The Best (and Worst) Movie Posters of 2010

I have to admit to being a little surprised at just how popular my annual movie poster list is but I'm thrilled because I love doing it and it's easily my favorite post to work on each year. While this isn't the best selection I can remember, there's still a lot to choose from and more than enough for me to justify doing it a month ahead of schedule. And the more I do these the more obvious it gets how a important film's poster is to selling a movie to the masses. Granted there are always other factors and sometimes your mind is made up whether you want to see it anyway, but when it comes to marketing there's no denying it's key role and studios would be wise to remember that. From an artistic standpoint they're always fun to check out and critique...at least for me. Below is the best, worst, as well as some others with my comments. You know the drill. Here it goes...


THE BEST


10. Best Worst Movie

The best worst movie gets the best worst poster. In case you're wondering, it's a documentary about what's widely considered the "worst movie in history," 1989's Troll 2. The makers of this obviously never saw Fool's Gold or Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. I have no doubt this film is better than any of those or Troll 2, and after looking at this perfect comic book inspired poster I kind of want to see it now. The approach has been done to death but that's only because it's so successful. 



9. The Runaways

 

Here's the quintessential teaser for a movie. With a single striking image that conveys the theme of the film it shows just enough to build anticipation and get the point across without overdoing it. The subsequent posters actually featuring Fanning and Stewart in character were boring and ordinary. There's nothing ordinary about this. They even faded the edges to make it look like a worn LP. That's commitment. Awesome tag line as well.



8. Carlos

"The Man Who Hijacked The World".... and a poster from the 1970's. The retro tactic can get tired if the design is lacking but this is so well done it feels more like an original print from that era than an homage or duplication (reminiscent of The Bank Job poster a couple of years ago) It just exudes cool and even though I have no idea what's the movie's about they've piqued my interest with this one-sheet. Sometimes simplicity really is best way to go.




7. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Unofficial)

What was that I said about the comic book design being done to death? Well, no complaints here again especially since this really is a legitimate comic book movie and they'd be crazy not to use an action-packed illustration. I'm cheating a little here since this is an "unofficial" poster but what shocked me was the quality of the art work and just how damn good it looks, making me wish all promotional materials were hand drawn by real artists (in this case the great Martin Ansin). I'll soon find out if the movie can live up to it.



6. I'm Still Here

So here's a different take on the popular, familiar "floating head" poster. I'd say the floating head is excusable when that head belongs to an insane, homeless looking Joaquin Phoenix who pretended to be homeless and insane for a year so he could make this film. It seems impossible that a poster would be able to effectively capture that but this somehow does. It's oddly strange yet compelling how the title weaves in and out of his face. And yes, that's an observation I never expected to make when describing a movie poster. Ever.



5. For Colored Girls

Who said great work can't be done with watercolors anymore? You won't find this hanging on someone's refrigerator in the kitchen. You're more likely to see it in an art exhibit. It's that good. This is really classy and sends the desired message that it's a film to be taken seriously. I'd argue that message is more necessary than usual in this case considering it's a Tyler Perry movie, though you'd never know that looking at this. Major props to him for not plastering his name all over the poster and letting that unforgettable face against the stark white background speak for itself.





4. Black Swan (Take Your Pick)
 

The best thing about these four international art-deco style Black Swan posters? Natalie Portman isn't anywhere to be found (yep, I said it). For my proof just look here and here. Yeah I think we should stick with these since Portman in kabuki makeup really didn't work out so well last time. If I didn't know what these were and just saw them hanging in someone's living room, I'd be tricked into thinking they're valuable. And they are in a way since movie posters this ambitious and artistic don't come along every day. But how dare Natalie and her evil ballet movie even attempt to compete with....



3. The Social Network

Oh, what a surprise. 2010 may go down as the year when they finally cracked the code to making faces and heads look visually interesting on a poster.  I assumed it wouldn't even be possible to get me more excited for this film than I already was or possibly design a poster that could somehow do justice to a masterpiece but this Man Who Fell To Earth-style teaser gets the job done. Not that it should be a surprise considering the design company behind it (Kellerhouse, Inc.) were responsible for one of the decade's most memorable posters last year. Nice touch with the Facebook sidebar.



2. Buried

If you're going to copy an artist you could do a lot worse than Saul Bass. It's been done thousands of times before but who cares? It works, mainly because the best way to make your point is with striking simplicity. Of course, it helps when the film's premise lends itself really well to that technique. Had I not known anything about the movie before hand I could glance at this and tell you immediately that it's a suspense thriller about a man being buried alive. No poster this year gets its plot across cleaner and crisper than this, or is more fun to look at. The alternate poster isn't too bad either (see below).



1.  The American

Audiences hated it. Some critics love it. Say what you want about The American as a film but both camps would have agree that this movie got a poster way better the movie deserved and that's coming from someone who really liked it. It's almost as if someone sat down and studied the grainy, minimalistic style of all the classic 60's prints and put all their energy into reproducing it as accurately as possible. In fact, I have no doubt that's exactly how they went about designing this. Anyone wondering how a movie everyone seemed to hate still racked up so much money at the box office needs only to look above. Sure Clooney's good, but he's not THAT good. He had some help from the marketing department on this one. Retro reigns supreme again.



Runners-Up (Alphabetically)



The Black Waters of Echo's Pond

Buried (Version 4)

Happy Tears

Salt

Continuing the trend of visually striking floating head posters, it's a considerable asset when that floating head (along with those eyes and famous lips) belongs to Angelina Jolie. There's no other approach that would have made more sense here since it's all about her anyway, right? But there were still ways this could have gone all wrong, but didn't. And it sure beats her trying to eat a small child. I like the bold choice of not centering her. 



Saw 3D: The Final Chapter

We get one of these posters every year for each new installment and they all more or less seem the same. But this one for what's supposedly the "final chapter" is actually creative and inspired. The construction of Jigsaw. At least an effort was made to be different and completely break from the usually tired horror teaser trend.




Shutter Island

It's hard to justify why I find this so cool because on the surface it seems very ordinary and has an almost direct-to-DVD quality about it, but the visual and colors capture the movie so well. This other similar one isn't nearly as eye-catching, and that probably comes down to the color scheme. I'll be ripped for saying it, but I actually kind of prefer the haunting poster to the actual film, which I enjoyed by the way.



Tron Legacy

Youth in Revolt

"If Only The Movie Could Be Even Half as Good as This Poster" Award


Iron Man 2

Artist: Tyler Stout 




Frost/Nixon Award for Weirdest Poster of the Year


Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Wasn't sure whether I should put this under "Best," Worst" or maybe both, but if I were a multi-millionaire sitting at my granite topped desk smoking a Cuban, reading the Wall Street Journal while drinking a scotch, this would be in a sleek custom frame hanging over my head. If in concept it's nearly identical to the portrait from 1986, why is this one so much funnier? Is it LaBeouf? It's tough to see here but I like the attention to detail in making it actually resemble a real oil painting. Totally insane, but a keeper.




THE WORST 


The Bounty Hunter (Version 2)

The other one's pretty bad but this is worse. Aniston looks like a giant. Butler is either breaking her spine or sitting on an imaginary curb. It's one thing to have a pun that awful as your tag line, it's another entirely to be so proud of it that it annoyingly overpowers everything else on the poster.



Extraordinary Measures

The grumpy, transparent airbrushed ghost of Harrison Ford haunts Brendan Fraser. The saddest part is given the recent track record of both actors the movie was already down two strikes and desperately needed the poster to not look like this for anyone to even CONSIDER seeing it.



The Ghost Writer

Speaking of ghosts, one of the most overrated movies of 2010 gets one of the most poorly photo shopped posters, but even I'll concede the film is substantially more intelligent than this lets on. Strangely though, it does kind of capture how run-of-the-mill the whole thing felt. We even get a visual shout out to that ridiculous final scene.



Hereafter

Avatar 2 starring Matt Damon... and his Rounders haircut. 



The King's Speech

Rather than going through all the trouble on photoshop, I'm wondering if it just would have been easier for the designers of this poster to go to David Fincher's house and hand deliver him his Academy Award in person a few months early. This poster is for a potential Best Picture contender. Let that sink in a second while I write them a thank you note for securing The Social Network's victory. Supposedly a second superior poster is forthcoming but the damage is already done. And wait...doesn't this kind of strangely resemble a certain poster for a Kate Hudson rom-com a couple of years ago?  



Knight and Day (Versions 2 and 3)

Both of these are just so bad I couldn't choose, though if I had to the top would probably win (lose). Though I'm a fan of theirs, Diaz and Cruise haven't exactly been in audiences' good graces so to literally paste their bodies (and what kind of resembles their faces) front and center in silly action poses probably wasn't the way to go. Sadly, the first throwback-style teaser that didn't feature them at all was actually pretty good.




Morning Glory

Here's Mr. Grumpy again. On a note not entirely unrelated to this poster, why does Harrison Ford even bother appearing in romantic comedies? He always looks so miserable and embarrassed to be in them, to the point that even the fat pay check for it looks like it would do little to cheer him up. I really don't understand the multi-colored font choice and why this looks like a sixth grade art class project, with all due respect to sixth graders, most of whom would probably agree with me on its awfulness. There were two more of the same poster featuring Diane Keaton and Rachel McAdams but why does Ford's seem like the worst? On second thought, let's not answer that.



The Switch

So I guess this finally settles the debate whether Jennifer Aniston got botox, if there was one. Apparently, while she was there she also got a discount on airbrushing and photoshopping. I feel bad for Bateman, not just the sole highlight in the movies in which he appears, but now also their posters.



When In Rome

To answer the tagline, yes I have wished for the impossible. Unfortunately, I'm starting to think the "impossible" is Kristen Bell starring in a quality film that doesn't give off Kate Hudson-like vibes. As lackluster as When In Rome was it still deserved better than this lame treatment, as does she. It's as if they went out of their to make her look as ridiculous as possible and that bright yellow is almost always the enemy on any movie poster. The little car with a mini Josh Duhamel and friends really sends this one over the top. Hopeless.




I can't end on such a low note. While fully acknowledging my bias here, the following aren't actual movie posters (though they definitely could be) but a series of brilliant illustrations for The Social Network by artist David Ansin done exclusively for Wired magazine. And they're cooler than just about anything else I posted here.

The Runaways

Director: Floria Sigismondi
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon, Stella Maeve, Scout Taylor-Compton, Alia Shawkat
Running Time: 109 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

You can accuse The Runaways of many things but subtlety shouldn't be among them. Not when its opening image is of menstrual blood dripping to the ground. It doesn't pull punches in its depiction of the first major all-girl rock band or shy away from casting controversially to provoke a reaction. But it does condense, occasionally going through the obligatory beats of a standard by-the-numbers rock bio when the project could have used more ambition. But in its favor, the music is great, many sequences are well directed and there's a surprisingly sensational performance marking the maturation of a major actress who proves herself more talented than anyone could have suspected.

While the film somewhat solidifies typical misgivings about biopics and highlights the problems faced when bringing a really compelling true life story to the screen. Watching, you wouldn't have a clue that The Runaways had members other than Cherie Curie and Joan Jett or were incredibly talented musicians. Listening to the music, you would. Despite focusing on my preferred genre of music and being set in probably my favorite time period, I still can't shake the nagging feeling that we're being given the cliff notes version of a larger story and that the band deserved more. But that's not to say it still doesn't have its thrills.

Picking up in 1975, eccentric record producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) seemingly by chance assembles the band on the fly, seeing dollar signs and jailbait in pairing aspiring musician Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) with the 15-year-old Cherie Currie, who has no singing experience outside of lip-syncing David Bowie at her school talent show (in one of the film's best scenes). They're joined by drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve), lead guitarist Lita Ford (Scout Taylor Compton) and Robin (Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat), a fictionalized version of their real-life bassist, Jackie Fox. The film wisely centers around Currie and Jett, with a primary emphasis on Currie's Behind The Music-like descent into the drug addiction that eventually broke up the band and ended her career. She's gone on to work a chain saw artist and write Neon Angel: Memoir of a Runaway, the autobiography on which this film is based, while Jett and Ford survived the implosion, using it as a stepping stone to hugely successful music careers of their own.

It was unquestionably the right call focusing on the two big names, but had I not listed the other band members it would be impossible to tell from the film that they existed at all, especially Shawkat's "Robin" who I don't remember even appearing, much less having a single line of dialogue. Aside from one angry outburst (in a scene that recalls the t-shirt argument in Almost Famous, but with a magazine), Ford is invisible as well. That's less excusable considering Lita Ford is hardly a minor figure in music and you have the benefit of an actress as good as Taylor-Compton playing her. Only Maeve's Sandy gets what could be considered minimal screen time at best, but still no defining role or personality. In a way, the big meltdown scene plays ironically since this film is just as guilty of ignoring the rest of the band as the media and the public was. If it disappoints as biopic or a look into the disintegration of a band, that's made up for with its success as a coming-of-age story.

I kept waiting for the scope of the film to catch up with the power and intensity of Fanning's performance but that just wasn't meant to be, and in retrospect, would almost be impossible. Not only considering physical resemblances, on paper you couldn't make two better casting choices for Currie and Jett than Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart, but it's Fanning who delivers, carrying the entire film. Supposedly years before she was even old enough for the role, Fanning was always Currie's top choice to play her and now really clear why. Anyone who watched her as a child star is in for a shock as she turns a rock cliche into a devastating performance of brutal honesty and pathetic desperation. Besides transforming from a timid, waif unable to sing a note in key into an enigmatic powerhouse commanding the stage in a corset, she makes Cherie's fall off the deep believable by not completely losing touch with the innocent little girl we're familiar with her playing. Even by the end of the film you still see her, but through a sad, empty shell.

Less successful is Stewart as Jett, as I never really got past the fact that this just felt like Stewart being Stewart, but with a mullet, attempting an impersonation rather than embodying the persona. Onstage she conveys Jett's swagger as a performer but in the scenes off of it she often falls back on certain annoying "Stewartisms" like mumbling and hanging her head. At points she even looks physically uncomfortable in the part, particularly a later scene where she comes off as an 80's Jett impersonator at a costume party. It's a disappointment since I was looking forward to her potentially re-proving herself as the talented dramatic actress we saw in Into The Wild and Adventureland after selling her soul for Twilight paychecks. This effort won't do it, but in her defense she had the pressure of tackling one of the most famous rock figures of all-time in Jett whereas Fanning could more easily benefit from creating the perception she's building a character from the ground up with the lesser known Currie. Compounding Stewart's problem is that she's starring in a movie about celebrity while currently being overexposed as one herself. It's possible her performance just needs time to be looked on more favorably, but Fanning is so impressively poised in the more pivotal role she's able to easily cover for her. As the only main male figure in the cast, Michael Shannon adds maniacal Kim Fowley to his repertoire of scary creeps and after seeing photos of the real person it's amazing just how much he physically resembles him. Sure, he's a cartoon, but weren't all record producers larger-than-life cartoons back then? I wouldn't argue with anyone more interested in seeing a spin-off biopic focused on his character.

First time writer/director Floria Sigismondi has a history in music videos which should have made her the ideal candidate to direct this, and in a way, she is. The band as a unit is ignored but their music isn't. Sigmundi's sense for time and place stands out with the set design and costumes, as well as distorted visuals and a color palette that gets progressively grimier and darker as the story progresses to its conclusion. The concert scenes are the among strongest and both Stewart and Fanning do a better than passable job recreating the vocals, which is no easy task. These sequences and the soundtrack would make those unfamiliar with The Runaways' music check them out, which should always be the primary goal in a movie that's supposed to be all about the music. That the film can even be mentioned favorably in relation to something like Almost Famous (which take place during the same period and covers similar musical territory) is a victory in itself. The one complaint always leveled against that picture was that it took an R-rated subject matter and made it PG-13. That approach wouldn't fly here. This is what these girls did, this was how old they were and there's no getting around the dirty details. Sigmundi doesn't gloss over them, giving us the uncomfortable feeling we're witnessing something we shouldn't without crossing the line into needless exploitation.

This is a really close call for me as the film seems better now than when I was actually watching it, which could just speak for my enthusiasm for the subject and desire to see more than just a slice of what should have been an epic rock bio. Though it's Fanning's performance pushing the material over the top, the riskiest decision made is presenting the band just as lucky as they were good. There was a little of both for sure, but it's mostly the former that shines through here, making The Runaways work better as a cautionary coming-of-age tale than a biographical account. And more proof that sometimes it pays just being at the right place at the right time.