Tag: Tribute

George A. Romero: a tribute in posters

The film community and fans around the world are saddened by the loss of George A. Romero, best known for the Night of the Living Dead (1968) and its sequels. The horror master died after a battle with lung cancer at the age of 77.

Romero’s films were subversive, satirical, and sharply aware of the political climate he lived in. Night of the Living Dead sparked a cultural phenomenon, largely seen as the birth of the modern zombie film. It also cast Duane Jones as the lead, during a time when it was not typical for a black man to be the hero in an American film. It’s sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1978) was a cutting look at consumerism, and is largely the model for almost all zombie films that followed.

Romero’s other films broadened his view of the genre, including Season of the Witch (1973), sometimes marketed as Hungry Wives, which was less of a horror film than it was an exploration of the occult. Knightriders (1983) was about a travelling renaissance fair troupe, featuring knights on motorbikes! Similarly, The Crazies (1973) was a sci-fi epidemic film, while vampire Martin (1978) is said the be Romero’s favourite film that he made.

Yet he would continue to return to the zombie genre, beginning with a Land of the Dead (2005), the documentary style Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009). He was prepping the 2018 release of Road of the Dead, which he co-wrote with director Matt Birman, at the time of his death.

Here we’ve assembled a collection of posters from his films, paying tribute to one of the best cult filmmakers in the business.

July 17, 2017
Jonathan Demme: A Tribute in Posters

Today marked the sad passing of filmmaker Jonathan Demme, due to complications from esophageal cancer and heart disease, at the age of 73.

The award-winning filmmaker was perhaps best known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), one of only a handful of films to scoop Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Actress and screenplay. Yet his career stretched back to the 1970s, with screenplays for Angels Hard as They Come and The Hot Box before making his director debut with exploitation film Caged Heat (1974). His other features included Philadelphia and

Yet Demme was also a successful documentarian and maker of innovative concert films. Stop Making Sense (1984), chronicling three nights with The Talking Heads, is an essential combination of art and music. Three decades later, Neil Young: Heart of Gold looked back at the career of another great musician.

These handful of posters only cover a small number of his dozens of works, but it’s our tip of the hat to one of the greats. He will be missed.

April 27, 2017
John Hurt: A Tribute in Posters

The film community of the world mourns the loss of actor John Hurt, who died in London today, only six days after his 77th birthday. Hurt was knighted in 2016.

The dramatic actor was a veteran of stage, screen and television, earning a well-deserved respect from award-winning roles in Midnight Express, The Elephant Man, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Of course, to sci-fi and fantasy audiences, he earned immortality as Kane in Alien, Mr. Ollivander in the Harry Potter series, and later became a bona fide British institution as The War Doctor during the 50th anniversary episode of the long-running Doctor Who.

These handful of posters barely show the length and breadth of his career, but they are a good place to start a tributary binge of his work. Hurt will next be seen in Darkest Hour as Neville Chamberlain, opposite Charles Dance in an adaptation of That Good Night, and as Leslie Salmon in British boxing film, My Name is Lenny.

January 28, 2017
Abbas Kiarostami: A Tribute in Posters

We lost one of the cinematic greats this week, a veteran of almost half a century in the business. Here’s a visual farewell to ABBAS KIAROSTAMI.

Like most of the film loving world, we were saddened to hear of the loss of filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, who died this week at the age of 76. The Iranian director, writer, photographer and producer has made over 40 films since 1970, including shorts, documentaries and features. He is perhaps best known for his Koker trilogy (1987–94), consisting of Close-Up (1990), the Palme d’Or winning Taste of Cherry (1997) and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999).

His films were known not sure for their child protagonists, but for talking place largely in cars, most notably Ten (2010), shot through a dashboard mounted video camera, and more recent outings including Certified Copy (2010) and Like Someone In Love. An accomplished screenwriter, he also wrote films such as The White Balloon (1995) for Jafar Panahi. His films were sometimes deliberately impenetrable, using minimalism to either completely hold your attention. As we commented back in 2010, “Kiarostami is not interested in the ‘hows’ and whys’ necessarily, but rather what the conversation can reveal about a person.”

The posters below do no represent his entire body of work, but are presented here as a mixture of original, re-release, and international versions to demonstrate how his work translated across the globe.

THE REPORT (1977)
Abbas Kiarostami’s first full length film

HOMEWORK (1989)

CLOSE-UP (1990)

THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES (1994)

A TASTE OF CHERRY (1997)

THE WIND WILL CARRY US (1999)

TEN (2002)

SHIRIN (2008)

CERTIFIED COPY (2010)

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE (2012)

July 5, 2016