Smash Cut

Are you pretty much sick of what seems to be the complete lack of thought/creativity in the cogs and wheels of Hollywood’s marketing machinery? Trailers seem to show everything — the entire flick, sometimes even the penultimate shot gosh-darn-it — and posters are often lame star vehicles, often resorting to a boring floating head/collage aesthetic. Can you snore “Zzzzzzzzz….” with me?

One country that never, ever, churns out predictable promotional art is Poland. Say what you will about the final results — inaccurate, confusing, off-target, too surreal — you can bet that the concept is wildly different, or even clever (such as the poster for the 1986 sci-fi creature feature Critters above). Check out the excellent gallery of fifty Polish movie posters over at WellMedicated if you don’t believe me.

WellMedicated’s “50 Incredible Film Posters from Poland” Gallery

…or laserdiscs, for that matter, if you go back that far.

Most of you probably know about the Criterion Collection at this point: the high-falutin’ company responsible for some of the most lavishly-produced DVD editions of cinematic treasures on the planet.

What you may not know is that Criterion is staking out territory in a lot of interesting — and fun! — new territory. Aside from some gorgeous-looking on-line streaming of free (yes, free) films, they’re also dishing out something that really gets the inner geek in me salivating: limited-edition prints of some of the amazing cover art created for their discs. A lot of this stuff happens to be by comic book talents whose work I’ve loved and followed for many years: Jaime Hernandez, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Darwyn Cooke (whose terrific illustration for the enjoyable 1959 sci-fi oddity First Man Into Space is pictured above). Pretty exciting that they’ve made these available. Most sell for $125, though Hernandez’s slim, horizontal Divorce Italian Style print goes for $100.

So go ahead and visit the Criterion shop, and browse a lot of other goodies while you’re at it. If you’ve run out of shelf space for DVDs, now you can decorate your walls.

A lot of you die-hard fans of cult cinema may already know about Trailers from Hell — the neat-o-riffic site featuring indie/genre luminaries like Joe Dante, Jack Hill, John Landis, Eli Roth, Rick Baker and Allison Anders — to name a few — as they introduce and comment upon some of their favorite movie previews (some of which are, arguably, better than the films themselves). It’s not only one of the most entertaining sites out there, its also one of the most edifying: a snapshot of/history lesson about the promotion of some (very often unjustly marginalized) cinematic relics, led by a clutch of the most knowledgeable fans/filmmakers out there (Dante and Landis are always particularly good).

Now, just in time for the holidays, the resourceful ladies and gents at Trailers for Hell have posted a wonderful rarity: the absolutely beautiful 1964 short film The Hangman, by the late animator/designer Paul Julian. Julian animated some terrific opening credits for pictures like The Terror and Dementia 13, and his gifted sense of style really shines in this rarely seen, unforgettable short.

Check it out right now over at the current homepage for Trailers from Hell.

New York’s wonderful Museum of the Moving Image, located in Astoria, Queens, has created a website that could very well turn out to be one of the most important and essential resources that any movie buff can access.

Called “Moving Image Source,” the site has articles by many of today’s leading critics and cinema studies writers/academics, calendar links to festivals and special screenings that are taking place around the world (and I do mean around the world — you can search Alexandria, Egypt; Locarno, Switzerland; the list goes on and on), and even a research guide that can bring you to other online resources that you might need for your work or personal edification. Whether you’re working on a term paper, delving into new cinema-related technologies, trying to find a movie series, or looking up biographical info on your new favorite director, this site is for you. Some of the topics and articles might seem a bit egg-heady or overly academic on first glance, but trust me, the material is accessible and useful for anyone with either a passing or passionate interest in film. The museum itself is a great place too, with wonderful screenings and exhibitions, even events and activities for kids. Some of the films shown by the Museum offer free admission once in a while, and during summer months they even organize outdoor screenings. Be sure to give it a visit if you’re in the Big Apple.

The website for the Museum of the Moving Image, including info about its location and features, can be found here. The homepage for the Moving Image Source research website is here.