This week in This Week In Posters, we begin with this redacted style Poster for American Assassin, which tells us that Michael Keaton is in it and not much else. Have we hit peak Keatonnaissance? Anyway, that is a selling point. It’s also nice to see that Taylor Kitsch didn’t entirely John Carter his whole career. I mean, I guess? Maybe it was actually Taylor Kitsch who John Carter’d John Carter. Discuss.

And here we have the poster for the Baywatch movie, which seems to suggest that the empire that jiggling, slow-motion breasts built will now be about the female gaze. Talk about a twist! Though with Alexandria Daddario and the hot Indian lady from Sexy Assassin School or whatever CBS show I kept seeing promos for, I somehow doubt there won’t be some male gazin’. In fact there’d better be, or else I’ll be demanding a refund.

Also Zac Efron’s body looks fake. Like his pecs are on too high and they’re a size too narrow or something.

A few things I like about this poster: Crotch shot. Names lined up with faces. Dolphins for some reason.

I have a feeling this movie will be really good.

So all the animals have children? Do they assume we wouldn’t care about protecting the animals if they weren’t mothers? Because I always assumed I cared about them because of the furriness, not because of the parenting. Furry children are much cuter though.

I suppose an eyeball poster does fit the “Take a picture, take a life” theme, but it also falls right into the infamous, “one big eye” poster trope. Get it, man? They’re watching you! The plot also reminds me of Danny Trejo’s Eyeborgs, about the robot cameras that kill. I mean if this is just about regular cameras that kill that aren’t even artificial intelligence, like, old news, bro.

Is there any poster design format weirder than the floating characters inside another character thing? This isn’t quite as bad as those X-Men: First Class posters from a few years back (below), but it’s still pretty bad. Also, did Winston Churchill need an American flag inside his shoulder to remind everyone that this story involves Americans too? “Americans will never go see a movie about D-Day unless we remind them that Americans were involved!”

Christ. I just depressed myself.

This other poster for Churchill belongs to category of poster I like to call the “kick in the pants” movie. That’s where the main character looks directly into the camera and all the other characters stand around reacting, as if to say “isn’t he/she a kick in the pants?”

They’re usually British movies that star Maggie Smith, but not always:

Hey I wonder if this movie’s about the military.

Oh boy, I bet there are going to be some family secrets spilled at this dinner! Drrrrrama! I hope Steve Coogan does a Michael Caine impression the entire time. That poor bastard. He’s never going to be able to eat dinner again without people sitting around hoping he’ll start in with a Caine impression.

These singularity-type movie posters always look so much more advanced than the movies they’re for. Oh, and they’re always white. Like this one is a cool design, but then it has a bunch of names that I don’t recognize. And then you think, “Well, it looks like it got a really good review from… uh… ‘Dan’s Movie Report.'”

The movie is called “Drone,” which seems a little on the nose. It’s like if there was a Top Gun knockoff called “F-14.” Anyway, it feels like they’re still trying to make Sean Bean look like a sexy fighter pilot, even though he’s kind of just playing a deadly video game. They should maybe own that. Shoot him in sweat pants with his can of Mountain Dew in the frame and a brace on his wrist for the carpal tunnel.

This It Comes At Night poster creates the illusion of movement solely through font size — no diagonal necessary! Solid use of negative space too. That being said, who still carries lanterns these days?

And here we have King Arthur pulling Excalibur out of a stone and– hey! Wait a second! I thought King Arthur was supposed to have gotten his sword from a “watery tart,” as per Monty Python. Are we not mixing legends here? Oh well, as long as Excalibur is still made of Valerian Steel, which is canon.

Oh hell yeah, Demian Bichir in a lowrider movie? This is going to be great. Between this and playing Mexican Bob in The Hateful Eight (which he should’ve gotten an Oscar nom for), Demian Bichir will have covered almost all of the stereotypes. As for the poster, I appreciate that they have a nice diagonal going and they didn’t need to shift the entire horizon line sideways to create it.

Meanwhile, my favorite thing about LA is that the LA river is most famous as “place where you race cars.”

This other poster looks like one of those old t-shirts people used to wear at my junior high with all the lowrider stereotypes on them — I want to say they were called Homeboys? Anyone not from the Central Valley remember these things? Anyway, I take it this is basically Homeboys: The Movie. Needless to say, I’m onboard. “Starring Mexican Bob as Cholo Bob” was all you had to say.

This poster for Pacmen is pretty cheesy, but it’s telling us exactly what it’s about, which is probably wise. More indie movies and docs should do that.

Could the silhouettes of money men been more realistic though? Isn’t holding a bullhorn pretty much the exact opposite of what a “silent partner” would do? Not that I have a better idea. This works, despite its flaws. By the way, just once in my life I’d like to be handed a large bindle with a dollar sign on it.

No one really knows what’s going on in this Power Rangers movie, but the important thing to take away, as with most modern comic booky-type movies, is that there’s a portal in the sky and a bunch of shit flying everywhere. If there’s not a sky portal and flying shit people won’t come, everyone knows that.

I like to think this Power Ranger isn’t mid run, but that he just swivels his hips once to throw his crotch at people without moving his legs.

Can Power Rangers fly? I don’t even remember.

Where are you going, bros, the portal is behind you.

This poster might as well be black background with white text that says “From Sam Esmail and Laura Poitras.”

Not that that’s a bad thing. This poster knows what its selling point is.

I like these posters for 6 Days, even if it kind of looks like it’s a movie about Banksy.

Not enough stories about Iran being the bad guy, I always say. Oh well, I like that they just come out and tell you who’s playing who. They should just make it a side by side with the real person, that way we wouldn’t have to wait for the end credits scene. Though maybe that’s exactly why they don’t do it. Getting to see the side by side without sitting through the movie would be like getting to have your Juicero juice without buying the squeezer machine..

“Heart of a lion” is a classic metaphor, but “brains of a judge?” I don’t know. I feel like that one has lost a bit of its punch with the proliferation of day time judge shows. No one ever brags about being as clever as Jeanine Pirro.

Don’t think you can start a giant poster quote with “right here, right now” without me being reminded of Jesus Jones.

The literalist in me loves that all the faces are lined up with the names, but I do wonder how they chose all those specific facial reactions. I’m not getting “terrorist attack” from those. They all look like someone just cut in front of them in the bathroom line.