Posters - The New Wave

The Hobbit poster which is rightly called a "tapestry" - simply beautiful!

I have always found posters to be fascinating. As much as I love films, I have always craved after those brilliant fan made minimalistic posters or in some cases the originals of the classics. Let's face it, posters have once again, with the ease of internet, become a top priority for film makers in their marketing campaign. These images on paper are the perfect teasers to any film. Placing a poster of a film on a webpage or as an advertisement is the first step taken by most to get news about the film to the masses. Moreover, it is the poster design that also acts as the first impression for the audience. Make a good and intriguing poster and there is a higher likelihood that a person will click on the link. Obviously, posters at movie theatres are as popular as ever. 


I do feel that Hollywood went through a period in the 90s and early 2000s when posters were not given that much importance. Part of it could be because 90s was when home viewing was at a high and thus there was no such need. Surprisingly, the VHS covers from this time have become quite collectable now due to certain nostalgia associated to them. Also, internet was not as accessible as now, so for a poster design to spread like a virus, it had to be something really really special. 


That has changed over the last few years. More and more film-makers are paying attention to posters and coming up with unique and individualistic designs. A number of times competitions are being held by studios to let the audience design posters for an upcoming movie in what is a perfect marketing and design technique. The popularity of fan made posters (once again, especially the minimalistic ones) probably has something to do with this also. Now, be it a fan made poster or an "original", if it's good then it will be tweeted/ReTweeted or Liked on the internet within minutes.


So, I just wanted to share a few posters of movies that are about to be released that have impressed me for different reasons. They might not have the same "cool" and "hip" factor as the minimalistic ones or even the hard to find Polish movie posters, they are still a positive step towards giving poster design a certain art credibility they so rightly deserve.  

The poster of OZ: The Great & Powerful has a rather fairytale look to it,
but I like how it has a somewhat dark feel to it. 

Very 80s and it should be considering most of the actions stars in the
film are from that era.

The poster would make more sense once you have seen the film,
still it says and shows everything you really need to know. 

It's not the best poster around, still interesting as the skull is
made up of VHS tapes.

A teaser poster that just looks amazing.
Even comes close to be being minimalistic. 

Love the old-fashioned style and the crease as if the
poster was folded. Very Tim Burtonesq. 

I do not know anything about the film, but thankfully the poster design
caught my eye before the star of the film. I'm all intrigued now. 

Sign of a big blockbuster film this poster is. Hotly anticipated
the poster provides just the right dose of excitement.

I like this poster because all you have to do is look at the poster and
you have a fairly good idea what the movie will be about.

Probably my favourite TDKR poster, after that of Catwoman for obvious reasons.
Along with the Hobbit tapestry, this has to be my favourite poster in a long long time. 

  

Yeah For The New TV Season!

When I was younger (and only slightly nerdier) the arrival of the new Fall TV Season was a big deal in my little lonely universe. I'd pour over the TV Guide and just imagine how awesome all the new shows were going to be. I'd plan out each night of the week for my optimal viewing pleasure. Nowadays, the return of new shows to Network TV isn't quite as exciting as it used to be. Lucky for me, it's also not as jaw-droping awesome to me as it used to be. But for the first time, in a long time...there's a handful of shows that I'm looking forward to checking out this season. I'm sure most of them will be cancelled before Christmas and the rest of them I'll loose interestet in shortly after New Years but I'm actually kind of excited about a few new shows...

The Playboy Club Mondays 10-11 PM Premiers September 19 on NBC
Ok, I've become a big fan of the Playboy Universe not because of naked girls but from watching my beloved reality series The Girls Next Door. Playboy is so much more than nakedness and when I started to read about the life of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, I discovered that he's an incrdibly fascinating man who is responsible for more change in this country than most people will ever give him credit for. The real life Playboy Clubs were a chain of night clubs that popped up in hot spot cities in the 1960's. They weren't strip joints but sophisicated hang-outs that promoted the finer things in life. The clubs disappeared over the following decades and have only recently started to make a comeback. The clubs of the 60's were legendary and the new series The Playboy Club seeks to reinvent some of that mystery and magic. I'm really looking forward to getting into this show.


Whitney Thursdays 9:30-10 PM Premeres Sept. 22 on NBC
Whitney Cummings is a very funny comedian. I've become a fan of her work through her appearances on the Comedy Central Roasts as well as her own comedy special, plus she's pretty darn funny on Twitter too. When I heard she was getting her own show I was pretty excited and then more so when I discovered that it is a traditional multi-camera sitcom. At one time, NBC was the king of sitcoms and they haven't launched a good straightforward laughtrack driven sitcom in a while. The premise is simple, Whitney and her boyfriend live together and are happy with their lives but don't feel the need to get married. Sounds like a fun addition to Thursday nights, even if it's taking 30 Rock's timeslot.


Pan Am Sundays 10-11 PM Premiers Sept. 25 on ABC
I'm quite sure more than one 60 minute show is going to be too much for me to juggle in a single season, but this period drama about globetrotting stweardesses looks like it might be alot of fun. It's kind of covering some of the same ground as The Playboy Club, so much so that the promo also uses an iconic Frank Sinatra song...


2 Broke Girls Mondays 8:30-9 PM Premieres Sept. 19 at 9:30 on CBS
CBS has always had a strong Monday night comedy line-up. They are adding this promising new sitcom right between How I Met Your Mother and Two And A Half Men, that's a pretty nice slot. This is another traditional multi-cam sitcom with a traditional premise: privalaged girl meets underprivalaged girl and they both have to work and live together. Classic. The cast includes Kat Dennings, whom I've enjoyed in a number of movie roles lately. The show was also co-created by Whitney Cummings, so it's got that going for it too. Which is nice.


Suburgatory Wednesdays 8:30-9 PM Premiers Sept. 28 on ABC
This one doesn't look that great...and it doesn't look like it's going to last very long either but it's totally in my wheelhouse. This comedy looks kind of like Clueless mixed with MTV's Awkward. It also boasts Jeremy Sisto in the cast, who is one of the very few males actors that I can say I enjoy his work.


What new shows are you looking forward to?

Reason #6,821 Why I Need A Daughter

...and my boys will spend the entire Christmas season wondering if this game will really be under their tree or not!

Summer Movie Preview III

My kids are super excited about this one...


And speaking of animals...

It Looks Like I Picked A Bad Week To Not Speak Spanish

Unsmurfy

First, let's take a look at the new trailer for the upcoming live action Smurfs movie - then we'll discuss...



Here's my beefs:
1) Sending the smurfs to modern day New York City isn't a totally terrible idea (it certainly isn't an original idea) but that's a plot that should be saved for a #3 sequel. You don't jump right out of the gate with the old "sent to the real world" plot. They did it with Fat Albert, Bulwinkle and at least a few others and it just doesn't work. Star Trek did it well, but they waited until their 4th film before they sent the crew to modern day San Francisco. The Smurfs in New York is just not a terribly great way to start off a potential movie franchise.

2) Was there really not enough Smurfs to pick from that the new filmmakers had to create a new Smurf? You may have noticed in the trailer a Smurf wearing a kilt and sporting a Scottish accent. That would be the new Gutsy Smurf. Sure. That's necessary.

3) Don't sexualize Smurfette. I know everyone has always made jokes about one Smurf girl and 98 male Smurfs, but seeing Smurfette's dress blow up like and the other Smurfs ogling her is just kinda gross.

4) The new Smurfs are ugly! The original Smurf designs created by Peyo, a Belgian comics artist, 50 some years ago are masterpieces of simple cartoon character artwork. These new 3D Smurfs are, again, kinda gross. They are not cute at all.

Still, as Smurfs are deeply ingrained in my being - I'm looking forward to seeing this movie and judge first hand what they've done with the property. My 7 year old has already suggested that after we see the new movie we come home and watch the older animated film The Smurfs and the Magic Flute to see how a real Smurf movie is made. That's a Smurfy idea!

You "Auto" Get This DVD!

I could not have been more excited when I heard the news that Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch was heading down the road to DVD. Good gracious, that is a fine animated program that I can't wait to get my hands on! I professed my love for Wheelie in a post four years ago and now in 2011 he's coming to DVD!

Warner Bros. is doing a great job of opening the flood gates and diving into the Hanna-Barbera vault to bring some great stuff to the screen that hasn't been seen in years. If I were to make a list of H-B shows I'd like to have on DVD, Wheelie would be at the top of my list!

Here's the write-up on the series from the Warner Bros. website:

Zoom into gear with Wheelie, the world’s greatest stunt racing car, and his girlfriend Rota Ree as they outmaneuver the sneaky motorcycle gang Chopper, Revs, Riser and Scrambles in this 3-Disc, 13-Episode Complete Series Collection! Not the smartest bike in the bunch, Chopper’s schemes range from scaring Wheelie with ghost cars at the car cemetery, tricking a trail bike into spying on Wheelie and cheating at a tractor-roping competition, plus many more shenanigans that never end well for the gang. Besides outwitting Chopper in these 39 adventures (3 per episode), Wheelie aids other vehicles needing a helping wheel, like a lost scooter, a sick tow truck and a stranded bulldozer. Honk for great family fun and motor to the couch for a night of drive-in entertainment!

I'm the first one in line for a good car pun, but I don't think I even get "motor to the couch".

Here's the super-catchy theme song and you can thank me later when you are humming it in your head all day!


Anyways, the DVD comes out next Tuesday and it looks like you'll have to order it online from the Warner Bros. Studio Shop. Or you could just come on over to the WWoB offices and we'll run it in our screening room!

New Cars Trailer

At first glance, this teaser for next summer's Cars 2 feels like Pixar might be "jumping the shark" but if we've learned anything from the first 10 films of the Pixar cannon: Never Underestimate the good folks at Pixar!

How Do These Guys Get To Keep Making Films?

As sure as the sun rises and sets everyday, you can be sure that if a year has gone by it's time for another wacky parody movie that doesn't really parody anything...



Here's the thing...I'm not really ever on board with the whole "so bad it's funny" thing, but these movies have gotten so idiotic and horrible that they are hilarious! They are just so bad...and I like Bad Movies - so who's supposed to watch this stuff!?!

That being said: Can't wait to see it!

Yogi Watch 2010

The Yogi Bear movie is a little over four months away. Today I saw the poster for the first time...

My thoughts....the poster is actually pretty awesome. It's bright and colorful and it stands out from most of the other movie posters for current movies. I'm sure somewhere along the brainstorming sessions somebody came up with a poster featuring a close up of Yogi and Boo Boo's face tinted blue with a tag line of something like "Pic-a-nic Happens". But the poster does focus in on pic-a-nic baskets which should be the main theme of any Yogi Bear project.

The design of the two main characters is probably what is going to off-set most people. When I first heard of the film, I was expecting them to use real bears or at least CGI realistic looking bears but these designs are pretty dead on to what Yogi and Boo Boo would look like in real life. They are much more on-target with their classic counterparts then say Alivn and the Chipmunks or Garfield were in their big screen epics.

What has me most excited about the possibilities of this movie is an interview I read with director Eric Brevig. Alot of times these pre-film interviews with directors are just all hype and they say what ever they think will help to sell the movie, but other times I read these articles and I'm thinking, "Are you %&$# kiddin' me!?" Like the director of the new Tom & Jerry live-action film who said something along the lines of, "Yeah, I watched a few of the old episodes with my kid but we're going in a whole new direction." What!?!

Yogi Bear director Eric Brevig says, "I wanted to make a movie that's a comedy in which some of the characters are bears, as opposed to a kid's film." That's somewhat refreshing...if it's true. What I really liked was: "Well, I think the world of Yogi is a timeless world, and I've gone to great lengths to avoid specific things in the movie that tell you the time period —for example, people don't use cell phones in the movie, [the park rangers] use walkie-talkies. The things we take for granted — BlackBerrys and so forth — they don't really exist in the Yogi world; it will have a classic feel to it." That's some smart thinking, my friends.

This dude sounds like he might be smarter than the average director. You can read the whole interview here.

The Flamingos Are Coming

I like to think I know a thing or two about flamingos, mostly because I stayed at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. But seriously folks...

I really enjoy the nature film that Disney has been putting out under the Disneynature banner. It's nice when the company does something in line with their heritage and the Disneynature films are a nice throwback to the old True-Life Adventure films that Walt Disney believed so much in. The new films aren't near as good as the old ones. The new Disneynature films could benefit from being a lot more playful and a little less like a museum IMAX film. Either way, both Earth and Oceans were way more entertaining that other junk I've recently plopped down $8.50 to see.

So, while checking out Walt Disney Home Entertainment's website the other day I was pretty excited to see that they've got a new Disneynature title set for release on DVD the same day as Oceans DVD premiere. On October 19 The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos should pop up on DVD shelves:



This film, while new to American audiences, came out in France in October of 2008 and then the following year in the UK. I'm excited to get my hands on a copy.

Disneynature's next big screen epic, African Cats, is scheduled to hit theatres on Earth Day next year.

Smurf Movie

I've been really excited about the new Smurfs movie coming out next summer. From what I've been reading, the movie was supposed to take the Smurfs and give them a big budget, Lord of the Rings style trilogy. From the looks of this first trailer for the film, which comes out next summer, it looks more like we'll be getting another movie in the Garfield/Alivn & The Chipmunks/Marmaduke category instead. Bummer!

I've still got my hopes up for Yogi Bear!

Return of the Clash

When I was younger, one movie that I used to watch over and over again was Clash of the Titans. Hey look! There's a new version coming to theatres this weekend:



To help celebrate the new movie and their new line of Yoplait Greek Yogurt, the generous folks at Yoplait want to give you a Nourish Your Inner Goddess gift pack, as seen below:

All you have to do to get your hands on these goodies is tell us about a movie that you have fond memories of watching over and over again when you were little. To enter, just leave a comment on this blog or send us an e-mail by 11:59pm Friday, April 10, 2010. One winner will be selected at random, please make sure we have some way to contact you.

This promotion is courtesy of Yoplait who has provided the free product, information, and gift pack through MyBlogSpark™.

All Hail 80's Saturday Morning Cartoons

This promises to be one of the sweetest DVD releases of the year! Saturday Morning Cartoons 1980s is a two-disc set of old school animation set to be released May 4. Warner Bros. has already put out two volumes each of cartoons from the 60's and 70's, and now they are adding another decade worth of toons to the collection. Some of this stuff is super awesome; here we go:

• Mister T - I loved this show! Mr. T ditches the A-Team and instead travels around with a gymnastics team solving crimes. Oh, that's good stuff!

The Flintstone Kids - The Bedrock gang as little kids wasn't quite as fun as the earlier adventures but it was a law in the mid-80's to turn every franchise into a baby or kiddie version. It was still a pretty good show and the end of 20 years of Flintstones spin-offs.

The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley - Martin Short's SCTV/SNL character came to Sat AM in this pretty funny show which featured a great voice cast and some live action skits spun off from SCTV classics. I can't wait to see this one again!

The Kwicky Koala Show - Even though as a flat rule I hate koala bears, this early morning show was a real gem. A throwback to the cartoon shorts of decades earlier, Kwicky was produced by animation god Tex Avery - who did the original (and side-splittingly hilarious) Droopy cartoons.

Thundar The Barbarian - My tastes always leaned towards funny animal shows, I always loved this action packed fighting show with Thundar and a bunch of other pelt-clad dudes riding around on various winged creatures and saving the world from some pretty ugly bad guys. It don't get much better than this, folks!

The set also includes episodes of Chuck Norris - Karate Commandos (which I'm pretty sure wasn't actually on Saturday mornings, it was strip syndicated for afternoons), Dragon's Liar (the cartoon based on a video game that was also a cartoon), Galtar and the Golden Lance, The Monchhichis, The Biskitts (which I believe was syndicated to Sunday mornings), and Goldie Gold and Action Jack (which I remember nothing about except it had a really cool announcer!)

If you're not like me and don't have to have every major cartoon title on DVD in your own personal collection, you should also be able to rent the two discs from Netflix. I'll definitely be pouring myself a big bowl of dry cereal and vegging out with these Saturday Morning Cartoons real soon!

Yogi Watch 2010

The new year of 2010 will most likely be remembered, by me, as the year I sit and wait for the live-action Yogi Bear movie to be released on December 17. I'm soooo excited to see the movie and have Yogi Bear once again become an active participant in pop culture, yet on the other paw I'm worried that there is so much that they can get wrong with this movie there's a good chance they will disappoint me. So, we're starting a new department here at WWoB called Yogi Watch 2010 so we can keep track of all the developments with the film as they become public.

Here's what we know so far:
-The Cast Tom Cavanagh, best known for his title role in the NBC series Ed, has been cast as Ranger Smith. I like that they didn't just go for a big name star. This Cavanagh kid looks the part, I think he can pull it off.

The wonderful Anna Faris is also cast as a nature documentary film maker. Faris is a very gifted comedic actress and she'll add a little star power to the cast - I like her addition to the cast.

When I first read that Dan Aykroid and Justin Timerlake were hired to voice Yogi and Boo-Boo I almost hung myself. But then I stopped and thought...I can hear the two of these guys nailing the voices of Yogi and Boo-Boo, so if they are actually going to mimic the cartoon voices I think it will be an interesting choice. If Dan Aykroid and Justin Timerlake are just going to voice the bears with their regular speaking voices...I might considering jumping into a bear den at a local zoo in protest.

-The Director Eric Brevig directed the recent money making Journey To The Center of the Earth in 3-D, and was brought onto the Yogi Bear project when it was decided that the big screen adaptation of the two-dimensional cartoon be shot in eye-popping 3-D. I'm not sure what to make of the 3-D decision. I guess after Avatar, 3-D has a whole new appeal to everyone, so maybe it will help the movie at the box office. If Yogi Bear swings in on a rope to steal a picnic basket (and he better!) and then flies out over the audience...I'm so in!

-The Plot From the Warner Bros. press release: Jellystone Park has been losing business, so greedy Mayor Brown decides to shut it down and sell the land. That means families will no longer be able to experience the natural beauty of the outdoors -- and, even worse, Yogi and Boo Boo will be tossed out of the only home they've ever known. Faced with his biggest challenge ever, Yogi must prove that he really is "smarter than the average bear" as he and Boo Boo join forces with their old nemesis Ranger Smith to find a way to save Jellystone Park from closing forever.

Sounds promising as long as they don't have Yogi and Ranger Smith being best friends or some nonsense like that. As long as they have Yogi Bear in his green tie and porkpie hat, they are half way home!

Stay tuned to WWoB for more exciting updates from Yogi Watch 2010!

Here He Comes to DVD!

I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mighty Mouse on DVD. The classic Terrytoons shorts that were produced in the 1950's and 60's were a major staple of my cartoon diet growing up and I've always loved the little guy. There were a few hard to find releases of the original shorts on VHS, but all-in-all just a handful of the library was ever made available. There were also two other series where Mighty Mouse appeared; The New Adventrues of Mighty Mouse & Heckle and Jeckle produced by Filmation ran for two seasons beginning in 1979, and there was Mighty Mouse The New Adventures which was produced by legendary adult animator Ralph Bakshi which popped up near the end of the 1980's. I love all three versions of the show, none of which have been on television in quite a while. I do have a few segments of each in the ol' VHS collection, however!

It's been reported that a nice deluxe DVD set of the original Mighty Mouse cartoons is scheduled to be released with a brand new CGI-movie that Nickelodeon is producing. In the meantime, in between time, it's just been announced that Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures! is going to show up on shelves on January 5, 2010. My least favorite of the three different shows, it's still a great show with a really warped sense of humor and plenty of jokes thrown at adults to make it even more fun. It will be a welcome addition to my DVD library.

When the show originally aired, some people were uneasy that a Saturday morning cartoon for kids was being produced by a studio that formerly turned out X-rated cartoons. Some media watchdog group accused the show of featuring a scene where Mighty Mouse snorted cocaine even though it was clear he was just smelling a flower. (I've seen the clip, he's smelling a flower!) Besides, why would Mighty Mouse need to do cocaine!? He doesn't need any drugs to beat up cats! He's Mighty Mouse!? Duh!

Hollywood Barbie

It's been announced that after 50 years as America's favorite plastic doll, Mattel's Barbie is headed to the big screen in live-action form for the very first time. An animated Barbie has already appeared in over a dozen direct to DVD movies, and she had a small role in 1999's Toy Story 2 but this new project will truly be the first "Barbie Movie".

I've spouted off before about my dreams to one day make a Yogi Bear movie or a Monopoly movie. Barbie is another property that I wanted to translate to the big screen. It's not that I'm a Barbie fan - I've never owned a single Barbie doll, ok...maybe I read an issue or two of her short lived comic book when I was younger, but honestly I'm not a Barbie fan. What interests me about Barbie is how much staying power she has had and what little there really is to her backstory.

All we really know about Barbie is that her real name is Barbara Millicent Roberts, she dates a guy named Ken, she's held every job imaginable and she has a fantastic figure! (Ok...some of us may also know that her parents are George and Margaret Roberts of Willow, Wisconsin and she attended Willows High School.) But that's it! How do you hang a 90 minute motion picture on that tiny of a backstory?

Here's how my version of the movie would go:

• In the movie, Barbie needs to hold at least 25 different jobs all at the same time. In the opening of my movie, Barbie would be performing a delicate operation as chief surgeon at Malibu General Hospital. After the procedure is done, and Barbie has saved the patient's life, Barbie trades her surgical scrubs for a bikini and hits the beach with her friends for a totally bitchin' beach party!
• The song Barbie Girl by Danish-Norwegian supergroup Aqua must be featured prominently in the film, preferably under the opening credits. I know Mattel had some problems with a few of the lyrics of this song and I don't see any reason why they can't go back and clean up the lyrics "Kidz Bop" style - but the song needs to be in the movie!
• The "Malibu Dream House" needs to be somewhere in the movie. It's the number one Barbie toy that everyone knows. The house's elevator must also be used in the film.
• In my original conception of the movie, Barbie was to be played by actress Brooke Theiss - best known for her role as Wendy Lubbock on the short lived sitcom Just the Ten of Us. That was quite sometime ago when I fake-casted her, she's 39 now. She's still attractive, but probably a little too old to play Barbie. I've read that Taylor Swift was being considered as well as Sara Paxton, those are both good choices. Myself, I would probably hold a nationwide audition looking for the perfect unknown actress. I'd picture the publicity tour involving a large pink bus.
• Somewhere in movie, Barbie needs to go to the moon. One of the many jobs she's had was that of astronaut, and that's a pretty cool job to have for someone who has also worked at McDonald's!
• The Barbie Movie does NOT need to have any bad guys in it or any plot where Barbie has to save the world. That would be missing the whole point of Barbie.
• The Barbie Movie should be rated G and should not feature anything the slightest bit inappropriate for a 4 year-old girl to see. Every girl in the world is going to want to see this movie and every parent should feel completely comfortable taking their kids to see it.
• Every single item of clothing, vehicle driven and building entered should (and will) be available as a cheap, crappy plastic toy! Because that's the American way!

New Princess Trailer

A new trailer has been released for Disney's upcoming The Princess and the Frog, which is looking like it's going to be one of the season's most enjoyable films!

Mark Your Calendar: October 2

I am so excited about this...