I do more Photoshop at 5 a.m. than most armies do all day. Like this Zooey Deschanel riff on a movie which I haven’t heard of but know everyone else hates.
Nick Nadel gave it a nice synopsis to go along with it (the article was his idea. I was fully a hired gun on this one). My original tagline prior to their edits was “Raise some Deschanel,” because the increasing laziness of movie posters makes my job easy. I think I have a knack for writing the banal, meaningless movie taglines that earned their authors 40-100,000 dollars. Seriously, that’s what you make for unanchored garbage like “Smurf happens” or “What the Shrek?” Just fart out a vaguely offensive pun that has nothing to do with anything in the movie, and humanity scarfs it up like cheez whiz. I mean, at least in my effort to be that bad, they probably have to raise her now that they adopted her.
Design-wise, too. If it’s a comedy, it’s all Arial fonts, which you might remember from every bake sale flyer or library notice you’ve ever written in your life. Shoot, half the time it’s an all-white background with some Arial Black font and a picture of Eddie Murphy looking smug.
Movie posters used to have great designs. The best one I’ve seen lately was Ghost Rider, and even that was ultimately just grey-blue gritty texture and some orange fire, same as everything else ever. Great composition, though, considering this was probably originally a random stunt guy on a stationary bike.
Don’t get me wrong, my Photoshop isn’t comparable to pros like this, but THAT’S WHY I’M NOT ONE OF THOSE PROS. I do goofy five-hour turnaround stuff for the internet. Whoever dictates that all movie posters follow the same few rules by genre is riding a money train. You could nab 100% of major feature release assignments and still do all your work for the year in about three weeks.
One more that particularly irked me. Who knows what this flick is even about?
Besides photoshopping Kevin James into a wax-polished apple, I mean.
…why am I cranking about this? I’m going to go watch something wonderful.
With the holiday moviegoing season in full swing, there are many flicks to choose from. Do you go with heartwarming family fare or the quirky indie gem? Luckily, we found one movie that you can take both your mom and your trendy sister to. Check out the poster for a new holiday classic below.

From acclaimed director Cameron Crowe (‘Vanilla Sky,’ ‘Elizabethtown’) comes a charming dramedy that will melt your heart and punch you in the face with cuteness. Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) was an ordinary man just trying to keep his family together. But after a random visit to his local indie record store, Mee comes back with more than a rare Bon Iver vinyl — he buys the bubbly, free-spirited clerk (Zooey Deschanel) behind the counter.
Pretty soon she’s entertaining the family with her many adorable voices that quickly turn grating and doing kooky things like staging a mock wedding for the salt and pepper shakers. This holiday season, see the movie that Pitchfork dubbed, “New Girl…Same Old Schtick” and the Cleveland Plain Dealer said, “feels like it takes ’500 Days of Summer’ to sit through.” Featuring a soundtrack by that band that Zooey Deschanel is in. You know, the one they play on NPR all the time. What’s it called? His & Hers?
Text and idea by Nick Nadel
Poster by Brendan McGinley
See the original poster here