Movie Fan Collectibles

Genre Confusion: Cinema Mash-ups, Hybrids, and Crossovers

2011-04-18T13:07:00.000-04:00

Movie genre mash-ups, hybrid genres, or film genre crossovers. What is this cinematic concept inbreeding? Most are Hollywood kitsch. Some of them are so obviously pandering to puerile tastes, that it's laid out right in the title, like this summer's Cowboys v Aliens from John Favreau. Other titles are less obvious in their efforts to grab a quick buck, such as Outlander (2008), which pits vikings against aliens. Or, how about vikings versus North American Indians in Pathfinder (2007), instead of the old school cowboys battling Indians contests? It all seems to come full circle at some point.

Thankfully some of these genre melanges do take it beyond exploitation and an appeal to teenage boys as their main market. Middle of the road genre mash-up categories make bank all the time without being exploitative, such as the ever present romantic comedies, and the now mainstream "dramedy."

Movie Fan Collectibles is always interested in films, both old and new, that break new ground. In the case of film genre mash-ups, there are plenty of examples that are not kitsch. Mind you, we're not saying we don't like kitsch, but we also look for film that provides intellectual sustenance, as well as the fun light snacks. Genre crossovers that don't disappoint us are those like 2009's District 9 (mocumentary/sci-fi). Some think the concept of aliens standing in for oppressed ethic groups is too basic, but we would argue that a very well-done - yet simply sketched - morality tale might be good for the typical mash-up viewers. For the grownups, great genre hybrids might be the classic Bladerunner, a sci-fi/film noire with Godard precursor Alphaville (1965), or Brick (teen drama/film noire). These films move past being entertainment commodities into the realm of art, and propel the development of cinematic aesthetics forward.

Chris Tilly at IGN UK, a man with way too much time on his hands, recommends looking up these genre mash-ups:

Quentin Tarantino, From Dusk Till Dawn. Grindcore plus um, we won't tell you, because it's a spoiler. But here's a hint: sounds like "umpires"

Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer (do you even have to ask what this is about?)

Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project. sci-fi/mocumentary, horror/mocumentary, respectively.

Blacula Blaxploitation/Horror. Back in the day of exploitation, we think these guys either got stoned to think this up, or took bets on who could produce the stupidest hybrid and get it into the grindhouses.

Simon Pegg Shaun of the Dead Romantic Comedy/Horror. Just go see it, it's one our family favorites. Pegg still in top form here laugh-wise.

Westworld Western/Sci-Fi. Back in the day we all went to see it. Yul Brynner as a robot cowboy seemed kinda neat at that point. The film was stilted.

Bubba Ho-Tep Comedy/Horror/Geriatric Drama. Elvis and killer mummies. 'Nuff said.

Lesbian Vampires Get the Blood Flowing

2010-12-21T18:23:00.003-05:00

While putting together an online picture gallery of Gay and Lesbian icons in the motion picture industry, we happened onto one of those marvelously obscure tropes in fandom, "The Lesbian Vampire." The idea behind the picture gallery is to highlight the images and work of Hollywood actors, both homosexual and not, who have played roles that have become meaningful to the LBGT community. In the midst of researching these photos and other movie memorabilia, we were surprised to discover that lesbian vampires have quite a "bite."

The main entries in this cinematic sub-set which are thought to have any merit as a film to date are Dracula's Daughter (1936), Blood and Roses (1960), Vampyros Lesbos (1971), and The Hunger (1983). So what, exactly, is up with these characters? Turns out, lady vampires have been stand-ins for predatory lesbians for a long time. Dracula's Daughter and Blood and Roses are supposed to be loose (very loose) adaptations of an 1872 novel about a vampire named Carmilla who gives the wrong kind of attention to innocent young ladies. The Carmilla story predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by about 25 years.

The general perception of the above films is that all were forms of exploitation, until we get to Catherine Deneuve playing an immortal goddess of sorts in The Hunger. If, however, one has seen both Dracula's Daughter and The Hunger, it is impossible not to notice how much the latter owes the former for visualizing a sexy, seductive, classy monster-woman of a certain age who likes to find some fresh heifer once in a while.

Alternatively, Blood and Roses (a Roger Vadim opus), and Vampyros Lesbos are raunchy excuses to put out some hot girl-on-girl action for the male viewer. Dracula's Daughter and The Hunger have sustained strong cult appeal among lesbian viewers, although neither had a very positive portrayal of lesbianism.

Still not enough Lesbian Vampires for you? Den of Geek suggests you check out...

Rape of the Vampire (1969)
The Naked Vampire (1970)
The Vampire Lovers (1970)
The Shiver of the Vampires (1971)
Daughters of Darkness (1971)
Lust for a Vampire (1971)
The Blood Spattered Bride (1972)
Vampyres (1974)
Lips of Blood (1975)

Thanks to Wiki and the Den of Geek for being all over this.

One final thought - now that they can be "out" - what's next, Lesbian Vampire Soldiers?

The Background Scoop on Movie Trailers

2010-11-24T10:32:00.002-05:00

We see them at the beginning of movies now, but the post-feature term movie "trailer," was coined in the 1920s. The name comes from originally being shown at the end of a film screening. However, theater owners and film studios quickly discovered patrons leaving before the trailers played, so they were shifted to the beginning of the show. Film Trailers would be more accurately described as previews or coming attractions. Although no longer used as originally intended, the old school name stuck.

The most basic definition of a trailer is a short film shown, along with the main cinema feature, to advertise the content, place, and time of an upcoming movie.

Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) critics see good trailers as shorts that, "take key points from the film, edit them together sharply, with the right music... [but] don‘t show too much." Good trailers will also create excitement about the film in a general audience, yet still appeal to the genre's fan base. That's quite a bit to accomplish in the typical two minute length.

Trailers are very popular to select audiences, and have merit as a collectible art form. Speaking to the continuing interest in them, AWFJ said in 2009 that movie trailers became the third ranking most downloaded type of Internet video (first are news clips, number two are user-created videos). One critic compares trailers to full-length movies as being like a haiku is in relation to a novel; stripped down to only the most essential images and narrative content. An added bonus for movie memorabilia collectors and film genre fans is that trailers will often have scenes and dialogue that were not included in the original release.

Trailers even have their own "Oscar"-style recognition coming from The Golden Trailer Awards. The awards rely on audience opinion, with those participating voting for traditional categories such as, "Best Action," "Best Romance," and "Best Horror" trailers. Categories unique to the awards include, "The Golden Fleece Award" for best trailer for a bad movie, and "Trashiest" or most exploitive trailer.

Although some trailers end-up being better than the movie, from the studios' and exhibitors' perspectives their marketing function is primary. Critics don't like too much plot to be given away by the coming attraction, but studio research shows that more detail is better for getting audiences back to the theater to see a new film. Spoilers in trailers don't seem to matter, probably because most audiences don't give the trailer their full attention, or don't have good recall of a one-time viewing of a trailer. Individual movie-goers remember one or two of the most appealing details.

Studios will also produce a series of trailers for a single film cut to appeal to a specific demographic in the audience. Trailers for a female audience coming to see a chick-flick will emphasize relationship. Trailers for the same movie that are pitched to male audiences will show lots of action and skin. Trailers are also cut to reflect the age appropriateness for the audience in the theater at the time by dialing up or down on the explicit material.

Critics believe that trailers can have quite a bit of economic clout. Although they are not a quick fix for badly made movies, well placed-trailers can bring attention to lesser known films, possibly even making or breaking a movie's success. For recent indie productions like "Juno" and "Little Miss Sunshine," trailers did much to sell the films to larger audiences.

Click here to go to trailers on MovieFanCollectibles

Info from Wiki & AWFJ (2008-05-09)

Salsa Dip Recipe for Chips While Watching Movies

2010-11-05T19:09:00.003-04:00

Every movie lover knows popcorn is the number one treat to get when at a theater but at home it's salsa and chips that wins the day. Here are the easy "rules" for making great salsa in a hurry...

The key here is to use whatever you have on hand. Everyone usually has this stuff around the house. Choose one of each:

Tomato-y stuff: a can of crushed tomato (or diced tomato with can juices, or whole plum tomato that you squish with your hands plus juice in same can, or fresh cut up tomatoes)

Sour acidy stuff: splash of vinegar or bottled lemon juice, or squeeze of lemon or lime juice (grate the yellow or green skin in there too -- don't get any of the white pith -- if you have the fresh stuff)

Aromatic stuff (meaning the onion/garlic family): grated or chopped onion and/or garlic, or onion and/or garlic powder, or onion/garlic salt (don't add any other salt if you do this). Onions can be white or green with the green tops included.

Oily stuff: olive, vegetable, or canola oil, etc.

Hot stuff: Canned/jarred/fresh jalapenos cut up (throw away the white seeds before you chop them if don't want it to be super hot), or a few dashes of Tabasco or other bottled hot sauce. Red pepper flakes or powdered cayenne will also do.

Seasoning adjustment: salt if none has gone in before, and a little sugar to balance the oily, salty, and acidic tastes.

Above is the minimum. Start with a little bit of everything in with the tomato and then start tasting with bits of chips to see if it needs to be more spicy, or salty, etc.

Add-ins, if available: finely chopped celery, finely chopped green or red pepper. Chopped up chipotle chiles in adobo from a can (people will ask to marry you if you use some of this, or you can also use some chipotle powder instead. If you go with the chipotle powder, use a little maple syrup instead of sugar as a sweetener). Fresh chopped cilantro (if you have fresh lime along with the cilantro, people will also start following you around).

Be daring and swap out the tomatoes for something else, like diced ripe fresh peaches or diced ripe mangoes. But if you do this, you will have to get an unlisted phone number.

As you can see, we take salsa very seriously here at MovieFanCollectibles.

How to Be a Movie Still Photographer

2010-11-01T09:10:00.001-04:00

Movie Fan Collectible's guest blogger is Glen K. Richards, a 2010 graduate of film school in Pittsburgh, with a degree in cinematography. Glen was kind enough to give us his perspective on what it was like to be a movie stills photographer on some of his recent film shoots. Movie still photographers take publicity photos while the film is in production for use in later film promotions and movie marketing. Original vintage movie stills from Hollywood studio press kits are now highly collectible. Glen's blog will be of interest to stills collectors and aspiring movie film unit photographers. Click this line to check out our inventory of vintage movie stills.

I hate being that guy who is in everyone's way all the time! That is how I feel when I am doing production stills. As the on-set still photographer, I need and want, to be where the action is, right there next to the camera or standing over the director's shoulder. As the director, this can be very annoying, especially during one of the many stressful moments during the shoot. But I can't get that perfect picture by staying out of the way.

There are two really difficult things about being the on-set still photographer. The first is that I really want to capture the action from the actors. What is so hard about this is that it is often impossible to snap a picture during a take. The extremely powerful and sensitive microphones that are used on film sets will almost always pick up the shutter noise.

The second part of on-set still photography that can be difficult or frustrating is that I often feel as though I am in the way. There is a lot of stress on the set of a film, no matter how well things are going, and the still photographer's job is usually looked at by the rest of the crew as the least important. I'm not saying that my job is the most important, but it is not expendable. I frequently find myself standing between a grip and the stand that he is trying to move.

The two kinds of behind the scenes photos that are considered "good" by the film world, are ones that show the crew working very hard, or ones that mimic the shot that the cinematographer has created for the film. The first of these is the easier shot to get. There are so many opportunities to snap pictures of the crew working hard. Right before the director calls action, or right after he/she calls cut, is a perfect opportunity to get great crew captures.

It is much harder to see through the cinematographer’s lens. Unless they are not recording sound, I cannot snap a picture during a take. So I have to interrupt the shoot to get the actors to pose as they are going through the scene. The best way to get this shot is when the director is having his final rehearsal before the first take. I will set up right next to the cinematographer and mimic his angle and lens choice as much as possible, or sometimes I will sit right in front of the cinematographer’s camera.

While shooting on-set stills I have used both film and digital. Although I prefer film when I shoot other things, I use digital almost entirely for production stills. The main reason is because of the ISO capabilities. Digital camera manufacturers have made a lot of progress in the last few years with their high ISO performance. 1600 ISO with my digital camera looks way better than 1600 ISO film. Although the scene is usually very well lit and looks beautiful if the cinematographer has done his job, the area where the crew is located is generally not nearly as well lit and requires the much higher ISO to get the appropriate exposure.

Click this line to see Glen's photographs for sale on his Etsy site.

Zombie Movies: The Film Genre that won't Die

2010-10-16T14:58:00.010-04:00

Ours' is just a zombie kind of world. These brain-chomping bogeymen and women are at the saturation point in every media form extant, from live action films, animated cartoons, video games, comics, to literary publishing mash-ups with Jane Austen. What's up with this? Where in the Sam Hill did it all come from? Why do we love the re-animated so?

Academics and other smarty-pants--yes, there is such a thing as zombie scholarship--would have us think that the living dead help us process our feelings about the apocalyptic end of our fragile world brought on by inevitable disease pandemics (for more of this, check in with Kim Paffenroth, Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006). The '50s and '60s were about apocalypse-by-nukes nightmares. Now, WMD's include frightening and potentially zombie-producing pathogens, unless the cooties come from outer space, or jump species from our feathered friends. Definitely get the avian flu shots so chickens won't turn us into zombies. More on the economics of this later, or "there's gold in them thar fears!"

Okay. Sure. Helping us process our feelings is definitely a major motivator for studios, film distributors, and theaters to keep producing and showing the zombie oeuvre, right? Maybe not so much. Critics talking about the violently sexual fetish subtexts of seminal zombie flicks of the 40s and 50s, like "White Zombie" and "I Walked with a Zombie," probably have a better idea about the lurid bondage "lite" that fooled early Hays Commission censors, yet still got titillated viewers into the movie house. Post-modern, post-colonial theorist Edna Aizenberg deserves credit for being honest about these early zombie films. She pinpointed their erotic brew of exotic slavery-steeped Caribbean settings and passive beautiful white female sex slaves concocted by ingesting the voodoo version of puffer-fish neurotoxin roofies. This was some hot fantasy fodder for your great-grandfather down at the Bijou.

Zombie films continued pretty much in the same sex fetish vein, with the occasional undead fiend showing up in a Sci-Fi B-movie, until Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" in 1968 exploded the zombie genre virus everywhere. Romero and his former colleague, writer John Russo, spawned a number of similar zombie apocalypse productions after Night went through the roof.

What Romero did to cause the genre to explode was that he scared his matinee and drive-in kiddie and teenie-bopper audiences in a new way. Instead of the campy Frankenstein-meets-Dracula scream fest the kids were anticipating, Romero frightened his young viewers into whimpering silence, according to the grindingly ubiquitous, but nonetheless present Sun-Times reviewer, Roger Ebert.

Revolutionary as Romero's magnum opus may have been, Night's uniqueness wasn't enough to propel zombies to the top of the contemporary horror heap. Turns out there is an economy to it if you "follow the money." Kevin Heffernan (Inner-City Exhibition and the Genre Film: Distributing "Night of the Living Dead") discovered that "nabe house" (neighborhood theaters) declining revenues in the late 60s caused their owners to find a new product that would put butts in the seats during the early autumn slowdown between summer vacation and the holidays. Romero's creepy undead arrived at the right time to fill the Halloween movie doldrums. Cinematic zombie apocalypse filled a major marketing void. Like the Energizer bunny, zombies just keep going and going.

Fun Zombie Factoids (verbatim from Wiki):

1.Romero's Night made no reference to the creatures as "zombies". In the film they are referred as "ghouls" on the TV news reports. However, the word zombie is used continually by Romero in his 1978 script for "Dawn of the Dead," including once in dialog. This "retroactively fits (the creatures) with an invisible Haitian/African prehistory, formally introducing the zombie as a new archetype."

2. The early 1980s was notable for the introduction of zombies into Chinese and other Asian films, often martial arts/horror crossover films, that featured zombies as thralls animated by magic for purposes of battle. Though the idea never had large enough appeal to become a sub-genre, zombies are still used as martial-arts villains in some films today.

3. "Return of the Living Dead" took a more comedic approach than Romero's films; Return was the first film to feature zombies which hungered specifically for brains instead of all human flesh (this included the vocalization of "Brains!" as a part of zombie vocabulary), and is the source of the now-familiar cliché of brain-devouring zombies seen elsewhere.

4. "Zombie" may be related to the Congolese term for deity, "nzambi."

Creature Features and Rubber Suit Monsters

2010-09-18T17:11:00.009-04:00

Invasion of the Saucer Men

Godzilla. The Creature from the Black Lagoon. We're talkin' rubber suit monster or "man-in-a-suit" horror and sci-fi vintage special effects. They are cheesy, squidgy, and interfere fatally with the willful suspension of disbelief. So if these wiggly, campy, F/X misfires are such a disaster, then why do they remain perennial cinema and movie memorabilia favorites? Well, to quote the man, "It's complicated, baby."

The obvious answer to why we saw them over and over again for decades was that they worked well within typical schlock-house and straight-to-drive-in B-movie budget constraints. This is indeed how we got Godzilla. The original monster maestro of Japan, Eiji Tsuburaya, wanted to do our now internationally beloved 'zilla-monster in stop motion a la Ray Harryhausen's King Kong. But when Eiji told his studio that it would take years to film the special effects for the scenes needed, they told him to find another way. Voila, the rubber suit. Necessity was the mother of the first, and best, rubber suit monster ever.

Sci-fi and horror movie fans worth their salt also know that our favorite gummy gargoyle rubber suit Godzilla fulfills a primal human need for monsters, which by definition are mythic embodiments of our fears about the dysfunction (natural or man-made) in our everyday lives. In Godzilla's case, that would be post World War II pop culture processing Japanese communal fears about the return of the H-bomb. That's enough nickel psychology.

Swamp Thing battles the Arcane Monster

Why else do we keep our devotion to rubber suit monsters in the age of CG!? According to A-list creature directors like Steven Spielberg, it all comes down to the film goers' experience. Although Spielberg eventually worked extensively with CGI monsters, he thinks the best performances from his actors come from playing off of animatronic or puppeteer-filled rubber sharks and dinosaurs. In other words, in order to thrill you in the theater, Spielberg claims he needed to scare the living crap out of his non-creature actors with live action rubber monsters.

This live action versus digital debate describes an important outlook in Rochester, NY where our e-commerce company, Movie Fan Collectibles, is located. Our city is also home to Kodak and the George Eastman House Museum's Selznick School of Film Preservation. Curators of the film library and archive wholeheartedly uplift the experience of pre-digital film technologies and special effects for their intense and visceral simulated reality. They assert that film and live-action reaches us in a way that digital technology, at the moment, can not. Eastman House Museum's archive and Dryden Theater are dedicated to preserving and showing original film in all its formats. Eastman is particularly proud of their collection's live action rubber-suit creature features, including a number of 3-D prints. For the true cinephile, we recommend a visit.

The Gill Man in Revenge of the Creature

Critics like Aussie Sci-Fi maven Robin Pen go further by saying that if these charmingly fake filmic rubber apparitions don't reach you, then it is really more of a problem with the viewer than it is with the hokey production. Rubber suit monsters are a pleasure best partaken with a group watching in large projection format. In a darkened theater like Rochester's Dryden, Hollywood's seminal rubber suit monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, will be weird enough to scare the young-in's and sufficiently outlandish to make the adults belly-laugh. This multi-generational thrill is not lost on contemporary film makers as evidenced by the currently on going decades-long development of a contemporary Creature From the Black Lagoon remake.

Fun factoids: Bill Paxton was the last actor signed to play the lead in The Creature from the Black Lagoon, 2012.

Eye Creature with Babes

Original Black Lagoon producer, William Alland, played the reporter character in Citizen Kane. At a dinner party during the Kane production, Alland got the idea for the Black Lagoon creature from an old Mexican folk tale that cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa told at the party that evening.

Special thanks to Robin Pen, Wiki, and the New Yorker Magazine for their rubber suit monster reporting.

Question of the week: Paxton is out of the Black Lagoon remake, so who should play the lead in CFTBL? I'm thinking Brendan Fraser could carry it off the way he did with The Mummy movies. Especially since the script is supposed to be a pre-quel to the original with Victorian explorers poking around in the Amazon when they encounter the latest gill-man swamp thing.

How to Start a Collection 1-2-3

2010-08-25T15:23:00.002-04:00

First, analyze your reasons. Are you hoping to "buy low and sell high?" Creating a collection of anything solely for investment purposes is seldom a good idea. One should approach collecting from the standpoint of self-satisfaction. Do the objects appeal to you? Are you happy to have them in your presence? In essence - do they stir emotions within you - rather than existing as mere objects to be stored away while awaiting their value to increase?

Quick start to a collection - buy a set

Buy something because you like it and want to have it - that way you will never be disappointed if 20 or 30 years from now they have not increased in monetary value. For example, some folks make a point of grabbing up every Rookie baseball card that's printed hoping that one (or more) of these players will become the next Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth. The fact is the odds are overwhelmingly against that, and in the end the collector will have spent thousands of dollars to amass a collection that sits in a box and has less value that originally spent.

The second tip is like the first - purchase an item because you really want it - not because someone else says you should have it. You'll find lots of folks with something to sell saying "You're collection won't be complete without ____!" Let me tell you, a collection is never truly complete. There is always at least one more thing that could be added and if your goal is to create the best, most complete collection of XYZ widgets, you will end up spending lots of money and probably never achieve that goal. Don't let others define your collecting goal. Buy what makes you happy.

Beginnings of a small stamp collection

This also holds true for retailers who offer memorabilia that is specifically created to be collectible. You've seen these - they are almost always marked "Limited Edition" (LE) or "Special Edition" (SE). Hummel plates and figurines spring to mind. The seller wants you to think that the item is more desirable and holds more value because of scarcity but this is very rarely the case in the long run. LEs are usually numbered in the thousands, and when they sell out the manufacturer simply creates a slightly different version for another "Limited Edition" run. Of course, if you like and want to have a special edition item then don't deny yourself the pleasure. Just realize that a marketing scam is involved and don't pay more than it is personally worth to you.

And the third tip is like the first two - buy what you want regardless of any "rules." For example, many people focus on collecting items by only a particular artist. In the process, they obtain things that don't really appeal to them aesthetically but feel they must have, and they pass up some things they like only because they are unrelated to their collection's theme. Face it - a collection of Picassos may be impressive but not everything he created was great. Maybe adding in a Rembrandt or Van Gogh that catches your eye will be more enjoyable than a Picasso work which just doesn't "feel right." Remember - the goal of any good collection is to satisfy yourself - why buy something you don't care for, or take a pass on something because it doesn't "fit?" In point of fact, an eclectic collection is often more interesting than one that is too narrowly focused.

A Leica camera collection

The whole point is that YOU are in charge - you set the rules, or you have no rules whatsoever. Just get started with one thing that appeals to you - that you'd like to possess - and let it develop and flow from there. As you acquire more items you may see a pattern developing, or not. It doesn't matter so long as you're surrounding yourself with items that make you happy.

So why delay? Start today, or this week, with just one or two things, and let the collection begin. In a future article I'll get more specific about building a movie memorabilia collection.

Have you started collecting? Please share your experiences - the good, the bad, the ugly...

Author: Lee Richards

Sure Fire Recipe for a Movie: Girls with Guns

2010-08-19T11:50:00.000-04:00

Judith M. Brown in "Big Doll House"

Pictured : studio publicity 8 x 10 photo stills from 1971 exploitation flick Big Doll House (Judith M. Brown), Jeannie Berlin in 1970's The Baby Maker, and 1998 Hollywood / Hong Kong action fusion movie The Replacement Killers (Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino). Photo gallery of more girls with guns here.

French New Wave film directing legend Jean-Luc Godard (1960's Breathless starring Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo) once said that, "All you need to make a film is a girl and a gun." A true genius, Godard probably didn't know how right he was; "girls with guns" may be among the longest lasting and most pervasive cinematic tropes in existence.

Easily mistaken for a kinky camp visual thrill that occasionally crosses the screen (think James Bond girls), or a character attribute (Linda Hamilton aka Sarah Connor in The Terminator films), women packing heat are all over films of every genre. Don't believe it? Treat yourself to Moviebadgirls.com's online compilation of every girls-with-guns image archived on IMDb (The Internet Movie Database).

Chow Yun Fat & Mira Sorvino in "The Replacement Killers"

The movie bad girls photo index has screen grabs we expect to see, like Star Wars sci-fi Princess Leia and her big handheld blaster in The Empire Strikes Back, or Pam Grier as Foxy Brown in all her Blaxploitation '70s gangsta gun-crazed glory. But the bad girls photo index also reminds us that ladies with lethal weapons grace big screen epics like Dr. Zhivago as well. Back in the day, Julie Christie as the peerlessly furry snow-bunny Lara, elicited an audible gasp from the audience when she pulled a pistol on her Russkie sugar-daddy lawyer boyfriend in the classic 1960s MGM epic. How could somebody so Cinderella good be sooo bad?

Japanese print comics known as Manga, and their film cartoon counterparts Anime (Aeon Flux anyone? She was in both genres, as well as in live action Hollywood cinema played by Charlize Theron with a dark wig), would have you think that they originated the concept of babes with bazookas sometime in the 1970s. There is no denying Japanese graphic novel artists and animators score points for being pretty obssesive about keeping these dangerous girls going. The Shaw Brothers Hong Kong Studio of the 1960s also deserves a shout out for getting the current version of the action flick chick rolling with Cheng Pei-pei in Come Drink with Me.

Mira Sorvino pictured here in the Replacement Killers publicity shot tells us that this is still an area of interest for Asian film makers and movie goers everywhere. But Bombshells with Bullets have been on film since film existed -- a few clicks on the net will find silent cinema sweethearts like Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford assuming the position with a piece. The Golden Age of American movies, running from the 1920s until the beginning of the TV era in the 1950s, would not have been the same without its gorgeous gaggle of gangster and crime noir molls.

Jeannie Berlin in "The Baby Maker"

Occasionally a trope outgrows its fictive boundaries and prolapses into the real world. Such is the case for this genre. Buff action honeys in the flesh busting out of their glamoflage cami muscle shirts can be found selling real guns to real armies on the net (check out TacGirl.com, they'll send you a pin-up calendar of these real-life Lara Croft wannabes).

In case that fantasy incursion of TacGirls with guns into real life isn't weird enough for you, then you will love the reports coming out of Afghanistan about "FETS." FETS is military speak for "Female Engagement Teams." Apparently our American heroes G.I. Joe -ing around the Afghani countryside is really making Islamic folks uncomfortable about our combat soldiers so much as looking at Afghan ladies, let alone trying to speak with them. The Pentagon's answer to the problem is FETS, or regular army women in cami fatigues with guns on patrol working to win the hearts and minds of people in rural Afghanistan.

If all this real world guns and gals is too much for you, then you won't have to wait long to ogle some fresh female arm-candy with ordinances back on the big screen where they rightfully belong. Zack Snyder's new girls with guns actioner, Sucker Punch, will be out in 2011. Sucker Punch's one-line, high-concept description from the director is, "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns." 'Nuf said.

Total snaps to the excellent website "TVTropes.com" for sending this Blog in the right direction. Click on this line to see more armed and dangerous cinema beauties.

Spanish Mini Movie Posters are Special

2010-08-11T18:21:00.007-04:00

We recently purchased a collection of over 500 mini movie posters (sometimes called heralds) dating from the 1940s and '50s. Boy have these been fun to peruse!

In a number of foreign countries the movie distributors figured out a really neat way to get people to theaters - give them miniature posters that could also be used as admission passes. So from Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and other Spanish-speaking lands we have some great artwork that truly classifies as ephemera. As neat as these little posters are, no one ever really intended for them to be saved. That makes it wonderful to have them "in hand" now some 50 to 70 years later!

And these truly are little works of art - often different images from the large poster creations put on display in the theaters. They average around 3-1/2" x 5" in size, and most all just seem to explode with eye-catching color!

We've got some great classic movie titles, and even more classic movie stars in our collection. So let's drop a few names: Bob Hope, Roy Rogers, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Alan Ladd, Laurence Olivier, Marlene Dietrich, Lucille Ball, Gloria Swanson, Ray Milland, Gary Cooper, Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Boris Karloff, Orson Welles, and more.

See why I'm excited! And some of the great titles we have include: Henry V, The Green Glove, Drums of Fu Manchu, Road to Bali, Sands of Iwo Jima, Pride of the Yankees, Black Magic, Johnny Angel, Algiers, Submarine Attack, Man In the Iron Mask, Kit Carson, Captain Kidd, Sign of the Cross, and more.

With 500+ posters it will take us awhile to make them all available but it will be a delicious time spent in nostalgic recollection of Saturday afternoon matinees.

Check out the ones available right now in our Spanish movie poster department.

Author: Lee Richards

Cigarette Cards: Intimate portraits of early movie star screen idols

2010-08-11T18:04:00.004-04:00

Cigarette cards were first introduced in the 1880s as stiffeners for individual cigarette packs. The U.S. was first to produce cigarette cards, but Britain followed suit shortly afterward. The first two decades of the Twentieth Century are considered the 'golden age' of the card production, with literally hundreds of suppliers producing them. The cards usually had a nautical or military theme reflecting the interests of soldiers and sailors as the main consumers of tobacco.

The demand for cards decreased during the great war because of print supply shortages, and then resumed popularity again in the inter-war period, but now with a broader variety of pictorial subjects. Advances in printing technology in the 1920s also allowed for this new proliferation of card subjects, including sports, motor cars, and boating.

At MovieFanCollectibles, we became intensely interested in cigarette cards produced in the inter-war and post WWII era as movie memorabilia, because of our passion for lobby cards, movie stills, and other vintage movie promotional materials. We like the aesthetic experience of viewing cigarette cards, which is quite unlike that of looking at other forms of movie memorabilia.

The card's small size that allows them to fit into a cigarette pack also gives them a jewel-like cameo or locket quality, which is meant for one viewer at a time. The experience is one of intimacy with the subject matter. Some of the cards have surprisingly high resolution with much visual data available given their cigarette-pack size. Other cigarette cards, which may have a lower resolution in their printing process gain their charm from special die-cut shapes such as the oval lozenge-shaped cards pictured here with Clark Gable and Laurel & Hardy in all their glory.

Material shortages put an end to the cigarette card craze, although some printers and tobacco companies were considering bringing them back in the 1960s. But it was never to be. Enjoy viewing more cigarette cards here.

Pictured: Clark Gable, Robert Young & Claudette Colbert, Laurel & Hardy, Ilona Massey

Thanks to Franklin Cards for cigarette card info

Rory Calhoun: A Rags to Riches Movie Star Story (The Hired Gun)

2010-08-11T16:28:00.008-04:00

We recently had the chance to review the rags-to-riches career of western star of the 40s, 50s and 60s, Rory Calhoun. Calhoun's own life would have made a good subject for a grindhouse film: after teen years in a California reformatory, this good-looking youth graduated to armed robbery (including a jewel heist), which ended in a bid at the federal pen in Springfield, Missouri and the infamous San Quentin prison.

After doing some hard time, Calhoun was discovered by A-list actor Alan Ladd, whose wife cast him in a number of walk-on roles with notable stars like Laurel and Hardy. Calhoun was then picked up by agent Henry Willson, who handled a stable of actors that, including Rock Hudson and Troy Donahue, all sort of looked like each other. Willson, who found his actors in various stressed backgrounds, schooled them in manners and diction, à la Henry Higgins in 'My Fair Lady.' With Willson's representation, Calhoun worked with stars like Rhonda Fleming, Edward G. Robinson, and Shirley Temple.

An odd episode during this time was Willson leaking the story of Calhoun's tarnished past to the tabloid gossip press in order to distract them from early rumors of homosexuality floating around Hollywood about his other client, Rock Hudson. The jail stories only served to enhance Calhoun's tough-guy reputation in the biz. Willson seemed to have the knack for picking actors with “slumdog” backgrounds which gave them an almost mythically loaded backstory. He guaranteed that the gossips would have a story arc for Willson's clients when the hacks finally took notice of them. That's some PR genius.

Calhoun went on to form his own production company, Rorvic, which made a number of western shoot 'em ups like the one pictured here, 'The Hired Gun.' The Hired Gun is the story of Calhoun, a bounty hunter of sorts, being paid to bring Marilyn Monroe lookalike, Anne Francis (60s TV's gal private eye 'Honey West'), back to justice at the end of a rope in Texas. Francis is accused of killing her husband, but (gee wiz) Calhoun falls in love with her on the trip!

Fun factoid about Calhoun: he's in the 80s horror classic 'Motel Hell.'

(A shout out to Wiki's 'Rory Calhoun' entry for detail's of Calhoun's life)