* In which I give you my top ten favourite posters of 2011.
This time last year I published a list of my top 20 favourite posters of 2010 (you can find those here: part one, part two. Please read them!)
But by god, twenty is too many. So this year I give you but ten delicious works of poster art, because you see, I’m not interested in boring you. I like you too much.
In no particular order:
10. Midnight in Paris: Van Gogh doesn’t actually make an appearance in this film, but pish posh; this poster is dreamy, and it so perfectly encapsulates the romance of Paris, the wandering and philosophizing of a man lost (physically and emotionally) that I can’t complain. Not even a little bit. I mean, this pick should have been obvious considering the nature of the screenplay.
9. The Rum Diary: clean, and simple, cut and dry. I love love love this teaser and everything else that followed was and is crap. This happens too often sadly. The teaser for The Mechanic, for example, was brilliant, truly amazing (in spite of its hilarious tag line and vaguely word arty typeface). But then the trailer was released, and BOOM!!!BAM!!! we’re inundated, nay, bombarded by a series of horribly photoshopped Jason Statham photographs wherein he gangsta swags away from explodey-splosions and rappels out of skyscrapers wielding large, and deadly weapons in a flourish of British bad-assery. Not the best example in relation to The Rum Diary I realize, but there you have it. I exaggerate and digress, a skill no less.
8. Carnage: this is in a way similar to Rabbit Hole poster of last year. Carnage, like Rabbit Hole, certainly runs the gamut of emotion, so this is basically a précis for what is already a pretty short film, as far as the length of films go. I even like the bright colors, which are in no way evocative of the characters or even the story. I don’t know, I surprise myself with this choice actually. It’s equally amusing and sobering, just like the film itself, and the designer was clever to rely on such unflattering, even grotesque photographs of its cast, because its cast is honestly the only thing this film has going for it. The cast is what makes it, and the play it’s based on so damn good.
7. Melancholia: this is pre-Raphaelite, Lady of Shalott, Sir John Everett Millais Ophelia territory and it’s as beautiful as the film itself. Actually, every single version of the poster for this film is truly unreal. My only complaint is the typeface used for the title. BOOOOORING. There is a teaser version (below), which is a billion trillion times better simply because the typeface is so damn awesome. See what I mean? I pretty much chose this because I loved the art historical referencing, but what do you expect?
6. Ides of March: This is easily one of the most original posters I have ever seen for a film. Ever. I don’t even care how photoshopped it is. It looked good on bus stops and great on billboards. It caught my eye and that’s the entire point, isn’t it.
5. Drive: I loved this poster. Drive spawned a lot of different meh poster designs, but this is no doubt the reigning contender. Simple is a word that keeps coming up, but simplicity is what I like, and simplicity is a graphic designer’s best tool. Less is more after all. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, nothing works better than a great typeface, a great photograph and clean lines. No need to get fancy pants (and it’s only a coincidence that Ryan Gosling films keep making it onto these lists, I swear.)
4. Submarine: I would frame this poster and hang it on my wall, even if I hated the film (I didn’t). This kid is in over his head, and it’s irresistible, right down to the tricolor title and the popped collar. This is the Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola formula and by this point, I sound like a broken record. Funnily enough, it’s produced by Ben Stiller, who’s very own super-simplistic Greenberg poster made my list last year.
3. Haywire: I love the day-glo orange coupled with the gray, the off-kilter typeface and the mildly sexual, and violent imagery. This is a classic poster composition, classic in that it, like last year’s Buried, are inspired by the likes of Saul Bass. Just look at the posters for Burn After Reading, or Men Who Stare at Goats (maybe it’s a George Clooney thing? Actually it probably is….Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Goodnight and Good Luck. Whoa!), the influence is everywhere. Last year I said this influence was sadly under-referenced, and actually, I was wrong. Very wrong. This style fits well with the spy genre, and I prefer this infinitely more to the glossier, schlockier photoshop of horrors you get with films such as Mission Impossible, or Oceans What Number Are We On Now (HA! Clooney again…oh boy.) The second I saw the poster for this film, it instantly became a favourite.
2. The Muppets: This, like last year’s Toy Story 3, reveals nothing, but says everything, relying on the popularity of the characters themselves to do the talking. The entire campaign was simple. I particularly enjoyed the bench posters which featured cropped images of just each characters eyes. Genius stuff really.
1. Shame: I cannot mention this poster without first mentioning its designer Mark Carroll, who is responsible not only for the above, but also for last years Martha Marcy May Marlene, and The Tree of Life. His designs are stark, and I think they’re beautiful. I can’t say much more than that.
