New Posters: Beauty & The Beast, Light Between Oceans, Goat
Saturday, July 9, 2016 at 11:00AM 
Thoughts on three new posters as they came to me after the jump...
GOAT
• Beer-boarding? It's a striking image and those are smart for posters. Good poster if uninspired compositionally.
• "Full Metal Jacket meets Animal House?" blurb. That sounds unpleasant and tonally schizophrenic
• Ben Schnetzer is dead to me after Warcraft so hopefully this rescucitates my love for him post-Pride.
• I was neither raised on the Disney Channel nor a teenager when the Jonas Brothers arrived so I have never understood the Nick Jonas thing. My first exposure to him was on SMASH. True story. LOL. But I loved that episode. Also when I saw him perform on --was it the Grammys? it was some music awards show? -- recently I was really put off. Is he always grimace-singing like he cant open his mouth lest saliva pour out? In short (too late) he's not for me even though I appear to be at least adjacent to his target audience since he's always courting the gays.
• It's come to this: the name James Franco on movie posters is an active turnoff now.
• Does GOAT stand for Greatest of All Time or does it have some other meaning her? I haven't read any reviews.
• When I first heard about this movie I thought of that Swedish Oscar nominee in the Aughts.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
• I hope this looks more like Cinderella than Into the Woods but anything dark and bluish worries me as that so often signifies: muddy and dark cinematography ahead! (Or at least blue & teal cinematography ahead -- slightly preferrable but not by much). I get why they went with this image for the teaser but it's very very expected.
• Is the rose going to be CGI? Nathaniel wept. Real flowers are just not hard to come by.
• Beauty and the Beast is one of the only two or three Broadway shows I ever walked out of at intermission. It was amateur hour where all the actors just mimic'ed all the line readings from the animated classic like we were in someone's giant dark living room with uncomfortable seats watching the DVD on loop. Blargh. This reminds me of that classic Cats joke in Six Degrees of Separation:
You said it was an all time low in a lifetime of theatre going. You said, "Aeschylus did not invent the theatre to have it end up a bunch of chorus kids in cat suits prancing around wondering which of them will go to kitty-cat heaven."
• I'm trying not to be excited about this movie because it might be terrible but I want it to be great because the casting seems so very promising although I would have been much happier to see Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who is classically musical-theater trained, switching parts with Emma Watson (who isn't).
• March 17th. Which Oscar wins will we still be praising and bemoaning as it opens?
• The great Jacqueline Durran (Atonement, Vera Drake) on costumes. Both of Disney's live action retells (Maleficent & Cinderella) have been nominated in that category at the Oscars... and only that category. Can Beauty & The Beast break out bigger with AMPAS?
LIGHT BETWEEN THE OCEANS
• "Love Demands Everything" -- not sure what to do with that.
• This poster is so beige, it could be Nancy Meyers fan art.
• Should I read the book? Have you?
• Alicia and Michael have the exact same color hair.
Reader Comments (22)
"March 17th. Which Oscar wins will we still be praising and bemoaning as it opens?"
if i know one thing about the film experience community: all of them
I loved the book of LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS for a quick easy read. The actors are very well cast, and there's a lot of potential for Cianfrance to work to his strongest abilities we've seen before: bruised romance (BLUE VALENTINE) and parental legacy (PLACE BEYOND THE PINES). But the materials so far haven't been too promising. This poster looks like a Christian movie or something.
As for the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST poster, remember when teaser posters used to be actually intriguing primers for the films and not just a stock piece of a blah marketing campaign?
Goat literally means Goat for the film, but also the idea of someone being the "goat" as in dragged along for the ride without a say.
Chris -- that was when movies offer new ideas that needed to be teased. Nowadays, the teasing is done as soon as the project is announced.
Goat means to egg someone on in this context.
Was NOT a big fan on the light between oceans book. Wasn't awful but kinda regretted spending the time by the time I got to the end.
I saw Goat at SIFF. It was ok. James Franco is in it for about 10 minutes. Much larger parts than his, and he just plays James Franco as a frat alum. Ben Schwetzer is good in it. Pretty unrecognizable from Pride, but it's a solid performance for an ok movie. Nick Jonas does anger pretty well, but that's the only emotion that feels natural for the guy. It was not Full Metal Jacket meets Animal House though. It was more like an adaptation of Guyland meets an afterschool special. I reviewed it back in June, and it's settled in my mind with about the same taste.
Chris Feil: Or (ugh) a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. Still, since Girl with a Pearl Earring sold itself on a conventional shlock romance shot, this could mean NOTHING.
Please, stop making Nick Jonas a big deal. His music is crap and so is his acting.
Goat-It's not a bad poster but the movie looks blah.
Beauty & the Beast-It's very pretty but looks fake.
The Light Between the Oceans-Terrible poster. With the setting of the story they could have come up so many evocative shots. Just them windswept with the lighthouse in the background would have been better than this dull thing.
I didn't really enjoy the book very much but the three leads should be able to flesh the story out. Hopefully the filmmakers haven't turned it into the Hallmark movie the poster suggests.
I really want to be excited about The Light Between... but then moments like this happen.
The "Goat" poster is one big gay tease....
"Both of Disney's live action retells (Maleficent & Cinderella) have been nominated in that category at the Oscars... and only that category. Can Beauty & The Beast break out bigger with AMPAS?"
Are we already ignoring ALICE IN WONDERLAND? ;)
The Light Between Oceans poster fits nicely in a Nicholas Sparks movies collection.
Nick Jonas needs to have a seat.
I actually enjoyed Goat! It's a literal, not metaphoric title, based on one of the hazings in the film. Ben is very good in it! Very much worth a watch. I also like the poster
Glenn -- sshhhhhh! if we ALL pretend it never existed perhaps we can banish it from existence?
Disney couldn't/wasn't able to figure out how to market a Spielberg children's film (also a Dreamworks property). In fact, they've been throwing most of Dreamworks' output into theaters without proper promotion, which is why Spielberg decided to leave for Universal at the end of their contract...which is in August. The Light Between Oceans opens September 2 and is the last Dreamworks film to be released through Disney. Disney could not care less about that film, but the poor promo is not necessarily a reflection of quality.
Also, Nat, you're blind if you think Fassbender and Vikander have the same hair color. The poster might be flattening colors out, but we've seen enough of them on film to know that's absolutely not true.
Kate -- i'm reacting to the posters themselves.
"Goat" poster clearly referencing "Salò." Just me?
I do not like any of these posters and I'm frankly not looking forward to any of these movies.
Not a fan of Nick Jonas though I admire how hard working he is. Franko is too omnipresent for someone with his limited likability. I think he should stick for one medium for a while but that's my opinion.
I don't understand the anticipation for the Beauty and the Beast but I'm sure that's just me. Unless there is someone like Cate Blanchett giving stylized renditions of great characters, I'm no longer interested in these live action recreations.
And when was the last time a real life couple gave us a movie to really sink our teeth into. I really like both Vikander and Fassbender and think they have great careers ahead of them but that movie seems to be entirely motivated by their onscreen chemistry and that formula has failed over and over again.
Ooooh, Nat, now you HAVE to tell us: what were the other Broadway shows you walked out of?