“Feels Good Man”
The world is simultaneously burning and smiling, and one innocent frog is walking through the rubble. The fascinating and maddening documentary about the alt-right’s adoption of Matt Furie’s cartoon creation Pepe the Frog is often baffling, asking you to widen your eyes and see just how wicked, seemingly bright, and colorful things can become. The poster captures this perfectly: there are broken bottles and TV, toxic fumes and tires on fire – but the sun is also shining. Butterflies are floating; the tulips smell sweet. There might be something nice at the end of the rainbow, and Pepe is walking towards it. And why wouldn’t he? He’s healthy, alive, and has a long way to go. It must feel pretty good.
“Shirley”
A woman’s mind is a complex, intricate thing. None more so than the mind of gothic author Shirley Jackson, the latest study of the incomparable Josephine Decker, an experimental filmmaker probing our psychology and blurring the lines between fact and feeling like none other. Andrew Bannister’s design has shades of Alice in Wonderland, letting plants bloom and unfurl as Shirley tries to hold onto the roots. Her husband, Stanley, looks on, while Rose, a young woman destabilizing everything she thought she knew of herself, turns round to make sure Shirley is still in the palm of her hand. The dusty colors throw us back into Shirley’s stifling frame of mind – it’s suffocating to be so brilliant, a maze only time can tease out.
“Minari”
The best films live and die off the charisma of their stars. A24 knows this, and is putting everything behind their tiny force of nature Alan Kim, in Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari.” The film offers a mature and often moving meditation on the American Dream, focusing on a South Korean family doing everything to make ends meet. But the poster zooms in on Kim as his character David, a bed of emerald-green grass at his feet. He’s walking towards us, as sunlight ripples off the roof of his home. His eyes greet us, and he presents a branch as a gift. Instantly, he feels at home.
“Kajillionaire”
Marshmallow-pink soap bubbles seep down the frame, as a young woman with hair down to her ribs looks out into the distance. It’s a holy, dream-like image, as Miranda July’s protagonist Old Dolio is surrounded by the things she loves, and the things she knows in life, on the poster for “Kajillionaire.” It feels like a mood board, you’d imagine a teenage girl putting together to envisage her future life: money, jewelry, music, pancakes, her parents, a woman who could change everything. There’s ambition in the pastel hues, and determination in Old Dolio’s stare. Anyone can be a kajillionaire when you’ve got drive like that.
“Dick Johnson Is Dead”
The color scheme and emotion of the poster for Kirsten Johnson’s latest documentary communicates something of a cross between “Cheers” and “The Flintstones,” rather than the wonderful meditation on love and death she’s put together alongside her eponymous father. Dick Johnson stares at us with a pantomimic open mouth, probably staring one of his many faked near-death scenarios square through the eyes. The block-yellow background feels like the glow of “The Good Place” and gives you hope and warmth more than any morose regret. It’s inviting and playful, just like the father-daughter duo at its core.