Spot The Difference: Racism Special
One assumes that with the London Evening Standard going free next week, the days of its lighter (liter) sibling the London Lite are numbered. Which means the days of the toughest puzzle in London are numbered. That’s right, we’ll be losing the Spot The Difference.
(For reference the five differences are always: Hemline, extra strap on shoe, bigger bag, alteration to a pattern and a missing piece of jewellery*.)
Anyway for big fans of this feature I have one for you for the up coming film Couples Retreat. Here is the US Poster.
And here is the UK poster.
Yes there are differences about position, framing and overall design, but the idea remains the same. Except, hmm, there appears to be a couple missing. The AV Club noticed that in the original poster the black couple were, well, hard to see. But not as hard to see as in the UK poster…
Also note, for Hollywood age rules that the gender balance by age in the above couples go like this
M – F
40 – 29
41 – 25
39 – 31
43 – 44
Can you guess which couple is which?
*Actually recently its changed the rules. It used to be that all the differences were always to the clothing or the person, now they occasionally alter the background subtly you change the MOBO sign to MUBO or something.
Pete Baran in Do You See /FT • Film • 1,001 views
The UK poster also omits the black actors’ names from the main marquee. The fine print is identical, and ‘Faizon Love’ turns up there but’Kali Hawk’ does not. For my money, too, the US ad is just a much stronger composition. The couples look genuinely lonely out in the water and with their clothes going into the water rather than hiked above it, and the asymmetrical mountain range intrigues. The whole thing feels both specific in place and mood and is also slightly surreal (cf. mad men’s flooded office images). The zoomed-in UK image with symmetrical mountain loses all of that (along with black cast members), and thus manages to radiate a comprehensively generic, crappy, ‘vacation hijinks’ vibe. The odds are surely good that *that* at least is truth in advertising.
Kristin Davis stipulates in all contracts that at least one of her knees must be visible in all marketing material.
And where is Jean Reno in either poster? In the top one he is entirely submerged believing this to be a remake of Le Grand Bleu. In the second he’s ensconced in that red suitcase having smuggled himself along as Kristen Bell’s “cleaner”.
Yet, I am glad that the British cultural tradition of knobbly knees has been noted in order to appeal to the UK audience. Well done for getting yr legs out Vince.
(Also, the first one looks like it’s set in a freezing cold loch)
I suppose Faizon Love and Kali Hawk (great names both) aren’t well known in the UK at all (at least, I’ve never heard of them) so removing their names on that basis makes sense tho that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t remain in the picture. They do look awkwardly positioned and too distant in the US one tho I think.
British poster uses palm trees as tropical island signifier! Now you have mentioned the Loch, the top one looks freezing.
Note MEN get top billing (which perhaps only Vaughn and/or Bateman deserve).
Without knowing what the plot of this undoubtedly masterful new comedy(?) is, I’m assuming that Jean Reno plays the role of some kind of evil mittel-European type who messes up everyone’s perfect holiday. (Also, what does this have to do with “Focus Group 1999″?)
i saw an advert for this on a bus earlier and was unable to tell if it was some kind of threatening std-related government warning, as their collective look of wasted knees and depression seemed to suggest.
I think its a film about Water On The Knee.
I will go see and report back of course. I note it is written by Vince Vaughn and John Favreau, who I believe have now been in five movies together since Swingers. Now if Couples Retreat was called Swingers we’d have a much better idea what was going on.
In the UK poster it looks like they’re all standing in a puddle of blue-tinted milk!
I wonder how much the UK poster is going to trade for on eBay once they pull it?? Buy as many as you can NOW lol