Thursday, December 23, 2010

Year in Review: The 10 Worst Posters of 2010

As with everything else, there are bad movie posters just like there are good ones. These ones were my least favorite this year. Like with the best gallery, it shouldn’t be inferred that the movies themselves are bad – they all aren’t – but just that they needed a different poster designer.

10. Extraordinary Measures
Man, don’t Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford look grimly determined to do something. What, I have no idea, but don’t mess with them. They’ll kick your ass. Seriously, doesn’t this look like a cheapo poster thrown together for a made for TV movie. Horrid.

9. The Back Up Plan
Maybe it’s just because I don’t like Jennifer Lopez (seriously, she has a lot of talent, but I haven’t seen any of it on display since The Cell in 2000), but this poster just rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps its Lopez’s aren’t I lovable look (she isn’t), or the way she’s manhandling the poor guy from Hawaii Five O’s face, but this poster made me want to see the movie even less than I already did – which was about zero anyway.

8. Charlie St. Cloud
One of my pet peeves in posters is to have people staring off into space – they unknown oblivion that lays beyond the posters frame of reference. And that is precisely what Zach Efron is doing here – it isn’t his fault that he looks more than a little stunned here – they were obviously trying to make the movie seem deep and moving. It didn’t work. I can’t help by chuckle a little bit every time I see this poster.

7. The Company Men
What the hell are all these idiots looking at, and why do they all look so stunned? Poor Maria Bello comes off the worst, but Kevin Costner looks mentally challenged as well and Chris Cooper looks like he thinks this whole looking up thing is just plain stupid. Why are there people walking on a tight rope. Just a horrible poster from start to finish.

6. The Last Song
I’ve never claimed that Miley Cyrus is the sharpest woman in the world, but surely she is smarter than she appears in this poster. Seriously, she looks absolutely stunned in this poster as if someone had just pinched her ass or something – and what the hell is over to the side where she is looking? And is the guy in the movie made of fire, or why the hell would they put his head directly on top of the sun. Seriously people, get your act together.

5. The King’s Speech
It’s not often that a movie poster is so bad it inspires the director and the star of the film to take shots at it themselves – but this one drew the ire of Tom Hooper and Colin Firth. It’s easy to see why. Firth looks constipated, Bonham Carter has a strange look on her face as if perhaps she is still playing Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd and Geoffrey Rush looks like he is the mentally challenged guy who will teach them a valuable lesson about life. One of the more acclaimed films of the year deserves better.

4. The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Trader
You would think that with all the money they were spending on the movie, they wouldn’t release a poster that makes the film look like a low rent animated movie from the 1970s. The image of Aslan the Lion may have been overused in the posters for this series, but it is till effective. This one makes the movie look cheap and cheesy – and never should have seen the light of day.

3. I Want Your Money
I have not seen this movie, so I have no idea if it is as offensive as the poster is, but isn’t the drawing of Barack Obama just one step this side of an ad for a Minstrel show? With his big lips and huge teeth this ad is just plain offensive to me. Dislike the man all you want, I don’t care, but at least show some respect – and hell how about some originality – when making a poster to mock him.

2. Hereafter
Did the people who made this poster actually know what the movie is about. It’s about the afterlife, so why the hell does it make it look like an alien invasion movie, with all those wavy lines, and the dark body emerging for the behind. And why did they make Matt Damon look like a creepy serial killer, and couldn’t they have found a better picture of the gorgeous female lead, and not one where she looks so horribly awkward. For a big movie like this, you expect a better poster to come out.

1. Sex and the City 2
If I were Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall I would seriously be pissed off about this poster. Parker looks like a not very convincing transvestite in this picture, and while I would describe her as the best looking woman in the world, I have never been one of those who have ganged up and mocked her looks – this is just an absolutely horrible picture. As for Cattrall, it almost looks like she wasn’t available for the shoot, and they subbed in some not convincing stand-in – who they tried to make look younger and skinner. Seriously, Cattrall is not that waif thin – that’s part of her charm but she has been so heavily airbrushed here that the result is truly distracting. I suppose Davis and Nixon look okay – but sweet Jesus, what they hell did they do to the other two? Far and away the worst of the year.

No comments:

Post a Comment