gulag

So I just watched 24 X 36. As it is not a bad documentary. But ironically on many levels the film is promoted as something it isn't. That is, everywhere on the packaging and in the copy it is sold as a survey of the history of film posters. (Granted the trailer mentions 'fans' recreating movie posters.) This is what I was interested in. But this really isn't the subject matter of the doc. The largest part of the film deals with the Mondo posters and the collectors market for alternative posters. But actual film poster history is given a short shrift.

For instance, Saul Bass is mentioned as the most important graphic poster designer of all, yet only in conjunction with a Mondo poster artist wanting to remake a version of Saul Bass's poster for Hitchcock's Vertigo. Less than a minute of screen time. And no information about Saul Bass is given at all, including why Bass is so important. Early movie posters are glanced over in a few scant minutes, as mostly made by unknown artists. Yet I wanted to see a discussion on film poster history. The only two periods mentioned in 'any' depth are the 50s and the 80s. And the 80s come across as some sort of apotheosis, which it wasn't.

Then comes the all-consuming nightmare of bad photo manipulated headshots of stars that has continued into the present. And while you get a few people discussing the change into this truly catastrophic mode, the important reasons for why this happened are largely omitted in the rush to get to this films true purpose; the collectors market for alternative film posters. If this had been titled the Mondo posters movement I certainly wouldn't have bought the Blu-ray.

I was hoping to see anything about foreign film posters. Or on the amazing posters made in Poland or the Czech Republic during the Iron Curtain era. But I know why this happened, for the very same reason that the poster art has degenerated into digital photoshopping. By current era documentary filmmaking logic you can't do an actual history of something, you need to tell a specific story. And the history of film posters is not a personal story. But the modern artistic film poster recreation phenomenon is. . But hey then sell THAT. It shouldn't have been sold '...as a movie about movie posters'

Like I say, not a bad documentary, yet it was a bait and switch on the subject matter. And it will probably take a long time before someone can tackle this subject again.

And why is the actual poster for the film such a muddled piece of art?

Cut and paste montage work. Only interviews with those who supported the narrative. Including Vladimir himself. No historians. No experts on Eastern Europe. Supposedly Ukraine's Euro Maidan was both taken over by fascist and backed by extreme leftist George Soros. Poor Oliver Stone just seems like ghost here. This is no objective attempt at understanding. And the director is a known propagandist. Don't trust this at all. Especially now. Grade A propaganda.

This is a poorly conceived commercial tween woke afternoon special version of something happening in the Walking Dead world with mandatory diversity casting and lessons in every episode. This does highlight what made the original series so good, even in its later slightly PC incarnation. Hint: You start with the story, not with the target audience.