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It was difficult to find five good and five bad posters for this year's entries. The poster art of 2003 was marked by a general mediocrity all year long, and when everything is just "blah," it's hard to find anything worth really praising, or anything worth really panning. But, you know, here goes...
Almost too cool to be effective. Star William H. Macy is almost unrecognizable when rendered in blue neon. Even so, this poster ably captures the neon-lit nighttime mileau of Las Vegas casinos, with rolling dice and a showgirl glowing pink. The script typeface, too, borders on the illegible. Even so, I have to give props to an art department that recognizes it has an atmospheric small-budgeter on their hands, and decides to take the creative way out... instead of the easy way out.
Just like last year's poster for The Mothman Prophecies, this is a fun variation on the old hidden images design. You might say it resembles that poster just a wee bit too much, and you might be right. But this was still one of the better designs, particularly considering the crappy posters we looked at throughout 2003. Never missing an opportunity to screw something up, the studio scrapped this design when releasing Identity on DVD, a fate Mothman luckily escaped.
The small image to the left really doesn't do justice to this lyrical and seductive artwork. Keisha Castle-Hughes's wistful face rises to the surface and the stately whale descends into the depths, together inspiring a respectful and watery silence. There is grace here, and that's definitely a quality seldom seen in poster artwork.
I can't conceive of any better way to sum up the story and mood of Willard in one image than this close-up of Crispin Glover communing with his wee furry friend, Ben. It's moody, intense and oddly touching... which, amazingly enough, pretty much describes the movie as well.
Yes, I'm gonna say it... It takes balls to put a guy's crotch front and center on a poster. Notice, too, the positioning of the letter "o" in the title. Considering that Wonderland is about porn legend John Holmes's adventures in crime, though, the appropriate composition gets a gritty treatment with this shot of (we assume) star Val Kilmer's unbuttoned package, pistol stuck discretely in the waistband. You didn't even notice the gun, did you?
Shake those images out of your head and let's move on to The Worst Posters of 2003.
The best and worst movie posters of 2003