POSTERS: Blade Runner

This is a minimal concept piece. One of several great ideas. You can find more here.


It's inspired by Roy Batty's final line from the film which reads as thus:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die.

How can you not love that.

Second place goes to The Shining with a close third to the Back To The Future trifecta. I would rank them higher, but I'm not a fan of the sequels.

Posters: The Big Heat (TCM)

So TCM is doing a summer special called Summer Under The Stars, where they spotlight a certain actor or actress. This is really nothing new for TCM, but they have had posters created for each celeb and a specific film they were in. The posters are all great, but this one really got me.


Yes, it's for Gloria Grahame in Fritz Lang's masterpiece The Big Heat (1953). This is a great design, but the real kicker is the coffee pot. For those of you hwo haven't seen the film, shame on you, it's a perfect way to characterize Grahame's character in this movie. The poster, in context, is almost darker than the film itself. It's just twisted. I'd love to have a full size poster of this sucker.

I'll admit, the steam creating her face fives it a look like she stepped out of Doomsday (2008), but I love Doomsday, so I appreciate it even more.

Check out the other posters here to find your personal favorite and make sure you watch The Big het if you haven't seen it before. Prepare for a dark tip.

Posters: Cannes Film Market

For those of you who think the Cannes is all about high brow films, let me put your mind at ease. One of the great things about the festival is the film market. This is where people from all over the world try to sell their latest genre film.

Her are a few examples that will probably end up on a video shelf near you.

From the Producer of Shaolin Girl. See a pattern?

Why so serious?

From the Director of Black Sheep, which is interesting.

Love the tag line:

A Killer Body And A Gun...What's Not To Like

You can check out more of these at The Guardian, which includes two projects starring Danny Devito. What kind of Country do we live in when Devito can' get a film released?

Posters: The Hurt Locker

This is a great movie and the poster, as well as the trailer, take advantage of one of the best shots in the film. There are actually a ton of great shots in this movie, but this one is a real moment. It's when you actually feel that all of these incendiary devices actually live and breathe. Mabye not in still form, but wait until you see the entire sequence in motion, it's frays nerves.


The poster itself is nice. It does the one thing that it really needs to do, show how people are going ape shit over this film. It's my sincere wish that this turn into the sleeper of the year and make money hand over fist. Kathryn Bigelow deserves a hit, she a really impressive talent and she's constructed a film of real tension and beauty.

Posters: Chinatown

Yes, Chinatown (1974) is a all kinds of classic when it comes to film. It also has some of the most amazing advertising images as well.

In all of the posters I've seen there is always the use of J.J. Gittes cigarette smoke helping frame Evelyn Mulwray's face. In most it creates a beautiful hairline and something that gives the feeling of water with the waves in the lower corner creating a frame of the key symbol in the film. It also makes the image of Evelyn ghostly, someone you can't quite put a finger on which really describes her character in the first two-thirds of the film.


When I was checking out Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, one of the great movie blogs out there, I saw this poster for the first time. It appears to be the German release.


Again, the smoke frames Evelyn's face, but doesn't form hair or the feeling of water like the American version. I think it's the water element that I appreciate so much in the American release, but look at Gittes expression. It's a great look of hardened cynicism. Nothing phases him. That changes by the end of the film of course. It's stunning piece of poster art, even if I find it lesser thematically.

Posters: Star Trek (2009)

I'm nervous about the new movie. Yes, there has been positive word of mouth coming from people who saw it in Austin Texas recently, but there were mitigating circumstances to that.

This poster doesn't do much for me as far as calming my nerves. It's too simple, to plain, just kind of boring and doesn't give me any sense of the ride that I'll be taken on.


Is it supposed to represent the blank slate we're to have walking into this film? Is it the point of view from a glaucoma victim watching the Enterprise jump into warp speed? I don't know, it just feels...off.

I prefer this one:


I'm guessing it's the Spanish or Italian poster from the tag line. It does have a bit of a disaster movie feel to it, but there are no floating heads to remind me that it looks like the cast of Melrose Space.

Posters: The Girlfriend Experience

I like this. Simple, yet has a bit of thought put into it. It feels very much like a design Criterion would use on their box art. Plus Sasha Grey's open mouth! Oh, yeah.

The tag line is worthwhile to, since it gives the impression that there is going to thematically explore the difference/similarities between the emotional and the physical.