March 2012′s Most Unfortunate Movie Posters.

posted on
03.28.2012

filed under
Blogs

And now it’s time again for that time, again. Or something.

This is the part where I ponder the no-doubt-expensive advertising campaigns of major motion pictures, mercilessly critiquing them from my cozy perch in my twenty-acre mansion. Or my mom’s basement. Or wherever you’d prefer to imagine I do these pieces.

Movie posters can be an art unto themselves, but so often they end up being the opposite. Things can go wrong for all sorts of reasons. Some posters have great designs, but are undone by ridiculous taglines. Some are shameless imitations of other, better work. Some are good posters advertising shitty product, like using The Lorax to shill for SUVs. Some are shitty posters advertising a good product. And some are just Photoshop nightmares. It’s like this every month, but this batch today was culled from the month of March. When it comes to unfortunate movie posters, March comes in like a lion and goes out like poo-poo from a lion’s behind. I don’t know what that means but it made me laugh so I’m leaving it in.

Check out the most recent columns from January and February to get caught up, or just read on….

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I’ve only seen this guy in good movies. Her, I’ve only seen in bad ones.* When their careers collide, whose track record will win out? Before you answer, let me also inform you that Whoopi Goldberg is in this movie playing a character named “God” and I do not believe that to be a reference to the Charlie Sheen film Navy SEALS.

* I know you guys are going to bring up Almost Famous but A) That was a decade ago, and what has she done for us lately? and B) Not a whole lot of rewatchability there. If you can hear those hippies coo “It’s all happening” another hundred times and still not want to stomp on an adorable woodland creature just to make a point, you’re doing better at coping with life than I am.

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This is either an advertisement for the worst David Cronenberg movie of all time, or the greatest Olsen Twins movie of all time.

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“The first real ghost story” looks a whole lot like seven thousand other ghost stories we’ve seen in the past year or so.

Emergo!

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My Week With Marilyn.

Lindsay Lohan’s Playboy cover.

NBC’s Smash.

This song by Nicki Minaj.

This Twitter account.

The poster above.

And so on.

Can we take a break from the Marilyn Monroe thing for a while, or what?

You’d think motherfuckers never heard of Raquel Welch.

Ahhh… That’s more like it.

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If you don’t want people to come see your movie, you may just as well skip paying for a poster entirely. You don’t have to go to the trouble of painting a gigantic diseased-looking penis-looking thing on it. That’s just nasty, dude.

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Anybody else ever experience déjà vu?

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Anybody else ever experience déjà vu?

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Anybody else ever experience déjà vu?

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Because if there’s one things Germans know best, it’s “feel-better” comedies.

Also notice how the Golden Globes imprimatur is considered such a drawing point over there.

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Looks like somebody dosed Chris Ware with something awful and he is just screaming out for help.

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And after the psychedelic trip there follows the come-down, and the vomitus.

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Aw man, they cracked open the time capsule from 1995 a little too early.

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My only concern with this poster is if you asked a dumb person to pronounce that title, it would sound very racist.

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Looks like the poster for a Wes Anderson movie.

You mean it is one?

You don’t fucking say. I’ve long been a fan, but these things are getting progressively cutesier. My man’s movies are slowly and literally morphing into Rupert comic strips, and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold on.

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Stupid-Person Focus Group: The Movie. But maybe this film can emphasize that Transformers connection a little stronger and transform into something I’d rather see, like a grizzly bear slamming Michael Bay and Peter Berg’s heads together.

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Cool poster, if this is the dude’s face mid-face-smash by an undisclosed assailant. Less cool if he’s just got a jacked-up arm and is just awkwardly pushing his own face. (It’s fun if you imagine a mime re-enacting a Three Stooges routine.)

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Look out, Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins! Seth McFarlane continues to do his part to add substance to the national conversation.

I heard when Seth McFarlane finally runs out of 1980s TV shows to reference, then and only then will he finally take leave of our planet and ascend to the heavens. With this poster, we’ve covered Teddy Ruxpin. We’re just a Small Wonder and a Rubik’s Cube away from Rapture!

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When did Adam Sandler decide to turn on humanity with this level of viciousness? Seriously, what did I specifically ever do to this guy to deserve what he does?

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Only the second Waiting For Godot reference of the column.

I like to think of Meeting Evil as the first.

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Oooooof. Shades of Salvation Boulevard. This is not even acceptable as a first draft.

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Cusack is veering dangerously towards Cage territory with this one. That’s all I’m saying. Not saying it’s a bad thing either. Only that it IS a thing.

Exhibit A: Side-by-side contrast of posters for The Raven and Seeking Justice.

Exhibit B: Is not needed.

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Guess they’re banking heavily on the fact that we won’t remember another movie called The Road from three years ago. You know, the one based on a book that was on Oprah’s book list and EVERYBODY HAS READ.

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I’ve seen more damn trailers for this re-release than for any new movie in the past five years. Fuck it, man. You know how she’s always saying in those trailers, “I’lll never let go?” Spoiler: She lets go. Saved you the trouble of paying to see this thing. I’m not going through the pain of seing Leo turn into an icicle again, I don’t care how deep into the sea James Cameron goes.

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Which one’s Tilda Swinton?

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This one bothers me so much for so many reasons, it’s hard to even joke about. I feel like wanting to see a movie like this or not is a good barometer of what kind of asshole one probably is. I like to think I’m the right kind of asshole.

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