24x36: A Movie About Movie Posters

(Kevin Burke/2016/USA)

A documentary tracing the history of movie poster art which races through the early years and very quickly focuses on the modern day phenomenon of Mondo Art. It’s still an interesting and informative watch, providing a base point for further research for anyone interested, but personally I expected to see a lot more history. The initial birth of movie posters is dealt with briefly before a cursory mention of the likes of Reynold Brown and Albert Kaliss and their distinctive 1950’s and 60’s artwork. Too quickly talk moves onto the 70’s and 80’s and focuses on how iconic the poster art became in relation to movies like Apocalypse Now, E.T., Jaws and so forth. Bob Peak, John Alvin and Roger Kastel are all given their due as progenitors of an art form that became so integral to the film industry that they were often involved with the producers and directors directly. The decline of commissioned paintings by the early 90’s to be replaced by star portrait type posters that lacked creativity or imagination is blamed on the advance of graphic image tools, the rise of celebrity and increasing control actors have over their image as commodity. This allowed the traditional movie art of previous years to become fetishised and led to the creation of Mondo Art in the early 2000’s. It takes all of 30-40 minutes to get to this point and the next 50 minutes looks at the present day industry around artists making their own pieces for films, often unlicensed, to feed a geeky audience who collect the artworks similar to comics or toy collectors. The recognition within the film industry that these artworks garner a lot of attention and sales is slowly creeping in and the possibility of a resurgence in commissioned artworks for movie posters is increasing. It’s a good, enlightening film but I would have liked to have seen a lot more of the origins and early years of movie poster art.

(3/5)