The Double Posters

In 'The Double' Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg and Zuckerberg Mark. This is my poster review for Richard Ayoade's 'The Double'.

I'm not sure if you can tell or not but I don't really like Jesse Eisenberg as an actor, but that doesn't mean I don't like the films he's in. I just think that he doesn't have any range and is always the same character, Mark Zuckerberg because that's his most well known one. Even pre-'Social Network' he played the same character. Before I watched this I thought that he might not be the same character half the time but I was proven wrong, he was two variations on the same  character. The other performances were perfectly fine. Also Richard Ayoade's directing style was rather interesting. It was very artistic and stylized but it was also quite ambiguous, and not just with an ambiguous ending but almost everything is ambiguous. I can't comment on what he did with 'Submarine' because I've not seen it. I enjoy watching The IT Crowd  and think that Richard Ayoade was very good as Maurice Moss, so I found him directing interesting. And his interviews also reflect the sort of style of his humour and style. Back to Eisenberg. Although I don't like him as an actor I own 3 of his movies on Blu-Ray and have seen 2 others. Despite not liking him I do think he might do well as Lex Luthor in BvS, because I wouldn't mind Lex Luthor being portrayed as a young entrepreneur in a Mark Zuckerberg like way.

Anyway the posters are all good. They contain: title, actors, director, reviews and studios.

Thanks for reading and I would like to add that I own this and any future posters I will review.

Kingsman: The Secret Service Character Posters

"Do you like spy movies, Mr DeVere?" I do like them...and don't call me Mr DeVere. Here is my poster review for Matthew Vaughn's 'Kingsman: The Secret Service'.

That was meant to be an Airplane reference by the way. I really enjoyed watching 'Kingsman', partly because it knows exactly what it is: a fun spy movie that has a big over the top plot filled with comedic moments and violent fight scenes. Those fight scenes were so violent that 20th Century Fox submitted it for pre-cuts from the BBFC to make sure if it would get the 15 rating they wanted. Though I do like 'Kingsman' I do prefer Matthew Vaughn's other Mark Millar graphic novel adaption 'Kick-Ass' as I think it has better commentary on the superhero genre than 'Kingsman' does the spy genre. I don't like the sequel though as I don't think it's that entertaining and the story goes too far away from the graphic novel's. Despite that Matthew Vaughn said that he would want to make a third one and a Hit Girl and Big Daddy prequel. I'm not quite sure what they'd do casting wise for Hit Girl as Chloe Grace Moretz is now too old, but I'm sure Nicolas Cage could return. I do like Matthew Vaughn's directing style, though I've not seen 'Stardust' and 'Layer Cake', but I'm still interested in whatever he's doing next. Another thing he's good at is finding relatively unknown actors and casting them in lead roles and getting good performances from them. For example: Daniel Craig(Layer Cake), Charlie Cox(Stardust), Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Chloe Grace Moretz(Kick-Ass), Taron Egerton and Sophie Cookson(Kingsman). 

I'm kind of cheating with this and the next few as they're all art cards I've got from DVDs. This set of posters are all referencing the poster for 'For Your Eyes Only'.  I can't really list all the poster stuff though I do find it strange that they put down that it was from the director of X-Men: First Class and not Kick-Ass, as it is closer to tone and content than X-Men. Though I don't really understand why they gave JB the pug a poster and not someone like Michael Caine or Mark Strong.

Thanks for reading and I would like to add that I own this and any future posters I will review.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Harry/Voldemort Poster

It all ends here unless Warner Bros and JK Rowling decide that they need more money. Here is my poster review for David Yates' 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2'.

Yes that's right, the poster is changing, I got this at a screening in September(?) 2011 when Odeon brought it back for a weekend and gave away these special posters to anyone who saw it. This is the most successful Harry Potter film and is also the 7th biggest movie ever(for now anyway). Interestingly before 2015 it was 4th but then Fast & Furious 7, Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Jurassic World all overtook it. This is easily my second favourite Harry Potter film and is probably my favourite of 2011 that I saw in cinema(I didn't see Source Code in cinema which I also really like). Unlike Mockingjay I thought this deserved to be split into 2 parts as so much happens in the book that they would find hard to fit into one 2 1/2 hour film. This also influenced the Escape From Gringotts ride at Universal Studios which opened last year. It is a smart move by Warner Bros to make more money by making this offer to see their film again a few months after you first did. I like how it shows Harry and Voldemort, the two enemies who you know are going to have a fight scen because "either must die at the hands of the other". Now for the poster features, which I am going to do differently this time because this wasn't used in cinemas or bus stops to advertise it: Title, studios and technically advertises the 3D because of how it is designed. The lack of release date and social media is fine and I guess director and actor credits missing are fine too.

Thanks for reading and I would like to add that I own this and any future posters I will review.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Poster

It's always the "chosen one", what about someone who has seen the chosen one in passing and is observing all that's going on?.Here is my poster review for David Yates' 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'.

Harry Potter, the second most popular franchise money wise according to Wikipedia. I own all the Harry Potter DVDs and I have read all the books. My favourite for both is Prisoner of Azkaban and my least favourite film is Order of the Phoenix because they took the longest book and made it the second shortest film(after DH:P2), and book is...actually I don't really have a least favourite book. This is generally the year where not much happens, until the end anyway. What makes this enjoyable is that it focuses on the characters and their interactions together. It still progresses the whole story though by showing Tom Riddle's past at Hogwarts, partially through the new potions teacher Professor Slughorn(Jim Broadbent) who also taught Riddle at Hogwarts. My version of the poster is different as it is the UK version. It is also more horizontal than vertical but I couldn't find that one. It shows the sort of bleak lighting that's been present since the 3rd one. I quite like how it's got half of Harry's face in the shadow and the reflection of Dumbledore in Harry's glasses, which helps to imply that part of the film is their interactions. Onto the features of the poster: title(kind of anyway), tagline, release date and companies. Unless it's in the small print there's no director or actor credits one it. It is also not advertising that it's the first Harry Potter in IMAX 3D, but not regular 3D for a strange reason, despite 2009 being the year for the return of 3D.

Thanks for reading and I would like to add that I own this and any future posters I will review.

Battleship Poster

How do you adapt a slow strategy based board game? Add aliens of course! Here is my poster review for Peter Berg's 'Battleship'.

2012 was meant to be a big year for Taylor Kitsch. The 'Friday Night Lights' was the main character in two big budget movies: this and 'John Carter', and was also in an Oliver Stone film. Before 2012 he had fairly small roles in films and he was Gambit in the first Wolverine movie, though that role has now been taken by Channing Tatum. After 2012 Taylor Kitsch was only slightly further ahead in his career, thanks to none of the 3 doing well at the cinema or with critics. It is essentially Tansformers 3.5 but without the brand, though my poster has Hasbro and the Transformers names at the top. I like it as it shows Taylor Kitsch, almost silhouetted, standing on a naval ship facing one of the big alien ships, which is not silhouetted. The top of the poster also has three missile tubes pointing at the alien ship. I have checked and that shot may actually be possible on a battleship which helps the poster. Time for the poster features: title, tagline, release date(though mine says coming soon), social media and studios. Missing are the names of actors and the director, there was character posters with Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgård, Rhianna, Brooklyn Decker, Tadanobu Asano and Liam Neeson, whose role was way too small.

This is a fun action sci-fi movie that's not meant to be the next Blade Runner. And sorry for the weird line breaks towards the end, I don't know what happened.

Thanks for reading and I would like to add that I own this and any future posters I will review.

Selma Main UK poster

Time to catch up, here is my poster review for Ava DuVernay's 'Selma'.

This is probably one of my favourite films of 2015 so far. All the praises at the top of the poster are well deserved in my opinion. David Oyelowo's performance as Martin Luther King was especially good and was perfectly cast. This isn't a flaw but quite a few of the main actors are brittish actors playing iconic people in American history. David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson(LBJ), Carmen Ejogo(Coretta Scott King) and Tim Roth(George Wallace). In fact the only American on the poster is Oprah Winfrey. Funnily David Oyelowo, Oprah Winfrey and Cuba Gooding Jr all had roles in 2013's 'The Butler', which was partially set around the American civil rights movement. Now to talk about the poster. I think that by seeing David Oyelowo standing solo in the foreground against all the state troopers in the background is brilliant and helps to show the struggle that black Americans had during the civil rights movement. The poster features it contains are: title, actors, studios, release date, critics reviews and director in small print.

Now onto the film. As I have already said this is one of my favourites of this year. The performances are all great and DuVernay has a great visual style and perfectly directs almost action suspense and talking scenes. And 'Glory' is a good song as well. Though I am just as surprised that David Oyelowo and Ava DuVernay weren't nominated for best actor and director respectively as 'The Lego Movie' not being nominated for best animated picture.

Thanks for reading and I would like to add that I own this and any future posters I will review.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 Katniss Back Facing Poster

Sorry for the lateness but here is my poster review for Francis Lawrence's The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1.

This is my least favourite of the Hunger Games movies, and is based on my least favourite of the books. All that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it. My favourite film and book is definitely Catching Fire but I'm not going to go into details as this blog is not about books, it's about posters. The marketing team, for whatever reason, showed a lot of the rest of the cast early on in the advertising campaign, despite people watching them for Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss. To see what I'm talking about, type 'mockingjay part 1 character poster' into Google Images and you'll see secondary, and characters with even smaller roles, characters facing forward and to the side, still with their faces visible, but Katniss is facing backwards(at least until you get about 30 images in. And there's only really one other poster with Katniss in, making two which is the same amount of posters which President Snow in(who is in it for much less). Even 'Foggy Nelson' from 'Daredevil'(this was before he was in 'Daredevil' though) has his own poster and he had a very small role. They also have posters which have random citizens from some of the Districts(which I think is actually rather smart as it shows the normal people caught in this revolution). Onto the poster stuff: release date, tagline, not in 3D. What it's missing: the main actors names, the title(you don't want people saying "I can't wait to see November 21!").

Despite liking this entry into the franchise  the least I am still looking forward to Part 2 which comes out this November. It contains great performances(one of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's last) and special effects.

Thanks for reading and I would like to add that I own this and any future posters I will review.