentially my favourite poster of the year.

Brick
A fitting poster for one of my favourite movies EVER. The tagline is simple `A detective story’ and you can’t help but wonder how such a `detective’ story could revolve around the youthful and quirky characters pictured. The digital art keeps the poster hip while the dead-like hand points to something more sinister. Not to mention they also manage to throw in the quotes applauding the films brilliance and originality. My favourite Brick posters though don’t look at the film as a whole but instead focus on specific characters. There are five in total (one for each main character) and they’re combined with a witty summary of the character reminiscent of the films dialogue. Below is the poster for Tug with the tag `He shined a gat as he blew the berg’. Humanoids From The Deep
So kitsch it hurts. I mean really, what is there to say about this poster except how brilliantly daggy it is? From the hand drawn artwork to the scenario the Humanoids From The Deep poster tells you everything to know about the movie. What the poster says is `You! Come along and see this movie where a bunch of wet, bikini wearing women will be chased by outlandish looking monsters’. Hell, with a poster this hilarious why wouldn’t you see this movie?

Red Sonja
Okay technically this movie hasn’t been released yet, in fact it won’t be out until at least 2010. But (and there’s a big but) the poster art for Red Sonja formed one of my first posts on this blog nearly a year ago and it’s easy to see why. For all the details on the movie and a step-by-step breakdown of the poster click on my previous post here. Overall, this poster is not only bold, bright and evocative, it also captures the she-devil essence of the title character perfectly. Now if it would just hurry up and be released already. . .
The Shining
Talk about iconic. The above image and following dialogue `Here’s Johnny’ have become one of the most recognised in film history. Massive kudos have to be given to the poster makers who were able to pick and display the perfect image from a scene which captures the madness and horror of Stanley Kubrick’s classic.
LolitaNothings says `jail bait’ like the above Lolita poster. The story about the forbidden relationship between an underage teenager and a middle-aged man was one of the most controversial films at the time and the poster did nothing but add to the is-it-promoting-pedophilia flame. The film is classic and deals with complex themes and I dig the poster because it manages to get all of this across in one shot. The poster combines the childlike nature of the title character Lolita while at the same time eluding to the sexual themes explored.

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