Set at a striking angle, the V for Vendetta sheet looks distinctly like a WWII-era propaganda piece — which was probably the intention. Bonus points for using shadows to hide part of V's mask, and the muted red/black tones that give a feel for this imagined dystopia.
Using a subtle rotoscope (that's "tracing" to you and I), the Brick poster focuses our attention on one innoculous feature: a girl's hand. The way it lays there and how the water trails from the fingers suggests something more sinister, and the elegant subtitle "A Detective Story" gives us all the info we need to start the case.
3. Fast Food Nation
I'm not a complicated man, and it doesn't take much to amuse me. The sight gag of a baby reaching up for his mother's breasts is given an ironic twist (IRONY!), although the Old Glory diaper may be pushing it too far. I think a really good poster is one that grabs your attention above all the others, and this one succeeds.
4. The Descent
Skulls are to horror movie posters as pastels are to girly flick sheets. Doesn't matter whether or not a skull is featured anywhere in the movie, it's just there to give us a feeling of dread and/or remind us of high school anatomy class. Although I've heard people call this poster cheesy, I loved how they did something different with ol' Skully by making it into an optical illusion. Additonal cool points for using the boring credits text block as a border instead.
Continuing on with horror movie poster clichés, I give you... Demon Child! Well, sort of. Silent Hill's mysterious little girl plays both sides of the field. Her wide eyes and wholesome dress telegraph "victim", while the missing mouth is enough to push us over into "villain" territory. There's another detail here that is probably overshadowed by the missing-mouth thing, and that is how the poster is made to look like a very old portrait — cracks and all. It's an uneasy combination, and a perfect way to set the mood for this freaky flick.
Bond flicks have typically been about garish overabundance of everything, and their posters embraced the "everything plus the kitchen sink" design. Not so with the Casino Royale poster, which is all about cool elegance. So cool, it will freshen your breath just by looking at it. The muted blues, the 007 logo coming out of the film's title, and three key objects from the movie — the tux, the chips and the gun — show us that this isn't our daddy's Bond.
7. Jackass Number Two
What is it with skulls and me this year? Hrm. In any case, sometimes simplicity is more striking, and JN2's poster gives us a stark black-and-white twist on the classic skull-and-crossbones logo. The crutches are a sweet substitution, but don't overlook the cracks on the skull or the missing tooth. I also very much liked the warning disclaimer at the bottom. The overall effect of this sheet is to give a "this is bad for you, heh heh, so stay away" warning to the audience, which works well as a dare.
8. Grandma's Boy
I'm a huge fan of illustrated movie posters, which saw their hayday in the 80's and only occasionally return now and then as an alternative to the Big Floating Celebrity Heads that we typically see. Grandma's Boy has so much to look at that you don't know where to start! It's got enough details to effectively spell out the movie for you, if you could make sense of the gibberish here. My favorite detail? The doll.
Big props to any studio that gives up their God-given right to show off their multi-million dollar lead role in exchange for something a bit more esoteric. Samuel L. Jackson is only a name here, upstaged by a catchy tagline and an awesome riff on the Rod of Asclepius (aka "the medical symbol").
10. Pan's Labyrinth
Twisted enough to be a Tim Burton creation, the Pan's Labyrinth poster is haunting, beautiful and something straight out of a fairy tale that might only exist in my — or your — imagination. Great posters can be framed and hung as art, and this might one day go on a wall in my house.
The Readers Voted On These Posters... And The Results Are:
1. [tie] V For Vendetta and Pan's Labyrinth (22%)
2. Casino Royale (16%)
3. Brick (13%)
4. [tie] Snakes on a Plane and The Descent (8%)
5. [tie] Fast Food Nation and Grandma's Boy (4%)
6. Silent Hill (3%)
7. Jackass Number Two (1%)
