Dec 22 2008 Students Make Better 'Spirit' Posters

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Someone's taken Negative Space 201! Over at the Italian Spirit blog My City Screams (via IMPA), they've posted 20 poster designs made by students of the European Institude of Design. With the exception of maybe this creepy, Escher-esque drawing, they're universally better than anything the studio came up with. It's just a shame this talent was wasted on something that, by early accounts, is not very good--but I'm also slightly glad because I'm bitter these college kids are clearly so much more creative than me. They're designing clever, inspired posters while I'm sitting here for half an hour trying to work in a "school spirit" pun. And I bet they go to better parties too.

Nov 19 2008 'The Spirit' Posters Poster

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"Guys, I've got this great idea for a poster. OK, so it's a poster, right? But also, it has all these other posters within that poster. Posters within a poster. The sheer audacity will shock everyone into seeing the movie. It's just so many posters, how could you not?"

It's true. Meta posters of the stars' faces are the new standard posters of the stars' faces.

Final Poster for 'The Spirit' [Cinematical]

Nov 17 2008 'The Spirit' Still Attempting to Create Interest with Clips Set to Music

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No one seems too convinced by the last few trailers for The Spirit, so Lionsgate has pushed out one more quickie to remind everyone that the film comes out CHRISTMAS DAY. If your gifts aren't enough of a let down for the family, pack the kids in the Aerostar and take them to The Spirit, show them the true meaning of Christmas (disappointment). I particularly like the rockin' version of "Carol of the Bells" in this. It makes me feel like I'm watching a ridiculous, noir-based Home Alone sequel.

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Oct 16 2008 'The Spirit' Still Cranking Out Posters

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Good idea getting in for a close-up. After the last few trailers, the less you show of this thing the better.

Sep 29 2008 'The Spirit' Trailer Continues Frank Miller's Love Affair with Beautiful Women, Ridiculous Dialog, and Monochromatic Ties

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In case you haven't given up entirely on Frank Miller's The Spirit adaptation, here's the latest trailer. I swear, every time I start to get any hope this could not be horrible, I get punched in the face with another flagrantly, obnoxiously Frank Miller-esque line ("Get me a tie--and make sure it's RED"? Oh, brother), or catch a glimpse of Samuel L. Jackson, his face streaked with mascara and sideburns, in front of an explosion of fire and redness, and realize, no, this will probably be bad. Never forget the comic booklet convention footage.

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Sep 19 2008 'The Spirit' Posters Make You Feel Like YOU ARE (Near) The Spirit

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New character posters for The Spirit have taken a novel approach to showing the opposition of the film's hero and villain. For the first poster, we get a bullet-riddled Spirit as seen from the perspective his arch-nemesis, The Octopus. So naturally, for the second, we see The Octopus, this time from the viewpoint of... an unseen third-party observer whose view is being obscured by The Spirit's flapping tie? Yes:

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Aug 12 2008 'The Spirit' is Looking Really, Really Bad

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Though I've still never picked it up, I always hear how Will Eisner's The Spirit is a groundbreaking, must-read comic series for anyone at all interested in the medium. That information directly contradicts what I'm seeing in this fight scene that was shown at Comic Con, which paints The Spirit as a slapstick comedy with more getting-hit-with-objects-for-comedic-reactions than Home Alone. Also, it takes place in a sewage nebula? Just watch it.

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Jul 29 2008 New 'Spirit' Poster from Some Art School Punks

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Lionsgate had a pretty good idea. Instead of continuing to overlay text on cheeks and add accompanying audio, how about letting some art school kids have at it? So they did, and here's the first from the Art Institute of California-San Diego. I wonder how many attempts it took to get a design that didn't have "sort of an anti-war thing, man, because I'm totally getting into political shit."

Jul 15 2008 'The Spirit' Trailer Has Girls, Ridiculous Costumes, '80s Sex Romp Movie Poster Imagery, Girls

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It looks like it's of questionable origins, so hurry up and watch this trailer to The Spirit before it's replaced by a take-down notice. My first thought was, "This is like if Frank Miller directed the intro to The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis." My next thought was, "Why was your first thought of a show that went off the air almost two decades before your were born?" I have no idea. Subliminal Nick at Nite?

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Jun 23 2008 New 'Spirit' Posters Add Voices to Motionless Heads

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There are two new The Spirit posters! One features the Spirit swiping my famous sexual maneuver (that maneuver being pretending a girl's lip is a button, then going into extreme detail about how my pressing the button sets her mouth to blowjob mode); the other shows Lorelei, the Spirit character most like a cast member of Cats.

But the real story isn't in the images, it's that Yahoo has taken a giant leap in movie poster technology: they've added speech! Moving the mouse over the posters cues an audio file of each actress reading her respective sexually-charged face tattoo. Think of it as the antithesis of Guess Who?, because these faces actually do talk (fuck you again, Milton Bradley).

The degradation of forcing Scarlett Johansson to repeatedly insist I get on my knees was entertaining for about 30 seconds, at which point my focus shifted to finding the dirtiest thing I could make them say by quickly moving the mouse from face to face ("Keep the come on your knees"). Maybe someone else can figure out something better to do with this function.

Oh, and I guess this isn't really safe for work, just because it's going to take too much explaining to clarify why a woman's sultry voice is giving you dominatrix commands.

Talking 'The Spirit' Poster Things [Yahoo!]

Jun 16 2008 Scarlett Johansson's (Scar-Jo, as is said) 'The Spirit' Poster

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The practice of waiting until someone passes out at a party and scrawling vulgar comments on their face undoubtedly makes for a good poster, but I wish they'd gone with the writing on her other cheek: a crude drawing of an ejaculating penis and the claim that she "hearts" boners. That's the Spirit I want to see.

Jun 9 2008 'The Spirit' Poster Asks, Eva Mendes: Good or Bad Girl?

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Uh, no, I guess you're not a good girl. Assuming we go by a good girl/bad girl scale that's based entirely on the amount and size of jewelry in your mouth at once time, you're a fairly bad girl. Moreover, I'm confident that if you keep all that jewelry hidden safely in your mouth, Mama Fratelli will never figure it out, and you'll escape with enough of One-Eyed Willy's rich stuff to save the Goon Docks.

May 13 2008 The Octopus from 'The Spirit' Must be One of Two Things

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Admittedly, I've never read Will Eisner's The Spirit, so someone will have to tell me: is Spirit's arch-nemesis The Octopus like a '70s pimp with Mickey Mouse's hands or an eccentric grandma who you pray will never pick you up from school? Whichever the case, hopefully he also acts exactly like Samuel L. Jackson, because I have a feeling that's what we're going to get.

Comic-Con Magazine Spring 2008 [Official Site]

Apr 25 2008 'The Spirit' Teaser Trailer Reveals Spirit May Wear Some Type of Neck Adornment

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Talking at the Spirit panel at New York Comic Con, the lecherous director Frank Miller (strangely, while dressed as a unshaven Spirit) spoke of his unending admiration for his mentor Will Eisner's comic, and of his hope of faithfully recreating it on the screen. So I find it a bit odd that, as many expected, Miller has made the film look like a slightly cleaner Sin City. True respect = smothering the original vision with your own high-contrast fantasy world? Judge the teaser trailer for yourself here, then let me know what you think. Is this guy more obsessed with his city screaming or that f***ing red tie?

And I'm aware this has been up for a few days. Deal.

Apr 21 2008 'The Spirit' Teaser Poster: [Spirit's] City Screams!

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Continuing the trend started with the sectional outdoor art, the new poster for The Spirit reinforces the idea that this guy's city is definitely screaming. Because nothing is more appealing than a f***ing nag of a city. You can click above to get the super-high-resolution version, but sadly I don't have the Arial-Narrow-Made-of-Buildings font for you to download. You'll have to stick with Comic Sans for now.

Apr 21 2008 'Spirit' NYCC Promo: Eva Mendes is Sand Seref?

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I think the largest obstacle Frank Miller's adaptation of The Spirit will have the overcome is that, although the title is undoubtedly a classic, it's not particularly well known to modern audiences. People are still wondering, what's it all about? I think this new character poster promo photo should clear up a lot of that confusion: it's about a sexy, voguing bobsled team.

Click for the high-resolution, to really see that piping.

Apr 8 2008 Scar-Jo Posing Rigidly Yet Sexily for 'The Spirit'

[Image removed at the request of Lionsgate]

Egotastic has some early test shots of Silk N. Floss, Scarlett Johansson's character in Frank Miller's adaptation of The Spirit. If rigid, nerdy, authoritative clinicians are a fetish of yours, you will love these pictures. Probably also if you suffer from the far more common affliction of liking Scarlett Johansson in tight, bra-revealing clothing.

Scarlett Johansson is a Sexy Nurse in The Spirit [Egotastic]

Apr 4 2008 'The Spirit' Feeds His Cats and Other Set Shots

IMAGE REMOVED AT REQUEST OF LIONSGATE.

Finally someone is dropping all the exaggerated action of comic book movies and giving us what we really want: lonely domesticity!

Update: Sorry, had to take it down. Just imagine a shirtless man in a mask feeding some cats from a comically over-sized bag.

Apr 3 2008 'The Spirit' Outdoor Sectional Posters

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What is this distinctive red slash across a dark sea of black, proclaiming the wails of a personified metropolis? Why, it's part one of a new, three-part outdoor ad campaign for Frank Miller's take on Will Eisner's The Spirit, and a definitive answer to questions like "Is the (screaming) city your lover, Spirit?", "Are you, in turn, her spirit, Spirit?" and "Spirit, do you wear a big, bright, red tie?" We'll have to wait until the NY Comic-Con--the site of the trailer debut--to get to the more pressing questions like, "Is this going to look just like Sin City?" and "Is that necessarily a bad thing?"

See the full multi-part layout, below the cut.

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Oct 8 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

frank-miller-seductive.jpg- Frank Miller has added the sexy duo of Paz Vega and Jamie King to his cast for Will Eisner's The Spirit. I imagine while deciding on them, he made this seductive/haunting expression. [Variety]

- Con Air director Simon West will direct an adaptation of the Iraq War nonfiction book Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad. He hopes to capture the excitement and tragedy of the war, like Black Hawk Down, but also be stupid, like Con Air. [Hollywood Reporter]

- Wesley Snipes has spent the majority of October shooting a sequel to The Art of War, leaving November to regret shooting the sequel to The Art of War. [MovieHole]

- Neil Gaiman wants Terry Gilliam to direct an adaptation of his Sandman series. The writer added, "I would always give anything to Terry Gilliam, forever," then gently slid his hand into Gilliam's waiting palm. [Empire]