Don’t go in expecting The Seventh Seal and you’ll have a good time. But be warned: the second half gets darker and weirder than you might expect. That’s what happens when you’re dealing with a mostly true story.
I’ve never seen the source movie for today’s fake poster, but I’m planning to watch it right after I post this.
It’s kind of amazing to watch a movie and genuinely have no idea how it will end. This movie is nearly three hours long, and it felt like a tight 90 minute thriller. Bonus points t the people who made the trailer; it totally gets the feel of this film without spoiling it.
Also: this movie made me realize that I absolutely would fall for someone disguising themselves with a wig or a mustache.
There are surprisingly few decent resolution images available for this movie, so I picked a minimalist source poster and did some creative interpretation.
Challenges I had watching this movie:
1. The opening credits are shown over an egg getting fertilized, which is exactly what happens at the start of Look Who’s Talking.
2. The protagonist is named Marty Mauser, which made me think of a comic book detective named Mike Mauser.
3. Everyone in this movie is a jerk.
I liked the movie- a lot- but I don’t think I need to watch it again any time soon.
Oh, but I found a good poster to copy for this one!
Support your local librarians- they’re a good chance they’re being targeted for stopping censorship.
And while you’re at it, support independent movie theaters! I saw this at The New Parkway Theater in Oakland, and it’s a completely different experience than seeing a movie at home or in a big chain theater. Go!
It was hard to come up with a poster for this. Documentaries don’t have have the same structure as fiction films, so it’s hard to find a poster where the details line up. I ended up cheating a bit and using a teaser poster that doesn’t have any credits:
The end of my three part “Stuck in a Hotel in San Francisco” mini movie festival. I hadn’t watched this because I was afraid it would be a depressing retread of the first film, but it actually has new jokes. The band is older. They’re not partying, they’re just rehearsing and reconnecting. It’s not as laugh out loud funny as the first movie, but it’s warm and comfortable, which is probably the best kind of Rob Reiner film to watch right now.
Today’s poster is okay- a remake of a poster for a more famous sequel- but it’s personally significant: this is my 250th poster this year. If each poster took an hour (and many of them took more time than that) I’ve spent more than ten full days making these things!
I’ve seen Elf many times, but I’ve never seen it as a complete movie. The first time I watched it was at an early preview screening before most of the effects were completed, so I didn’t know about the animated characters until years later. I’ve watched chunks of it out of order. This time I watched half of it one day and half the next as part of my Stuck in my Hotel Room Movie Party.
Boy, Buddy is annoying. He’s loud, he has no self control, and he’s constantly destroying things. If I were James Caan I’d probably send him to the mail room, too.
Got a pretty good fake poster out of this one. I didn’t even realize the original poster used Christmas colors until I was laying out the text!
Has a hard time getting started, but it gets there.
Also: Jacobi Jupe deserves a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
I almost didn’t do this fake poster because I didn’t want to recreate the title type. Then I learned it’s a barely altered font and decided to go for it. Then I realized halfway in that there’s a ton of custom shading and I ended up doing more work than I expected. But I think it’s funny, so it’s worth it.
I had planned on seeing this in a theater, but I only got around to it when it was streaming- and even then, it took being stuck in a hotel room to get me to watch.
The acting is strong, George Clooney is charming, Adam Sandler again shows he’s good at serious parts, Billy Crudup has a scene that steals the movie. But I had a hard time connecting to a story about a massively successful movie star who has trouble with real world relationships. I think I would have been more engaged if the movie was from Crudup’s point of view, or if both stories were told in parallel.
Today’s fake poster comes from a different new movie that’s about a much less successful performer.
This is John Ford’s first full length film, and he made it through trickery. He was supposed to shoot a two-reeler, but pretended some of the film was damaged during shooting so they’d give him more stock.
This was not Harry Carey’s (1521 Vine Street) first appearance as Cheyenne Harry. He first play the character a decade earlier, and played him in dozens of movies. When movies went to sound he was too old to play leads, but he was a popular character actor for decades.
Today’s fake poster is all about shooting.
Buster Keaton is SO DAMN GOOD at making ridiculous situations seem plausible. You’ve been separated from your date on a double-decker bus? Obviously, you should climb down the side and sit on the fender next to her. Lost your swimsuit in the public bath? The only solution is to steal someone else’s pants.
Hey, look- there’s actually a connection between this movie and the one the fake poster is based on!
