Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Bringing Back the Cursive

The advance word on Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive is already good enough that I am eagerly anticipating seeing the film.  On a more geek obsessive level, I appreciate the use of a script font (in pink!) on the posters, a stylistic and perhaps symbolic choice that harks back to the '80s, when there was a prevalence of graffiti and script title fonts, frequently in neon colors, in movie marketing materials.

EDIT: I've added most of the suggestions from the comments section into the main gallery.

14 comments:

Sam's Myth said...

Yes! Love it.

Ned Merrill said...

Glad to hear it, Sam's Myth!

Her, Suzanne76 said...

Fantastic!
some more iconic cursives (including both partial titles in cursive and /or lead actors' name in cursive) might include

DIRTY DANCING
HEATHERS
THE BAD NEWS BEARS
OXFORD BLUES
A NIGHT IN THE LIFE OF JIMMY REARDON

Ned Merrill said...

Thanks, Her, Suzanne76! Your comment prompted me to remember some more:

PRIVATE SCHOOL
PRIVATE LESSONS

Both of these masterpieces came from the same writer and producers!

Unknown said...

Yeah, I'm eagerly anticipating DRIVE - it looks like a mashup of THE DRIVER and THIEF, which sounds good to me!

Ty said...

Great post! Also really excited to see Drive!

Ned Merrill said...

J.D.,

I'm purposely not really reading reviews or looking at trailers, but a "mash-up" of those two films is alright with me.

Ty,

Thanks for stopping by...think I'm going to have find some time this weekend for DRIVE.

Cannon said...

That was the very first thing I noticed about this film. I’m not a big Gosling fan but the retro ‘80s crime-caper style might be enough for me to see it in theaters.

Hey, here are some more examples:

http://i53.tinypic.com/5lxv81.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/10cqkqw.jpg
http://i55.tinypic.com/2s9rdki.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/qygxgi.jpg

Hope you dig.

Ned Merrill said...

Nice ones, Cannon!

Funny that of all those posters you linked to, MAN ON FIRE, a movie that never really had any notoriety, was the one that was remade. And, the remake directed by Tony Scott and written by Brian Helgeland, who seems to specialize in unnecessary remakes, is already seven years old and almost equally forgotten.

Her, Suzanne76 said...

keeping it vague and spoiler free, i saw DRIVE last night (it's pretty terrific ) with Director Winding Refn in attendance for a post screening q + a. He spoke of his interest in making a brutal film that was simultaneously like a fairy tale. I think the poster art marries these two ideas and temperments well, as does the tone of the film.

Jaime Wolf said...

sorry, I'm just coming across this post now, but can you really have overlooked Alan Rudolph's CHOOSE ME ( http://tinyurl.com/6nyusez )? It's always seemed the most obvious inspiration.

Ned Merrill said...

Jaime Wolf,

Thanks for checking in. CHOOSE ME is a good call. I had the original VHS issued by Media in the mid-'80s with the great poster art and script title font. Don't know if there is a "most obvious inspiration" in all this, but, sure, CHOOSE ME fits.

Chris said...

I like the retro poster design for Drive.

If any of you are a fan of the Drive soundtrack, check out Themes For an Imaginary Film / by Johnny Jewel.
I shared a stream of the new album on my blog yesterday:

http://moviesandsongs365.blogspot.com/2012/01/songs-for-your-ipod.html

Unknown said...

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