Movie posters have become increasingly more controversial in the past decade, or else people have become a lot more sensitive. Either way, it seems like there’s a new and controversial movie poster or billboard being banned somewhere. Usually it’s for one of two reasons: sex or violence, with violence being far more popular. One of the first sexually banned posters I could find was 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, which featured an A-frame design that was banned. It wasn’t so much the vaginal roof as it was the exposed buttocks, so they had to release a retouched version that covered more derriere.
It’s been more than 25 years since that poster was sent back to the drawing board, so why do posters keep getting banned? Marketing people know that controversy can turn into a marketing campaign of its own, so maybe they’re pushing the boundaries in the vein of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” With that in mind, here’s a look at controversial movie posters from the past several years. Prepare your innocent eyes and take a look after the break.
With Halloween less than a month away, it’s time to start thinking about what to go as. That is, if you haven’t already. A good costume-loving cinephile typically knows well in advance what he or she will dress up as for Halloween (and Comic-Con, too). But if you’re one to wait until the last minute, and also one who likes to be a lot more contemporary than, say, dressing up as a Ghostbuster or Edward Scissorhands, I’ve got some suggestions for you for costumes based on recent films.
Now that DreamWorks’ detachment from Paramount is officially happening, it’s time to find a distributor for the soon-to-be private company. Universal and Disney are currently the main contenders, but there just seems to be something wrong about a DreamWorks-Disney partnership, even if DreamWorks Animation isn’t part of the move.
Personally, I think Harvey Weinstein should hold off releasing Stephen Daltry’s The Reader until 2009, but I’d like to see Harv and Scott Rudin literally wrestle each other to see who wins their distribution dispute.
Speaking of ruining classics, there’s a Rashomon remake in the works that will update the story’s setting to a modern day rape trial. But then does it have to be an official redo, since there’s tons of Rashomon-influenced movies anyway?
Anne Thompson reports that Ben Lyons (son of Jeffrey, E! channel regular, sometime boyfriend of the quiet one from The Hills) and Ben Mankiewicz (grandson of Herman, The Youngish Guy who hosts Turner Classic Movies on the weekends) are expected to be announced as hosts for the movie review show that will replace Ebert and Roeper. In her report, Anne directs a great, deadpan joke at Lyons: “Last year, he hailed I Am Legend as ‘one of the greatest movies ever made.’” Except it’s not a joke, and it’s not funny anymore.
Fox Atomic has bought a pitch about “an ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer” from Sacha Baron Cohen. Borat/I’m Alan Partridge writer Peter Baynham will do the script.
Universal will start producing video games in-house, beginning with an adaptation of Wanted. Meanwhile, Paramount is working on developing three games based on modern classics aimed at teen girls: Clueless, Mean Girls and Pretty in Pink.
Some thoughts on Vanity Fair’s Bright Young Hollwood thing: the only people I recognize besides for Jonah Hill and the kids from The Wackness are on this page, but that’s because I don’t watch Gossip Girl, right? Also: is Kat Dennings, like, wearing a bat suit?
Considering similar lines in Wanted and Jumper that each put the audience member in the unfavorable position of being condescended to by a pretty-boy unlikely action star, Glenn Kenny wonders, “Have screenwriters become so defensive/resentful on account of churning out quasi-nihilistic, faux-convoluted, graphic-novel-mytho-Babel tripe like this that they feel compelled to lash out at the audience that laps their nonsense up?”
Two quotes just popped out of my feed reader and clubbed me over the head; when I came to, I recalled a couple of other soundbites from my week in LAFF that sort of seem related. First, from David Poland’s eye-roll at “Tom & Jerry On Crack cartoon” Wanted:
Wanted is more like the last of big budget porn, throwing around endless style along with massive fake boobs and enough smoke to choke a Scott. Guys still get off on it - guys can get off on anything that tells them it wants to get them off - but one simply has to wonder, “Doesn’t anyone just f*** anymore?”
Wanted opened to $51.1 million over the weekend, which is, you know, a fantastic boost for Angelina Jolie’s live-action bankability, but it wasn’t enough to beat Wall-E‘s $62.5 mil for first place. Speaking of boosts: The Last Mistress made $17,596 on each of its screens, which is roughly $17 for every time Asia Argento shows her debatably authentic boobs in it.
SAG says they’re not going on strike and any suggestions in that vein coming from the AMPTP are merely “scare tactics.” The AMPTP says SAG is responsible for The End of Hollywood As We Know It. Or, more accurately: “The industry is shutting down because SAG’s Hollywood leadership insisted on 11th-hour negotiations and dragging these talks into July so they can continue attacking AFTRA.”
Prince of Broadway and Loot took the big narrative and documentary prizes, respectively, at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the weekend. The Wackness and Man on Wire won the audience awards. In other fest news, Wim Wenders, director of the most maligned competition film last month at Cannes, will head the jury at the Venice Film Festival.
Over the weekend, Wantedhad a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com. It’s since gone down to 81% (at the time of this writing — and with top critics it’s down to 67%), though that’s still pretty good for a movie that initially looked like just another Matrixknockoff.
But will the good reviews make for great box office? Last night, while viewing the latest trailer in a theater with some friends, I mentioned that Wanted was receiving great reviews. Nobody believed me at first, and then they didn’t care; they still thought it looked terrible.
Good reviews rarely help an action movie, and bad reviews rarely deter audiences from seeing them. However, if we look at the top 5 most critically acclaimed action movies, it’s clear that people do often prefer a good action film to a bad one. The next 5, on the other hand…
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) Rotten Tomatoes’ “T-Meter” score: 94% (top critics: 98%) All Time Domestic Box Office Rank: #9 ($377 million) Sample Critic Quote: “The film event of the millennium.” (Richard Corliss, Time) My Analysis: In terms of both reviews and gross, it is possible that, yes, this final LOTR film was the film event of the millennium only three years in. It even won the Oscar for Best Picture, as well as ten other Academy Awards. However, we do have a few hundred years left, and Corliss’ assessment is likely to be challenged one of these centuries. …Read more
Sorry, no, this is not a clip from or trailer for a Latvian remake of the 1984 classic. Instead it is merely a Latvian cover of Ray Parker Jr.’s classic theme song, performed by Intars Busulis and the cello trio Melo-M. And it now accompanies my other favorite movie theme covers, which include GNR’s version of “Live and Let Die,” the ska cover of The Godfathertheme (by The Mudsharks), my brother’s snail-paced cover of Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” (from Top Gun) and pretty much any cover of “The Neverending Story” (including Homestar Runner’s “The Neverending Soda.”)
The reason I bring you this Ghostbusters theme cover (aside from my having just today discovered it, thanks to Fark.com) is because it (very) loosely ties in with the new movie Wanted. See, both the song and the movie involve the intersection of Hollywood and Eastern European artists (specifically of former Soviet republics). Because Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov is originally from Kazakhstan (yes, home of Borat), and he became successful in the Russian film industry before being wooed by Universal Pictures (though it’s not Bekmambetov’s English-language debut).
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Anne Thompson reports
Wanted
Over the weekend, 
