Posterized!: On the Walls This Week
First off, thanks to my fellow Yapper, this column has a new, snazzy title — Posterized! I think we can all agree that this is a vast improvement over the original title, Marketing Breakdown, which sounded like the label of a data spreadsheet. There is also an uber-cool new logo courtesy of Yapper Joe Shearer (check it out on the home page's Flash panel).
Now, on to the topic at hand: this week's movie posters — a pleasantly eclectic, well-rounded lineup. But this is no ordinary bunch of film posters. This week's collection embodies all that is going right and wrong with promotional artwork. In that sense, your local cineplex wall is currently a microcosm of the marketing world.
"Shark Night 3D"
A charmingly schlocky poster, this ad drips with nostalgia for grindhouse cinema, which is largely back in vogue. This regression is only logical considering how far filmmakers have pushed the limits of taboos. After brutal films like "Saw," "Hostel," and "The Human Centipede," all they can do is go back to the time in which grisly subject matter was newly edgy and exhilarating — the '70s. You can sense that the grindhouse filmmakers of that era felt they were pulling a fast one on audiences, slipping them a taste of forbidden fruit and cutting through the air of forbidden mystery. The "Shark Night" poster is imbued with that same kind of devilish innocence. It is also a clever, in-your-face riff on the "Jaws" poster, indicating that horror films have grown far less subtle since then.
"A Good Old Fashioned Orgy"
The poster for this sex comedy is equally innocent and playful, encouraging moviegoers to interact with it. Its tagline, "Bring your friends," is a clever double entendre — an amusingly raunchy reference to the film's titular premise and the communal nature of moviegoing.
"Apollo 18"
Oozing with frantic energy and dread, this poster is deeply unsettling, mostly because the central image is not entirely clear at first glance. Like most horror films and suspense thrillers, it bears ambiguity that is at once intriguing, seductive and alarming.
This poster, on the other hand, has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And I think I speak for everyone when I say that the gun-toting poses are rapidly growing tiresome. They are hackneyed cop-outs for any action movie poster, as a gun will always easily draw attention. An even bigger cop-out is the "actor hierarchy" in which the film's brightest star is featured more prominently than the others, as Helen Mirren is here. Marketing executives' intentions are all too transparent in posters like this one. Posters should be imbued with mystery and creativity and "The Debt's" lacks both.
Join me next week, as I will pick on more posters and the brains of their designers.