The Best (and Worst) Movie Posters of 2012

While I wouldn't be that quick to declare 2012 a banner year for movie posters or even movies in general, what was good happened to be excellent. And as usual, there tends to be a direct correlation between a film's quality and the print advertising behind it. It can hardly be called a coincidence that some of the year's best films resulted in the strongest posters and vice versa, proving that when a studio chooses to get behind a movie or not, their commitment (or lack thereof) is almost always reflected in the print advertising. As a general rule, simple, clean, but visually striking designs always seem to fare best. Give them enough to get them interested, but not too much. So, with that in mind, let's get to it.

The Best...

10. Wreck-It Ralph

It would seem an 8-bit image would be the only way to go in teasing a movie about a videogame character but that still doesn't make it any less effective. This was the initial teaser for Wreck-It Ralph and no others seem necessary. It gets the point across loud and clear, and even if you had no idea what the movie is, an angry 80's retro gaming face is just about the best way to get kids (and probably some young adults) interested. It also doesn't hurt that it just looks cool.

9. Casa De Mi Padre

It seems like ages since Will Ferrell's starred in a truly hilarious film and I have no idea if this is one or not, but the one-sheet stands as a great example of why an artist's (in this case the great Akiko Stehrenberger) brush always trumps photoshop. Some probably can't stand that folded, retro worn look so many posters are adapting these days, but I'm not one of them. It definitely fits here. Trying to make this look like a Spanish epic or Spaghetti Western poster was unquestionably the right move. And it actually kind of succeeds in making me want to see this, which is no small feat. 

8. Django Unchained

We could have a whole discussion about how this minimalistic Saul Bass-inspired design is being done to death, but the reason it's being done to death is because it works. The bright red, the chain and two silouettes gets the job done. It helps that you have a film that basically sells itself by just the name of the director attached. A messy, cluttered cast poster would have been a huge mistake and the advertising department deserves credit for realizing it. You'd expect to see this hanging on someone's wall rather than in a movie theater, which is the hallmark of a great design.


7. Moonrise Kingdom

Could this one-sheet have possibly captured the visual scheme of Moonrise Kingdom (or basically any film written or directed by Wes Anderson) any better? Yeah sure I know it's really wordy but that cursive font just adds to the storybook look and feel. This could easily BE the cover of any of those books Suzy brought on her getaway with Sam.

 
6. V/H/S

It's always fun when a poster can say two things with a single image and still have it look good in the process. Glancing at it once isn't enough as you almost have to do a double take to see the skull. Or maybe you saw the skull first before realizing they were tapes. Either way, considering V/H/S/ is a low budget, found-footage anthology horror film, I'd say this sells the movie as well as possible.


5. Zero Dark Thirty

Talk about risky. This might be the first instance of a movie's poster redacting its title, but it's hard to deny the creative experiment wasn't a success in generating interest and mystery, not to mention tying into the actual film. It is a teaser but that there isn't a single star shown or director mentioned when they had plenty to brag about is an unusual show of restraint in this era of over-the-top marketing. Only the web site is completely visible and I'm willing to bet traffic's been busy.  


4. Looper (American and French Versions)

My most anticipated film of the year, which I'm still waiting on pins and needles to finally see, had two of the year's best one-sheets. While I slightly prefer the Drew Struzan-inspired French version both are equally impressive and artistic in their own way, with one emphasizing the time travel duality theme with mirror images of JGL and Willis, while the other is all about the action.

3. Killing Them Softly

It may have had the worst title of the year and bombed hard at the box office, but at least Killing Them Softly produced some great posters (also see below). This one's the best. It may not tell you anything other than it'll be be a murderous splatterfest but that suffices when the visual scheme is this arresting. Great mix of colors and you have to respect any poster designer with the guts to shoot Lady Liberty through the head.      


2. The Cabin in The Woods

It isn't often you see a modern movie poster incorporate or pay homage to a classic work of art, then somehow manage to do it in a way that's not only looks original and inspired, but directly relates to the film in question. I may have been less enthusiastic than most in my assessment of Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods but I couldn't possibly be more enthusiastic about this print by Phantom City Creative, a clever take-off of MC Escher's "Staircase." In both idea and execution it's almost as clever as the famous piece that inspired it. 


1. The Master (American, French and Turkish versions)

The toughest sell of the year resulted in what was easily 2012's most fascinating and brilliantly conceived set of posters. If I had to pick the American wine bottle teaser would be my favorite if only because, much like the film itself, we've never seen anything exactly like that before. It's just such a rich looking, "half-full, half- empty" image that tells us both everything and nothing about the movie at the same time, while effectively conveying the film's seafaring setting. Both The French and Turkish versions work as neat visual plays on the infamous Rorschach test Joaquin Phoenix's troubled Freddie Quell undergoes, with the evil eyes and mirror reflection of the typography highlighting the former. The latter features more dual imagery, accompanied by some incredible inkblotted artwork of the three stars. There was a black and white version (see below), but for some reason the color print just works better and jumps out at you more. Arguably the year's finest film, The Master was way too challenging to cultivate more than a cult (no pun intended) following, and the best thing about these designs are how well they reflect that challenging sensibility, avoiding the temptation of selling this as something it wasn't.        

Runners-Up...

 

And The Worst...

Don't ever cross Alex Cross because he's Alex Cross and you shouldn't cross him. Get it? It's his name!

Look familar? You know a poster's in trouble when even two Amanda Seyfrieds can't save it.

Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise in Tom Cruise: Cruise Control.

You might remember Vince Vaughn from his starring roles on TV's Dawson's Creek and Fringe. Hey...wait.  If this atrocity of a poster is any indication, Joshua Jackson is probably be grateful he was credited as someone else. Likewise, Vaughn is probably grateful he wasn't pictured.

Is this busy or what? I never thought I'd feel nostalgic for a Schwarzenegger poster but now here's another area where the original's starting to look better and better. Great shot of Beckinsale though.

It's a shame because the alternate poster for this is kind of over-the-top cool in all the ways this isn't. With this much fire you'd think it was a sequel to Backdraft.

                                                                                        Taken 3 starring Nicolas Cage

For such a high-profile release the entire series of Hunger Games posters sure were lazy and underwhelming. But those ridiculous hanging portraits put this one over the top.  

Well, at least it's over. We'll never have to look at another one of these again.

No one would argue John Goodman is the man and deserves to be on a great character poster, especially considering the film itself is fantastic. But boy is this silly looking. I can only imagine what people who haven't seen Argo think of it.

The Avengers poster looks exactly like you'd expect The Avengers poster to look like. I was hoping they wouldn't do that. A photoshopped disaster that unfortunately does get the job done in selling the movie. But it deserved better.

I have a theory that no movie characters own electric toothbrushes. This needlessly airbrushed image of Leslie Mann apparently doesn't contradict that. The less said about Paul Rudd on the toilet with an iPad the better.

Please accept this invitation to join Dennis Quaid for a game of golf. Or tennis. Or polo. Or whatever country club type sport he plans on partaking in this afternoon. For all that's wrong with this boxy Brady Bunch style poster, it says a lot that I still get the biggest laugh out of that image of Quaid.

Moonrise Kingdom

Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel
Running Time: 94 min.
Rating:  PG-13

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

The word "genius" probably gets thrown around a little too much, but after viewing Moonrise Kingdom, it's even clearer Wes Anderson just might be one of the few filmmakers working today who's rightfully earned the tag. How else can you explain the world he creates in this? Literally a world all its own. And you know you're watching one of his movies before the credits even start to roll. From the costume and set design to the film stock, to the title font to the dialogue and even the actors chosen to deliver it, there's definitely nothing else out there that resembles a Wes Anderson movie. This effort stands as the biggest example of that yet, and also maybe his most personal. Of course, some will still call this "pretentious" "twee" or "hipsterish" but they weren't the audience for this anyway, and would still have trouble denying it's the work of a seriously talented artist. No one else can do exactly what he does and any perceived problems with the the film only exist because his idiosyncratic sensibilities can be so off-putting that it's sometimes hard to find an entry point. But once you find it and surrender to the eccentricity there's no turning back. The movie's set in the 1960's but looks and feels how an imaginary memory wishes the 60's looked and felt like, with a visual aesthetic and production design that's unforgettable, making it seem as if it could be made and released successfully during that era. And try remembering the last picture starring two children that was squarely aimed at adults. I'm still not sure if it's completely perfect, but its messiness and craziness is part of what make it so endearing, and a real keeper likely to continue reaping rewards on repeated viewings.

It's 1965 and 12-year-old Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) is spending the summer as a khaki scout at Camp Ivanhoe on the small New England island of New Penzance. Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) lives on the "Summer's End" portion of this island with her eccentric attorney parents Walt (Bill Murray) and Laura (Frances McDormand) and her younger brothers. But Sam and Suzy's paths crossed a year earlier when, in one of the films best scenes, they meet during a church production of Noye's Fludde, becoming pen pals and vowing to run away together the following year. After making good on their promise, Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) is horrified to wake up and discover, in a clever touch, an escape hole cut in the side of Sam's tent. Enlisting the help of the island's dour police Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the Scout troop and Suzy's parents, a search is underway for the two young refugees who have set up camp in a secluded area on the beach, complete with Suzy's record player and books. With a violent hurricane approaching, their prepubescent romance blooms and they even make plans to marry, but the search team is closing in, as is a "Social Services" representative (Tilda Swinton) who plans to stick Sam in juvenile detention because his foster parents no longer want him. Now the troubled Sam and Suzy, experiencing the only true friendship each has known, are at risk of being torn apart by comically clueless adults who could probably learn more than a few things about life from them.        

The movie makes no qualms about the fact that Sam and Suzy two kind of messed up kids with dysfunctional upbringings and exhibit anti-social behavior that makes it difficult for either to make friends. Sam's entire Scout troop detests him while Suzy is shown in flashbacks fighting at school and discovering a book her parents bought on how to deal with a "troubled" child. In actuality, they're just super smart, sensitive kids who seem to have been done a disservice by the adult authority figures in their lives who are epitomized by, though not limited to, Suzy's endearingly wacko parents expertly played by Murray and McDormand. What's so special about the story is the juxtaposition between the excitement and happiness felt by these tweens experiencing their first blush of puppy love and these depressed, cynical adults have even less direction in their lives and prove to be comically incompetent when it comes to any kind of decision making. It's no wonder Tilda Swinton's "social services" (yes, the character's actual name) gets involved, yet we root against her anyway knowing it's Sam she wants to punish. This conflict between these clever kids and the dumb adults is where must of the script's intelligent humor comes from, and it's a subtle, sophisticated type that slides under the radar at times and demands the viewers' full attention.

In their big screen debuts, child actors Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward simply become Sam and Suzy. There's no other way to put it, as neither exhibit signs they're ever "acting" like precocious kids. Both are brilliantly understated, with Hayward making Suzy the more worldly of the two as Gilman perfects the outsider geek. The adult cast is the best rounded up in some time, with Bruce Willis playing a melancholy type of part we're not often used to seeing him in. It's easy to forget just how great a dramatic actor he can be when pushed by the right director, and he's definitely pushed by Anderson here, giving a really quiet performance that's just filled with depth and complexity. It's a comedy and this shouldn't work, yet Captain Sharp's sadness and the bond he forms with Sam is somehow one of the most touching aspects of the picture. His scenes with the him are gold, with Willis subtly suggesting there's perhaps a whole other movie that could have been made exploring how his character got to the point where he is. Similarly, Edward Norton Scout Master Ward as a kindly leader who not only feels responsible for Sam's disappearance and dreads the prospect of facing the stern Commander Pierce (Harvey Keitel), but wants to use this an instructional lesson for the kids. It's the best role Norton's had in ages and he's strangely perfect for it. Jason Schwartzman memorably cameos has a character named Cousin Ben, a relative of one of the scouts who volunteers to perform an unusual ceremony. And it wouldn't be a Wes Anderson movie without a narrator (Bob Balaban), who takes us on what could kind of be considered a tour of all the various locations on the fictitious island.      

The experience of watching this does in a way mirror the experience of watching Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tenenbaums, but times ten. It's a movie very much in love with its own characters, it's imagined setting and the time period and wants the viewer to be to. It's something you either respond to it or you don't and how you feel about Anderson's unique style will completely determine it. It's not his absolute best, but it seems like his most mature, merging style with substance in a seamlessly to tell his story. Creating a world from scratch isn't easy and in many ways Anderson could be considered the J.D. Salinger of modern movies, his efforts always featuring complex, novelistic characters seen through the warm glow of nostalgia. At only just over 90 minutes, we get more than we could have possibly asked for and there were even points where I simply didn't want it to end. But even as comical as Moonrise Kingdom is, it's underlying themes suggest almost an unbearably sad, bittersweet coming-of-age story. Sam and Suzy will grow up, probably never see each other again and possibly mature into the misguided adults who were searching for them. The film's biggest feat is somehow making that potential outcome seem weirdly satisfying.