Crap Film Posters: Old Dogs, New Dogshit

Here at Manflet we like to deal with the important issues - like how ad campaigns not pitched at our demographic, aimed at promoting movies we will never see, really annoy us. Last time, Gadsby tore into the tagline for the bromantic (tragic)comedy I Love You, Man and right now I'm trying to come up with words to describe the poster for the Travolta/Williams vehicle (ouch) - also starring Scott Evil (argh) - soon to be released by Disney (noooooooooooo): Old Dogs.

This time it's not the poster's deeply unimaginative tagline (mercifully absent from the version I found online, available in full hi-res horror over here), it's the imagery itself.

Is there a design company somewhere that knocks out the posters for all mainstream comedies? Every one looks the same, no doubt built on a template that allows for quick turnaround and minimal creative input (if you don't believe me, take another look at I Love You, Man). There's the title, always in big red letters that emphasise it above the story and the stars - which was, after all, probably the first thing to come to the Hollywood execu-tits as they pitched their pants off. Then there's the composition that sacrifices real-world perspective (and often the actors' legs) to make sure that the faces of the "talent" get equal billing, even though they may be standing behind one another. And then there's the clinical white background that may simply be a cost-cutting device, but just so happens to create a stark artificial environment in which whatever you're airbrushing to fuck looks less, well, airbrushed to fuck. 

I mean, just look at Travolta's face.  You'll have to focus real hard to see it at all, because it's almost been Photoshopped out of existence; his visage on the (even worse) kid friendly poster (right) is so distorted it'll make you question conventional facial anatomy altogether. Still, no jowls.

What the shit is going on here? I mean apart from a facepalmingly obvious reversal of Travolta and William's roles as the straight man and the funny guy, what appears to be the hokiest fake-gorilla-love-story since Trading Places, and another unnecessary outing for Seth Green. Why is Travolta dressed (and hairplugged) up to look 15 years old? It seems that even when Hollywood are willing to admit its stars are "old" it still requires them to look younger ("better") than their age. Here, "old" is simply a synonym for "grown up" - these men may have acquired careers and wives (probably ex-wives, given the US media's obsession with broken families) and maybe even children, but they've never had to deal with crow's feet, a spare tire of fat, a prostate exam or the death of a friend - unless it was of dramatic significance.

The worst thing of all? This is the great Bernie Mac's last film. Of course we will soon forgive and forget, but for the poor young saps who sit through Old Dogs he will forever be known as "Jimmy Lunchbox" and remembered for the following exchange (quote from IMDB):
Charlie: "You crying, man?"
Jimmy Lunchbox: [holding back tears] "I ain't cryin'!"

Actually, my eyes feel kind of moist...

Gay for Mickey Rourke

You know that urban myth about the guy who bets his friends he can get a girl to touch his dick on the first date, and wins it by poking said member through the bottom of his popcorn box? Well that guy was Mickey Rourke, in his breakthrough performance as "Boogie" in 1982's Diner.

What's so charming about this scene, what makes you fall in love with young Mickey, is not the dicky trick itself - which isn't big or clever, and more than a bit gross - but the way in which he explains himself to his date: he was just trying to relieve the pressure from the massive hard-on she was giving him. In a way (although he leaves this unsaid), the whole thing's her fault, and besides, it's a pretty huge compliment.

With his cheeky grin, Rourke sells this line - and you completely forgive the girl for buying it. Hypnotised by his dirty-dog, come-to-bed eyes, you think you can make out the faintest hint of guyliner. This juxtaposition of masculine and feminine features - the boxer's nose (before the boxing caved it in), sitting between sky-high cheekbones and above bee-sting lips, all framed with a strong jaw brushed with stubble - meant that women wanted to be with him, and men wanted to be him. And then jack off in front of a mirror.

Time hasn't been kind to Mickey Rourke, and neither have violent sports, substance abuse or plastic surgery. You have to agree with his character in The Wrestler, that he's an "old, broken-down piece of meat", and if you were feeling cruel you'd suggest that the meat he most resembles is bacon - a Francis Bacon. But behind all that bruised flesh hides a heart throb, and one who now sports arms the size of tree trunks. Put a bag over your head, Mickey, and hold us...

Crap Film Taglines No1

While on the subject of Bromance (dear god, please put a stop to these neologisms) the billboard ad for 'I Love You, Man' officially has the weakest tagline in movie-poster history.

Placed at the center of the poster, an unusual location for this kind of copy, the tagline rather sheepishly reads 'HE NEEDED A BEST MAN... HE GOT THE WORST'. It was wise marketing director who decided to hide this weakling somewhere obscure. Taking the words alone we have a perfectly acceptable, if not particularly original, tagline for a film whose plot revolves around a groom's search for a best man, the problem arises when we take the supporting visuals into account.

Let's do this one step at a time. We know the groom is the guy in the black suit with the bride on his arm, there's no way they could have fucked that bit of visual communication up, so we clearly allocate the role of best man to the only other male in the image - the man in the chair in front of the bride and groom. So far, so good.

Moving onto the second half of the tagline and, oh dear, things aren't looking so good here. When we see the words 'the worst' written down in the context of a Hollywood comedy we expect something at least a little shocking, like when we realise why American Pie is called American Pie. Instead what we get is, horror upon horror, a fairly normal looking guy leaning back in a chair drinking out of a paper cup being watched by a small dog. If we scrutinise the image there appears to be another paper cup, a box of tissues and some kind of dispenser bottle on the floor next to the chair. Is this really an image of the 'worst best man', I mean truly THE WORST? Okay, he has a shit 90s curtains haircut and brown t-shirts are generally a no no, but THE WORST, seriously? I don't want to give up on the tagline just yet there must be more going on here, after all we have the dog and the hankies and stuff to work with. Maybe it's like one of those Rennaissance paintings where the incidental imagery contains important symbolic information crucial for a complete reading of the image.

Okay, so let's start with the hankies. Well he's a guy and guys and hankies can mean only two things - a cold or masturbation. He doesn't look like he's got a cold, so let's go with masturbation. Nice. Things are looking better already, this sounds like the perfect basis for a few cheap laughs at the expense of the 'worst best man' ever. Based on this clever piece of detective work I think it's safe to assume that the dispenser bottle contains lubricant. Now, the dog. Well it's a bit of a stretch, but maybe he masturbates the dog and collects it in the paper cups and, erm, drinks it. That would make a pretty bad best man by anyone's standards, I guess, although I wouldn't go as far as saying the worst. But Christ it took some working out. Is the average punter, who spends approximately 2.5 seconds looking at a given ad according to latest statistics really going to get all that out of it and still walk away believing this is really the worst best man ever? Adding to this mountain of disappointment I'm pretty sure there is no dog masturbation in the film leaving me more confused about what the marketing people who put this thing together were thinking. So because the stupid tagline makes no sense I've wasted an entire blog post and far too many minutes of my life. I'm so not going to see this film.