Back in the eighties and nineties, I spent much of my youth in and out of video stores. During the weekends when there was a guarantee there’d be nothing on television we’d trek to the video store in our neighborhood and I always drifted to the horror section. One of the highlights of going through the horror section was perusing through the boxes and gaping in disbelief at all the amazing and often creative box art. Back then artists had to sell a movie with one striking image, and they often did it very well. The box art was only a small result of the art of movie posters, and how once upon a time movie posters were a symbol of a movie that were used to sell their respective cinematic properties, and create lasting memories.
Tag Archives: Art
Working Class (2011) [San Diego Film Week 2017]
Using A Tale of Two Cities, this documentary tells the story of Mike Giant in San Francisco and Mike Maxwell in San Diego who are both artists and friends who connected through tattoos the first put on the second. Throughout the film, their lives are paralleled and compared until it eventually brings them together.
Art as a Weapon (2012) [San Diego Film Week 2017]
Made in 2012, Art as a Weapon is a documentary about using street art to publicly send a message, may it be of peace, hope, a political one, or any other messages sent to the mass public by way of graffiti, paintings, etc. The film follows an art class in Burma learning to use art with the most effectiveness and contrasts this with American street artist Shepard Fairey. Directed by San Diego documentarian Jeffrey Durkin, the film mixes the Burmese school students’ scenes with scenes shot in San Diego while artist Shepard Fairey was in town painting a Buddhist monk on the side of a building.
24×36: A Movie About Movie Posters (2016) [Blood in the Snow 2016]
Illustrated movie posters are explore here through their beginnings, history, the artists behind them, and their recent resurgence started with Mondo and their artist posters of older films that have become highly collectible and wanted. Directed by Kevin Burke, this documentary starts with the history of the medium and interviews with knowledgeable people and artists. This part of the film is filled with historical facts and anecdotal stories. The film spends a bit of time on the history, where posters can from, why are they the sizes that they are, why they look a certain way, their evolution, etc.
Emilie Black At Home with Guillermo Del Toro’s Monsters
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is hosting an exhibit of a part of filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro’s horror-centric art collection. This includes everything from movie props (from his own films and others’), to paintings, to photographs, to sculptures, to storyboards, to sketches, etc, etc, etc. This small part of his collection is insane in the best of ways and any movie nerd that can should go and see it before it closes on the 27th of November.
As a proper movie (horror especially) nerd, I went and took a ton of photos. Unfortunately, it is dark in there and flash photography is not allowed to protect the art and other people’s enjoyment of it. With no further ado, here are some of my photos of the exhibit in all their dark and grainy glory!
Girls and Corpses: Volume #7 [Magazine]
The girl can’t help it. “Girls and Corpses” celebrates their Spring volume by bringing aboard their own bonafide spring hotty, Courtney Stodden. Whether or not you’re a fan, there’s no denying the news savvy highly publicized Stodden is insanely hot, and “Girls and Corpses” takes advantage of her photo shoot, making sure to show off how Stodden manages to keep every page of her photo spread burning to the touch.
There’s even a delectable fold out poster for folks who want to appreciate Stodden every single day of the year. Stodden is definitely a model for the horror magazine that will keep readers turning back to her spread again, and again, and she takes full zeal in her new cover shoot by posing with her very own corpse groom. One very lucky corpse groom.
The Art of "Rise of the Guardians" (The Art of Dreamworks) [Hardcover]
For aspiring animators and or fans of “Rise of the Guardians,” this hardcover look at the development of “Rise of the Guardians” from a series of eight young adult books that were compressed and transformed in to a marketable fantasy animated film will be thrilled to learn all the facets and elements of the film that were finely tuned and included to give the movie that extra dimension.
Though the film is primarily built around the belief in deities, the film implements a lot of international aspects that reflect belief including the Middle Eastern influence on the Tooth Fairy’s costume, as well as the Bunny’s giant egg sentinels, all of which were influenced by Eastern mythology. There’s also a detailed glimpse in to the creation of the realms for the guardians, including the small trinkets and interesting details added to certain background and environments, including North’s toy shop, and the detailing of his Yeti workers, all of whom were a fine addition to the story.