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1.- Tell us about the history behind Wrong Side of The Art...
Um. I’m not sure this even qualifies as a story. I used to run this
little Russian blog with cult and B-movie reviews. You know there are
literally thousands and thousands of similar nerdy pages all over the
net and no one really reads em :) This kind of blog. And then I – with
great sadness - noticed that the best and most interesting part in the
whole review thing was actually an original theatrical poster / VHS
cover (whatever I could google out) to go with the text. At least for
me. Every shitty movie I reviewed seemed to have an amazing poster! I
used to save all the found images on my hard drive and could browse
them for hours.
Then I got myself a family and a kid and suddenly I couldn’t find any
spare time to write bad reviews any more so I’ve started a poster blog
instead – it was easier and faster to update. Eventually I’ve started
to buy posters on ebay and scan them. I of course still use images
from other sites, but I at least try to doctor them a bit, restore
faded colors and – when I got some time - photoshop tears and fold
wear away.
2.- Why does a poster is a such an important thing to promote and to
preserve the essence of a film?
A poster is a film’s front cover. When you’re unfamiliar with names on
the poster, you can at least be tempted by images. I loved the
experience of picking tapes at a local video rental: walking by long
shelves and choosing the most weird and catchy ones. This is what I
hope my site will some day look like: an oldschool video rental.
And when we’re talking about genre B-movies, independent exploitation
– call it as you like – posters are usually way better than their
respective films.
3.- In your opinion which country or continent provides the best film posters?
These days it doesn’t really matter as all the posters look all the
same, local distributors just add a title and a tagline in their
language. However in the pre-photoshop era my personal favorite is
Italy hands down. These guys usually provided their own artwork and it
was kickass! Sexy, violent and way over the top.
4.- Which posters are your all time favorites and why?
This one’s difficult, because it’s easier to say which poster I don’t
like. I don’t really like the majority of posters from 30s and 40s.
Yes I know they’re worth thousands, but to me they’re similar to what
we see on a poster today: just a bunch of faces. A notable exception
is of course the poster for The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) painted by
Alberto Vargas and often voted as the best film poster ever.
I love pulpy artwork from 1950s and early 60s: beatniks, hot-rods,
femme fatales and of course the sci-fi renaissance. ‘Not of this
Earth’, ‘The Wasp Woman’, ‘Dragstrip Riot’, ‘Naked Paradise’ and many
many others from AIP, Howco and Allied Artists.
Sixties and seventies are known for beautiful exploitation and horror
posters like ‘Born Losers’, ‘Women in Cages’, ‘Dracula Has Risen form
the Grave’ (love that one, always cracks me up), German ‘Blind Dead’
posters. Even cheapest sexploitation posters being of no artistic
value whatsoever do have a distinctive underground feel I love so much
- thanks to bad layouts and catchy taglines.
Action posters from 80s! Especially the ones from Italy, mimicking
well-known films like ‘Escape from New York’, ‘Mad Max’, ‘Indiana
Jones’, etc. You know – with helicopters, napalm and unrealistically
huge guns. I’ve just bought on ebay an amazing 4-foglio for
‘Blastfighter’. Breathtaking.
5.- Besides film posters which other interest you have on obscure and
rare films?
I’ve always had this thing for little curios. I think this started
during the videoboom of the eighties. It was a very big thing here in
Russia when Iron Curtain fell and people finally got a chance to watch
whatever they wanted to. So we used to buy two films on one VHS
(piracy at its best, but no one really thought about it this way back
then). The formula usually was like ‘Rambo 1 + Rambo 2’, but sometimes
it was ‘one big mainstream title plus some obscure random flick just
to fill the tape’. This B-movie could be just about anything more or
less contemporary: a Godfrey Ho ninja nightmare, a British stop-motion
arthouse, an Italian Exorcist rip-off, an Action International
thriller or some Svankmajer's lunacy. What’s more – back then no one
really knew here whether these movies were ‘famous’ or not. The flood
gates suddenly opened and we were trying to sort new things out. I
remember me and my pals were seriously arguing on how many films Bruce
Lee did and whether he and Bruce Li and Bruce Lai were the same
person. Hell, the first zombie movie I’ve ever watched has been made
by Bruno Mattei! :)
Overall it was a fun experience, a roulette.
Later on I used to come to Gorbushka – a legendary place in Moscow. It
still works now as an enormous media-store. But back in 80s and 90s it
was more like a meeting place for people who searched for something
they couldn’t buy in regular stores. That’s where I used to get
smuggled VHS with Jess Franco, Lucio Fulci, etc.
Another story is how in mid-90s I used to share an apartment with a
guy who had an incredibly huge collection of bad films. He wasn’t
really a movie buff and he would buy anything that had a
‘blockbuster’, a ‘from the makers of American Ninja’ or a ‘budget
$10.000.000.000’ tagline on a cover. No wonder his collection was
mostly built around Nu Image and PM Entertainment titles. I watched
those for a laugh, but eventually learned that you have to watch a
hundred of bad films to really appreciate a good one.
Sometimes when I hear someone whining about how bad ‘Avatar’ was I
think he probably deserves being forced to watch (‘Clockwork Orange’
style) a few boxsets of Jean Rollin and Joe P. Mawra.
I loved the DVD era. It’s wonderful when you can get some Cat III
straight from Hong Kong, a few El Santos from Mexico and a
pornochanchada from Brazil.
6.- In your opinion who are the best film poster artists?
Funny thing, I absolutely don’t have a memory for artists’ names. I
mean I know famous people like Vargas, Renato Casaro, Reynold Brown,
but I can’t follow their style or things like that. It must be my bad
taste. Perhaps this will come to me later. A while ago though I
actually got quite interested in some of the late Dave Friedman’s
sexploitation posters like ‘Zorro’, ‘Starlet’, ‘Thar She Blows’. I
actually did a little research, asked a few people from the industry
and someone remember that Dave had an in-house artist, a Mexican guy
named Rudy Escalera who got a moderate fame as a – well – an artist
later on. The only other name I can remember straight away is Tom
Hodge, - that’s because I know him a bit, he sends me his new works. J
He made a poster for ‘Hobo with a Shotgun’ and it was amazing.
7.- Which are the main differences between a mainstream movie poster
and one that belongs to an obscure rare film?
Bigger names on a poster. That’s about it.
8.- Talking about movies, which are your all time favorites?
Way too many. Argento’s ‘Inferno’, Oshii’s ‘Ghost in the Shell’,
Carpenter’s ‘They Live’, ‘The Thing’ and ‘Escape from NY’, Tarkovsky’s
‘Solaris’, Verhoeven’s ‘Robocop’ (yep), ‘American Beauty’, ‘Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari’, ‘Chasing Amy’, ‘200 Cigarettes’ (my guilty pleasure),
‘Pi’, first two ‘Phantasms’ and all of the ‘Evil Deads’, ‘Videodrome’,
‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, Yuzna’s ‘Society’, Jeunet & Caro’s
‘The City of the Lost Children’ and ‘Delicatessen’, Romero’s ‘Day of
the Dead’. That’s what first leaps into my mind. Watched ‘Totoro’ and
other Miyazaki's works with my daughter like a million times.
9.- The best places to purchase obscure rare film posters is...
Ebay. I know there are lots of other places, a lot of international
markets, but I don’t usually go any further.
10.- What does the future holds for Wrong Side of The Art?
I seriously have no idea. Will try to keep things running for as long
as I can. There are always obstacles. Right now I’m forced by my
hosting company to move to a dedicated server due to higher traffic.
If I somehow manage to move the whole thing myself and don’t break it
(being a total tech idiot) – everything will be fine. I also know I’m
exposed legally and if a copyright holder for whatever reason will
want me to remove some of his stuff – I will have to. But. I know a
lot of people use my collection for fun, for reference, for
inspiration and even for educational purposes. I’ve received letters
from a few cult DVD labels and magazines saying ‘Hey – we’ve used some
of your pics, thanks! Here are the scans from our library, use them on
your site.’ and this makes me happy. |
