Filmgraphs hired guns Cap and Bean rifle through the movie poster bargain bin and gaze upon its horrors.
by FILMGRAPHS STAFF ON SEPTEMBER 17, 2014
In a desperate gamble to generate more site content, we have turned to two under-qualified mercenaries who, in an inconsequential attempt to remain anonymous writing for a largely unread website, will be referred to as CAP and BEAN.They will be writing commentary on movie posters every week, dissecting art and the hard work of talented designers that they could never hope to match themselves in a thousand years. Since they are both impoverished drifters, this week they went through the movie poster bargain bin, hoping to find cheap alternatives to decorating their cardboard box homes or extra lining for their jackets to stave off the cold Canadian autumn.
Minority Report
by FILMGRAPHS STAFF ON SEPTEMBER 17, 2014
In a desperate gamble to generate more site content, we have turned to two under-qualified mercenaries who, in an inconsequential attempt to remain anonymous writing for a largely unread website, will be referred to as CAP and BEAN.They will be writing commentary on movie posters every week, dissecting art and the hard work of talented designers that they could never hope to match themselves in a thousand years. Since they are both impoverished drifters, this week they went through the movie poster bargain bin, hoping to find cheap alternatives to decorating their cardboard box homes or extra lining for their jackets to stave off the cold Canadian autumn.
CAP: I can’t even begin to
fathom how this movie poster came into being. This idea depicts literally ten
minutes of like a side-story in the two hour movie.
BEAN: Let me tell you, I watched
Minority Report based solely off this poster and was sorely disappointed when I
found it wasn’t a documentary about unnecessary eye surgeries.
CAP: This would be like being
commissioned to make a movie poster for The Avengers and then making it Iron
Man eating Shawarma.
BEAN: You mean it would be “fucking
rad"?
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
CAP: YOU GOT TO MOVE IT MOVE IT! YOU GOT TO MOVE IT MOVE IT!
BEAN: Classic color scheme of yellow and slightly less yellow.
CAP: Why is the lion so surprised? Did the artist literally take a camera photo of a real lion, shocking said lion, and use that as a model?
BEAN: The lion was surprised that a movie about escaped zoo animals had enough of a plot to garner a sequel
Detroit Rock City
BEAN: This is for the movie Detroit
Rock City, by the way, in case the total lack of the title actually being on
the poster misled you.
CAP: Mystery is 99% of marketing, Bean.
And the last 1% is street caricatures, apparently.
BEAN: This poster tells me literally
nothing about the movie except that keeping your shoes tied wasn’t really a
priority back in the 90s.
Shanghai Knights
Shanghai Knights
BEAN: Are they… are they kicking
through glass?
CAP: They’re shattering our
preconceived notions about race and imperialism.
BEAN: Why is Jackie Chan always doing
some karate shit in his movie posters? We know it’s a karate movie: Jackie
fucking Chan is in it.
CAP: Karate is Japanese, Bean.
BEAN: Well then obviously all these
Jackie Chan movies have taught me nothing.
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
BEAN: Teenage dream, Elijah Wood.
CAP: You could have told me he was 15
or 50 years old and I would have entirely believed you.
BEAN: Did you really need this
glamorous close-up poster of young Eli to sell us the final entry of your movie
series that we have already invested a dozen hours watching, Peter Jackson?
CAP: Of course he did, Bean! Elijah
Wood is the fucking draw!
Major Payne
BEAN: Well, this is just creepy as all
hell.
CAP: Why are these cadets wearing
forest camo? Is their academy on the border of Cambodia?
BEAN: That kid is shocked because he
sees a surprise Vietcong bayonet charge barrelling right into the heart of
their totally unprotected school.
CAP: “Good God! Why did we think kids
could adequately guard a military base on the front lines?!”
Dreamer
Dreamer
CAP: A lot of hard working Americans went through a lot of trouble waiting for the perfect sunrise and training a horse to carry a
backpack around, and the designer can’t even be bothered to change the title
font from “Times New Roman”.
BEAN: What does “inspired by a true
story” even mean anymore? Has it been proven that people give more of a shit if
the events have a remote basis in reality?
CAP: I promise you, there is nothing
Dakota Fanning or an actual real horse can do to make me feel the profound
sadness that some 100% fictional toys made me feel when they were slowly descending to their fiery deaths.
The Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm
BEAN: Ahhh! What the hell?!
CAP: Agreed.
BEAN: Well, nightmares here I come.
CAP: Is this some sort of
interpretation of a Brothers Grimm tale? See, I wouldn’t know since I like most
of America have not read any Brothers Grimm tale, which is something the studio
should have considered before spending tens of millions of dollars on it.
BEAN: Was Matt Damon really in this
movie? Jesus, I am old.
A Man Apart
A Man Apart
CAP: Larenz Tate’s name looks like it’s
the French translation of the movie’s title or something because of the way it’s
positioned alone under the actual film title.
BEAN: Seriously. Was there no one else
in this movie that they could use to fill out the rest of the poster’s cast
listing? Is this movie a tale about Vin Diesel fighting Larenz Tate in some
sort of post-apocalyptic last-man-on-Earth setting?
CAP: “It’s time for the battle you’ve
all been waiting for: Domenic Toretto versus the guy who played Quincy Jones in
Ray.”
BEAN: Quincy Jones wins hands down. The
dude produced Thriller!
Hot Shots! Part Deux
Hot Shots! Part Deux
BEAN: Goddamnit! How the hell do we ridicule a parody movie poster? It's like insulting a clown. Absorbing abuse is its whole reason of existence!
CAP: I like the sweet helicopter in the background. It's like the designer thought that the giant pillar of fire wasn't an exciting enough background.
BEAN: I wonder what feelings Charlie Sheen's badly photoshopped face is trying to express? I would love to see the rest of the original photo, which could be anything ranging from him trying to solve a complex mathematical formula to him ordering a cheeseburger.
All poster images taken from Movieposter.com.
