Sheet-y Saturday

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Whoever is behind the marketing campaign for Shame most certainly knows what he's doing. Each of the film's posters have been more brilliant than the previous and they all sum up the film's concept without recurring to using Michael Fassbender's face. Take this Hungarian poster for example, the way the title is spelled gives it an instantly erotic level, that's mostly marked because it feels so revolting at the same time. It's sensual and exhibitionist, but it also puts into perspective the character of whoever spewed the title out. Can you help but feel deep empathy for his sorrow? The poster was banned upon its release.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

You mean Madge means serious business when her name isn't mentioned in huge, glittery letters anywhere in the poster for W.E. Gotta love the tasteful Tiffany blue and the beautiful still of Andrea and James (who knew the king was so buff?). However the tagline sounds so forced and almost catastrophic, gotta give kudos of sorts to the designer who decided that people would be too stupid to get the title and highlighted the W and E in the characters' names. Really people, most of the ad campaign for this movie has worried about the title and what it means. Wouldn't it have been easier to change it?

The look on Fassy's face! The hand going to his Fassboner! The other hand showing the emptiness next to him! This poster fulfills on the promise made by every other wonderful piece of advertising done for this movie. It's truly breathtaking!

Sheet-y Saturday.

Japanese people have a strange sense of humor and very different aesthetics from us Westerners but I really can't guess what they were trying to go for with this poster for Young Adult. Between the Hello Kitty shirt and the disheveled hair there's really no big contrast. Were they trying to show that Char is up to no good but has potential? Because so far look like lazy Sunday outfits.

The looks on CaMu and Fassy in this poster say it all. They didn't even need to bother saying the name of the movie. What a superb work this is. I am dying to see this one...

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Oh the French, while silly Americans worry about the notion of sex onscreen and Michael Fassbender's cock, the French not only dare to put a male figure on the suggestive poster, but the moving hand implies it's heading to somewhere a bit more risqué. Despite the weird proportions of the body (the too smooth sides make it look like a woman in serious need of Nair) applause to the European distributor for reminding us that we all want to see this movie for the same kinky reasons.

More and more, this movie reminds me of a reverse Mrs. Doubtfire. Also, the drastic change from the original, perfect teaser, to this more common one-sheet makes it seem like the studio is worried it'll only attract nerdy arthousers (which it will...). With that said, Aaron Johnson should be in much more movies. Still wonder what they see in Wasikowska though...

What's your own take on all the knobs in this week's posters?

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

This teaser might be the best poster I've seen all year long. Simple but interesting, with a superb use of color (blue takes the eroticism out of the unmade bed) and a spectacularly subdued font, it encompasses everything that makes Shame such a fascinating project. You want to dive into this bed, in the same way you're repulsed by its filthiness. I am dying to see how the larger American audiences, who are historically conservative, receive this movie about sex addiction! 

Ready to get in bed with Fassy and CaMu?

While Watching "The Towering Inferno"...

...and wondering if movies like this (star studded-actual A-listers-multimillion dollar, disaster flicks) could get made nowadays, I also learned a few things.

Fires can get started all of a sudden and have their own will power, it didn't just happen in "Silly Symphonies".

Faye Dunaway and Paul Newman might have inspired "Afternoon Delight"

The taller you build them, the harder they fall. What's G-d's issue with downsizing human achievements in movies? This one makes a point out of having every character point out how indestructible the building is ("Titanic" much?).

Faye Dunaway was HOT!

Jennifer Jones could've played Dame Elizabeth Taylor.

Faye Dunaway in distress was equally hot.

Nobody exuded raw, macho, sexiness and charm like these two.

Damn were they blue.

If a phallic object gets increasingly hotter for a certain amount of time it will end up releasing fluid.

Hunger ****

Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham
Stuart Graham, Brian Milligan, Liam McMahon

The human body becomes the ultimate weapon for the defense of personal beliefs in Steve McQueen's politically charged, crude masterpiece about the 1981 hunger strike in Belfast's Maze Prison.
The film begins as more and more IRA members are sent to prison, demanding that the British government treats them as political prisoners and gives them different care.
But "there is no such thing as political bombings" commands Margaret Thatcher over the radio, giving the prisoners no choice but to protest in any way they can.
Forms of protest included spreading their feces all over the wall, refusing to wear prison uniforms and eventually the title strike which lasted for more than six months and cost the lives of ten prisoners and just as much prison guards.
It is here where the film centers its attention on Bobby Sands (Fassbender) as he leads the strike and even becomes elected for Parliament as the prisoners battle the British government.
But even if the second half of the plot seems to be biopic material, McQueen's approach to it is so unsentimental that Sands' identity might as well have remained anonymous, without lessening the impact of the film.
As political films go, "Hunger" is by far one of the most complex examples released recently, in terms of how it never chooses sides, but somehow evades being tagged as lazily ambiguous.
When the film starts we meet Davey (Milligan) who has just been taken to Maze and proudly remains true to what his beliefs demand of him.
As we see the treatment he receives from the guards and the complete loss of human dignity he goes through we're led to identify with him.
But by doing this aren't we identifying with someone who has certainly committed a crime and is there for a reason?
The camera also follows guard Raymond Lohan (Graham) as he prepares to go to work and must check his car for bombs and later move in some sort of trance knowing that this might be the day when he dies at work.
We also identify with him, because regardless of what he's made to do, he is after all a man performing tasks his job demands. Later on, during one of the film's most brutal moments we see the naked prisoners take a beating in order to search them for smuggled items (which a previous, fantastically choreographed, scene confirmed as truth), one of the guards, not more than a boy, sneaks to the back where a single tear falls down his cheek amidst hellish noise and screams.
By portraying two sides of a completely unequal battle with documentary like techniques, the film gets to the core of what politics are supposed to be about and beyond those matters it grasps at humanity. Nobody watching this film will be able to just pick who was right or wrong.
In terms of cinematic qualities, "Hunger" also comes as a force to behold. When it starts we somehow expect it to be either the story of the first characters we meet or a quasi-documentary about IRA prisoners.
At first most scenes unfold around the relationship of Davey and Gerry (McMahon) who become cell mates and must deal with the precarious living conditions they're given.
The plot seems to move nowhere during the start, making our imagination plot if this is going to be an escape film or something like "The Green Mile" considering the guards aren't portrayed as villains either.
Then during the first time the camera takes us out of the cells to the visitors hall we see Sands and only then the film begins to focus on him.
As if the camera was being held under the same rules as the prisoners, especially those under the "Five Demands" they requested of the British government, involving free association with other inmates.
Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt's work is magnificent, because every camera movement is key to the action and the underlying meaning of what's occurring.
In what will become the film's trademark moment, and one of the most daring scenes ever filmed, the camera stays still for almost twenty minutes (roughly one quarter of the film's entire running time, brave considering the first quarter is almost completely devoid of dialogue as well).
Bobby has requested a visit from a priest (Cunningham who is splendid) and they discuss the moral, social, political and religious implications of the upcoming hunger strike.
"The Brits have been fucking up everything for centuries" goes the priest as the scene is handled with an informality that makes it both comfortable to see, but uneasy to deal with.
After this, the plot will take a dark turn giving Fassbender a chance to push his thespian skills to the limit. His eventual physical change is almost impossible to watch as his body deteriorates, but his fervent spirit remains the same.
"If God doesn't punish you for suicide he will for stupidity" says the priest, to which a serene Sands replies "and you for arrogance".
Nobody leaves "Hunger" unscathed, not even those who are just being witnesses.