Carry-On

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler, Theo Rossi, Logan Marshall-Green, Dean Norris, Sinqua Walls, Curtiss Cook, Josh Brener
Running Time: 119 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

There's a scene in Jaume Collet-Serra's action thriller Carry-On where a case passes through airport security as a scan of its deadly contents appear in front of the shocked, panicked protagonist's screen. Scary newspaper clippings flash in our faces while he helplessly watches this weapon of mass destruction move down the conveyor belt. It's just one of the many entertaining and suspenseful moments in a plot best described as Die Hard meets Phone Booth meets the director's own Non-Stop. 

Whether this holds up on repeated viewings is almost beside the point since you'll have enough of a blast watching it once, as an unlikely hero squares off against a ruthless antagonist who thinks he has him wrapped around his finger. And by calmly exploiting this blackmailed airline employee's weaknesses to produce the vicious outcome he's hired for, he'll casually write off any potential deaths as collateral damage. Assessing his hostage is a loser who lacks motivation, he'll underestimate him, discovering that you really can't count on what someone will do in a perilous situation. The result is a cat-and-mouse battle of contingency plans and last minute improvisation, with both men maneuvering to gain the upper hand.

After failing to make the police academy, unambitious TSA agent Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) is going through the motions at LAX while his pregnant girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson) holds an upper management position for the airline. Arriving late on Christmas Eve, Ethan requests supervising the baggage scan lane usually overseen by friend and colleague Jason (Sinqua Walls) in an effort to show gruff supervisor Phil (Dean Norris) he deserves a promotion. But this switch puts Ethan in the crosshairs of The Traveler, a nameless mercenary who leaves him an earbud to receive his instructions.

Ethan's informed by The Traveler that if he doesn't let a specific carry-on case pass through the scanner, Nora gets killed, leaving him with few options. Lounging in the terminal, this mercenary sees everything and communicates with a sniper, The Watcher (Theo Rossi), who's monitoring Ethan's every move, ready the pull the trigger on anyone at a moment's notice. Meanwhile, LAPD detective Elena Cole (Danielle Deadwyler) is tying a double homicide committed by The Traveler to a tip about an airline threat, but faces bureaucratic resistance from Homeland Security. Torn between saving Nora or the lives of these passengers, Ethan will have to dig deep to somehow outsmart this sociopath before it's too late.

Considerable tension builds to how, when and by what means this mystery case will arrive in line and whether Ethan will wave it through, sacrificing hundreds of passengers' lives for Nora's. With The Traveler lurking and conversationally feeding demands into his ear, Ethan needs to stay calm and cooperative, all while subtly sending out distress signals for help. But The Traveler's a step ahead, emphasizing he's no terrorist, but a "facilitator" whose services are retained at the highest price by only the most dangerous criminals. For him, it's just another day at the office.

Egerton sketches out this portrait of a guy who's thrown in the towel, but knows he has to move up the ladder with a baby now on the way. More established in her career, Sofia Carson's Nora displays the patience of a saint, gently nudging him not to give up on his dream of joining the police force. It's a derailed goal we'll eventually get more details about, at least when Ethan isn't dusting off his track skills to frantically rush through the terminal. 

While it's not exactly fair to say Bateman's breaking type after already proving how much he can do, this is probably one of his bigger leaps to the dark side. He's still employing his dry comedic sarcasm, only now as a methodical killer whose conscience is clear of all moral responsibility. Characters like this have almost become an action cliché, but watching Bateman do it packs an extra punch since his trustworthy, everyman screen presence makes the underlying psychology of these scenes play differently than they otherwise would.

It takes a bit before Ethan actually comes face-to-face with Bateman's Traveler, who inconspicuously blends into the crowd with his black baseball cap and down jacket. But all hell breaks loose when that case arrives and the twists and turns start coming, like the addition of another major player, luggage tracker confusion, a thrillingly shot freeway fight and one of the more creative death scenes we've seen in a while.

Much of T.J. Fixman's script is built on characters remaining a step or two ahead as the story zigs and zags in increasingly improbable ways. But we're all in since Collet-Serra keeps things moving at a breakneck pace while the performances only further elevate it. What we're left with easily exceeds your typical Netflix action offerings, utilizing an inspired concept to successfully channel the movies it takes inspiration from.                                           

Here

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, Michelle Dockery, Gwilym Lee, Ophelia Lovibond, David Fynn, Daniel Betts, Joel Oulette, Dannie McCallum, Nicholas Pinnock, Nikki Amuka-Bird
Running Time: 104 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 

It's safe to say that among universally beloved filmmakers, Robert Zemeckis' recent career trajectory might sting the most, with 2012's Flight frequently cited as the last real success. Because of this, he joins a long list of great directors who discovered their fiercest competition is themselves, or more accurately, their most remembered work. And while holding nothing against Forrest Gump or the idea of its stars reuniting, we all know Back to the Future will always be the first title everyone associates with Zemeckis. So it's ironic that even when again engulfing himself in cinematic technology, his latest, Here, marks a return to those roots by revolving around a similar theme. 

Based on Richard McGuire's 2014 graphic novel of the same name, the non-linear film takes place in a single location, simultaneously tracking its various inhabitants over different eras. And if it's disheartening to see something this experimentally ambitious get unfairly clobbered by critics and audiences, there's at least an explanation. It's that Zemeckis' current track record and a trailer filled with jarring, out-of-context shots of a de-aged Tom Hanks and Robin Wright caused many to declare it dead on arrival before viewing a single scene.

In a perfect world, Zemeckis could have utilized practical effects and makeup to film this directly following Gump, only substituting McGuire's original 1989 comic as its source. But after watching it, the best news is that the result wouldn't necessarily be better, with this standing as the first of his modern films where the effects mostly inform its story, quelling fears of another Polar Express or Beowulf. Employing a fixed camera angle, we're granted unlimited entry into the victories and disappointments of life, spanning from when dinosaurs roamed the Earth to present day. Characters are born, they die and the cycle repeats, but what happens in between is where Zemeckis and co-writer Eric Roth create flashes of magic. 

Taking place entirely within the confines of a New England home that was formerly a part of Benjamin Franklin's son's estate, John Harter (Gwilym Lee) and his wife Pauline (Michelle Dockery) move in shortly after its construction at the turn of the 20th century. They'll have a daughter, but his obsession with piloting planes causes a strain on their marriage that may prove insurmountable. Future inhabitants of the house include eccentric La-Z-Boy recliner inventer Leo Beekman (David Fynn) and his pin-up model wife Stella (Ophelia Lovibond) and married couple Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose Young (Kelly Reilly), who purchase the property following World War II. 

The Youngs raise their three children in the suburban home until 18-year-old son Richard's (Hanks) girlfriend Margaret (Wright) becomes pregnant with daughter Vanessa. As both generations attempt to co-exist under the same roof, Richard makes personal sacrifices to support his family while Margaret grows antsier for them to move out and start a life of their own. Various triumphs and tragedies occur, along with smaller moments that grow in importance for both as they drift apart and age, forever linked by their shared experiences and memories.

While none of the events take place in what we'd strictly consider chronological order, Zemeckis alternates between periods and characters for the first 45 minutes or so before spending the bulk of his time on Richard and Margaret. He also employs these boxes or comic book-like panels on screen to signal shifts between time periods within this living room and dissolve into another scene. It's initially jarring, but after a while you just settle in, grasping its larger purpose as the separate segments play out. 

For all the de-aging complaints, this attempt is more cleanly executed than in 2019's The Irishman, the latest Indiana Jones and even some of Disney's latest Star Wars offerings. And that's coming from someone who's no fan of the approach and thinks we're still years away from being able to rely on it to such an extreme. But having actors of this high a caliber tackling an ingenious conceit softens that blow considerably, relegating the only lackluster digitization to opening CGI shots of nature, dinosaurs and deer. 

Luckily, we get into the house quickly, and despite the fixed camera angle throughout, it never feels as if we're merely watching a filmed stage play. Characters come in and out of the frame while Zemeckis crafts some clever transitions that bridge the gap between eras, like an inspired cut from colonial times to a current day Mayflower moving truck. And while Ashley Lamont's production design for the living space has to span decades, it's filled with rich, precise period detail that joins Alan Silvestri elegiac score in supplementing a script that hops back and forth between years, often within minutes. 

There comes a point almost midway through where any justifiable skepticism disappears, resulting in not only the film's strongest stretch, but the kind of storytelling we hoped Zemeckis still had in him. And all of that begins and ends with the Youngs, as we see Hanks' Richard abandon his early painting passion for a more monetarily stable sales job to support his family. This while Margaret also puts her law aspirations on hold, desperately wanting for them to move out despite all his financial excuses not to.

Hanks and Wright are again extraordinary together as a couple frustrated by an inability to reach their respective potentials due to a combination of fear, gender expectations and monetary realities. Unfairly labeled by detractors as a schmaltzy, life affirming fable, the film's more accurately viewed as the slow decay of the American dream with two generations battling to deal with the hands they're dealt. And hanging over it all is the familiar specter of illness and death, like in one scary scene where a friend face plants on the floor following a fatal heart attack. 

As Richard, Hanks creating a complicated portrait of an everyman whose fear of moving past childhood keeps them in this house, even remarking at one point that he actually thought his constant worrying would stop bad things from happening. And though Wright imbues Margaret with a glowing, youthful optimism, that too will gradually fade under the weight of insecurity and societal pressures, leaving her to find the joy in tinier, seemingly throwaway moments that will grow monumental in retrospect.

Paul Bettany gives the film's best performance as Al Young, a flawed, cynical war veteran with a rock hard exterior that seems impossible to crack, making it easy to see how his stubborn traits influence and even traumatize son Richard when he starts a family of his own. Very much a product of his era, Al drowns his pain with booze and smoking while keeping a firm, overprotective grip on Kelly Reilly's Rose who, like Margaret, put her own goals on the backburner.

As Rose and Al advances in age to the point that his son and daughter-in-law become their caretakers, Bettany's turn grows even more interesting, displaying a vulnerability that provides valuable insight and justification into his more prickly behavior. And of everyone, Zemeckis really hits it out of the park with this character's visual presentation, believably aging him on screen from a young man in his twenties to an ailing senior citizen.

Despite feeling epic in scope, the film clocks in at just over an hour and a half, carried by Jesse Goldsmith's seamless editing and the fact Zemeckis moves so fast, with years and decades passing in the blink of an eye to replicate the experiences of these characters. As time flies, we're transported to the near-present where the home's latest occupants Helen (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Devon Harris (Nicholas Pinnock) confront the issue of police violence and deal with the COVID pandemic. Inevitably, side stories like that, the The Franklin vignettes and a subplot involving Indigenous Native Americans receive less attention due to the unusual structure. But while the overall narrative may lack the unity of The Tree of Life, it's still hard to complain when so many of its scenes still manage to  powerfully register.

If nothing else, Here is a brutally honest, unapologetically melodramatic look at the passage of time that uses its unique, experimental single location narrative to magnify the minutia of human experience. It's not for everyone, but even those who consider it a failure would be forced to admit Zemeckis takes a huge risk in giving audiences this much to unpack. With a format that practically invites repeated viewings and reevaluation, it'll be fascinating to gauge how it ages once the vitriol dies down, leaving us to appreciate the reality we at least have a director bold enough to try.                    

It Ends With Us

Director: Justin Baldoni
Starring: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar, Isabel Ferrer, Alex Neustaedter, Hasan Minhaj, Kevin McKidd, Amy Morton, Robert Clohessy, Robyn Lively, Emily Baldoni
Running Time: 130 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Lies, manipulation, abuse, trauma, harassment. Right now, everyone's associating those words with what's alleged to have happened on the set of Justin Baldoni's It Ends with Us, but it may as well describe the film's entire plot. So even if reports of troubled productions can blur the lines between fiction and reality, the best news coming out of this is that viewers just catching up now are still in store for an untainted experience.  

Before its commercial success or details of a feud between its two stars leaked, this adaptation of Colleen Hoover's 2016 bestselling novel was basically marketed as a Hallmark movie on steroids. And while the description sort of fits, it also simultaneously proves to be a bit smarter and more tonally consistent than expected. 

In one sense, the heavily scrutinized Baldoni reveals himself an even better director than actor, which  says something considering his performance really lands. And despite her status as the project's most established name, this might mark the first time Blake Lively's called upon to lead a drama this emotionally taxing. It's a bigger test than you'd assume, with a script that addresses domestic abuse and generational trauma through a surprisingly honest lens, navigating some tricky narrative terrain in the process. 

After delivering her father's eulogy at his funeral in Maine, Lily Bloom (Lively) returns home to Boston where she randomly encounters neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni) on the rooftop of his apartment complex. After talking and flirting, he's called in for surgery as they go their separate ways, reuniting when Lily coincidentally hires his sister Allysa (Jenny Slate) to work at her just opened flower shop. As Lily befriends Allysa, she unsuccessfully fights her growing feelings for Ryle, who's already infatuated with his sister's new boss. 

Ignoring Allysa's warnings that Ryle's a serial womanizer incapable of having a real relationship, Lily begins dating him, but after a euphoric start for both, his jealousy and anger bubble to the surface as Lily's high school boyfriend and current restaurateur Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar) unexpectedly reappears. Haunted by the memories of being raised in a household filled with physical abuse, Lily must find the strength to break the cycle and forge a path of her own. 

When florist Lily Bloom is the least pretentiously named character in your script, it's a safe bet they'll be challenges translating certain elements of Hoover's novel to the screen, but Baldoni and writer Christy Hall find creative solutions around this and other creative shackles involving the timeline. That the two leads mock the absurdity of their situations in the introductory rooftop scene help fend off potential criticisms, shrewdly establishing Lily and Ryle's awkward but palpable chemistry. And Baldoni walks a razor thin line, initially coming off smooth enough that Lily doesn't look gullible being drawn in, even when this guy's sending up red flags that he's trouble.

A red-haired Lively is in full hippie earth mother mode as Lily, carrying many of the tougher scenes as a free spirit who's internalized her own mom's (Amy Morton) abuse only to later relive it as an adult. As Ryle's fits of rage escalate, each succeeding incident seeming less an accident than a disturbing pattern, eventually reaching a boiling point. But it's the reemergence of Lily's first love Atlas that completely sends him over the edge, exposing her to a dangerous situation she's been conditioned to accept.

It's to the film's benefit that the characters are aged up from the novel, enabling memorably pertinent flashbacks to Lily's past, which in many ways surpass the present day storyline. Much of that's due to the performances, especially from newcomer Isabel Ferrer as Lily, who not only looks and sounds like a younger Lively, but conveys all the fear, uncertainty and excitement that accompanies the adolescent pangs of teen love. 

Even with far fewer scenes, the movie belongs as much to Ferrer as Lively, potentially signaling the arrival of a major new star. Seeing Lily witness her dad's (Kevin McKidd) heinous actions tells us everything we need to know about how she'll still internalize what happened decades later, bringing a purpose and clarity to the flashback structure that other films in this genre frequently lack. 

As younger Atlas, Alex Neustaedter fulfills his end of the deal as a quiet, withdrawn homeless teen rescued by Lily, but not without devastating consequences that lay the foundation for Sklenar's adult take on the character. These flashbacks work so well that there's actually a twinge of disappointment when they end, knowing we'll be stuck with their older, less intriguing counterparts for the remainder. But Baldoni ultimately overcomes this with a satisfying third act that tie those threads together, setting the stage for Atlas to instill in Lily a belief she's capable of saving herself.

One of the best written scenes involves Allysa's reaction to her brother's behavior, as a lesser movie would have this character lash out, insulted by the idea of choosing between her best friend and sibling. What she says instead indicates just how lost a cause Ryle truly is, implying tormentors like him are permanently broken, tainted by an event so traumatizing that the only thing left to do is run far away from them.  

Craftily juggling two timelines, the film avoids romanticizing the serious issue at its center or coming across as a heavy handed public announcement. That's not to say it has a particularly light touch either, but Baldoni knows what he's doing, even if the chances of he and Lively reuniting for any kind of sequel are non-existent. 

With an inevitable legal battle looming over rights to Hoover's follow-up novel, you do have to wonder what part of the story is left to tell after a conclusion this unambiguous. While any forthcoming entry is obviously more dependent on Lively's involvement than his, what we get here feels like just enough, written, acted and directed as well as it could possibly be given the material.                              

The Best (and Worst) Movie Posters of 2024

After a multi-year dry spell where singling out ten picks worthy of the upper echelon proved challenging, 2024 marked somewhat of a comeback for the movie poster. While there's no shortage of great designs every 12 months and the form is never in danger of extinction, some years are just stronger than others. This was a very good one, with the winning poster being fairly obvious early on as the rest fell into place with minimal second guessing. 

Some of those told us everything we needed in a single image when others left more to the imagination, daring us to see the final product and fill in the blanks. The examples below suggest both approaches work, even if keeping it simple and uncomplicated still stands as the golden rule. Messy, chaotic posters can always slip through, but there's usually a method to the madness with those that mirror the film's themes or stylistic approach. 

The most alarming development in this year's crop is found on the Worst list, which features a greater number of high profile, award contending releases to go along with the more predictable dreck we're accustomed to. It might also mark the first time a Nicolas Cage picture doesn't crack either list, but that wasn't from my lack of trying. A few unofficial, alternate designs did sneak in, but none managed to crack the top tier. As usual, only posters dropped during the calendar year qualify, regardless of the film's expected release date. The ten best are below, followed by the alphabetically listed runners-up and worst lists. But you know the drill. Here they are:              

The Best...

10. Strange Darling

There were more predictable routes B O N D design could have taken with their teaser for JT Mollner's critically acclaimed cat-and-mouse thriller Strange Darling, such as the film's opening scene of "Lady" desperately running across the field in her red scrubs. And although we got that anyway, this takes a cue from the film itself by going in a totally different direction with an eye-catching, hot pink and black one-sheet featuring Willa Fitzgerald's unnamed lead.

Highly stylized, it looks concocted by a committee intended to target more mainstream audiences, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The pink hair, "Love Hurts" tagline and an incandescent glow emanating from her against that dark background gives this a transfixing blacklight effect. But the best detail might be those two silouettes of the main characters incorporated into the title treatment. There's a similarly themed alternate design below that's impressive in its own right, but this one's operating on another level.          

9. Mother Couch

This is another standout from Polish poster designer Andrew Walijewski, again for a film with a highly bizarre concept, as three adult children are brought together when their mother refuses to move from a couch in a furniture store. Yes, really. The image definitely fits, as the side of Ewan McGregor's face is peeled off to reveal a seated, blindfolded Ellen Burstyn pouring out as a flood of water washes the couch away. Odd, but mesmerizing, you can't help but focus on that hand emerging from the bottom to rescue her.

The red background was an ideal choice, with the title and credits carefully placed, freeing up a large amount of negative space that enables the illustration to just absurdly hang there in the middle of the page. The crudely scribbled Mother Couch title font must have been a consciously creative choice, but I'd still be curious to know the full intention behind it. Either way, weirdness at its best.

8. Notice to Quit

This extraordinary set of posters for the comedy Notice To Quit sees failed actor turned New York City realtor Andy (Michael Zegen) at the end of his rope, tie, cord and apartment key when his estranged 10-year-old daughter Anna (Kasey Bella Suarez) shows up as he's evicted. The Fable Agency's illustrations harken back to a concept that's inexplicably fallen by the wayside, wherein a series of similarly themed designs visually convey a film's unifying concept. In this case, that idea is an overwhelmed protagonist being pulled in just about every direction. 

The consistent title treatment, cream color scheme, related taglines and burgundy border give all of these a clean, classy look, but the true standout are these illustrations. Whether it's a disheveled Andy falling off the poster while hanging from the phone cord, getting caught in a literal whirlwind as his life blows away, or the most ingenious of the bunch showing him teetering on the edge with that NYC landscape forming the key's teeth. Clever.

7. The Featherweight

You have to do a double take after seeing Sister Hyde's one-sheet for Robert Kolodny's 1964 set boxing biopic The Featherweight, which effectively sells the film as having been released in that year. If this level of authenticity is at work with the advertising, it makes the mind race about the movie, which looks as if it must be a love letter to sports nostalgia based on this imagery. Genuine enough to succeed as far more than just an homage, we get quotes around the title, a throwback color scheme, and a great old school tag line ("Willie Pep Has Had 231 Fights. What's One More?"). 

Pep out front in full fighting stance atop the bold title treatment reinforces just how easily this brilliant collage work could have ended up as a photoshop nightmare with less skilled execution. What we ultimately get is a poster that wouldn't look out of place lit up in a theater lobby or hanging on the wall of a local boxing gym in the '60's. Maybe more than any other entry on the list, this generates real interest in what the film is, regardless of its quality.    

6. Rumours

According to its synopsis, Rumours centers around "leaders of seven wealthy democracies getting lost in the woods while drafting a statement on a global crisis, facing danger as they attempt to find their way out " The premise seems intriguing enough and Walijewski employs a dark, twisted visual metaphor for this horror/sci-fi political satire. Featuring the G7 members all squeezed together between those columns while sharing a single burning brain, the implications are pretty obvious, but spectacular nonetheless. 

Here's another excellent use of that pink and black color combo, with bonus points for a three dimensional title. While the cast alone makes it a must-see, it's tough to recall a poster as creative in incorporating all its characters into this insane a design. As far from your standard floating heads approach as it gets, this feels like a poster that will probably maintain a longer shelf life than the film. In fact, it's safe to say it already has.      

5. Late Night with the Devil

 

 

Late Night with the Devil's gripping set of posters each reflect somewhat differing takes on the film's traumatic events that unfold over the course of a live, late night television talk show in 1977. Creepy Duck Design's initial teaser puts David Dastmalchian's embattled Night Owls host Jack Delroy front and center amidst a blue glow, flames engulfing his feet as he stares into the abyss, giving off some major Pink Floyd vibes. 

While this design channels the found footage thriller's 70's aesthetic with a retro title treatment, over-the-top tagline and tan border, the character boxes on the bottom serve as a once identifiable staple of the era's big event posters. Having the corresponding actors' names under each box would have been better, but considering the amount of credits they had to jam in, it gets a pass. 

P+A's one-sheet further builds on the concept, as Delroy's head is replaced by a raging fire, creating an unsettling image heightened by the host striking an introductory pose in his leisure suit. The bright red typography stands out, to the point that it doesn't even matter that they jammed all those tiny credits below the title. And the "Do not adjust your set." tagline on the bottom right cuts straight to the point.

That last design by Sister Hyde is obviously a riff on the classic Network art, but it's a good one and they undoubtedly picked the right film to pay homage to in terms of theme, content and time period. For a spoof, it's kind of astounding how good it looks, especially the black, white and red color scheme. Complete with horns and a devil's tail emerging from the TV, it's effectively subtle while marking a complete 180 from the others.

4. The Apprentice           

Speaking of horror movies, Ali Abbasi's woefully underappreciated, surprisingly complex Donald Trump origin story The Apprentice had a variety of options to draw from given its controversial subject. And yet poster artist Danni Riddertoft manages to exceed expectations of audiences either anticipating or dreading a film that recounts the future President's younger days as pupil to venomous prosecutor Roy Cohn. 

It's ironically fitting that a poster so effective at conveying the film's themes of manipulation and artificiality came under some attack for allegedly utilizing AI. True or not, the end result speaks for itself with a strong, striking image of Sebastian Stan's Trump smugly sits atop his golden throne while Jeremy Strong's heavily tanned Cohn presides over him as puppet master, staring a hole right through us. 

The phone, that tiny flag and of course Maria Bakalova's Ivana decked out as the Statue of Liberty converge to create the kind of garish, ornate souvenir that wouldn't look out of place on Trump's own desk. With the exception of the Donald's trademark red tie, Ivana's face and Cohn himself, it's all gold everywhere since there's no color more closely associated with New York City's emerging real estate magnate. And the title treatment is perfect, stylized in a gold neon light that just screams Trump. Is it all too much? Of course, but that's precisely the point.          

3. Skincare

GrandSon's one-sheet for Austin Peters' crime thriller Skincare features a staggering visual concept, as Elizabeth Banks' famous aesthetician Hope Goldman wipes the makeup off her face and the poster. It also makes exceptional use of a black background, drawing this quizzical line between what's revealed and concealed as makeup drips from her eyes. And in flawlessly utilizing negative space, the designers resist the urge to fill the top and bottom with credits, instead unobtrusively condensing everything to the image's right. 

Pink and black proves again to be an unbeatable combination, along with an explosively retro title font that looks like it came straight out of the 80's. Giving the appearance of bright lipstick smeared across a mirror, it's ideally formatted to replicate a high end cosmetics ad you'd find in a magazine, only slicker. The movie may be set in 2013 rather than 1986, but who cares? When something works this well you just go with it. And that tagline, "It's Just A Little Cover-up," is a witty play on both the cosmetics and criminal plot elements. In a less competitive year, this poster could have taken the top spot.

2. Saturday Night     

Jack Davis' classic one-sheets for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and The Bad News Bears, Phil Roberts' work for 1999's Detroit Rock City, or even Mark Stutzman's design for 2019's Echo in the Canyon seem to be the obvious inspiration for this cartoonishly chaotic Saturday Night poster. While incorporating a large sprawling cast of colorful characters into one crazy, all encompassing illustration isn't new, it's still one of those concepts that make you smile whenever it pops up. And especially if the film really warrants it, like with Jason Reitman's biographical account of the frantic minutes leading into Saturday Night Live's 1975 premiere. 

The movie's premise cries out for this treatment and BLT Communications responds with the best recent version of this style we've seen in years, as Gabrielle LaBelle's Lorne Michaels literally carries his then unknown troupe of SNL players on his back. The caricatures aren't just dead-on depictions, but entertainingly identifiable with their on screen versions, making for a fun "Where's Waldo?" game of spot the star. In scanning the page for Radner, Chase, Aykroyd, Curtin and others, smaller details stand out, like a bumble bee clad Belushi's grimace or the small clock reminding us what the cast and crew are racing against. It couldn't have been easy capturing the film's frenetic energy, but does this ever get the job done.             

1. Woman of the Hour

Doubling as a vintage paperback cover, P+A's poster for Anna Kendrick's directorial debut, Woman of the Hour is as oddly compelling as the crime thriller itself. When aspiring actress Sheryl Bradshaw's (Kendrick) 1978 appearance on TV's The Dating Game brings her face-to-face with prolific serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), the circumstances and overall attitude of the times lend an inevitability to what occurs. And that's all encapsulated in this striking poster that feels ripped from the era this film takes place, with Sheryl's profile appearing in silhouette against a bright orange background, converging to create a haunting effect that eerily resembles a charcoal drawing or ink blot painting. 

Since orange isn't a color typically used to this extent, its presence only bolsters the retro feel, as does that synopsis right below her eye, calling back to a time when those elaborate descriptions seemed commonplace in movie advertising. And in keeping with the throwback aesthetic, we get an awesomely stylized 70's title font, along with a white border to frame off the image's rounded corners. But what really sends this design over the top is Sheryl's eye, or rather Alcala's shadowy silhouette embedded in her bright, heart shaped pupil. Netflix's more accessible poster for the film was completely pedestrian, but this is art.                 

 

Runners-Up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And The Worst...

 

Its title might be The Amateur, but did the marketing department really need to take that idea so literally. Even if amateurish is probably preferable to the bland slickness of Rami Malik...looking over his shoulder. With the steel blue titling, this kind of resembles a Christopher Nolan poster, if it lacked a soul.  

Welcome back Cameron. But I'll guess it wasn't the promise of this poster that coaxed you out of acting retirement. While probably not the comeback vehicle most had in mind, this is about as prototypical a Netflix poster as it gets. The tagline isn't bad though.   

I'm all for subtlety and minimalism, but really? At first glance you'd swear from the color and its hoity toity title that this must be Sofia Coppola's latest. But no, it's "A New Kind of Love Story From The Creators of Barbarian." So maybe we can reserve judgment. Still, if you're not ready to give us the actual poster yet, it never hurts to just hold off.

One of the most acclaimed films of the year and a locked Best Picture nominee gets this. Maybe they figured the movie's so good that it doesn't matter. Floating heads in a cross, generically ill-placed title treatment, photoshopped backgrounds and nearly invisible credits. Luckily, Oscars aren't given for marketing. 

As far as extreme close-ups go, this definitely isn't the worst offender we've seen and there's an attempt to add some color with the credits, but what a terrible route to go for a film as daringly different as Emilia Pérez. At least most expected a staid, conventional one-sheet for something like Conclave, The foreign version is better.    

There are a bunch of bad variations on this Fly Me to the Moon poster, but something about this one is particularly awful. Take a choice between the obvious photoshopping, horrendous background cropping or whatever they were trying to do with the title. And Channing Tatum appears to be missing a leg. In all fairness, it's the kind of design most expected the movie to get. But that doesn't make it any better. 

Say what you will about the reception to Robert Zemeckis' Here, but a concept ambitious enough to span decades and generations in a single location deserves better poster treatment than this, especially when its source is an acclaimed graphic novel. It looks almost exactly like those generic inserts you find in newly purchased photo frames, even right down to the sappy tagline. For a second there, I thought they used the Forrest Gump font for Hanks and Wright's names, which would have been a cool touch. It's close, but not quite.          

 

Anyone wanting a rundown of Steven Soderbergh's filmography can check imdb or this poster for his upcoming Presence. You can vaguely see what they were aiming for, but light gray over black, or even worse, light gray over light gray, aren't exactly color combinations ideal for...reading. I guess that's supposed to be a blurred face in the background. Just an awful conceit, and one that completely obscures the film's title for the sake of list making.   

Nothing against Ronald Reagan, or even Dennis Quaid, who gave one of my favorite supporting performances of the year in The Substance. But unfortunately he appears to be buried under more prosthetics as the 40th President than either of his co-stars in that film. So of course we get an enormous close-up of his face along with a fake aurora borealis-like skyline serving as backdrop. The slapped on white typeface is the final sign they've thrown in the towel, or ran out of money.

It's a good thing Saturday Night got that illustrated beauty of a poster above since this early version is basically a worst case scenario. The inspiration is clearly SNL's opening credits but it just doesn't work at all in this context since movie posters should always show rather than tell. This tells us a whole lot of nothing by plastering every inch of the page with words. 

 

No, none of these actors are ugly, but this layout sure is. And it's time to take back that assertion that the Back in Action poster represented Netflix's trademark design. This does. A photoshopped cast awkwardly positioned on the page with white typeface across the bottom, as if vomited out by their algorithm. Just seeing this image as a thumbnail would qualify the title as an immediate skip.