A postscript to Lumière's 2004 Year in Review, TIM WONG dusted off his 4-year design degree to loiter around the popcorn-odored foyers of movieland, in search of the perfect poster.

– White Noise –


Gus Van Sant's film poised the dilemma that you can't ignore an Elephant, especially if it's in your living room. On paper, it does more than stick out – its tonnage crashing down upon the intimacy of John and Acadia's moment like an A-bomb of disgruntled teen spirit. The Manchurian Candidate dropped a bomb of a different kind – a puncture wound to the heart of America's fortress democracy, letting it bleed slowly, but surely, to death. Slyly proposing events in a 4 year's term from now, its "hemorrhaging vote" in 2004 was the year's most arresting graphic image.

– My Little Eye –


Probably the least requested bedroom poster ever, The Grudge's visual take on pissed-off-demon-with-serious-grooming-issues is about as ominous as death by vengeful curse gets. Vacuumed in pitch black, the poster's voyeur-through-a-keyhole stare is like a wall-mounted peephole, proving that the worst terror isn't supernatural or psychopathic, but simply out of fear that you're being watched. Splatter-comedy Shaun of the Dead needn't be as one-eyed – in fact, quite the opposite, literally infesting its four corners with a full-spectrum of horror iconography.

– Killing in the Name of –


A pair of Kill Bill Vol. 2 one-sheets that prove Hollywood films needn't be murdered by Photoshop crimes. Of course, the weapons of choice are the same – the magic wand, the layers palette, the masking tool – but whereas across the Atlantic they prefer things big and loud like a tabloid spread, those Japanese understand the way of simplicity, and that a stretch of desert can do most of the work for you. Both posters also demonstrate that designers needn't be hindered by stock imagery...and that Uma Thurman in a wedding dress flaunting a Hattori Hanzo is about as "I Do" as vengeful declarations of love get.

– Will it Float? –


2004's most stacked movie ended up ditching the airbrush in favour of indistinguishable silhouettes – not that you need to put a face to the names of the Ocean's Twelve cast. The two posters here break all the marketing rules (as far as the executives are concerned), the only logical explanation being the imbalance of print-area-to-celebrity-ego. And yet, there's something keenly unassuming about the presentation, maybe underlined by the cost-cutting two colour output, or the fact that the design process seems in direct defiance to the last time marquee casts were all the rage (the 70's disaster movie). Unfortunately, the film's backers won't see it the same way – Twelve not quite turning out to be the new two-hundred million they hoped it would be.

– Light & Dark –


A sprawl of cables that first seem as tangled as the film's bloated tech-speak, they end up leading to something, and like Primer's own DIY tagline, actually work (typographically, at least). If the advent of mistakes lead in some way to answering Primer's central question, Maria Full of Grace on the other hand, needs to avoid them at all cost. Her question – if she can swallow it – is one of faith; a "breaking of the bread" followed by a grueling test of conviction, captured in a distilled moment of Holiness via the poster's light-bathed image.

– Pink Void –


Adorned in docile pink, these rare one-sheets (the origin of which I'm not entirely sure) rightly convey the placid serenity of Last Life in the Universe's spacial nothingness – and give us a good idea why prison cells are painted the same colour. The abstract hangman figurine seems to be directly channeling the ghost of Saul Bass – a perfectly appropriate homage and wake in the passing of the illustrated movie poster (no thanks to Adobe).

Posters selected on the basis that the films advertised screened either theatrically, or as part of a festival programme, for the first time locally in 2004.