I’m just saying: film posters of late, eh? They’re all the same. Faces with type all over them. That’s it, really.
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed
Don't look like much here, but we have everything
I’m just saying: film posters of late, eh? They’re all the same. Faces with type all over them. That’s it, really.
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed 
The other thing they have in common is that they’re all rubbish.
“The Truth Can Be Adjusted.” No shit.
“You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” I’ve heard you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, but I’m not convinced there’s a film in it.
“The God Of Thunder.” Oh *that* Thor.
“Who Is Salt?” Do you know, I’m less intrigued than you might have imagined. But if I’m pressed: is it Angelina Jolie?
Are film posters made in-house by people who just make film posters all day? Are they ever tempted to try to use the poster to sell the film, rather than just to let you know it’s out in the most pretentious way possible? I admit cinema is a bit of a closed book to me. I see these things come and go around town and obviously I laugh at their bullshit bombast. But really I don’t know what they’re for. I just know I don’t need to see the films.
They all seem to stem from the Criterion edition of “The Man Who Fell To Earth”: http://www.criterion.com/films/755-the-man-who-fell-to-earth
I could be wrong, but it was pointed out by many people when the Social Network poster came out.
Private Eye have been doing a running series on how a lot of modern book covers look practically identical. Personally, I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, or even a lack of imagination necessarily. It just happens to be the trending mood. Most films have multiple different posters anyway. I rather liked the one for The King’s Speech which was just the mike on the balcony – that worked for me. I hadn’t seen this “face” one before.
(Incidentally, did you hear Simon Day’s show on R4? His – or rather “Geoffrey Allerton”‘s – poem about the Soho Curzon was an absolute gem.)
Some nice takes on the criterion style here
http://fakecriterions.tumblr.com/