Minimalist Movie Posters

Pre-Christmas season is my time to retrospect, reflect, and reminisce. I didn’t plan on letting my mind wander back as far as November 2012, but I guess that’s what you get for browsing through old hard drives. Back then, I seem to have tried to express my love for minimalist graphic design and coming-of-age movies by learning Inkscape and putting together a project called minimalist_movie_posters; at least that’s the name of the folder I stumbled over. It contained vector graphics I created as a tribute to films that have had a big influence on me.

And you know what? I am not half as embarassed as I thought I would be when entering a 13-year-old folder on a dusty disk. I stand by my taste in movies and my attempt to honor the best genre a helplessly romantic twenty-something could wish for.

Of course, we got Garden State (2004, directed and written by Zach Braff)! To this day, this is one of my top 3 favorite movies of all time. Wonderful cast with Zach Braff and Natalie Portman; excellent humor rooted in close observations of the absurdities of everyday life; and possibly the best movie soundtrack ever. Ah yes, The Shins!

I know it hurts. That’s life. If nothing else, it’s life. It’s real, and sometimes it fuckin’ hurts, but it’s sort of all we have.
Sam (Natalie Portman) in response to Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff). The long version of the abridged quote I used on the poster.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, written by Michael Arndt) is the most complex film among the above and I won’t try to squeeze its massive appeal into a few sentences. Highly recommended!

Next up, we follow Nick (Michael Cera) and Norah (Kat Dennings) on their quest of surviving adolescence through a night in New York, featuring falling in and out of love, a queercore band called The Jerk-Offs, and an infinite playlist of the indie genre’s cream-of-the-crop. (2008, directed by Peter Sollett, screenplay by Lorene Scafaria, based on the eponymous book by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.) Ottoman by Vampire Weekend has been my anthem for lone walks through the night ever since.

Speaking of great music … the soundtrack of (500) Days of Summer (2009, directed by Marc Webb, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber) is mesmerizing and introduced me to both Wolfmother and Regina Spektor! The movie could come across as your standard rom-com, but its non-linear storytelling and clever directorial gimmicks—the expectations vs. reality split screen set to Regina Spektor’s Hero will always give me goosebumps—helped carving its scenes into my brain.

And more Michael Cera, because one can never have enough Michael Cera. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, directed by Edgard Wright, screenplay by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright, based on the Scott Pilgrim comics by Bryan Lee O’Malley) is nothing short of a masterpiece that celebrates nerds and misfits in the most playful yet respectful way.

I am glad I still own these five movies and that my little tribute now has a home on this website. Maybe you too can watch a rom-com today. Grab your favorite person and have yourself some happy holidays!