Tag: movies

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Eephus

    Members of the Riverdogs baseball team sitting in the dugout in Eephus.
    Franny at his scoring table in Eephus. He is rendered in greens and golds. The background is a pixelated image of Soldiers Field and players from both teams.

    I don’t know anything about baseball, so you might think a whole movie about two small town teams playing a game wouldn’t work for me, but it’s a perfect example of how showing hyper-specific situations somehow makes stories more universal. I’m sure there are fans who could follow all the technical talk about playing, and who know what all of the symbols Franny marks in his playbook mean, but I don’t think actually knowing any of that makes the movie more enjoyable- which is weird, because I think including all of that stuff is crucial for making this movie work. My favorite detail is the team uniforms: everyone wears one, but none of them quite match. I mean, look at theseguys:

    And you know there were HUGE arguments over every new uniform design.

    This isn’t a movie about winning a game. It’s a movie about playing a game, living a game, and knowing that the game is going to end. It’s very bittersweet, but the sweetness is definitely there.

    Today’s poster challenge: Find a poster that somehow connects to a movie with a unique one word baseball-themed title, but isn’t a baseball movie. I ended up leaning into the single word title and the symbols in Franny’s scorebook.

    A poster for Eephus in the style of the poster for The Matrix
    Today’s thing I spent too much time on: creating the glitchy title letters. There are a few different “Matrix” fonts out there, but if I’d used them both of the E letters would have looked the same. And I wish I could have used two players from each team, but there weren’t many images of the Adler’s Paint team standing.
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  • Movie Pass Adventures: Black Bag

    Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender almost kissing in Black Bag
    Brightly colored image of Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett looking at each other in Black Bag.

    Soderbergh released two movies in the same year? Who does he think he is, Luca Guadagnino? This is a lot more traditionally constructed than Presence, but it does have some fun playing with spy movie conventions. Bonus points for getting a former James Bond as the spy version of a cranky middle manager.

    Today’s poster parody came pretty easily, but a romantic comedy probably would have been funnier.

    A poster for Black Bag that pretty closely matches the poster for Men in Black.
    Also: whoever did the original Men in Black poster didn’t spend a lot of time picking fonts. The text on top is Eurostile. And the title? Eurostile BLACK. I bet they just looked for fonts with “black” in the name and picked the cleanest one.
    Sure made my work easy!
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  • VERY Retro Movie Adventures: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

    Friedrich Feher as Francis in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, staring out as two policemen stare at him.
    Dr. Caligari in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He is shades of orange. The background is concentric white, cyan, and black rings.

    There’s a lot they hadn’t learned how to do in movies in 1920, but this movie pushes to do the most it can with the available tools and knowledge. No color? Tint the whole frame! No fades? Use oddly-shaped irises! Continuity between shots in a scene? We’ll do that next time and trust the audience to figure it out!

    It’s also pretty amazing to see that so many foundational elements of modern horror movies are in here. Mysterious characters, plot twists, multiple suspects, a surprise ending: they’re all there!

    Is this movie good by today’s standards? Not really. Is it a revolutionary movie for its time? Absolutely.

    And was it funny for me to watch this for the first time decades after watching Forbidden Zone? Oh, so funny.

    This may shock you, but there aren’t great photos available from this movie. But I did manage to pull one that sort-of matched the style of the posters I decided to parody.

    A poster for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari sort-of in the style of the posters for the Twilight films, with Cesare standing in for Edward.
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  • Retro Streaming Movie Adventures: The Italian Job (1969)

    Michael Caine and Noel Coward looking eye to eye in The Italian Job. Only the middle thirds of their heads are visible.
    Graphic of Michael Caine in The Italian Job. He is shown in shades of yellow and gold. The background is red and magenta.

    My second old school heist movie in a week. This one’s a lot lighter than The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Cracking good fun!

    Things I learned:

    • Noel Coward could play a convincing crime boss.
    • Benny Hill used to actually act, and was pretty good at it.
    • Benny Hill could play a convincing sex pest. Wait, I knew that one.

    The whole movie is about stealing gold, so this seemed like a natural pairing.

    A poster for The Italian Job parodying the poster for Goldfinger.
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  • Retro Movie Adventures: Eraserhead (1977)

    Mrs. X, Mary X, and Henry Spencer in Eraserhead.
    The tiny cooked chicken from Eraserhead, colored bright blue on a red and yellow background.

    This feels like a different movie every time I see it. I don’t mean “Golly, I just figured out a new interpretation”; I mean like they keep shooting other scenes and sneaking them into the film.

    Also: Alamo Drafthouse played a clip of Lynch before the film where he said that no one else interpreted the film the way he did, which means all non-Lynch interpretations are equally valid. Personally, I think it’s the origin of Pencilhead from Mystery Men.

    Doug Jones as Pencilhead in Mystery Men. His costume is yellow with white trunks and cardboard cylindrical hat.
    Doug Jones’ finest role. Way better than when he was Fishboy.

    I had a hard time finding a tangentially related poster to parody for this. The end result doesn’t look much like the original, and the original is hardly iconic. I’d be surprised if you can figure it out without looking at the alternate text.

    A poster for Eraserhead based VERY loosely on the poster for Eraser. You know, that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. The one with Vanessa Williams? SO iconic.
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  • Streaming Movie Adventures: Soundtrack of a Coup d’Etat

    A long thin image. Black and white, with a cyan overtone. A woman's face is partially visible; you can see her eyes, nose, some hair, and the top of her right ear. She is on the left side of the image,looking to her right.
    A stylized image of Patrice Lumumba shown from the chest up. He is rendered in green and pink pastels. The background is deep red, and words are partially visible.

    The story of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba by the CIA, told through the lens of jazz. I’m sure glad our government hasn’t done anything shady since then.

    It took me a while to get into the rhythm of this- probably because it’s pretty frenetic and I’m running on about four hours of sleep- but even before I locked it I appreciated the look and sound used to make old newsreels, memos, and TV recordings work tell an eventually cohesive story.

    I’ve now seen 40 of the 50 2024 Oscar nominees. I’m mostly missing documentaries: two full length, and all five shorts. The other three are Maria (cinematography), Elton John: Never Too Late (song), and The Six Triple Eight (also song). I might get one or two in before the show tomorrow, but I’ll probably go for a bike ride instead.

    It’s weird to make silly posters for documentaries about serious subjects, but the energy of the film makes it feel a bit more comfortable. I think the only thing I really like about this poster is the title design. It’s not exactly the right base font to match the original, but it’s pretty darn close.

    A poster for Soundtrack of a Coup d'Etat that references the poster for The Sound of Music.
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  • Movie Pass Adventures: Universal Language

    A child dressed as Grouch Marx in Universal Language.
    Matthew from Universal Language on the phone, rendered in shades of gray and beige.

    The second half of my Unplanned Surreal Film Festival Weekend. Also my second film of the year in Farsi, but this one is much lighter than the last one.

    I didn’t remember anything I knew about this before I watched it, and I think that’s probably the best way to go into something as gloriously absurd as this. Without giving anything away, it feels a little like Wes Anderson directing Airplane (with second unit by David Lynch).

    For the fake poster, I did a riff on the title. It doesn’t quite have the images available to balance out the same way as the original.

    A poster for Universal Language sort-of matching the poster for Universal Soldier.
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  • Movie Pass Adventures: The Monkey

    A long, thin image taken from a scene in The Monkey. Theo James' face, covered in blood except for two rings around his eyes, is in the center. Most of the image is the curtains behind him, also covered with blood.

    I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live in Stephen King’s Maine. That place is scary… but it does give us some wacky movies. This is one of those movies that’s so violent and gory and goofy that it moves past horror and straight into cartoon. It’s not great, and it kind of fizzles at the end, but it’s a pretty fun ride. BONUS: features an Adam Scott cameo!

    The titular monkey from The Monkey, shown in three tones. Black with red highlights, with white teeth and eyes. His right arm is raised and his right hand holds a drumstick. The background is solid black.
    Turn the key and see what happens.

    This is my second simian-themed movie of the year. I thought about basing the parody poster on one for Better Man, but those are all pretty boring so I went a different way.

    A parody poster for The Monkey based on the original poster for Toy Story.
    I guess I also could have used the poster for The Tin Drum.
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  • Movie Pass Adventures: Companion

    A long thin image with the top half of Sophie Thatcher's face visible in the middle. The background is out of focus blue and black shapes.

    WARNING: One of the big twists in this movie is spoiled by the ad campaign, so my alternate poster below may also spoil that same twist. I think I’ll stick the featured image here to add some spoiler space (though I’m probably not going to spoil anything):

    Sophie Thatcher as Iris in Companion. She is rendered in pinks and purples. The background is out of focus reds, yellows, and greens.

    The good thing about this movie: spoiling one twist still leaves a bunch of fun ones unspoiled. The end is pretty predictable (especially given the voiceover at the start) but the ride to get there is a lot of fun.

    I struggle to find images and a poster that wouldn’t spoil anything. In the end I sort-of copied the poster for a film that doesn’t exactly give away the twist that Warner Bros decided to spoil, but it’s in the same ballpark.

    Poster for Companion (barely) parodying the poster for Robocop

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  • Academy Award Adventures: 2025 Live Action Shorts

    Last year I learned that there are special screenings of all the nominated short film categories. I went again this year, and… these didn’t do much for me, especially compared to last year’s nominees. Shorts should be the place where people make unexpected decisions, and these really don’t do that.

    Mastodon has stopped showing the front page featured image, so I’m sticking it here so it shows up:

    A collage of images from the 2025 Academy Awards Live Action Short Film nominees.

    The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

    The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent movie bar

    There is a man in this movie who does not remain silent. The main character watches him and nervously smokes cigarettes. Look, I know short films by design are exercises in eliminating as many details as possible without breaking the story, but this cuts out important details and then gives them back in the synopsis. If your movie requires specific research to make sense, you’ve probably cut too much.

    Anuja

    Anuja movie bar

    I’m also aware that short films thrive on ambiguous endings, but this one ends like it’s the first episode of a TV series.

    I’m Not a Robot

    I'm Nt a Robot movie bar

    This movie also has an ambiguous ending, but it works. My favorite of the five; it won’t win. Note to self: go see Companion.

    A Lien

    A Lien movie bar

    This felt like the successor to last year’s Red, White and Blue; a serious and important subject told in a forced and melodramatic way. It’s the better of the two shorts, though.

    The Last Ranger

    The Last Ranger movie bar.

    Another important story told generically. You’ll know so much of the story ahead f time you’ll wonder if you’re clairvoyant.

    Since this is a collection of five unrelated shorts I didn’t make a parody poster, but I did throw together this:

    a stacked set of images from the 2025 Academy Awards Live Action Short Film nominees. Each one is a different color.
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