Marvel Studios, Paramount and Jon Favreau have given you an early Christmas present. Yahoo! Movies has debuted the first poster for Iron Man 2, and as cheesy as it is to go nuts over marketing, it's an awfully cool poster. It's their exclusive, so you'll have to click the picture to see the entire thing, but I've given you a tiny preview above.

The best part? Those of us who didn't get to see the pants-wetting footage at Comic-Con finally get a glimpse at War Machine! There's something deliciously geeky about the buddy cop stylings of this poster. I could live quite comfortably in a world where Iron Man 2 was something akin to a super-suited Lethal Weapon, couldn't you?

Of course, as nice as the poster is, it's no substitute for seeing these guys actually take flight. Faverau has hinted via Twitter that we might see the first Iron Man 2 trailer this Christmas, and that it'll be attached to that other Robert Downey Jr. franchise, Sherlock Holmes. Maybe if you're very good boys and girls, Santa will grant your wish, and we'll get it a few days before Holmes hits theaters. I can't think of a more festive way to ring in the holidays than with a flying hero of red and gold.

Couples Retreat is about four couples, three white and one black. In the American poster for the film, all eight stars' pictures and names are shown. In the U.K. poster, however, one couple is omitted. Any guesses which one? The black one, obviously, or else this wouldn't be a story.

Exclusives have become tricky things in our field that I held off sharing these Kick-Ass posters, which debuted on IGN on Friday. But now you might need some inspiration for your Monday in the form of home made teenage vigilantes. Kick-Ass is based on the Mark Millar miniseries, and is directed by Matthew Vaughn. It's had a pretty crazy ride to the big-screen, as when it was first optioned no studio wanted to touch it because of its teenage violence and foul language. Vaughn went the indie route and it's paid off with a lot of ComicCon buzz, fan enthusiasm, and a distributor in Lionsgate.

So far, Lionsgate is handling the marketing well. The poster designs are quite classy (I've put a high-res version in the gallery), which go with the daring approach of not showing a single face. Instead we only get the, ahem, asses of Red Mist, Kick-Ass, Hit Girl, and Big Daddy. I particularly like the nod to Nite Owl in Big Daddy's silhouette. Very appropriate for something that borrows from the real world "heroes" of Watchmen, no?

In a sign that its April 16, 2010 date isn't too far away, the official site went live on Friday and the trailer is set to debut on MySpace in 12 days. We'll bring it to you here on Cinematical, so no need for you to stress ... just us! Hey, we're vigilantes in our own way.

It's only the first of October and many horror offerings await, but this collection of movie posters might just be some of the scariest images you'll see all month. They all hail from anonymous artists from Ghana, and came about in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to Ghana's "mobile cinemas." VHS technology made it possible for local theater owners to bring films to remote places of the country, where film hungry locals would line up to watch movies played on a television screens powered by a portable generator.

Naturally, these portable theaters lacked movie marketing materials. So the theater owners hired artists to promote the films with hand painted posters. The artists were given complete creative freedom, and usually hadn't seen the movie they were trying to depict. The results are funny, fascinating, and frightening. I hope I don't sound glib, because they really are remarkable works of modern art, and it's a testament to someone's love of film that they survived. These posters were usually painted on feed sacks, rolled up, and carried around with the mobile cinema. Nevertheless, you can't help but laugh at how one artist chose to portray Cujo. That's a very thoughtful killer dog.

If you want more, there's an entire book devoted to them called Extreme Canvas: Movie Poster Paintings From Ghana. The following have been taken from the blog ephemera assemblyman. If you're looking for more posters, info (or even places to buy them) pop over for a visit.