'24X36' Trailer: A Preview For A Movie About Movie Posters

We live in an interesting age for movie posters. While actual film studios and the marketing people they employ continue to line multiplex walls with generic, heavily photoshopped work that generally relies on giant floating heads and/or random debris particles filling in every inch of negative space, pop culture art has undergone a revolution. Companies like Mondo, the Bottleneck Gallery, and Hero Complex have embraced movie buffs' desire to line their walls with tremendous art representing films that are important to them. The movie poster has been reinvented.

The new documentary 24X36: A Movie About Movie Posters looks to explore how the beautiful movie posters from decades past gave way to the generic designs of today and how third parties and inspired artists have resurrected the form. And yes, you can watch the trailer below.

24X36 is set to make its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2016 next month and here's how the festival describes the director Kevin Burke's film:

Through interviews with art personalities from the past four decades, 24 x 36 examines the birth, death and resurrection of illustrated movie poster art.

While the trailer opens with an anecdote from Gremlins and The Howling director Joe Dante, the bulk of the talking heads appears to be poster artists and admirers. A scan of the film's IMDB page reveals the participation of Jason Edmiston and Laurent Durieux, two of my favorite poster artists working today. So yeah, color me very interested in this one.

24x36 – A Movie About Movie Posters – Teaser Trailer from Post No Joes Productions on Vimeo.

The trailer isn't the most elegantly cut thing in the world (it lacks the panache of something that has the support of a distributor), but it gets the point across nicely. 24X36 looks like a great chance to mourn the passing of the classic movie poster, celebrate the modern resurgence of pop culture art, and dissect why most current one-sheets look like garbage. At the very least, it will offer audiences a chance to explore some of the coolest posters ever made and get to know the people who made them and the people who obsessively collect them.

Fantastic Fest runs from September 22 through September 29 and I'll be in attendance, so keep your eyes open for a review of this film in a little less than two months.