Bamboozled

Bamboozled (2000) — Original One-Sheet

Spike Lee's searing, still-explosive media satire gets the poster it deserves. Working with Lee, designer Art Sims deliberately reached back into America's ugliest advertising archive, rendering the infamous minstrel-era caricature munching a watermelon splattered with vintage circus-poster typography. "Starring the Great Negroe Actors" reads like a carnival barker's pitch, and that's exactly the point: the poster mirrors the film's premise, in which TV writer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) pitches the most offensive show imaginable out of pure frustration, only to watch it become a runaway hit.

An audacious piece of graphic design and one of the most talked-about one-sheets of its era. Starring Damon Wayans, Savion Glover (in a ferocious performance), Jada Pinkett Smith, Tommy Davidson, and Michael Rapaport. A 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks production for New Line Cinema, directed by Spike Lee. Rated R.

A must-own for collectors of Spike Lee joints, poster art as provocation, or anyone who believes movie marketing can actually say something.