Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A VISIT FROM AUNT BOOB: ROLLS ROYCE VIDEO

so in the early 80s in Ghana, when the movie market wasn't booming and VCR technology had yet to make into most households, some dudes got the idea to make a 'mobile cinema.' they'd drive a VCR and TV from town to town, showing bootlegs of the biggest releases of Hollywood and African cinema. so not only is that brilliant and awesome (case in point: they sometimes went by Rolls Royce Video, though there's no indication of what they were driving), but it also inspired a seriously striking art form: the movie posters.

dudes would get artists to paint huge promotional posters on canvas, in whatever way they wanted. Les Artistes were given total freedom to put in whatever shit they could dream up, which helped because many of them weren't able to see the movies beforehand. Many are pretty good interpretations of Western flicks:

The heart instead of an O is the winning touch for me
here they obviously saw the original poster, but serious kudos for good taste
here toothere's sort of a theme emerging...
FAS Bond! Dickfish! Infinity Space Car!I think this one might be utterly accurate.
dude looks so surprised a giant demonic chainsaw is ruining his family vacay
Cujo, the Stephen King horror flick about a ravenous St Bernard, is now a feel-good family film about a sedated French Spaniel who cries blood sometimes.
I haven't seen Twins in a while, is this what it's about?

But really the best posters are for movies I don't think made it to our shores. I don't know how much of the poster content is made up, but regardless, pretty much every single one makes me want to fly over there and buy up a couple dozen VHS copies and then show them around the states:


I do not apologize for the length of this post.

[via these three things]

4 comments:

Dap said...

SAP. strong ass post. blood money 2 and twins are my dudes

Tal said...

kate, you got sonned. what you finna do YOU AIN'T FINNA HIT HIM THO!

-victor

Dash Speaks on the Internet said...

cool

Anonymous said...

Those posters are brilliant.

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