Scary Asians

Twins are scary, horror found that out long ago, there’s something about identical looking people that is inherently unsettling. Evil twins and dark halfs are what a large part of the genre is made of... at least I guess you never are Alone, with one of those.







This image for The Descent is the kind of scene that always makes me want to look the other way, I guess anybody who ever lost a fingernail can easily understand why it is among the images that make me invariably whince*. 'Tis also probably why it is so popular use within the genre.









Wheelchairs, and the associated idea of disability scared me already as a kid, obviously one can’t out grow all of his fears.
To Sir with love, even the title has something unsettling.







Even running danger of coming off as a wimp, I still have to say that this poster artwork, for the French movie Frontiers, terrifies me.
The everyday news reality of it is much too close for my personal comfort.
I know that the idea of horror is to scare us, but must it be done in such a frightening way?







The idea of getting your tongue cut out or mouth sewn shut is a truly scary one when you think about it, to loose an important part of our ability to communicate with others that's truly a Art of the Devil.










*Another such scene is the fall/jump from heights. I have a practically pathological fear of breaking my leg.

What's on their wall...

In Happy Together we can spot in the closet of Alex’s dorm room the poster for Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe (we do also find on her wall a poster for Singing in the Rain and by her bedside Casablanca, but those do bear less importance). It’s easy to see how a character as Alex would be a fan of Marilyn Monroe with whom she shares more than just a career wish; as Marilyn is often portrayed to have secretly stayed the country girl that amidst parties, men and movie career always searched for the one thing Hollywood hasn’t to offer: Love and a home, so is Alex a character that likes to party hard and changes identity with every new boyfriend, always searching for something or someone to give her live a meaning, to provide her a place in the order of things.

Max Payne

Max Payne, the PC game, earned it’s fame by being a stylish, inventive game that never denied it’s roots in hard boiled crime fiction.

Max Payne, the movie, was unfortunately hell-bent on going in the direct opposite direction, showing a painfully lack of either style or inventiveness. And instead of honoring it’s roots it appears to us as a petty thief.

The movie’s poster, which uses the backdrop of a lighted bridge arc to create a image of Wahlberg (who’s boyish looks don’t fit the character at all) as an avenging angel, already marks the height of originality. Although, fairness probably demands to note that the harebrained idea of producing a PG-rated action movie based on a R-rated action game is kind of original in it’s own right.

Pictures: Max Payne, The Crow, Constantine, Max Payne

Warrior Women

Calling myself a fan of historical movies would be a blunt lie, but I do love redheads and even if I didn’t I would still not be able to deny that the poster for Elizabeth is as stunningly gorgeous a composition as imaginable.

One that always reminds me of the movie Jeanne d’Arc, which features in it's latest incarnation Resident Evil heroine Milla Jovovich in the title role. And there truly is such a unmistakable likeness between the truly majestic beauty of horse riding, dressed in armour Cate Blanchet, to the image of innocence Igrid Bergman represents as Jeanne d'Arc that I feel save to assume this to have been the inspiration behind this take.

Adorable Jessica

Usually you would have found a further installment in the "what's on their wall" series here, but the moment I layed eyes on this poster the movie was sold to me.
Even though I'm not exactly familiar with the work of Akif Pirinçci, so it could really be about any thing, but Jessica Schwartz has to be the most beautiful actress Germany has currently to offer. I'm hopelessly in love with her, she's my current "not so teen"-crush. *Sigh*

By the way, I tentatively labeled this with Sci-Fi because the tag on the poster says:
"If you could change your past, what would you do?", both that tagline and the original book title hint on a fantastic element to the movie (the book title could be loosely translated as "The back then door").

Prom Night

Prom Night came up for this week on my calendar, and it took me the longest time to work out what that thing on her head is. *duh*
I really don't like that image much, I always happen to think that it looks like a rip-off of the original Howling poster.

But I'm willing to give 'em that the original Prom Night wasn't too original either, neither the poster nor the movie. I'm not going to diss it, I did find it entertaining to watch, it's just that by the time I saw it the slasher movement was already in full swing and Prom Night just didn't offer anything new to the genre, on top of that Prom Night is more of a thriller than a horror movie. But labelling between those genres has always loosely swung in both directions, if I really wanted to lay blame on anybody, or anything, it would have to be my great expectations I had at the time.



Speaking of originality, at least using a logo that says Original Film on a remake, is somewhat original in itself. And as so often these days I find that I like the poster design for the Spanish market better, it's not overly original either, but I find it's a quaint nod to the original poster which I still like best of them all, yay for painted designs!

Sin Nombre - new take

Sin Nombre got a new poster design, one which reminds me more than just a little of City of God, one that is practically void of the wistful beauty that made the other a favourite of mine.
I find this one to be too depressing, where the other offers a hope for change, builds on a notion that there is a better place one can reach, this one seems to say that destiny is inescapable.
The inevitability of violence.

Lego them Posters!

“This is Madness!”
“No, this is Legoooooo!!”


Welcome, to a fourth round of movie poster fun!
See famous and recent movie posters re-enacted with minifigures.

We dare you to check out the scary similarity between the real John McClane and his minifig alter (l)ego following this link:

21 Amazing Lego Posters

Art comparison

Splinters of the Minds Eye

















Squint...

















What's in your head, in your head.

Picture perfect moment

Per aspera ad astra
I love this scene from the opening to the TV mini-series V.
Or more to the point I’m a devout fan of that show who is more than willing to overlook the many short comings regarding inherent logic and instead to concentrate on the vast highlights.
One of them being this perfect opening shot.
The first time I saw it, it reminded me strongly of the cover illustration for one of Arthur C. Clarke’s novels, Childhood's End I believe it was, that shows a approaching Spaceship and underneath are gathered people that raise their arms to it. Looking up the cover for this book on Amazon I come to the conclusion that this might even have been intentional, what it is without doubt is one of the more interesting homages to Clarke/Kubrik’s 2001 - A Space Odyssey. A clever nod to the classic opening which lets our ape like ancestors meet once again with visitors from space, for a equally, if in a entirely different direction, life changing experience.
Last but not least it symbolizes the age old dream of human kind that must have started when our earliest ancestor, who’s petrified face now again gazes at eternity in this picture set-up, lifted his eyes towards the sky and began to wonder on to our first feeble stretching out to the stars in the shape of Gagarin, Aldrin and Armstrong to a projected future in which we will become the Visitors which other species will lay their eyes on yearning to once grab for the stars themselves…
Shades of Star Wars...

Love of the common people

Sometimes I find myself oddly drawn to movies I wouldn’t naturally regard. I usually want my entertainment to be just that, entertaining.
I’m willing to concede the point that what exactly makes entertainment varies greatly from viewer to viewer (and thank the Heavens for that or cinema would look like private TV), for me personally the formula usually goes

closer proximity to reality = less entertainment

All the more it takes me by surprise how much movies like Italiensk for begyndere move me.
Incidentally the movie also features one of my favourite cut sequences, when one of the characters let’s a coffee mug slip from her fingers the movie cuts away just before the impact to a flag silently moving in the wind, that scene seems to perfectly sum up this small movie that never fails to hold me transfixed like a deer caught in the spotlight.

Or Eric Rohmer’s Four Seasons cycle. There’s nothing much of note going on in either of the movies, Rohmer’s approach here feels like sitting in a street café, watching life stream by.
Only that some of the passing peasants take us with them for a short time, just long enough for us find them to lead a life just as ordinary as our own.


Like Rohmer's movies Pane e tulipani is not about finding love in the first place, it's about finding out that in order to love you first have to find to yourself. It's about a women that gets accidentally left behind by her family, and using this to take a vacation from them and her household duties she discovers herself and the dreams she left behind. At the end of the movie stands, once again, no glorified idea of perfect love, just a man and a woman who share something more lasting: A deep mutal respect for each other.

It’s the love of, and the love for, the common people, what all theses movies are about. There’s no Hollywood grandeur to them, no witty repartee, no couples so beautiful that the idea of them ever parting makes you hurt. And yet, as unglamorous as it presents itself in these movies, love is the greatest gift of all.

I love the poster artwork for Rohmer’s Seasons cycle, they all manage to capture the essence of the respective movie. I’m not exactly smitten with any of the poster designs for Italiensk, the English versions try to portray it as something it ain’t setting it up for failure by deceiving the audience, and the original fails to convey how deeply romantic a movie this is underneath.