Entries Tagged 'Advertising' ↓

Assuming I’m correctly looking at this still from a trailer for the upcoming The Incredible Hulk (Edward Norton), the green goliath and his nemesis, The Abomination (Tim Roth), will certainly finish what Michael Bloomberg, re-zoning, and gentrification have only begun: The complete destruction of Harlem’s 125th St.

Here’s a slightly clearer look at a certain theater’s legendary marquee, from a few frames earlier, below, just in case you actually can’t believe that Hulk brought all this hell up in Harlem:

Northern Manhattanites transported from Toronto, however—especially male ones—are going to have their brains looped sideways by this shot:

Not only is that not a NYPD police car, but…Zanzibar? As this National Post clip notes, Zanzibar is a strip club on Toronto’s Yonge street. Apparently, the transposition of Canadian movie skylines for US metropolitan ones continues unabated. But, please, Canada: If you badly want to send something to Harlem, send Vancouver. The last thing Black Main Street really needs is strippers.

Who’s this flick aimed at: Tourists? Come on, Clive “Pinhead” Barker: You’re gonna have to do more than that to scare Brooklyn.

Your copy is $16 at MoviePoster.com.

Opens May 16, 2008.

Now, that’s how The Midnight Meat Train should have done it the first time. Count on the best movie poster site on the web, bar none—the Internet Movie Poster Awards (IMPA)—to bring the noise.

This post that you’re reading started its life as a mere addendum to the one above it, but it’s going to live out the rest of its days giving blogroll-worthy props to IMPA, the best place on the net to see today’s motion picture print advertising.

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As a child born in the early 1960s, I can remember when every print ad in National Geographic seemed to be done in this style: Painting of athletic and slim white man and woman in some otherwise impossible, wildly desirable setting, madly enjoying some consumer item that, it seems, would not be that all interesting, actually, if you, say, lived in a bleeding-edge, part-glass, woodland home cantilevered over a stream, or a couple dozen stories above a headlamp-lit New York City street.

Both are by illustrator Charles Schridde. As the awesome Paleo-Future notes, the top pic is from a Motorola television print campaign:

This series ran in Life Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post from 1961 until 1963 and was immensely popular for its elegant, futuristic look.

Though the Western-themed stuff Schridde seems to most paint these days does zero for me, thankfully, his work is preserved on the web, in books like Window to the Future: The Golden Age of Television Marketing and Advertising and The Golden Age of Advertising – the 70s. Click on the pics to see close-ups. Thanks to FFFFOUND, StrangeHarvest, Paleo-Future, and The World of Kane for the links.

This Skittles “Midas Touch” commercial is a thing of perverse beauty, but you’ve gotta watch the 45-second version, here, with the brief monologue in the center, to glom the true art of it.

I don’t really care about the new $44,825, 2008 Mercedes-Benz M-Class, or Benzes generally, but I would give my eyeteeth to get a high-quality loop of the music that beds this commercial, titled “Most.”

In the spot, while car action footage mixes with testimonials to M-B superiority from Mercedes engineers, factory workers, and other employees, a full chorale sings a hushed epinicion, or song of triumph, underneath. One can detect a bowed string bass, and very occasional, light percussion. Together, the sound is warm…and expectant.

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You know the “My Talking Stain” commercial for Tide-to-Go that ran during the Super Bowl, and has been widely circulated since?

In it, a guy is interviewing for a job, but while answering questions, a stain on his shirt—it looks like java—sprouts a mouth and starts talking gibberish. It does this so incessantly that it overwhelms the prospective employer’s attention and completely drowns out the interviewee.

This funny ad urges consumers to buy Tide’s portable stain removing pen and not let the messes on their clothes send an unintended message. In fact, the spot’s so good, I only noticed on, maybe, the third viewing, a little bit of disclaimer text, right at the end:

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There’s just something gloriously arch about a radiant Neal Patrick Harris on a unicorn, wouldn’t you agree?

Get it at my favorite poster shop, MoviePoster.com.

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is out April 28, 2008.