Columbia Pictures probably thought they were just phoning it in when they released a teaser poster for its upcoming spy thriller Salt which contained nothing other than Angelina Jolie's face and the tagline "Who is Salt?" But there's times when you don't need to be all that inventive to light up the internet like a Christmas tree with buzz about your film.

Across the web, film sites are responding to the news that the new Angelina Jolie film will feature Angelina Jolie's face and puzzling what that says about the film, the campaign behind it, the chances of passing meaningful health care reform under this Congress and the state of civilization at large.

Fanboy central joblo.com which was given the exclusive first right to bring this poster to the world, points to the main issues raised by the image, explaining that the poster, "bravely puts Jolie front and center with little explanation about the film itself. What it does though is tease you a little bit with this striking pose (as a teaser poster should do) and then direct you to WhoisSalt.com where people will no doubt be headed. It should be noted that while this version of the poster is static, there is another version you'll see in theater lobbies that will have Jolie in motion. "

Jeffery Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere labels the poster, "a disappointment," noting that it fails to build on the previously established fact that, yes, it is Angelina Jolie. But on the other hand, he goes on, it's not Angelina Jolie enough. "The other problem is that the face could almost belong to someone else. Is it Angie or a cyborg or Megan Fox's malevolent sister?"

At Collider, while heralding the majesty of the face, blogger Matthew Goldberg astutely identifies the thinness of any inquiries that might be sparked by the tagline. "That question sounds like one a person with a learning disability would ask. I would think that the leap to get people to accept the title Salt would be tough enough but phrasing it in the context of a question does the movie no favors. Who is Salt? I don't know. Who is Pepper? Who is Cinnamon? Maybe it's just the worst stripper name of all-time. I don't know and I think they should just use my tagline, "Angelina Jolie Looks Hot and Beats People Up."

At firstshowing.net however, Alex Billington stands by the tag, saying "I like that they're trying to build up as much mystery and intrigue as possible." He goes on however, to point his finger at the elephant smack dab in the middle of this whole campaign; the fatal flaw right at the dead center of the empire that might just bring the whole darn colonial edifice crashing down. He demands, "The face on this also seems off-center and I'm not sure if that's part of the design or what?"

Or what indeed!

Sadly, the main one isn't present in this spate of Matrix Reloaded-reminiscent characters posters: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who's been cast as the villainous Cobra Commander. That sort of unconventional choice almost makes us want to see the finished film; then we remember that it's directed by bigger-budgeted Peter Hyams clone Stephen Sommers (Van Helsing, The Mummy) and suddenly, all the CG in the world wouldn't be able to place us in a theater seat.

• New G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra Posters! [LatinoReview]

We scoured hundreds of one-sheets, banners, international posters and other materials for the handful that provoke, move, repel and entrance — sometimes all at once. Your mileage may vary, and a few notable omissions will have to wait a year for revisiting. But find below what we hope will inspire more studios and designers — for better or worse — to an improved 2009.

THE BEST MOVIE POSTERS OF 2008

The Bank Job: Most Jason Statham posters afford him little opportunity to do more than look fierce, threatened or thoroughly trapped. But this one-sheet for his nifty, underappreciated heist gem frames him exactly as we like him: A kitchen-sink bloke with style to spare. However badly he wants what's on the other side of that window, it probably wants him more.

Boarding Gate: Upping the stakes from last year's Brave One/Jodie Foster firearm-phallus campaign, the marketers behind Olivier Assayas's nonsensical thriller dispensed with implicitness altogether by placing Asia Argento's handgun squarely in front of her exposed panties. NB: When faced with the opportunity to have Angelina Jolie bend bullets from her groin-mounted firearm, Wanted's poster designers blinked in favor of something "a little more Moby-Dick-y."

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Universal could have thrown Marshall's decent ensemble on the one-sheet, but in a flash of brilliance, determined that even a bikinied Kristin Bell couldn't entice viewers quite the way a mysterious, vaguely misogynist, hand-lettering campaign probably could. $62 million in domestic grosses later, the move would influence another, less successful campaign this fall. (See Zack and Miri Make a Porno below.)

Funny Games: Michael Haneke's English-language remake of his own infamous, utterly despicable 1997 film was nevertheless remarkable for how it treated its leading lady. Often shot from behind or from her side, often stripped, tear-streaked and/or terrorized, Naomi Watts's performance is a marvel of experimental endurance that you shouldn't have to watch an otherwise awful movie to appreciate. Just check out the poster. You're welcome!

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay: Neil Patrick Harris. A unicorn. If only Valkyrie had thought of this.

THE WORST MOVIE POSTERS OF 2008

Chapter 27: When considering particularly bad poster art, it's tempting to imagine yourself in the late phases of the film's campaign development. But the stunning misconception guiding Chapter 27 to ruin actually freezes us in the moment when Fat Jared Leto's face is unveiled as Lennon assassin Mark David Chapman. And then we laugh and laugh and are eventually fired from the project. Which is just a long-winded way of us saying nobody fucking wins when Jared Leto gains 70 pounds for his art.

My Best Friend's Girl: If your leading man comes out to complain that his face looks like a vagina, then you've got a bad movie poster.

Righteous Kill: We've already griped at length about what specifically makes the Righteous Kill poster such a wreck. But, it turns out, we forgot something: 6. Tagline not a tacky-enough reminder of a man's actual murder at the hands of cops. They don't cut corners in England, apparently.

Space Chimps: We intended to keep this assortment to domestically released posters. However, this tres-rare artwork encapsulizes not only the reasons why Space Chimps crashed upon liftoff, but also why virtually all of Western Civilization hates us. If posters could be tried for international war crimes, this would have gone to the Hague months ago.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Loosely related to the Sarah Marshall campaign's crude sell, the poster for Kevin Smith's hard-R flop still undersold an A-list cast on the premise that viewers would rather read Harvey Weinstein barking at them than see the actual faces of Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. If any film needed the full-ensemble treatment — including Craig Robinson, Brandon Routh, Justin Long and porn vets Katie Morgan and Traci Lords, even all just sitting on a couch in Smith's basement — this was the movie. You know what happened next — and not just partly because we called it months ahead of time.

1. The Cast. Or lack thereof. But that's only half of it: If some anonymous dude and his tremendous Photoshop 2.0 spiral-blowing powers take precedence over the talent's faces, then they must remain hidden deep in the credits well with the rest of the schmucks. Really, though, if you've got Dakota Fanning in your movie, you must have her in the promo art. There's no excuse for anything less. Get creative! Anything will work — for example:

You're welcome!

2. Four producers, no more. We've mentioned this scourge many times before, most recently with Righteous Kill. But again: When you have enough credited producers to field a beer-league softball team, you should not be designing a movie poster in the first place — you should be designing a DVD cover.

3. The Web site is a MySpace page. Last we checked, distributor Summit Entertainment released the most sensational, highest-grossing film of the fall. Would it kill them to splurge on "push-themovie.com" or something similar. Oh wait — they did. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

4. Random pandering overdose. There's a sports car. Getting blown up. Next to an automatic rifle. Flying through the air. Like they're wont to do. Fifteen-year-old boys are pretty dumb, but they aren't that dumb.

5. You don't blast Djimon Hounsou into the air with your palm-waves. He was in Amistad, motherfuckers!

• 'Push' Teaser Poster [Worst Previews]

[via Shana Marie, squarerootoftwo, Outsider Mag, Animal NY]

[Kevin Smith via Adfreak]

Some of his main problems with the poster:

2. My head:
The left side of my face seems to be melting off of my skull. I guess I am looking directly into the Ark of the Covenant? Are they going for the bells palsy thing here? My left side looks like Brittany Spears' vagina.

4. Lips:
It looks like I'm wearing Maybelline Water Shine Diamonds Liquid Lipstick.

5. Fashion:
My character is sporting a very high collar I mean damn they should be snow capped at that altitude. It's going for the vampire lurking in the castle basement vibe. An Olympic pole vaulter would have a tough go clearing that collar.

As official Dane Cook Myspace blog commenter She-Cactus writes: "Hahaha, lmao!"

[Myspace via Adages]