This Week In Movie Posters, 10-30-24

Is everything on Netflix now? Daniel Craig goes "Queer" for Luca Guadagnino, and Steven Soderbergh does horror.

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Hi. This Week in Movie Posters is supposed to be a regular feature, but I realize it’s been a while since I’ve done one. Apologies! I’m trying to get this feature back on track for Wednesdays. Thank you for your patience. The trouble is, I keep creating new jobs for myself, but I still have to do all of the old jobs. Doesn’t seem right! Whatever, who cares!

Anyway, part of my thought process in keeping this feature around is that, even though it’s kind of dumb and probably not the best showcase of me as a writer, normal people just don’t really have a place to hear about new movies anymore. Beyond the mega-budget stuff, it doesn’t seem like regular movies can advertise in a way that reaches regular people. Most times I tell people what new movie I’m going to see they say they’ve never heard of it. It’s a problem of advertising in general (which is itself part of the reason that I’m writing and you’re reading a subscription-supported newsletter. ad budgets used to pay people like me before we broke the numbers).

But maybe in making fun of movie posters every week you can hear about some new movies before they’re out. That’s the dream, anyway.

This Week In Movie Posters

Welcome to the This Week In Movie Posters, the feature in which we go through all the week’s new movie posters and read way too much into them. Blessed are the paid subscribers, as without them, none of this would be possible. All posters via IMPA.

Technically not a poster, but I saw this standee in a theater lobby last week. Every time I see it, I keep wanting it to say “From the mind of the guy who brought you The Rock’s piss bottle…”

I love that story. A guy going from carrying a star’s literal urine to producing a $250 million movie is why I got into movie news in the first place.

Ah, would you look at that, the guy who made Jackie and Spencer found another famous rich lady he could film looking sad. Do you think she’ll eat her pearls in this one? Being famous and beautiful is such a prison! You guys would never understand.

Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as she confronts her identity and life. [IMDB]

A sad dying opera singer, perfect Pablo Larrain material. It must take such restraint not to have the subject putting the back of her hand to her forehead and swooning in every shot. Such poise! Such beauty! Such elegance!

I’ll admit, I haven’t kept up with the new Star Trek stuff much even though I saw every episode of The Next Generation. I guess it’s about cool people in leather jackets now? This looks like Kill Bill in space.

Kill the Jockey! Cool title, cool poster. Why is he upside down? Is he hanging by his feet? Do you have to drain a jockey when you kill it so the meat doesn’t spoil? Eh, probably best not to be so literal with a poster that gives us this many cool shapes and colors and words.

Remo's self-destructive behavior overshadows his talent. Abril, an upcoming jockey is pregnant by Remo and has to decide between child or continuing to race. They both race for Sirena, an businessman who saved Remo's life in the past. [IMDB]

I think I was better off not knowing all that. Better to just stick with the tile. Kill the Jockey! Love a title that seems like it should be yelled.

Jesus, look at all that leather. They must’ve discovered a planet that can support bovine life. A planet for cows.

(They sent your mom there)

I like that they didn’t even bother really trying to match eyelines or make it look like these actors were ever in the same room. “Eh, fuck it, just through some glowy Christmas lights in there.”

Hey, we get it.

Anyway, Lindsay Lohan seems like she has a nice life. Just living in Dubai with 17 maids to watch your children and pet tigers, traveling from villa to villa in a helicopter and every once in a while you get to make a Christmas movie for Netflix. Good for her. If you’re a former child star, marrying a rich dude from a Gulf State and moving to Dubai is probably the way to go.

So yeah, Daniel Craig is finally freed from the burden of having to make sub-mediocre Bond movies (Casino Royale was good) and now he gets to do cool stuff like make gay (homoerotic?) art movies for Luca Guadagnino, our last horny director (he’s the best). The poster seems to depict a man hungrily grabbing towards the ass he would like to have sex with (sensually!).

Guadagnino is so good that he makes putting a slowed-down dramatic cover of “All Apologies” in a trailer seem inspired.

This is one of a few new character posters for Venom: The Last Dance. Juno Temple plays the Cute Lady Scientist, hence the alien earring. I won’t post them all, but these posters look like someone just discovered a glow filter in Photoshop.

D-I-E, get it?

Eh, I feel like there was an opportunity for an “axe me to the prom” pun. Wait, what is the actual title of the movie? Whatever, I’m not looking it up.

Oh hell, the Broccoli haircut has officially reached rom-com demographic age. I feel so old. I don’t know what Wattpad is, but “Based on the Wattpad sensation” is my new favorite tagline.

This is actually pretty tame as far as Broccoli hair goes. Post-Bieber hair, influencer fluff, e-boys, and ‘Bama bangs have combined in a toxic stew (see also). Zoomer men all look like either the sheepdog from Looney Tunes or like they’re wearing a mop on their head backwards (admittedly I am jealous that curly hair on men is now considered fashionable).

I’ve been old enough to complain about the teens for at least 15 years now so I think I can say this without bias: the teens of 2024 are some of the dopiest-looking that we’ve ever produced.

Jesus, is every poster a Netflix movie this week? “If she can’t run, how will she escape?”

Damn, is this like some kind of body horror version of Speed?

If her mile pace drops below eight minutes she’s going to explode!

They didn’t put the title on the poster for whatever reason, but I know from the file that this one is called Operation Taco Gary’s. I’m sure this movie will turn out to be too quirky by half like most of these kinds of movies do, but for now I’m going to enjoy the idea of a movie called Operation Taco Gary’s starring Simon Rex and Keefe from Gemstones. That sounds wonderful.

“September 5” didn’t ring a bell at first, so I had to look it up. Apparently it’s about the ‘72 Munich Olympics kidnapping.

During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes. [IMDB]

The journalist angle? Wasn’t expecting that one.

Hey, it’s Moana 2! I watched the first Moana about 1200 times during my son’s Moana phase, so I’m definitely ready for a new chapter, even though he’s probably moved on by now. You think the pig is actually going to be in it this time? He’s definitely featured prominently in the poster, even though he was comically absent for 98% of the first movie. It seemed like they knew they wanted to make a killing on pig toys but never got around to actually writing him into the story. Maybe The Rock kept pulling no shows and they had to scramble to write in more pig stuff this time. “He’s still not here?? Quick, come up with another pig scene!”

“Invisible Raptor… you’ll never see it coming” is an all-timer title/tagline poster combo. That’s just wonderful.

And yet, it manages to be overshadowed by just how dopey Sean Astin’s face looks in this. How do they even get a face to look that dopey? Do you think that’s a special filter?

Did this movie not already come out? I could’ve sworn it did (Wikipedia says it had a limited release last month). Anyway, I like what they did with the reflection, but couldn’t they have matched up the names and faces? You imagine Aubrey Plaza would get first billing anyway.

“What would you ask your older self?”

I don’t know, but I would definitely tell my younger self to develop a flexibility routine. So important.

Speaking of mismatched faces and names, here’s One of Them Days, starring Keke Palmer and SZA, which I definitely know how to pronounce! That’s right, I’m cool. I know stuff. I’m not just some old guy who complains about Zoomer hair and gives advice about stretching, no sirree.

I’m honestly not sure to take “a cinematic slam poem.” Is that a compliment? Will the audience snap our fingers in appreciation at the end?

Whoa, this lady sure likes patterns! She’s totally in my face!

Songwriter / artist Allee Willis began filming her life as a kid in 1950s Detroit and never stopped. She pursued creative expression at all costs while struggling to fit established gender and sexual norms - until she found a path to love. [IMDB]

Sounds great. I look forward to finding out who she is.

Here’s Presence, from Steven Soderbergh. Is this his first horror movie? It seems crazy for a guy who often makes multiple movies a year and is known for experimenting, but it looks like he hasn’t (unless you count Contagion, which I mostly don’t).

David Koepp, meanwhile, has one of the weirdest collections of credits in Hollywood, with everything from The Mummy to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to Panic Room and Jurassic Park and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s bike messenger movie (remember that?). Along with a million others. It is perhaps worth noting that one of his best originals was a horror movie — Stir of Echoes, which ended up getting overshadowed by The Sixth Sense that year but was pretty great (and which Koepp also directed). And Neon puts out a lot of great weird stuff, so who knows.

I probably wouldn’t have used “It will chill you” as the main pull-quote, but that’s just me. “It left me cold!” said the New York Times. “I couldn’t warm up to this one!” raved the Lexington Post-Dispatch.

Oh Jesus, another Netflix movie! Anyway, this looks fine except for the egregious Dreamworks Face on the girl. Do we even still call it that? Something about that face tells me that this is going to have a lot of soy banter. I wish I had some better terms for these things, but soy banter is a plague, especially on kids and family movies.