The Extratextuals

Okay, so the movie is awful. In so many ways. All hail Trey Parker and Matt Stone for immortalizing how bad the movie is in Team America: World Police. Join with me and sing:

I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark,
When he made Pearl Harbor.
I miss you more than that movie missed the point,
And that’s an awful lot girl.

But this poster is gripping. A beautiful image to begin with, it’s also, of course, ominous, and it effectively transports me to Pearl Harbor as the planes came in. It’s also quite smart, in that it captures a moment before the attack when the lone figure in the shot was powerless to do anything but watch, and this is the position that the movie-goer will find him or herself in: knowing what the film is building up to, powerless to react, unable to look away. I’m very uncomfortable with the patriotic drumbeating that this image engages in, especially when the film and its re-release post-9/11 would be recontextualized to justify a War on Others, oops, I mean a War on Terror; but it’s effective nonetheless, playing with anticipation (of the spectacle of destruction, and of the horror of that destruction).

Pity the film ended up a true horror to watch. Sing with me once more:

Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies.
I guess Pearl Harbor sucked,
Just a little bit more than I miss you.

Tomorrow, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

poster art Pearl Harbor, poster art, posters

Few movie poster images have proven as iconic as this one. I’d pose that a large part of its success comes from it navigating quite delicate terrain (as does ET): the poster shows a couple of predators looking in on a kid, who, the title tells us, is all alone. This is the stuff that horror films could be made of, or horrifying dramas about abuse. See, for instance, this parody of the poster for a road not taken but close enough. And yet the poster manages successfully to sell the film as a comedy, and does so because the expression on Macaulay Culkin’s face is playful. It’s not saying “Oh my god, I have one minute to live,” in other words, and the text tries its best to assure us that Kevin’s in charge. When the picture suggests the very opposite – a child at the mercy of two thugs – the poster introduces a significant amount of suspense and mystery: how will Kevin reverse the situation, and how will he “kick some butt”? Finally, while Daniel Stern looks psychotic, Joe Pesci (the more familiar face on the poster) is careful to wear a comic grumpy face, not his Goodfellas one, thus taking the sting out of the predators. Ultimately, then, the poster signals to parents that it’s all alright. To kids, meanwhile, it alludes to a horrifying situation and one of seeming powerlessness, yet promises a flip in those power dynamics, hence also promising the child viewer a vicarious experience of child power, with “I don’t need you, mommy” sentiment.

Tomorrow: Pearl Harbor

poster art Home Alone, poster art, posters

A vast expanse of space can often draw one to wonder what else exists out there (though it’s rare to see such a sight in New York, so I’m going on memory here!), and thus the backdrop for the poster already casts one’s mind to distant stars, planets, and lifeforms. But the foreground image is the truly bold one, with its visual referencing of Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, and the finger touch between God and Man. Quite bold to invoke Michaelangelo and God, but just as Michaelangelo’s image literally and figuratively connects God and Man, so too then are extra-terrestrial and human connected here, their lives, fate, existence, and being connected. Important, though, is that it’s not Man here, as much as Child, suggesting that if humankind’s first great experience with a higher, other being was with Man and Adam, its next great step forward will be with Child. Several of Spielberg’s films take up the mantle of Twain and Rousseau, positing the child at the center of all that’s important in the world, and here the act is crystallized in a visually evocative image.

Subtly, too, since we’re looking at Earth in this picture, the poster places us in the extra-terrestrial’s spot, and seemingly gives us its eyes – an initial move towards taking away the threat of ET. The child’s hand is open, not clenched or withdrawing in fear, and thus the moment of first contact is portrayed as gentle. And the text likens him to a kid lost at the bus depot, not a green goblin come to probe and destroy. Neither kids nor their parents need be scared of alien nightmares, setting the stage for one of Hollywood’s all-time best children’s movies.

Tomorrow: Home Alone

poster art ET, poster art, posters

After having discovered the Internet Movie Poster Awards site, I’m on a movie poster kick. I went browsing through their archives for some particularly spectacular and memorable posters, and intend to discuss one a day for the next week.

However, it’s perhaps worth starting by noting how taken aback I was by how dull and derivative most posters are. Scrolling through hundreds of pages of the IMPA galleries showed me endless posters that simply showed a star’s head, or some disembodied part of a young woman’s anatomy. The former style basically says, “Look, we have a star!” and thus relies more on the star to sell the film than actually getting off its creative ass and telling us something more about the film, its characters, themes, world, etc. The latter is just sexist and regressive, saying, “Look: T&A” (though legs figure heavily too, it must be stated, usually splayed open in some configuration or another). So, stars and sex sell: nothing new learned there.

But the posters I stopped on are those that set up the film in a more satisfying way. Really good posters don’t just appeal to a frustrated libido or let star image do all the work: they do what a good trailer does and invite you into the film’s world, they give you a tantalizing sense of what to expect, and then they leave you thinking about the poster and the movie afterwards. All of the posters I’ll discuss this week did this for me.

And now, I start with the best, and by best I mean the poster that bar none has had the most effect on me.

Jaws
I have a bone to pick with this poster. A big, 4 layers of teeth jaw bone. For most of my life, it’s been single-handedly responsible for limiting my joy in swimming in the sea. In truth, it’s not the film that got to me – I grew up with a lot of horror films and novels, and while they all scar(r)ed me in their own way, I basically knew not to worry about creatures in the dark. But the poster scared the crap out of me. And I spent two years of my childhood living next to a beach, the famous Cottesloe Beach in Perth, Australia (famous for great surfing amongst surfers, for John Fiske’s [pretty accurate] reading of a beach in Reading the Popular, and for big ass great white sharks). The idea that I could be swimming, oblivious to the fact that a massive shark was rushing to gobble me up has never really gone away. So while many blame Spielberg or Benchley for being scared of the water, I blame whoever designed this poster. Jaws was a good film, but when the real horror lies in the poster, that’s some excellent work.

Tomorrow, another Spielberg film: ET.

poster art Jaws, poster art, posters

I had intended to post another installment of the awards, this one on movie posters, but in researching, I found a wonderful site, The Internet Movie Poster Awards. Not only does this site have awards dating back ten years, but they also boast a staggering 17,000+ movie posters in their galleries. I’ll wait till later to post more thoughts arrived at from browsing their galleries, and on some all-time favs, but first a taste of their 2008 award winners:

Best Poster went to Sweeney Todd, with the explanation that “A menacing looking barber, razor at the ready, sitting in his blood-red barber chair, waiting for his next victim. The poster for Sweeney Todd is dark, disturbing, and surprisingly beautiful. A very rare combination. Little details like the family portrait in the background, the red coming from the floorboards, and the splash of blood across the title makes for a very memorable design.” It certainly has an alluring quality that makes me want to look at it multiple times. And though it announces itself as a Tim Burton film, it does so in a neat way.

Meanwhile, bringing up the rear is Charlie Wilson’s War: “Perhaps the worst thing about this poster is simply that it is bland. Three Oscar winning actors looking very awkward, especially Hoffman, who appears to have accidentally walked into the wrong photo shoot. People are more likely to see the movie in spite of the poster than because of it.” All the intrigue, excitement, comedy, and glamor of a stucco wall. If the critique errs anywhere, though, it’s in being kind enough to suggest this is the product of a photo shoot: looks more like a crappy frame-grab to me.

Best Blockbuster Poster Award goes to I Am Legend: “A powerful image that conveys the plot of the film. The last man on earth set against the disturbing sight of a destroyed city in the background.” I still remember seeing a scene from this movie being filmed, and it was the oddest site: I walked into Washington Square at night and there was a bright white light. Moving closer, I saw about 300 people in silver green-screen suits running around. Think Cirque du Soleil meets Mean Streets. Luckily, this poster captures the gravity of the situation a little better.

Other categories (without winners listed. I don’t want to spoil them all, especially since each of the main categories has 5 nominees) include Best Teaser Poster, Worst Teaser Poster, Funniest, Bravest Poster (for posters with no faces of actors with big names), Creepiest, Best Character Set, Best Funny Tag Line, Best Serious Tag Line, and a spate of Not So Serious Awards, including Best Poster Ruined by Floating Heads, and this image from a Revenge of the Nerds remake teaser poster, winner of Best Poster for a Movie That Ceased to Exist. A poster without a movie? A true extratextual.

Neat site. Good picks. Spared me the work, too, so I’m happy.

awards, poster art, previews Charlie Wilson's War, I Am Legend, poster art, posters, Revenge of the Nerds, Simpsons, Sweeney Todd

First, apologies for the lengthy time off. Grading. Stuff to write. Holiday without Internet. They all added up. Anyways, we’re back, hopefully with a slightly new look soon too. Wasting no time, let’s get down to business:

Today, I call Time Warner and resubscribe to HBO, not being able to care less about many of the shows on the channel, but eagerly anticipating Season 5 of The Wire. Amidst other bloggers’ stated goal to blog the season, I thought I’d start by commenting on its fantastic poster art.

For the uninitiated, The Wire’s place in television history is already entrenched alongside Sesame Street and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as shows that challenged what the medium could and should do. If you teach television studies, you’re no doubt tired by having to repeat the line that most television only focuses on problems as individual, not/never institutional. If you study television studies, you’re probably tired of hearing it. And as a watcher of television, hopefully you’re tired of seeing the moral play out again and again. But The Wire is a show about institutions. Beginning as seemingly a serial cop show, Season 1 examined the street drug trade in West Baltimore, all the while interrogating the social system and structure of crime and punishment with considerable skill. Season 2 added the ports to the picture, Season 3 added politics, Season 4 added schooling, and now Season 5 promises to end with the media.

I could glow about The Wire all day. Its characters, writing, acting, directing, and filming all surpass much of what even the best television can muster. And yet each season’s just made the whole thing better, rounding out the story even more, adding nuance to characters and institutions.

And here the poster art brilliantly communicates the (bold) promise of a season that will conclude the series, and bring it to a head. More below the fold.

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poster art, previews poster art, previews, The Wire

This poster for Harold and Kumar 2 is excellent. It marks a fairly rare occurrence of a poster that works at a conceptual level. Neil Patrick Harris’s cameo in the first movie was one of the more celebrated parts of the film, but I’d argue that this poster isn’t about advertising his inclusion in the sequel, nor does it necessarily imply that “NPH” will be seen on a unicorn in the film. Meanwhile, neither Harold nor Kumar is on the poster, nor any reference to the show’s plot (wherein the two are arrested on an airplane when an old woman thinks Kumar is a terrorist). Rather, the simple point is itself comically rich, suggesting that the sensibility behind the making of this film is the same that might find the notion of NPH on a unicorn amusing, or that might find the act of substituting NPH for Jesus by asking “What Would NPH Do?” entertaining. And they’ve really committed to the concept, too, with the blinding light, and NPH’s priceless look and seemingly unbuttoned shirt and jacket.

Of course, it has the luxury of being a sequel, so the mere words “Harold and Kumar” already tell viewers what to expect, but all the same, the promotional strategy here is arresting and deeply amusing. I saw the poster while going to see two films (two? See here for explanation) and I burst out laughing. Trailers for comedies should make one laugh, just as trailers for action films should excite one, but posters more often are left teasing the viewer, promising gratification later on. The poster for Harold and Kumar 2, though, delivers the goods upfront.

Compare, for instance, to the posters to the films I saw: Dan in Real Life (a lovely film) and We Own the Night (an okay film, though nothing special, save for a brilliant car chase in the pouring rain). More after the fold

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poster art, previews ads, Dan in Real Life, Harold and Kumar 2, movies, Neil Patrick Harris, posters, We Own the Night