I saw two reviews for Dick Tracy in one day. One loved it, and one said “this movie and Batman & Robin should have to fight, and the loser disappears forever.”
So I watched it.
Visually, it’s a masterpiece. The rest of it is kind of a mess, but it looks like everyone’s having fun. And who would have thought that the weakest part of a Madonna performance would be her singing?
Today’s parody poster is brought to you by K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the 70s.
This movie made me wish I’d grown up in Oakland.
I actually happened to see it in Oakland at the Grand Lake Theatre, which was funny because I didn’t know the first scene actually takes place at that very theater.
It’s a little rough around the edges, but in a good, semi-magic, sort-of Pulp Fiction way. This pictures I chose make it look like it’s mainly about Pedro Pascal’s character and Sleepy Floyd, but there are four interconnected stories, and most of them aren’t represented here.
This isn’t a terrible idea for a poster, and it would work better with a little more focus, but I flew home two hours ago and I’m too tired to give it a proper polish.
These were both spur-of-the moment choices. One choice was better than the other.
I was looking through free stuff and this popped up. I thought “Hey, I remember that being funny- I’ll watch it!” It does not hold up. Most of the jokes are only funny if you don’t already know them, and there was so much cheeseball nudity that I kept hiding my screen in case my spouse woke up and thought I was watching seventies porn.
It’s also very much made for people who watched movies and TV in the seventies. I’m guessing most people under thirty would have no idea that a huge chunk of the movie is a direct parody of Enter the Dragon.
This is not a great parody poster, but it’s a better parody poster than this movie deserves.
My students finished testing early, so we had an hour and a half to fill. I pulled up the first age-appropriate movie I thought might interest them that I could find.
This movie is so damn good. I hope the final part eventually gets made, but it doesn’t feel very promising. It’s currently scheduled to come out on my birthday… two years from now.
This parody poster isn’t terrible, but this movie deserves a better one.
Sometimes when I’m watching ultra-low budget movies like this it’s hard to see past the amateur acting and appreciate what the filmmakers managed to capture with pretty much nothing. The acting in this can be pretty rough, but it really captures the feel of San Francisco’s Chinatown.
It took a while to come p with something for this parody poster. I ended up going with a lost and found link.
Two not-creepy, uplifting movies in a row? It’s a movie miracle! Now I need to find a bar that only serves beer in glass boots.
I had a good idea for the parody poster, but I didn’t give myself enough time to get the lettering right. This might be the first poster to get a remastered edition.
Charming. That’s what this film is. Gentle, but strong. Charming without being precious. It’s not afraid to follow standard movie plots, but it knows how to push them into new spaces. I was worried when I saw the trailer that Tim Key’s stream of consciousness delivery would be grating, but he knows when to pull it back and let his eyes do the acting.
And the music holds up!
My first thought for a poster was a Wallace & Gromit redo (Wallis? Wallace? GOLLY I AM CLEVER), but I realized making a fake poster for a sweet movie based on the poster for a different set of sweet movies was redundant. I did get as far as a rough logo, though:
Then I went a different way, and picked a different movie about a very different island.
Fun fact: this is my 60th movie of the year.
If you said to someone “A24 movie about unicorns starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega,” they’d probably guess about 90% of what happens in this movie.
Originally I thought I’d do a riff on the Death to Smoochy poster, but then I decide to use one people might actually recognize.
This is the most literal interpretation of documentary I’ve ever watched. It’s roughly grouped together by themes, but there’s no story. It’s mostly an excuse for wandering around Russia and finding cool things to film in innovative ways.
There are many versions of this movie floating around. Fandango has a particularly janky print. Look for the restored version (I watched it on Kanopy).
My first thoughts for the parody poster were a couple of Bond movies, The Man With the Golden Gun and From Russia With Love, but I didn’t want to jump back into Bond after the Goldfinger/The Italian Job mashup, so I went another way. It came out better than I expected.
Princess Mononoke was one of those “I hear it’s great but somehow I’ve never seen it” films. The last Studio Ghibli movie I saw was My Neighbor Totoro, which has significantly fewer flying body parts and worm-covered demons. This movie is a prime evidence that “animated” doesn’t mean “for kids.”
The film is lovely, and the 4K transfer is stunning. I’m glad my first experience seeing it was on the main screen at the Chinese Theatre.
Today’s parody poster is dumb, but after the first scene with San, her mouth ringed with blood, this terrible idea came into my head and I had to go with it. It doesn’t quite work unless I explain it, which means it doesn’t really work at all.
Today’s bit of working too hard on a part of the poster that no one will notice: While trying to find a font that closely matched the title on the original poster, I found a reddit post from the person who designed the original logo. They said they used wood blocks to hand print the original, but they also suggested a very similar digital typeface. I slightly re-scaled each of the letters individually, and gave each one its own texture. You can’t tell.
Some of this still feels brilliant, and some of this feels like stilted, racist schlock.
Figuring out which poster to parody took forever, but when I figured it out it seemed obvious.
