For the past few weeks, director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody have quietly been bringing special “pop up screenings” of their new collaboration, Young Adult, to small arthouse theaters across the country (and Canada!). Invites were scarce, but those who were quick enough (and savvy enough) to get into one of six screenings was treated to a first look at the film, a special Q&A with its makers and stars, and a unique poster to take home with them. I was lucky enough to get into this week’s Los Angeles pop up screening at the New Beverly, during which Reitman trotted out Cody, Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, and Elizabeth Reaser for a pre-screening introduction and a post-screening Q&A. While it’s been widely speculated as to why Reitman didn’t take Young Adult on a more traditional festival jaunt (which he’s previously done for his biggest hits), the director himself explained it simply, he wanted to take the film on its very own festival route, picking cities and venues that fit the film. To add to that festival atmosphere, each pop up screening got its own specially crafted poster, made by a local artist and distributed to the audience at each screening. Young Adult is a departure for Reitman and Cody, shunting aside the sunniness of their previous collaboration Juno for a much darker (and deeper) tale of female maturity gone totally wrong. After the break, check out all six posters for each of the pop up screenings, each taking a different [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

I’m not sure if there’s an award anywhere out there for thoroughness in marketing, but if it exists I would have to imagine the team promoting The Hunger Games has it in the bag. Back when the film was in pre-production they were sending out casting announcements seemingly every hour on the hour. It got to the point where they were releasing info on which local pizza delivery guys they were picking up to do extra work and which aspiring young nephew of a producer was coming on as a grip. Over the course of a couple of months “The Hunger Games” went from being just a series of cult novels to stoking the fire of revolution and becoming a genre movie blaze of passion sweeping across the dry planes of the World Wide Web. And now that the film is getting closer to release, their efforts have become even more refined. Case in point, these five district posters that Lionsgate has released on the Hunger Games Facebook page. If you remember, the crux of this story is about a future world, made up of 12 districts, that holds an annual tournament where two children from each district battle to the death on a big crazy game board. In order to hammer that point home, it looks like we’re going to get a poster countdown with a seal from each and every district being released over the course of the next who knows how long. And to support these efforts [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Since the most recent character posters for X-Men: First Class were so abominably bad, we decided to sponsor a little contest to see which of our design-minded readers could do better. The bar was low, but everyone went far above and beyond the call of duty, and the result was a squad of really great posters. Some went with Saul Bass inspiration, others played off the comic books, one found inspiration in The Social Network, one changed the director (see above), and still others chose to go their own way entirely. Sadly, no one chose to improve on the floating head in crotch concept. That’ll be a new contest entirely, but without further ado, here’s the winner (who will receive a 1999 lithograph recreation of the first “X-Men” cover done by comic artist/legend Alex Ross) and a gallery of some especially great runners up:

The thing that I appreciate most about the new poster for Hatchet 2 is that it makes no bones about the fact that it’s a horror film. I’m not sure a film with its name could, but it’s nice to see a production owning up to what it is. Hell, it’s also refreshing to see a horror film released in October. As you may have heard, the film is the largest release of an unrated horror film in 25 years, so a lot might be riding on this marketing. Take a look for yourself:

The sweet story about Frog and Toad laughing at Toad Hall, riding around hilariously in a car, and generally being ridiculous must have been thrown right out the window into the bog. RG Entertainment (powered by WETA) plan on delivering what looks like the tale of when Toad had terminal cancer and decided to test the people around him who didn’t appreciate life with elaborate traps. The poster gives off a truly creepy vibe. If the new take on the film is this dark, will everybody still love Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride?

We have been talking about posters from MondoTees for a while now, and for good reason. Their posters exist in two places – on my walls, and in the dreams of movie gods.

John Travolta with an RPG, school children sitting amongst rubble, and a family portrait featuring Labeouf and Douglas round out this week’s posters.

We see them plastered in lobbies and wish we had them all on our walls. Pieces of art with the purpose of selling us on a movie. Here they are: the best movie posters of 2009.