Movie Reviews of all the latest Hollywood blockbusters and catch all the hottest celeb gossip - AOL Australia

Posters

Fan Rant: The Ridiculous, Disgusting Photoshopping Must End!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:45:00 EST

Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Images, Posters

I love image editors like Photoshop. They've allowed me to make boring pictures funky, wipe the years off old and worn memories, and even get rid of the errant hair or blemish to make that nice photo truly shine. But I would give it all up and wipe my hands of them if it meant that the programs would be pulled out of the hands of Hollywood and the image-fixing machine.

We're getting bombarded by all sides. It's bad enough that lazy frakking poster creators actually shovel out horse poop like the embarrassingly terrible poster for The Takers, one that doesn't even bother trying to match the skin tones of the stars' heads with the stunt bodies, or thinks Paul Walker has massive Science of Sleep-like hands.

But we're also getting a never-ending onslaught of body de-hancements. I really can think of no better word for the folks like Ralph Lauren who are Photoshopping their models into sick, skeletal bodies. Adding to the pack is W Magazine, as BoingBoing shares. They scored an interview with Demi Moore and threw her up on the cover. While she may have discussed her dislike of being called a cougar, methinks she'd have more of an issue with what they did to her body. She's already ridiculously thin, but still, they edit. It looks like they tried to give her an "hourglass" shape (I use that term begrudgingly because it really doesn't apply when we're talking about skinny women who are Photoshopped to look curvy.), but worst of all -- they wiped out part of her already pencil-thin legs and were too lazy to make sure it matched. You can see part in the image above, look at the hip on the right, or in its full glory after the jump.

Continue reading Fan Rant: The Ridiculous, Disgusting Photoshopping Must End!

U.K. 'Couples Retreat' Poster Omits a Couple. Guess Which One?

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:32:00 EST

Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Movie Marketing, Posters

U.K. 'Couples Retreat' Poster Omits a Couple. Guess Which One?

Couples Retreat is about four couples, three white and one black. In the American poster for the film, all eight stars' pictures and names are shown. In the U.K. poster, however, one couple is omitted. Any guesses which one? The black one, obviously, or else this wouldn't be a story.

Yep, Faizon Love and Kali Hawk are missing from the poster used in the U.K. As reported by London's Daily Mail, Universal Pictures says they just wanted to "simplify" the poster for foreign release, to focus on "actors who are most recognizable in international markets." Nonetheless, after getting complaints about racism from British viewers, the studio has apologized and scrapped plans to use the revised poster in other countries.

I feel a little sympathy for Universal here. It's certainly true that Love and Hawk are less famous in other countries than they are in the United States. (Heck, they're not that famous here, either.) Their characters are fourth in importance in the story; even in the American poster, they're all the way in the back. If you had to remove a couple from the poster, they'd be the logical choice.

Ah, but there's the problem -- why did Universal think they had to remove a couple? The poster with all eight characters did fine in America. Why change it? Do international audiences reject movies that appear to have too many characters? Is "clutter" a big complaint among British poster aficionados? If nothing else, someone at Universal should have realized that removing the black couple -- even if race had nothing to do with it -- would at least look sketchy. You'd think that as bad as the movie is, they'd be extra careful not to turn off any potential viewers with their marketing. Live and learn!

[Via Huffington Post.]

New Orleanians: Does the 'Sherlock Holmes' Font Look Familiar?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:15:00 EST

Filed under: Posters

Okay, maybe I'm crazy. Some people have suggested that, throughout my life. But I had a very strange moment earlier today, looking at the character posters for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie as I left a theater. Maybe you've seen these posters -- I've cropped one in the image on the right. Before my inner Robert Downey Jr. fan could coo "oooh" at the image of the actor, my inner New Orleanian spoke up and said, "Holmes? As in D.H. Holmes?"

If you grew up in the New Orleans area and are a certain age, you may understand. D.H. Holmes was a popular department store when I was young -- in fact, it was a small chain that had stores in a number of Southern cities. The most famous D.H. Holmes was on Canal Street, where Ignatius Reilly waited under the Holmes clock in the novel A Confederacy of Dunces. Dillard's bought the department-store chain awhile ago, and the store on Canal is now a swanky hotel (they kept the clock, though).

Continue reading New Orleanians: Does the 'Sherlock Holmes' Font Look Familiar?