Books

Alternative Movie Posters II Review

16th Feb 2016

Editor: Matthew Chojnacki

Last year we reviewed the first volume of this series here, and what glorious things we saw in those pages. Author Matthew Chojnacki has come back again with a second helping of varied artists interpretations of some very well known, and a few lesser known films.

We could pretty much cut and paste the review from last time here. It’s all great stuff. The pictures do the talking, a few words direct you to the artists and their websites (although over time these may change as we discovered when looking up artists from the first volume – but then that’s where “google search” comes in handy!).

You’ll be hard pressed to find another series that is this much fun to look at.

The author freely admits in the opening passages that he is already looking to include many more female artists in a proposed third volume. Variety is of course welcome, and even in places this second volume has a few pitfalls.

First of all there is the inclusion of quite a few artists that appeared in the previous book. Not that we are complaining about the work, but it does narrow the spectrum covered by the two volumes thus far and give you a sense of déjà vu when flipping through the pages.

What also sets your mind trigger is the range of films covered as well.

Now we laud the fact that you get posters for such unknown cult films as Grey Gardens – but honestly, how many times do we have to look at a Robocop poster or a bloody Tarantino movie?

Popular choices for sure – and it certainly tells you what is popular in artist’s minds, but also how narrow some of them may think when it comes to producing art. Some of these are very nice looking, but fewer of them are clever reinventions. Again after two volumes you are quickly less surprised by A-List director works, obvious Cult movie choices and of course the big movie franchises.

These seem like very harsh criticisms for what is essentially a glorious journey through the minds and eyes of many artists, but it is a warranted criticism if this book series is to continue and thrive which it deserves to do.

The book is well produced, the images chosen are largely a delight to look at, but we need a slight change of pace if the next volume is to keep standards up as well as surprise. With this becoming a growing art-form, we are positive this series could go on for several more volumes to come.