posters.2005 - foreign, indie and regional



NOTE: feel free to grab any of the posters below for your own collection if you have
one. i didn't get these from one place, just saved them whenever i came across cool
posters. and share good ones with me too!


OK, let's start with something old. everyone's favourite french chick, amelie.
this is a japanese regional poster of the fable. beautiful caligraphy(although
i'm curious as to how 'amelie' translates in japanese), somewhat predictable
japanese composition(centered down the middle but caligraphy somewhat
offsets this) and evenly placed props and beautifully textured background.
very untraditional credit lines on top. despite lack of excitement(mainly
due to composition) this is a faithful poster that depicts the film
quite well.

 

probably my first exposure to german film back in the day, and definitely
one of the first foreign films that i watched, that was yearsssss ago..
pretty cool layout showing lola in 3 segments, intercut with a shot
of her bf. you know what? this one work better when it's smaller..
i don't like it as much when it's this big... weird...

i'm a huge dan of reservoir dogs and pulp fiction but i hated his latest
two volumes mainly due to its lack of story and glorifying caricature
violence. but i can respect this rare jap poster of a woman on a mission
that uses plenty of negative space.

alright, new stuff.

this one caught my attention right away because of its textures. i have
not seen this film but i'm definitely keeping my eyes open for it. i love
the sheep(?) patterns on the wall which tells me the movie may be about this
dude who's suffering from insomnia ans is 'counting' the sheeps. it gives
you a completely different feeling than last year's machinist, which
felt whole a lot more dismal and bleak.

the text treatment is top notch, especially the credits in yellow, i absolutely
love it!!!!! the overall orange feel, juxt with black dots(sheeps), white/yellow
text, such a beautiful combination.

bio pics of tortured artists are something that doesn't work quite well
on film, at least to me mainly because these artists are such introverted
and maddeningly internal figures that it's often hard to get inside
their heads. and half the time i'm thinking 'do i really want to know
what's really going on inside their abstract minds?'. but i enjoyed
last year's girl with a pearl earring mainly because it focused on
the subject of the artist's painting rather than his life. having said
that, i wouldn't mind checking out this film. garcica's dignified pose
as he observes his painting(?) sets the tone of the film. the poster
itself has almost painterly quality to it, especially the colours.

whenever i look at andy garcis, i keep thinking 'so he has a third nipple
eh?' haha

by far, the most disturbing but definitely the most innovative and daring
film that i watched this year... i still quiver whenever i think of the first
10 minutes... the poster fits so well with the theme of the film and the
red tunnel is a torturous reminder of what went on down there... shivvveeerrrr...

japanese and their symmetry....

i love this poster because of the mood that it invokes with the girl's expression
on her face and the saturated photo. the type is all typical hollywood.
i'm definitely checking this one out when it comes out on dvd. damian
lewis was awesome as major winters in band of brothers and this one
got a lot of favorable reviews. it's supposedly about a man who suffers
from schizo and is searching for his daughter who may or may not be
a figment of his imagination.

one of the strangest films i got my hands on. i don't quite get S+M
so it was rather difficult fully understand the characters, and their
situations for that matter. i kept saying, 'what? why did she do that?'
and i found it slightly difficult to watch this film because the production
design was so bad. it's probably a matter of taste but i absolutely
hated the office set design; the corridor, office space, hell, even
her room. but the first spanking session was funny as hell and the
look on maggie's face was priceless. maggie gyllenhaal has one of the
most adorable voice over voices ever! actually she is quite adorable,
she's not beautiful or hot but there's a homey quality to her expressions.
i need to check out more of her films.

stunning poster for a french film. i don't know anything about this film
but from the poster i can tell it's a character-drive film rather than
plot-driven. the colours, props, composition and text treatment tell
me snippets about the characters in the film without giving away the
story. i'm intrigued and that's all the poster should do, spark interest.

 

great colours, clever type and photo.

 

love the colours in this one, the green and yellow, very southern. also
the subtle(or not so subtle) placement of the body and cop car in the
bg. the scratch textures actually work to heighten the mood in this
one. type treatment could have been better overall, it's typical hollywood
do. the glossiness of the arm's skin reminds me of silent hill 2......

 

this is probably the only time i'll tolerate looking at a man's hairy ass.....

 

blakc dahlia was suppose to be david fincher's next project but
he decided to go with zodiac, which i'm VERY looking forward to
as he's going back to his SE7EN roots. when i saw the poster i immediately
thought "cool, a lady Crow"...

i have no clue what this film is about but i like the structural look of
it all. yet another japanese regional.

 

vincent gallo's controversial flick with oral sex at the end. gallo's films
doesn't really do it for me, i thought buffalo 66 was terrible(save
for first 10 minutes where he's desperately looking for somewhere to
piss) mainly due to the despisable characters. someone from school
handed this film but i passed it. fugly brown type treatment in the
bottom but it's the photograph that draws you into it.

 

next one is quite similar in terms of imagery, in that both captures a specific
and passionate action. sympathy for mr. vengeance(literal korean translation
is 'vengeance is mine') by the korean auteur park chan-wook, is my
favourite film of this year(came out in 2002). sympathy is first
part of park's 'vengeance trilogy' which includes the famed oldboy
and recently released sympathy for lady vengeance(literal translation
is 'friendly miss geum-ja'). if you've seen oldboy and loved it, then
both sympathy films should be mandatory viewings. i personally loved
mr.vengeance much better than oldboy because it didn't rely on a gimmick
and felt like it was much more tighter and brutal film as a whole and
all the characters are so well justified, they all have their own valid
reasons for their actions. i may not condone revenge but i can empathize
with these ppl. go see this movie!!(last time i checked it was playing
in the new york theatres. i think it's out on dvd now)

 

so refreshing! photographically and typographically.
so clean and straight forward, no bullshit style. the film is about
an autistic dude whose mother trains him to become a great marathon
runner. i weeped.... oh how i weeped...

 

very cool film called 3-iron(literal translation is 'bin-jip' which is 'empty
house') by another festival favourite kim ki-duk who made spring, summer,
fall, winter... and spring. the tag says 'upon locking and leaving,
he fills the wife's empty space' or something along that line. definitely
worth checking out, it's about a dude who 'borrows' other ppl's empty
houses and do chores for them in return for the stay. the protagonist
doesn't have a single line. how cool is that? stunning floral pattern
on the bottom with credits, vibrant photograph and gradients.

 

ok, i've known that there are some fucked up horror films made in asia.
but recently it's getting slightly ridiculous, maybe desperate for
new material. i present you these 2 posters.

first up is a korean horror flick about a killer cello. that's right, a
killer cello. i'm never going to get tired of this. A KILLER CELLO!!!
maybe it's possessed or something but all i know is that the woman
starts killing her family. i'm laughing my ass off whenever i see the
poster, which is rather beautiful and cello is one of my favourite musical
instruments. nothing hotter than a hot woman playing a bach cello concerto
:D

next is 'wig', i guess it's about a killer wig?? hahhhaah
i love korean studio execs...

 

'the doll master' is yet another korean horror flick but this one actually
delivers, poster-wise. the imagery is stunning, beautiful and haunting
all at the same time. the film sounds like a generic horror flick with
buncha strangers in strange house getting chopped up by strange dolls
making strange noises.

the above is actually my own edit and below is the original poster. i cleaned
up the image, changed the type colour to black on white in order to
highlight the blood in her eye.

 

so. which poster do i like the best?

this poster is all class. it informs the audience so much without being
too literal and sets the mood of the film. the design, composition,
photography are all top notch. it's an aesthetically beautiful poster to
look at that fits well with type of films i'm into right now because these
are the ones i'm interested in making.