Some Posters

… annoy with their literal floating-Photoshopped heads lack of creativity. Other posters completely misrepresent the film they are actually advertising, trying to draw in a wider audience, a fact that I, a member of that minority that actually likes deep and dark and morally ambiguous films, find annoying. Some posters are striking, memorable.

And some posters, very very very few of them, make one smile ear to ear just by looking at them.

I first saw this poster shellacked 100 times over on a wall outside Port Authority Bus Terminal. I was coming into the city for my 4th ultrasound in 2 weeks (this time with a saline injection through the cervix – good times!) and was feeling stressed out and unhappy. Not to mention dealing with the omnipresent health issue that caused the ultrasound-onslaught in the first place. I was determined to continue on my path to health, but nevertheless: there was nothing fun about any of it. I glanced out the bus window and saw the striking image, over and over and over across the wall, and it caught my eye. How could it not. I had not seen it before, and the title of the movie being advertised was not what drew me to the image. It was the two figures, the heart-shape, and, when I looked closer, and saw who were the two gentlemen in that pose … a burst of excitement, hilarity, adrenaline … Already, within 4 seconds, I couldn’t get enough of the image. Thankfully, the bus was at a red light (corner of 9th Avenue and 40th Street), so I had time to eagerly download every detail into my brain. Their faces are so gleefully absurd, so ridiculous, that it made ME smile just looking at it. And the effect remains. Every time I see the poster, I want to start laughing. Now, along with that involuntary response to the image itself, comes an intense desire for the movie to be awesome and worthy of the poster. Not to mention the fact that I love Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. The bus moved on, and I had to leave the maniacal ridiculous world of the poster, and enter my own reality, stalking across town grimly to the radiology joint. But my spirits were lifted for a minute, looking at that image.

I am refusing to read any reviews until I see it myself.

Similar to my tailspin into passionate LOVE with the trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I am in LOVE with this poster. Eternal Sunshine far surpassed my feverish expectations of it, based on how much I loved the trailer. It is, by far, one of my top 5 in the last 10, maybe even 20 years.

Every time I zoom in on the FACES of Carrey and McGregor, I start to laugh. It is my kind of humor, whatever name you would call it. The poster hits my very narrow (Luke-detonating-the-Death-Star narrow) sweet spot for comedy. There is much on this earth that makes me laugh. I’m lucky that way. I can see things that are amusing. I love to go with the comedy, and not nitpick it to death if it makes me laugh. It is my purest experience as an audience, and as a participant. But a spontaneous kindred-spirit recognition of humor? It was a feeling of correspondence, from the bus window to the wall and back: “Yes. You think this is funny? So do we. Some people on earth will roll their eyes. But this poster isn’t for them. This poster is for YOU SPECIFICALLY. SHEILA O’MALLEY.”

That’s what those moments of recognition feel like.

We shall see what the movie holds.

But I already applaud the poster.