With the passing of Drew Struzen just a very short time ago I thought it would be timely to revisit the poster discussion (originally this was a Oct 2024 prompt). First a little about my history with movie posters. I have been a collector in some way shape or form since the mid-nineties when I worked at a movie poster and was allowed to walk away with a few of the non-Star Wars ones every so often (realizing the money potential on these Fox/Lucasfilm had a deal with theatres that all promotional materials for Star Wars had to be returned or the theatre risked being cut off from future materials). Later my future father in law allowed me to go through his collection from when he managed a theatre and took them all home, which eventually led to me taking all the posters when they gutted the place to sell. Our deal was I could keep ones for myself (all pictures this week are from my personal collection) and sell as much of the greater collection as possible for a 60/40 split and so I went about doing just that with all 6000 POSTERS! Okay, good thing I am a little nuts. Bringing it back to Struzen, I have never technically owned one of his posters as I often cannot afford/justify the high price tag. The ones I did briefly possess eventually went to auction for a lot of money (chief among them: The Shawshank Redemption which I probably should have kept in retrospect). So as it is safe to say that I love movie posters, I still have over 3000 at various areas of my house with no idea of what I can do with them, but enough about me, I want talk about Struzen’s work as a poster artist. His top posters are all drawn and often have a lot of things going on in them such as a montage of characters/vehicles and items from movies like Star Wars or the Muppets Movie. Or painting a picture in line with the movies scenes that perfectly encapsulates everything the movie is going for conceptually in a single painting. His best works are painted scenes which is near and dear to my personal tastes (every poster I own/display is a painted one). Big movies like Star Wars aside it is just fun to see the images that captured Cannonball Run or The Thing which have both since grew into classics in their own rights (cult or otherwise). These images all go way back for me and to this day whenever I got to the theatre I browse the halls for new posters I have not seen yet in case I am not properly excited for coming attractions. Posters may be dismissed but to me they are works of art and well worthy of movie conversations as stand alone topics or in the greater context of the full package of what makes really great movies be really great movies. So all being said and done this is a super easy prompt this week and even different enough from the original prompt: What is your favourite movie poster? There is a lot to consider about how cool it looks, does it capture or convey the movie’s spirit? Does it speak to you? What did it say? PS: Currently on display in my basement: The Warriors, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Cinderella (R1970), The Man with the Golden Gun, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Superman, Mad Max: The Road Warrior, Conan the Barbarian, Time Bandits, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Streets of Fire, and Strange Brew. All original 27x41s.