Category: Photoshop

  • Walk of Fame Movies: Picture Snatcher and Alice White

    James Cagney in Picture Snatcher.
    Patricia Ellis and James Cagney in Picture Snatcher.

    Jimmy Cagney sure made a lot of tough guy action comedies.

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Alice White's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the Right, a black and white portrait photo of Alice White.

    Alice White (1511 Vine Street) plays the bad woman trying to cheat on her boyfriend with Cagney. White’s real life sounds like it came out of one of these Cagney movies: her career was derailed when she and her boyfriend were accused of hiring someone to beat up her ex. She ended up leaving acting and becoming a secretary. It sounds like she didn’t miss it; her quote at MUBI on her filmography page is “I wouldn’t be a movie star again for all the tea in China.”

    What do you get when a movie has very few available decent images and the title contains a word from a movie with a very simple poster? You get this:

    A fake poster for Picture Snatcher mimicking the poster for Snatch.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Walk of Fame Movies: The Divorce of Lady X and Binnie Barnes

    Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in The Divorce of Lady X.
    Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier in The Divorce of Lady X.

    Very odd to see the leads of Wuthering Heights in a goofy rom-com. Fun, though!

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Binnie Barnes's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the Right, a black and white portrait photo of Binnie Barnes.

    Binnie Barnes (1501 Vine Street) had a 50 year run on screen. She had dozens of roles, but don’t expect any of those parts to be a frail and fainting weakling. She once said “One picture is just like another to me, as long as I don’t have to be a sweet woman.” Good for her!

    Today’s poster is from a movie about a different lady.

    A fake poster for The Divorce of Lady X mimicking the poster for Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Fackham Hall

    The cast of Fackham Hall.
    The cast of Fackham Hall.

    This was funny, but I’m guessing I would have found it at least ten percent funnier if I lived in the UK. More than once when no one was laughing I thought “oh, I can tell there’s a reference here that we don’t know.”

    Today’s fake poster references a movie about a different Hall, and a different set of creepy family relations.

    A fake poster for Fackham Hall mimicking the poster for Annie Hall.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Really Long Movie Adventures: Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

    Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.
    Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.

    When this was two movies, the pacing of the second one always seemed strange, and it’s even stranger as one big movie. The first half spends a huge amount of time building up The Bride and O-Ren Ishi, and their final battle feels earned.

    Then intermission hits, and the second half moves at a much slower pace. We learn more about Bill, but it’s almost all from other people talking about him. The final battle is more of a conversation than a fight. I like that in theory, but as it’s done here it feels anti-climactic.

    Today’s fake poster is based solely on the other movie also having a rhyming title.

    A fake poster for Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.mimicking the poster for The Bling Ring.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Flop House Movie Adventures: Zardoz

    The giant stone head of Zardoz in red, yellow, and black.
    Sean Connery in Zardoz

    I’ve been meaning to watch this for decades, but never got around to it until The Flop House did it on Flop TV. It takes itself very seriously, which is impressive for a movie that features a hairy Scottish guy in a red diaper. But I didn’t hate it!

    Today’s fake poster is a really strong copy of the poster for Harper. Too bad pretty much no one (including me) remembers seeing the original. I like that it looks like the movie is about some guy with a drawn-on goatee.

    A fake poster for Zardoz mimicking the poster for Harper.

  • Old Movie Adventures: The Monster Maker

    Ralph Morgan in The Monster Maker.
    J. Carrol Naish in The Monster Maker.

    My friend’s grandfather, Terry Frost, was a character actor who appeared in hundreds of movies from the forties to the sixties. Letterboxd only lists 89, but I’m guessing many of his parts were uncredited. I’d never seen any of his movies. Most of his movies were westerns, but this sci-fi horror flick had the largest part of his that I could find to watch, so I went with it.

    It’s exactly what you’d expect from a 40s science fiction b-movie. Low budget, short, full of nonsense science, wild coincidences, and a laboratory with a gorilla for no reason other than mad scientist’s labs are supposed to have gorillas. A perfectly acceptable excuse to sit in the dark and eat popcorn.

    Today’s fake poster is the third one I’ve done based on a movie from the seventies’ “classy porn” period. The others are here and here. I picked it mainly because there are very few decent quality images available from this movie. But I did learn how to load alternate characters from a font into Photoshop. I was afraid I’d have to draw them in manually.

    A fake poster for The Monster Maker mimicking the poster for The Devil in Miss Jones.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Walk of Fame Movies: Devil’s Doorway and Robert Taylor

    Robert Taylor and Paula Raymond in Devil's Doorway.
    Robert Taylor and Edgar Buchanan in Devil's Doorway.

    While it’s pretty impressive that this 75 year old movie says “hey, the USA did handle indigenous populations correctly,” it’s also a movie with a very white lead actor in full on red face.

    Also: it’s certainly not the fault of the movie, but it is weird that the subtitles for a film about people being forcibly ejected from their land choose to show all the Shoshone dialogue as “SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE.”

    Another thing that’s not the fault of the movie: Every time I hear “Devil’s Doorway” I think of Satan’s Alley.

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Robert Taylor's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the right, a black and white portrait photo of Robert Taylor.

    Robert Taylor (1500 Vine Street) looks plain silly in his dark makeup and light eyes, but his actual performance isn’t as stereotypical as you might expect.

    OH LOOK A POSTER!

    A fake poster for Devil's Doorway mimicking the poster for Breakfast at Tiffany's.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Wake Up Dead Man

    Daniel Craig in Wake Up Dead Man.
    Josh O'Connor in Wake Up Dead Man.

    The Knives Out movies are fun. The murder mystery is always there, but they never have the same theme. The first was about family, the second about unchecked wealth, and this one about faith. And they mostly play fair- we get all the clues at the same time as Benoit Blanc. I hope they make a hundred more of them.

    The inspiration for today’s poster is a movie that I saw a long time ago: two days before this one.

    A fake poster for Wake Up Dead Man mimicking the poster for Sentimental Value.
    I had to add some text lines to fit in more cast members.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Sentimental Value

    Stellan Skarsgård in Sentimental Value.
    Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleas in Sentimental Value.

    More saccharine than I expected, but far less saccharine than you’d think from the trailer’s use of Ooh La La by The Faces. Strong performances all around, but it never quite pulled me in.

    I’m way behind in my fake poster for real movie based on real poster for other movie project, so I’m starting to lean in to the simpler ones. At this rate my last one will be a remake of the advance poster for Ant-Man.

    A fake poster for Sentimental Value mimicking the poster for The Graduate.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Train Dreams

    Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams
    William H. Macy in Train Dreams.

    What a beautiful movie.

    Deliberate, but not tedious; every frame is there for a reason. I’m sad that most people will watch this on Netflix, because it looks amazing on a real movie screen.

    I went for an easy poster today, based on one from a recent movie that has surprising parallels to this movie.

    A fake poster for Train Dreams mimicking the poster for Die My Love

    Fediverse reactions
→←