More Boris

Boris Vallejo is one the artists whose work keeps popping up here, as you may have already noticed. No other artist comes readily to mind that influenced the scene so heavily during the 80's. His work has been frequently used as inspiration, for countless video covers and movie posters, though, not all of them went about it as blandly as in this mash-up and blend.


















Thanks go to Videotopsy for this heineous British VHS cover to one of Amando de Ossori's Blind Dead movies.
Honestly I'm not sure if I'm more annoyed with the bad quality of the reproduction or more amused with how completly pointless and misleading the used illustration is.

Utinni!

Call me childish if you so like, but I can't help it. Everytime I see this poster for a movie called Uncle Boonmee remembers his former lives, I'm tempted to shout out "Utinni!"

Damn you, pop culture, damn you!

Bande Dessinée

I'm always getting a nervous itch when an American director tries his hand at an established piece of European culture.
So with the threat of Spielberg’s version of Tintin looming ahead, let’s cast a glance at how the French* fared in their own treatment of their comic-art heritage:

Blueberry is a highly successful Wild-West comic that comes in different cycles: Lt. Blueberry, Marshall Blueberry, Mr. Blueberry and Young Blueberry (for a timetable see here: Click). The movie Blueberry is a very loose adaptation of the comic, that after a promising start which reminds us that Europe once had a thriving Western movie industry, slowly succumbs to a convoluted new-age mystery plot. At the end there’s so few left of the original figure that one can only assume that all the makers were interested in was a popular name to tag on a otherwise completely mediocre story.



Working our way up from there we meet another French comic institution, Michel Vaillant.
A surprisingly entertaining, more faithful movie than Blueberry. There are times when the makers sacrifice realism in order to give their character a bigger than life appearance but nothing that would seriously hurt the story flow. My only real gripe with the movie was the drastic changes made to the character of Julie Wood, a fairly prominent secondary figure from the comic strip.




Going up in time and quality we come to Largo Winch. A fine example of how action movies have to be constructed. We get a continuous build-up of suspense and a story that gains both speed and depth over its runtime, right up to the not completely surprising but logical conclusion.
Largo Winch is a highly welcome deviation from the Bay school of movie making that doesn't simply rely on throwing money at something but actually builds on characterization.

To be counted as best comic to movie adaptation is most likely Les chevaliers du ciel, the movie by Taxi director Gérard Pirès is in all but name a mostly faithful take on the popular military adventure comic series Les aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure.

The fact that it doesn't say at any point that it is related, grants the movie a right to take liberties with its heroes that others can not claim. It is exactly this freedom that makes Les chavaliers shine where other comic to movie projects are most often bound to disappoint.


Finally we come to what looks already most promising to me, and by far outshining the mystery adventure comic title it was adapted from:
Luc Besson’s Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec.
The comic strips alwas looked to be a tad on bland side, but much the same can be said about Tintin's ligne claire style, and you simply have to love that poster. *Le sigh*
Besides, with Luc Besson we have a director at the helm that I'm bound to put much more trust on than I do on either Spielberg or Jackson.


We have to see how Tintin will play out, but it is always daring to try to adapt European comics which other than their American brethren tend to follow a more strict characterization. It's not like in the Superhero market which sees a new version for each new decade, or much rather every year by now, complete with "earth shattering" changes that will only last to the next re-launch, if that long...
European comic book characters evolve over time, they grow in character, they age, they ain't caught in an unfortunate, perpetual state of limbo that occasionally calls for plot twists which make Bobby Ewing's infamous return from the dead pale in comparison.
Franco/Belgian comics are grown up entertainment for grown-ups and kids alike, without having to resort to sex and senseless violence in order to appear adult.


*I know, I know, Tintin is actually Belgian, but that’s much the same market, if not he same style.

New old Boris

Beautiful ad poster, using a Boris drawing to annouce the completion of the Taiwan/US co-production The Phoenix in '79. Accoding to imdb it took til '83 for it to find its way back to the US.


Boris also happens to be the one artist that seems to get copied the most often, with varying results ranging from Soavi's not as accomplished as could be but doubtless charming, stylish nod in La Chiesa:


















to video box art that leaves you wondering about the possible genre:

Could that be cloak & dagger porn?

Of Human Bondage

Picking up on a (here in my place) common theme, it's bound to scare you actually how easily we are catering to fantasies of domination over women and sexual abuse. I wonder if people would treat it just as lightly if we were to use pictures of sexualized violence and humiliation aginst men with the same casual frequency and with the same easy connoction of it qualifiying as "entertainment":

Teenaged Mad Scientists

Remember my “How Nightmare on Elm Street is a grown up’s Labyrinth” post?
I don’t know if it is something with Wes Craven, but I do happen to find that a similar analogy could be drawn from Weird Science to The Deadly Friend.*
Though, other than with the former movies these are essentially aimed at the same age group (give or take a few years), toying around with one of the oldest dreams of every adolescent boy ever: To create a woman!**
I love both movies which probably means that I might grow one day into one of those scary hermits that will build a hut in the woods and make abduction plans; there’s a thought to scare you! The fact that I also have Mannequin, to which a direct line could be drawn from either of the above movies, on my fave list as well as being a fan of Lars and the Real Girl, which follows a much similar topic***, isn’t probably exactly a point in my favour either.



*or maybe I’m just making things up to have an excuse to post the VHS cover for Deadly Friend which I so far like best of the box designs I’ve encountered.

** fact is that men in particular seem to never really grow out of this fantasy which is the reason why is has become such a heavily used topic with horror and sexploitation movies, enough so that one could define it as a subgenre of it’s own.

*** and isn’t that a truly scary idea that there are grown people out there, willing to pay the equivalent of a small car just to have a live like looking sextoy around? It always makes me marvel at how small a step it must be for them to go from mere fantasizing to the next level…

Picture perfect moment

This scene from The Mummy III always has me think of strategy games I watched being played by a comrade. It vividly reminds me of the fact that the younger generation of action directors take more of their visual cues from PC-Games these days. A fact that becomes most visible in the works of Rob Cohen and Paul W. S. Anderson; but also with older, more consume oriented directors like George Lucas (see his second Star Wars trilogy, the last part looked like written to double as a game script).
It seems ironic at first glance that movies should work their hardest to look like games, when games these days try (again) their hardest to emulate a movie going experience (see the MGS or Uncharted series as examples).
But looking back we realize that what we witness here is just an ongoing trend that has been around probably forever. In the 80's to early 90's we could observe a similar phenomena when (action) directors started to take visual cues from music videos, while those aimed to become short movies instead. It’s the cross pollination of the media, whatever new medium the next generation will discover for itself, we will see it sway it’s influence on future movies and vice versa.

What is erotic art?

What makes art erotic?
It’s far too tempting to give you the standard answer for all things art:
“I can’t explain it, but I sure can tell it when I see it!”

A clever tagline can sometimes be enough to do the trick, it certainly works for this poster for The Company of Wolves (which, btw, became The Time of the Wolves in German):
“More than a fairy tale.
Wilder than a dream.
The end of your innocence.”
That line gives the look on her face a completely different meaning.

As the poster artwork for Women’s Prison/Camp movies goes, this one has to be called downright tasteful in its execution. I’d have to be a liar to say that I don’t like it. It’s well drawn, eventhough the artist was no Olivia De Berardinis that’s for sure, if somewhat too much in your face to still count as erotic in my book.
And as taglines go, the one used for this borders on being comedic genius:
“Here the theatre becomes a torture chamber”
I can feel you, I saw No save haven with Wings Hauser, and before the end I was willing to confess anything just to make it stop.

A suggestive pose, if there’s anything that embodies the nature of erotic art than it has to be this. And speaking of embodiment, who better to illustrate it than Brigitte Bardot, Europe’s collective dream girl. There’s an unspoken promise to the way she’s posed on the poster to En cas de malheur, and it certainly brings us closest to the answer of our opening question.
What makes erotic art, what is it about?
It’s not about what is shown, but what we believe to be shown.




We see, erotic tension is created by association.
Or would you say that Martin Sheen ever looked remotely as sexy as the virtual Angelina Jolie does on this Beowulf advance?

Still Christmas

...even though you couldn't tell by simply looking outside.
Where's all that snow gone?

Ah, well, think of the somebody you love and show some respect to the others during the festive season.








And remember, no matter how cute they look, live animals do make bad presents!

Hellboy

I do not buy DVD’s for their bonus contents, usually. Final Fantasy was close to being a exception to that rule, and Hellboy is pretty close to a DVD set I would say is worth getting for the bonus materials alone*, part of what I liked about them is (small wonder there) the slideshow with advance poster art and different design ideas. It’s something I personally would hope to see become a standard feature like, dunno, putting the original trailer on the DVD. I mean nobody want’s to see a slideshow of movie stills (which isn’t bonus content, it’s just the laziest excuse for having non), but trailers, lobby cards or poster artwork are a part of the movie going experience and therefore they have a place (or should have a place) on every DVD. So much for my rant of the day, on to some artwork for the Hellboy movies:

















Let’s start off with these B&W posters for Hellboy II. I don’t recall having seen the version on the left used, which is a pity, while they are bound to put anybody that isn’t familiar with the figure on the wrong track I simply love them. I like that old time spy action feel. I do believe I saw the version on the right at least as online advance; didn’t like them then, don’t like them now, even though they give a fairer sense of the movie’s steampunk scenario, especially the here shown Nemoesque Dr. Krauss.

















Advance for the first (left) and the second (right), both following a similar theme, the pairing of our hero from the burning pits with holy symbolism.
Despite the vastly overused imagery I like the first one, but it’s the second one that really works.
First associations: The Godfather, naturally, but it also showcases a darker aspect of the idea behind Hellboy. The comics/movies are set in a universe modelled after H. P. Lovecraft, and there you're either evil or victim, the pictures beautifully reflect Hellboys position between these opposing forces.

















A further promotional advance for HB II, playing Toro, doesn’t he look just a tad like Legend’s Darkness in that pose?
And an alternative take on the movie poster, I don’t think it got actually used but I like the playfulness of the approach (they did use the pose for a more dynamic looking version, though).

















Two more alt posters for HB II, a new take on the group shot used for the first, I’m partial to the second of them, it reminds me ever so slightly of a cross between the newer Dracula’s gothic style and The Crow.

















There’s a lot of different takes of HB in typical hero poses, I love these two for the first and second movie, for one I’m a fan of the wild west movie iconography for other the first reminds me of Dust Devil. The over the top comic design of the second one perfectly captures the mood of the movies.

















Not much to say about these two, they are just striking beautiful drawings.
Typical advance art, this is not something you put on a final movie poster, put the kind I could see hanging on my wall.

















The final poster version for HB II, typical hero pose, but something feels off in that take, it's to passive a stance; they seem to have wanted to go for a feeling of danger for our heroes, but the way the lower part cuts-off makes it hard realize that they are supposed to be surrounded here. The alternative take found on the DVD, works way better in my opinion, it's a active image with a dynamic to it the other dearly misses.

Btw, what is it with white haired, pale guys anyway?


*In case you wonder: Alien 20th Anniversary Edition, is still my personal reference for a all-round perfect DVD edition.