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The 22 Best Movie Posters of 2012

12/12/2012

Because it's finals week for me, here's my version of phoning it in with a best-of list. Although, movie posters happen to be a little bit on an obsession of mine, considering I think it's one of the most crucial and potentially most memorable aspect of any marketing campaign.

The posters in no way represent the quality of the film they depict; this is merely a list of posters that are excellent in themselves. The general criteria are effectiveness, originality, professionalism, and aesthetic appeal.

Here are my picks for the top 22, in no particular order.

[Special note: EVERY poster in the series' for The Man with the Iron Fists and Killing Them Softly was excellent. I just chose to include one because to leave them out completely for space reasons would be tantamount to a sin.]

Even better in high-res on a large monitor.

Unofficial version by Mondo.

The Paperboy -- I'm a sucker for this vintage look (a trend which actually made a resurgence towards the end of this year).

I liked all versions with this artistic motif, but the addition of the text communicates the tone of the film better than the picture alone.

Simple and very effective, this one came out so long ago I almost forgot about it. But the second I saw it hanging from an IMAX theater ceiling I was excited.

This is a tie between the studio version and the Mondo version below.

The Man with the Iron Fists

This was the ONLY poster created for the film. Apparently, it was the only one they needed.

All of the character one-sheets in this series were great, but I liked this one because of the headlight and his shoes, which gives greater context than some of the others without props.

Evocative of Saul Bass.

I'm a sucker for interesting, typographically-based posters, but I especially like this one for including the M (for "Mars," omitted from the stupidly reduced and vastly superior title, "John Carter of Mars").

If you don't believe that this style is a trend, look up "It's a Disaster" and "Dust Up." This was the best of the three though.

The OTHER film this year that examined large scale upper-class corruption, with more vivid consequences.

The Spanish-language poster for Tony Kaye's 'Detachment' starring Adrien Brody.

Special midnight IMAX edition; better than the theatrical versions, in my opinion.

Coming Attractions (Special Apocalypse Edition)

12/3/2012

As awards season (and the end of the year, or the world, if you subscribe to that sort of thing) approaches, I thought it appropriate to eschew our usual format, looking instead at this fun mega-trailer.

YouTube user sleepyskunk, a Toronto-based blogger and amateur editor who describes himself as the "Roger Corman of YouTube editors" has released one of these retrospectives each year since 2010, the results becoming steadily more sleek and effective. The trailers are part of a larger effort to get audiences involved in which movies are made by Hollywood by rallying folks on social media to basically guarantee a film's turnout.

This latest effort is one of the better "mashups" I've seen, reminiscent of the work by Kees van Dijkhuize, Jr., telling its own story in three acts. Part one, entitled "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth," explores the dominant theme of dystopian near-futures while nodding to the failed 1954 urban housing project that devolved into a hub of crime and poverty, representing policy planning dysfunction and disappointment of the lower-middle class. Part two parodies the oft-used "Tick Tick Boom" as a thumping companion to energetic, sometimes mindless entertainment which Hollywood has "decided to embrace and focus on giving us what we crave: great walls of fire erupting everywhere and heroes who can't bother to look at them." This segues into "Everything is Connected," the ethereal, moving summary of all things indie and dramatic this year (my personal favorite section for its excellent transitions).

A full list of the 182 movies (and the songs used) can be found here.