Oh, it’s the end of the month again? Where, oh where does the time go? I can tell you where the time certainly does not go, and that’s in the Photoshop suite of whoever designed the Green Lantern posters that have adorned cinema foyers this month. It wasn’t all a loss, however, as several designs rose above the pack. Let’s take a look at what August had in store for the eyeballs of the nation’s cinemagoers.
Jane Eyre
Majestic and one of the year’s finest feats of key art design belongs to Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre. Those sumptuous – and rarely used – pinkish grey colours that contrast so perfectly to Mia Wasikowska’s brown hair, the subtle and inventive twist on “giant floating head” syndrome and a simple, yet literary typeface combine to make a unique poster. Unique, especially, for a genre that is known more for simply yelling “THIS MOVIE HAS CORSETS!” and little else.
Beginners
Cue the alarms and sirens because the cuteness overload is at precarious levels! Ewan McGregor looking adorable and dashingly ragged! Twice! Mélanie Laurent look like a super-quaint French gal with the coquettish laugh! Twice! Christopher Plummer mining the old-man-goes-hipster look for guffaws! (Only once because old men aren’t sexy, I presume!) Twee little dog for extra adorable gold stars and a precious typeface to boot! Somehow the design scrapes through by skin of its teeth, but it’s on notice for having too much cuteness for one poster to bear before becoming offensively cutesy.
Persecution Blues: The Battle for the Tote
It may not be the most sophisticated design – that font should be reserved for DVD compilations of cheap movies from the 1950s involving paper plate flying saucers and/or oozing mud monsters emerging from the a swamp – but the designers of this poster for the Australian documentary Persecution Blues certainly struck an eye-catching piece of imagery and a wicked tagline so we’ll give them props.
Friends with Benefits
Australians do it dirtier, apparently! America’s bizarre relationship with sex continues with these duel posters for “raunchy” “adults only” romantic comedy Friends with Benefits. The US poster (on the left) can’t try harder to separate its two lead actors, as if the thought of them occupying the same space with a title like Friends with Benefits would send the crazy, ultra-PC police into a frothing frenzy. The local poster, however, not only allows the actors to occupy the same space, but also gives them a naughty gesture to share. Who are the American marketers trying to protect?
The Rise of the Planet of the Apes
You know what? I don’t see this poster as representing the ape population finally rising up to their oppressors and taking over the world in a well-received action blockbuster. No, I see it as a silly poster for one of those tireless spoof movies: Ape Movie, perhaps? In fact, if this poster isn’t copied for Scary Movie 6 (or above) I will be mightily surprised.
Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
I’m not sure who told Morgan Spurlock that people wanted to see his body on the poster for his movie, but he went and did it anyway. I know everybody says, “sex sells” – and in the case of some movies, that is definitely true – but was this the moment for it? Oh yes, Spurlock is “stripping back” the product placement game (hah hah, we get it!), but as perfectly fine as Spurlock’s body is, I don’t think it has the desired effect.
Green Lantern
My favourite bit of this poster, and all the others for that matter, for Green Lantern is that star Ryan Reynolds doesn’t look a thing like Ryan Reynolds in any of them! If that’s what the marketing team was going for then it’s a job well done. Otherwise…
The Beaver
Aah, my dreaded nemesis: the big empty space poster. The only thing worse than a poster of absolutely nothing is a poster constructed solely out of stripes. I’m sure this imagery is meant to relate the Mel Gibson character’s mental deterioration, but all I see is a movie studio that didn’t know how to sell their film. Throw in the nondescript typeface and not a single nudge or a wink as to the eyebrow-raising title and you’ve got a rather flat and lifeless poster.
