JarJar Fett

I ran across this poster site. WTF? How is this legal?

http://www.cracked.com/article_16990...e-posters.html

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest




Star Wars



This stuff is crazy!

MahatmaPetey

my favorite.

Superboy

Star Trek IV.

The Bus

Polish posters are usually the best. And not as in so bad they're good. They're phenomenal.

starman9000

I vote for eXcentris!

Brian T

Polish film posters in particular (as well as those from other eastern European countries and Japan) are some of the finest examples of pop art/avant garde design on the planet. I'm surprised and somewhat saddened to see them held up to such derision here, but I suspect the age of the some commentators here (and the Cracked writer at the link for sure) are a factor . . .

And whatever would make someone suspect it wasn't legal? Because it's not familiar?

Super X

Army of Darkness



This one's real, I have one.

Numanoid

I agree that many of them are great art. That still doesn't make them a quality movie poster. Creating a beautiful abstract image and then slapping on the name of some movie, which may or may not have anything at all to do with the image, doesn't make it a great movie poster to me.

As for the second half of your comment, I could say that many people exclaim their greatness simply based on the fact that they are unusual and "exotic", without much thought into whether they are quality examples of movie poster art or not.


Does anyone have any evidence of these posters actually being used in theaters? I've only ever seen them in online stores.

SkipKassidy

Having never really looked at Polish Film Posters, I did a quick search and I am amazed with the pop art.

Travis McClain

And here in the States, we're stuck with head shots and Drew Struzan wanna-be's.

chris_sc77

I love how the Boogie nights poster Mentions Luis Guzman and Nicole Ari Parker but neglects to mention leading man Mark Wahlberg, Heather Graham, John C Reily, William H. Macy, Don Cheadle, etc.

DRG

That French King Kong poster is awesome, although it's actually for the movie 'A.P.E.'

Brian T

I've rarely seen one I can't interpret in the context of the film it promotes, even if the link borders on spurious. But that's me.



To you. To people (and particularly moviegoers) in Poland and other countries who've been steeped in this kind of interpretive art for decades, they're considered very effective.



They would be wrong, too.



To say the least! But hey, those are great movie posters because they do the work for us.

The title of this thread is offensive.



.

clckworang

I'm a big fan of Polish film poster art. Some are better than others, but there are some truly beautiful pieces.

Why would you assume these weren't actually used in theaters? Is this based on your time in Poland and Eastern Europe?

clckworang

Just wanted to add that there were actually some on that list that I liked, including the Deliverance one. Maybe I'm crazy.

Brian T

You're not crazy. The Cracked writer has no idea of the importance of the art he's ridiculing. He stumbled across a "crazyass" web site full of posters he didn't understand and thus felt were awful, and then felt compelled to proliferate his ignorance.

Like National Lampoon, Cracked Magazine was a good read . . . in the 70s.

Incidentally, these posters were widely used in theaters because they were generally the only posters made available. "Evidence", however, is most likely to come from the mouths of people who lived (or live) there rather than some widely-available book or online database about the history of Polish film distribution, but you never know . . .

.

JarJar Fett

Stepped back in to add that I don't think that all of the posters from that site suck, but a lot of them do, like the two that I posted earlier. I thought it was a funny little article that you would all enjoy debating about. To those offended with the thread title, Loosen up, it's the freakin' internet for chrissakes!

And I agree that some of the best film posters I've ever seen come out of Poland.

fmian

When I was in Pakistan about 12 years ago I saw a poster for Stallones Daylight, it had a shot of him holding a gun from rambo, superimposed over the tunnel from the movie, and it was called Rambo 4.

Brian T

We are debating it. But you stacked the deck against the art form with that thread title. That's so freakin' internet-y . Too bad it couldn't have been something along the lines of . . .







Once you get further east (as in "Middle"), all bets seem to be off when it comes to movie poster design. Artistic licence is more about lazy deception than honest representation or playful visual interpretation. And yet some of them have their charm, though they can't compare to the Eastern European or Japanese material.

tanman

Boy those posters are terrible.

Are they art?

yes.

Bad art?

yes.

Is art subjective?

yes.

Just because I think it looks like crap do you need to be offended?

no.

lbobby98

haha these are great

cultshock

I think Polish movie posters are kick ass. I'd love to get a couple of them to hang up, but I don't think I could narrow down my choices, there are so many cool ones.
Turkish posters are pretty wild too, especially the ones for Turkish films. And the seemingly loose interpretation of copyright laws in that country make them even better.

Supermallet

I have this one (original, not reprinted) linen-backed:


I would love to get several more Polish posters, especially that Chinatown one above. It's an amazing art form and I wish people in the States had better access to them.

Brian T

Ooooh, sassy!

No one in the thread offended me because they hate these posters.

Ignorance is bliss. That's why the Cracked writer is so confident in his comedic abilities. Context? Bah!




Gotta agree about the Turkish ones. They generally lack the abstractedness of the Polish stuff, but then the Polish posters, and those from other, similarly-governed countries have a much richer graphic history underpinning them. The Turkish stuff is more representative by comparison, often using (or better yet, repainting) artwork and photographs commissioned in more mainstream markets. I have a few postcard versions of Turkish movie posters, but no full size ones. Good stuff.

ManWithNoName

This is the best Star Wars Poster of all-time.