10 Worst Movie Posters of 2005, Part One

Previously I have discussed what I believe are the ten best posters of 2005. In my discussions, I gave several reasons for loving a poster and I have just as many reasons for hating a poster. Many times I realized that if I really liked a movie I often really liked the poster; I have only seen two movies that appear on my 10 worst poster list and I actually really liked one of them so my personal biases aren’t as strong. To change things up, and to help me explain myself, I am going to put a good poster that is trying to convey the same message beside the crap poster to emphasize the crappiness that the poster exudes. Before I get to the crap posters, check out this kickass poster from defamer.com:

10: Ladies in Lavender

Okay, this is one of these posters that could be way higher on the list, but it’s hard to knock it because this movie is what this poster is, something made for your mother (or grandmother), and I kind of like the lavender colour (fuck off make your own list). It’s weird, this movie is almost like a disease because I despised the title as well until I started thinking about it and now I have convinced myself that it’s not bad. Obviously this poster repulses 90% of the population, and it is really hard to do anything else. That’s why I put it up against Gosford Park, a much better movie, but also a much better poster. I’m going to stop talking about this movie because next thing you know I’ll like it.

9: Bee Season

I like intelligent movies, and I like popcorn crap, what I hate is pretentious bullshit, and that’s what this poster is screaming. From looking at this poster I can make a million assumptions about this movie (none of which may be true), and they all feel clichéd. Juliette Binoche is disconnected… we can’t even get a clean look at her because of all the crap in the foreground. She is probably on prescription drugs but continues to drink despite the protestations of her family. Richard Gere is distant and cold. He can’t even make eye contact with the camera, or any member of his family. I think he has a good heart, but something needs to happen to reawaken him. The daughter’s eyes are closed so she is obviously smart. She is by far the biggest character on the poster so everybody else’s life will be affected by what she does. Fuck this poster. All I need to say about The Squid and the Whale poster is check out that tagline: “Joint Custody Blows.” They could have the exact same image as Bee Season (thankfully they do something much cooler) and it would still be a better poster.

8: The Great Raid

I really liked the Great Raid – it feels very much like a movie that was made in the 60s when war was an acceptable horror. I know that in the age of Jarhead it is really hard to sell a movie that doesn’t make war morally repugnant (and I am not talking shit about Jarhead, in fact, I probably liked Jarhead more than Great Raid). I also know that when Benjamin Bratt is your biggest star it isn’t easy to make a normal movie poster. But there is no excuse for this disgusting poster. The image is bad enough; it doesn’t look like a movie poster it looks like a military recruiting ad. But what really gets me is the tagline, which is far too long for me to type out in its entirety, and which is actually 3 taglines in one. You’ve got “The Most Daring Rescue Mission Ever”, and “The Greatest Story Never Told”, and “The Rescue Mission that Defined Our Time”; all three separately are bad, together they are an abomination. Again, check out the dual tagline on the other poster; both “The First Casualty of War is Innocence”, and “When I Die Bury Me Upside Down so the World can Kiss My…” send chills down my spine.

7: Serenity

I simply do not get Serenity. I never watched the TV show, barely watched Buffy and think that the whole thing looks like an absolute joke. I don’t know who the hell that girl is, but she looks kind of cute and kickass with that gun so I can’t really knock her (except that if she really was cute and they didn’t want me to be squinting at the computer screen trying to figure out if she was hot then they could have done something a little more overtly sexual). I hate the dude in the top corner; he looks like a cross between Charlie Sheen and Charlie Sheen’s asshole. I guess they couldn’t replace the cast of the TV show because it wasn’t popular enough to keep running on TV, but how do you expect to get a new audience with an assface like that as your leading man? I won’t even mention that ridiculous tagline which is so generic I forget it before I can even write it down, but what the hell is with the stupid words such as “Fugitive, Assassin, Rebel” splattered throughout the poster. Look at the Matrix poster – it is cheesy as well, but it feels meaner, leaner and cooler.

6: Coach Carter

My hatred for the Coach Carter poster is completely irrational. Every once in a while I see something that for some reason rubs me the wrong way and that is this poster. I have grown to hate the “world-is-moving-fast-except-for-one-man” look (I can’t think of another poster off hand that has this look, but I know that it is painfully common). I have grown to hate the “foot-on-the-basketball-give-me-respect” pose that Samuel Jackson is in. I have grown to hate the images that are on the bottom of the poster that show hate, love, power, respect, every emotion that this movie is going to make a hot-button issue. I have trouble with self-righteous Samuel Jackson as well (of course this does not include Pulp Fiction, where he was “bad-ass-motherfucking-self-righteous”). “It Begins on the Streets. It Ends Here.” What the hell does that mean anyways? Check out how fucking cool Denzel is in this He Got Game poster. Furthermore, “the Father, the Son and the Holy Game” has to be one of the best taglines ever.