To conclude the mammoth Star Wars coverage we’ve given you over the past couple of weeks to celebrate the saga’s release on Blu-ray I’ve got something a little random, but hopefully something you’ll find an interest in.

This visual trip down memory lane finds us back in 1983 with Return of the Jedi about to be unleashed across the world and bring cinema’s most successful science fiction saga to an end (or so we thought).

My Dad, who has written about the films on the site, gathered a lot of the paraphernalia which was published at the time – assorted reviews and magazine articles and the like and I thought now is the time to share them with you.

Not only are there contemporary reviews and ‘first look’ articles (nothing ever changes) but the Look-in covers and ‘fact files’ on the actors are things I remember pouring over as a kid, hungry for anything on my favourite film.

It’s been fun revisiting the series once again, see you all again for the 3D re-releases? No doubt with more little enhancments from the man in Marin County…

Click to enlargify.

And for one final blast from the past here’s a nice little video from a local news programme which gives us a little context on the whole ‘You wouldn’t steal a handbag…’ nonsense we’ve had to endure since.

This came from a site called SW:TOR Strategies. Good for them.

As always, there are simply bucketloads of films in the pipeline and we work tirelessly to keep you up to speed with all of the news that is fit to print about as many of them as possible.

Sometime, a whole bundle of cool stuff lands on our lap all at once and such is the case today, as we bring you half a dozen posters for assorted upcoming releases. Admittedly the quality here is intermittent and clearly some of these have been snapped in passing on a convenient mobile phone, but it is good to see the promo material for these films. We’ve got posters for Clint Eastwood’s J Edgar, Steven Soderbergh’s virus outbreak film Contagion, the latest Final Destination, New Year’s Eve, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and Tom Hanks film called “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”.

Enjoy them all below and we’ll be sure to bring you higher quality versions of all of these as soon as we can. In the meantime, why not let us know which of these you are most looking forward to?

Source: JoBlo.com

Contagion Poster removed by request of Warner Bros

Designer Dave Williams wowed us all a few weeks ago with his two vintage style posters for Back to the Future and now he’s back with his design for the third film.

As with the previous two posters Dave will be selling this one on his website and I can see walls adorned with the three posters in a row.

I love that talented designers are being inspired by films to come up with these alternative posters, and I can’t wait to see what Dave comes up with next – I’m pitching for a Gremlins design…

Check out Dave’s designs and ordering info here,

David Williams is a very talented guy, and his taste in movies is in no doubt after he sent us these posters he designed for the first two Back to the Future films.

Dave is a freelance desinger and is selling these prints from his website here where you can find more of his work, and find links to buy these two posters here and here. – all we need now is the poster for the final film…

Here they are in their glory, you have to love that tagline for the first film.

By now, you’ll have heard about the successful Toy Story 3 Oscar nomination campaign, and seen some of the fantastic posters. If not, you can read about it here. It is certainly hard to argue with the strength of the campaign. If any film can claim to be 2010′s big success story, it is easily Toy Story 3.

Last year, Toy Story 3 became the highest grossing animated movie of all time. Not really a massive surprise, considering it was based on one of the best loved animated film series in cinematic history. Pixar scored big with the first two installments, and in the last few years have raised the bar for animated movies with the critically acclaimed Wall*E and Up.

In fact, it was just last year that Up transcended its genre and became the first computer animated movie to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was perhaps a fortunate beneficiary of the decision to expand the number of nominees for Best Picture from 5 to 10. With the Oscar nominations recently announced, maybe Toy Story 3 will go one better and win the Gold statue. After all, it received almost unanimous reviews across the board. Why stop there though? If an animated movie can be considered for Best Picture, surely it’s possible that an animated character could be nominated for Best Actor?

This would have sounded crazy to me a couple of years ago. I was never a huge fan of animated films, and though I appreciated the brilliant mix of child-friendly action and adult humour inherent in animated films nowadays, and the Toy Story series particularly, I still wasn’t able to take them seriously enough. This past year however I have watched both Up and Wall*E as part of the HeyUGuys IMDb250 Project, and my eyes have been opened to just how poignant and affecting an animated story can be.

It was because of my experiences with these two movies that I found myself for the first time since childhood actually looking forward to going to see an animated film, and went along to watch Toy Story 3 in a theatre. Whilst the storyline isn’t necessarily anything groundbreaking or original in comparison to the previous two movies, the themes explored and the way they are written are beautiful, provoking a genuine emotional response. I found the journey of these fictional, animated characters truly affecting, and must now finally concede that an animated movie can be just effective, if not more so, than a live action picture.

So far this year, we have seen very few obvious Oscar contenders. The traditional season for the Academy Award hopefuls has been and gone, and it was hard to pick many movies other than Toy Story 3 from the first three quarters of the year as definites for the shortlist. As for the Best Actor category, I have not really seen any performances yet that I think are good enough to be recognised by the Academy either, and I honestly feel that so far the best performance I have seen could be that of an animated character – Buzz Lightyear. Over the course of a 90 minute movie, Buzz plays hero, villain, amnesiac, Spaniard, soldier and, most importantly, family man. Lightyear shows fantastic range, and versatility, and is perfectly believable throughout. He displays a vulnerability, and an inner strength, that show as much humanity as any man or woman has managed on screen so far in 2010. He makes you love him and, in one particular scene at the movie’s climax, touches your soul with just one simple look. I felt an emotional connection to the character possibly greater than i have felt in any other film I’ve seen this year.

I got to thinking seriously about this because it was in stark contrast to the feeling that i got watching Leonardo Di Caprio in Inception. I loved Inception, and Di Caprio is undoubtedly one of the best actors around right now. He is certainly no stranger to awards season. In Inception, however, I just did not feel the same emotional connection to his character as I did with Buzz Lightyear, a fictional toy. I’m a big fan of Di Caprio, and realise that I’m being a little unfair. He wasn’t given as much to work with as he has had in his previous roles, and that I bought his character’s motivations and relationships at all are testament to his ability.

As much as anything this situation pays tribute to how far the animators in the industry have come. The biggest stumbling block to an animated character like Buzz Lightyear winning an actors award is that it could not be attributed to one man. Tim Allen voices Buzz, but as a voice actor Allen is only half of the story, if that. It is the team of animators behind Lightyear and the other Toy Story characters that give them life and soul, and whilst i am sure they will win some technical awards in March it would be a shame if they did not receive some formal recognition for the way they have enabled a computer graphic to provoke such a tangible emotional response.The director and writers have clearly played their part too, making one of the year’s best performances a real collaborative effort.

I realise that it is highly unlikely that Buzz, Woody or any other animated creations are going to be honoured at the Academy Awards. I do feel, however, that at this rate, with the fantastic work by Pixar and the lifelike creations of James Cameron and his team on Avatar, we are fast reaching a point where some kind of recognition is going to be required to reward the increasingly great work that is being done in the field of artificial character creation. Technology is advancing, the ambitions of those that use it are growing, and it must surely be only a matter of time before the performance of a computer generated character is held up as being comparable to that of some human actors. I now find myself looking forward to that day. Of course, when it does happen, we are one step closer to Judgement Day…

Bazmann – You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann

We are big fans of Alamo Drafthouse and Mondo here. For the uninitiated, Alamo Drafthouse is an independent cinema in Texas, focusing on unusual cinema experiences, in particular themed theatrical releases and Mondo is an art boutique, producing posters and T-shirts to accompany the releases.

We have seen the Star Wars posters from Olly Moss already, and sensational they are too. Now courtesy of Yahoo and from Mondo direct, here is a link to a gallery of the best of Mondo’s work for 2010. My favourites? Either R2D2 or the brilliant Tron two-partner. Pop over to have a look at them and then come back to let us know your personal favourites.

Check out the True Grit posters in high resolution  below (click them to see them BIG!) or head over to Yahoo for the full gallery.

Both these posters below go on sale tomorrow:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have unveiled four new posters for the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony.

The posters – each imposed with a “You’re Invited” tag – are said to, according to the press release, evoke Oscar night’s iconic symbols: the red carpet, the envelopes, the searchlights and the Oscar statuette.

The 83rd Academy Awards ceremony will take place on February 27, 2011 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California.

Check out the four new posters below:

We seem to have had an almost absurd volume of posters for the upcoming Megamind. We’ve kept you up to speed with it all (see here) and although this flies in the face of our “Final Megamind Poster” post of a few weeks ago, here are two more international posters for your viewing pleasure.

This film looks like a genuine treat and will  hit US screens in early November, landing in the UK a few weeks later, in early December.

Thanks to IMP Awards for the posters which you can click to enlarge.

Contained within the pages of this wonderful book are some of the most iconic and eccentric comic book covers from the past 75 years of DC comics, and seen in this context the wealth of imagination is truly stunning.

Each cover has a critical and social commentary from Robert Schnakenberg and the first appearances of Superman, Batman, The Flash and the other classic DC characters are all here, and a couple of additional covers are shown over the page, often showing how the character has evolved over the years.

From Action Comics #1 to covers for modern classics such as V for Vendetta, The Killing Joke and Y: The Last Man there is something here for every comic book fan. The sheer variety of styles is enough to illustrate how comic books have changed in the last 75 years and you will want to examine and discover every single image, from strange 70s psychedelia to the minimalist Deco inspired Batman covers of the early 21st Century each page turn reveals something wonderful.

A magnificent book and a proud celebration of the artists and writers behind some of most iconic figures of popular culture.

Here’s a few samples to get you in the mood.

DC Comics 75th Anniversary Poster Book is available now priced around £20. And it’s worth it.

The film’s appearance at Comic Con did wonders to raise awareness for Battle: Los Angeles – another alien invasion film, which is taking a chance pitching its tent in the already crowded arena.

When a few seconds of footage was released after Comic Con people flocked to see it and the images and panel details gave us a closer look at director Jonathan Liebesman’s film and the chance to hear the stars of the show Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez (looking every bit the next big action heroine) talk about fighting little green men.

Now five new posters have been released, looking like they’ve been pulled from the walls of Fox Mulder’s office and offering no link to the film other than the film’s website ReportThreats.org.

The film is set to invade cinemas in the US on the 11th of March and the rest of the world can just sit and wait for a release date from Sony.

Five cool posters for the upcoming Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade and Rob Schneider comedy ‘Grown Ups’ have been brought to us from Filmofilia.

It shows each of the five main comedian actors as young kids and these kind of gimmicks always bring a nice charm to productions. Grown Ups is directed by Dennis Dugan who made ‘You Don’t mess with the Zohan’, ‘I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry’, ‘Big Daddy’, ‘Happy Gilmore’ and ‘Problem Child’ so make of that what you will in terms of quality, it’s also written by Sandler so I’m hoping that after Funny People this will be a success even though it has Rob Schneider in it for some kind of shock value.

Synopsis: Grown Ups is a comedy about five friends and former teammates who reunite years later to honor the passing of their childhood basketball coach. With their wives (Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph) and kids in tow, they spend the Fourth of July holiday weekend together at the lake house where they celebrated their championship years earlier. Picking up where they left off, they discover why growing older doesn’t mean growing up.

To view the posters click on the pictures below to enlarge. The trailer can be found here, it seems quite funny and I’ve always enjoyed a Sandler film so here’s hoping it’s a good one.

Grown Ups is due out in UK on 6th August.

]]> http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/06/19/five-grown-ups-character-posters/feed/ 2 http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/05/17/brothers-bloom-posters-from-around-the-world/ http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/05/17/brothers-bloom-posters-from-around-the-world/#comments Mon, 17 May 2010 13:00:59 +0000 Craig Skinner http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/?p=22309

Over at the Rian Johnson forums there is a really interesting post by ‘sarahalyse’ which collects a variety of posters for The Brothers Bloom from around the world. You can visit the forum and see the post here.

This is particularly interesting as the original US poster for The Brothers Bloom was pretty poor and probably had a negative impact on the success of the film as it didn’t reflect the film very accurately and may have put people off. The poster for a film is often the first piece of marketing that anyone sees and is therefore often the first time the general public is made aware of a film and it can represent a very important first impression.

We posted the UK poster here when it was first released (you can also see it above) and this is a vast improvement on the official US poster, better conveying the tone of the film and what to expect. Rian Johnson himself has expressed his preference for the UK poster over the US one (see here).

Looking at the various posters below it is fascinating that they differ so greatly and the differing impressions of the film they give. Click on the thumbnails in the gallery below to see the full posters and let us know what you think.

We really love The Brothers Bloom at HeyUGuys and can highly reccommend you check it out when it finally hits UK theatres on June the 4th.

Yesterday we posted two character posters for M.Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender and now there’s a new international poster to feast those eyes of yours on.

Paramount’s summer blockbuster machine is moving into overdrive and though the footage already seen (you can check out the recent trailer here) looks the business there is concern at the news that The Last Airbender will be retrofitted with a third dimension.

It’s all over the posters now – this one is coming to you in glorious 3D and you can bet that the marketing people wanted to change the tagline to ‘Four Nations, One Destination, Three Dimensions’.

Anyhoo, let’s keep an open mind, and what we’ve seen of it so far points to a pretty decent action film. Here’s the poster.

Empire had the exclusive, and good for them.

So, with the complete lack of surprise to the news that M.Night Shyamalan’s adaptation of The Last Airbender will have an extra dimension tacked on to it when it hits in July, here’s two new posters to poke your anticipation.

Looking very similar to the two posters which debuted in January, which were then cropped and chopped to make a good old orange/blue split International poster Hollywood is so fond of, these new posters are reminiscent of Percy Jackson but seem diverting enough.

Oh, and notice the subtle difference between these two new posters and the older ones? Oh, yes – IN 3D! Proudly added, a little awkwardly, beneath the title. I’m just hoping that there’s enough time and money to make the conversion worthwhile, and though it is sure to pull in a paying audience the 3D needs to work properly to distance it from recent (technical, not financial) failures such Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland.

Anyhoo, 3D aside, here are the posters for you to look a. Click on them and behold.

IGN had these first, those lucky scamps.

Disappointingly we were supposed to have seen Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2 by now but ash clouds conspired to move the premiere to LA instead so we’re going to have to console ourselves with two new posters and a clip featuring Sam Rockwell.

These two posters look pretty good and depict the metallic one and Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, both posters thrown out to promote the IMAXity of Iron Man 2.

Click on the pics below to see them in their fullest size. They came from SuperheroHype and ScreenRant respectively.

MSN have the clip here, so do go and check it out to stoke those Iron Man fires.

A couple of weeks ago we posted the excellent trailer for Michael Stephenson’s documentary, Best Worst Movie, about the cult following of the terrible and unintentionally enjoyable Troll 2.

Today we have some excellent posters for the film designed by Tyler Stout. Stout is a renowned poster designer who designed wonderful posters for The Thing, Robocop and Monster Squad to name just a few. He works closely with the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas and his posters can often be found for sale at Mondo Tees. To see more of his work check out his main site here.

Embedded below are the two posters he has created for Best Worst Movie.

Head over here to buy either of the posters but hurry as they are limited editions.

Future X-Cops is the new film directed by Wong Jing and starring Andy Lau. For those fans of Hong Kong cinema you will probably already be familiar with Andy Lau and Wong Jing but for those that are not I can recommend God of Gamblers (Wong Jing) and Infernal Affairs (starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung) as good places to start if you are interested.

Wong Jing is a prolific director and one whose films are often ridiculous and slightly demented but also very enjoyable (the God of Gambler films were some of my favourite films as a teenager) and this year sees the release of his new science fiction film, Future X-Cops. Reportedly costing $20 million the film looks pretty insane, with ludicrous special effects and very cheesy action sequences. This will certainly not be a cinematic masterpiece but I’m a sucker for this kind of light hearted cheesy genre cinema and hopefully you are to. I know this trailer is bad, I know the film looks terrible but I still can’t wait to see it, it just looks so fun.

Check out the synopsis, posters and trailer (courtesy of Twitch) and see what you think.

A cop goes back in time to the present to protect a scientist who holds the key to mankind’s future.

In the future, scientist DR MASTERSON averts an energy crisis that threatens the existence of mankind by developing a solar substitute. In doing so he unleashes the wrath of a ruthless oil cartel who dispatch a team of half human, half machine hit men to assassinate him. Policeman ANDY (Andy Lau) is assigned to protect Dr. Masterson and repels the assassination attempt, but his wife MILLIE (BingBing Fan) and cyborg captain KALON’s (Louis Fan) younger brother are killed during the battle. Andy and Kalon both vow revenge.

Still determined to regain control of the world’s energy, the cartel send Kalon and his cyborgs back in time to the present to kill Dr. Masterson as a teenager. Now with the fate of the future in his hands, Andy must follow the assassins back in time to protect the future savior of planet earth. But the only way he stands a chance against the super powered cyborgs is to relinquish his humanity and become one of them.

Future X-Cops is released in China on March 30th.

With the release date of Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland drawing ever nearer every little step down the rabbit hole reveals new wonders and the two new characters posters we’ve got for you here show off two Wonderland favourites.

Voicing the Cheshire Cat is one Stephen Fry, a Grade 2 listed national treasure and a man with a voice so silky smooth you imagine him dining on velvet truffles all day long, and while there’s something decidedly sinister about the fixed grin of the enormous feline, you can’t argue with the other character on offer here. The White Rabbit, whose tardiness and pink eyes also have something of the disquiet about them, has another epic British talent providing vocals, the one and only Michael Sheen.

MTV had these first, and you can click on them below to get all excited..

Accomplished graphic designer and friend of HeyUGuys Paul Collett has drawn up some pretty cool Star Wars inspired artwork and we wanted to share these with you here.

The legendary theme of Star Wars has been remixed many times, and being a product of the 70s the disco mix is a lot of fun. Taking inspiration from George Lucas’s iconic designs Paul Collett has rendered these great posters below.

See more of his work at www.PaulCollett.co.uk, and check out the full images in the gallery below.

The Hughes Brothers have assembled a fantastic cast for the post apocalyptic tale of one man against the chaotic remnants of a dead world, fighting to save mankind with his titular book.

Three new posters were released today and thanks to FirstShowing (via IGN) we can give you a look at Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis and Gary Oldman in sunglasses.

It’s an interesting take on the familiar post apocalyptic world fable, and The Hughes Brothers are more than capable of bring a strong visual identity to their work. Early buzz surrounding the film points to a great movie and we in the UK will be able to find if this is true on the 15th of January next year.

Check out the posters below.