This Week in Posters

Wait, are they together forever or are they Apart? QUIT CONFUSING ME, MOVIE I'M PROBABLY NOT GOING TO SEE!

Okay, I looked it up. Apparently it's written and directed by a guy named "Aaron Rottinghaus," which is an incredible name if it's not made up.

When a pair of star-crossed lovers are forced apart by fate, it’s up to them to right the future. As they fall deeper in love, they experience visions of a deadly future — those around them are doomed to die. Within days their premonitions become reality as their friends start dying around them. As the visions intensify, it becomes clear that the next people to die will be them. The couple has to choose between remaining together and hurting those around them or staying apart forever. [DreadCentral]

Meh. Thrillers never did much for me. And doesn't that imply that they die if they stay together? Where's the conflict?

Also, I prefer to interpret the silhouette in the poster not as a romantic interlude, but as two combatants frozen in the act of pummeling for a Thai plum while they try to deliver knees to each other's midsection. I've seen it a million times. I think the girl currently has the advantage. She should push down on his right hand and throw the left elbow.

Have you noticed almost every male heartthrob -- James Franco, Brad Pitt, R-Pattz here, C-Tates -- all have squinty, tiny, little eyeballs? I understand what makes girls with big eyes attractive to men. It's a neotenous signal that relates health and youth in a woman, as someone astutely informed me on Twitter. But why the tiny eyes for men? And why aren't there more Asian heartthrobs, when they clearly seem to have the advantage in this regard?

[here's the trailer for this one, by the way]

If you cut out the Cavill/Willis part of this poster, it could totally be a Steven Seagal poster. It has all the ingredients -- pistol, shades, standing in front of a burning foreign city -- all it needs is Steven Seagal and a sweet tagline. "Steven Seagal is Lt. Jack Day. He was falsely accused of war crimes, and now his niece has been kidnapped..."

I have no idea what this movie is about, but I'm pretty much down for any two-color, stylized depiction of crows. That's a promise.

Even putting aside the fact that Billy Elliot is wildly overrated and shitty, I can't trust any poster that's just people having fun in period-appropriate outfits. I think we all remember the lesson of Take Me Home Tonight. ...Well, I did, anyway.

Yes, that is an old-timey vibrator and Maggie Gyllenhaal looks super excited to get dilled with it. Make sure that thought is in your head, then go back and look at everyone's facial expressions again. Amazing, right? I could do this all day.

Iron Sky is a film about space Nazis that has zeppelins in the poster, which makes it almost impossible for me not to love. But a giant poster (POSTER WITHIN A POSTER) for what looks like a Sarah Palin parody in the background makes it feel... well, Seltzer-Friedbergy. Sarah Palin is the lowest of the low-hanging fruit. It's not cute, or kitschy, or funny anymore. Can't we all just try to forget she ever existed now? Please?

Do you get extra points for literal imagery? I also like that they used a critic quote that didn't just say "GREAT MOVIE!" Although now that I read it... it kind of just seems like a fancy way of saying "GREAT MOVIE!" I have no idea what this is about. And you know what? I'm not dying to find out. It looks very boring and very French.

UGH. I just... ugh. ARMIE OF ONE! HIS NAME IS ARMIE HAMMER AND HE'S A ONE-MAN ARMY! HOW DO YOU BLOW AN OPPORTUNITY LIKE THAT?!

As someone suggested in the comments, I would've also accepted "STOP. HAMMER TIME."

I'm sorry, I can't concentrate on anything except how hard this picture is screaming for C-Tates.

Phew, there. All better.

I expect to relate to this movie, because I'm always posing up in a boxing stance while I check out my own titties. Yeah, you like getting pumped up, don't you, girls.

I love Andy Samberg, and while I know it's only words, just the fact that Adam Sandler isn't dressed in drag and Kevin James isn't falling down on the poster gives me hope that this might be the one good movie Sandler makes every three years.

My Freudian analysis of this is that Jack is going to steam his Titanic phallus straight into Rose's uterus. That's why I always make a foghorn sound when I reach full insertion.

Badges around necks and double pistols? This is basically Bad Boys, right? Does that make Jonah Hill the white Martin Lawrence and Channing Tatum the white Will Smith? That sounds about right.

Okay, I admit it, I'm a little scared. It's been done a million times, but unlike diagonals, the high contrast with pops of color look actually serves a purpose. And that purpose is... uh... Okay, maybe it doesn't, but it looks cool. And looking cool is half the battle. That's what C-Tates' GI Joe PSA taught me.