14th April 2008.

Hello & Welcome back to another instalment of my junk blog.

It’s been a while since the last one and there’s been so much happening in the world of junk. Posters, banners, standee’s, T-shirts, key rings; its all here.

Well, I didn’t win a ticket to The Eye screening but consoling myself I ended up at a local cinema seeing Rambo, again. Just a few days earlier they had given me some posters. The Iron Man advance poster, the new Indy poster, Rendition and Jumper. (more on Jumper later). So come that evening I asked the guys if they had any posters of the horror genre. And a few minutes later I end up with 10 posters. I was ecstatic as I had been given some superb posters; Planet Terror, The Grudge 2, Slither, Pulse, Saw 4, Snakes on a Plane, Gone, Halloween, 30 Days of Night and Untraceable. As nice as it would have been meeting Miss Alba this more than made up for not going.

When I was growing up cinema posters were insights into the world of films I couldn’t see. When I wasn’t old enough I remember going to see BMX Bandits with friends, but really wanting to go see Amityville 3 in 3D, which was showing at the same time. Even the trashiest of films could have a great poster and often did.

When I asked for posters back in the 90s, the answer was usually “No we don’t give them out”. However, some how I did end up with Alien 3. Sadly, I don’t have it anymore, but it is still one of my favourites. So, come along a few years and my interest in posters has been invigorated. Mainly because local cinemas that can't keep them because of space reasons dispose of them. This is great for film memorabilia fanatics like me. Not so good is that lots end up in recycling bins across the country, the unfortunate waste products of film marketing.

Jumper has a set of four banners depicting London, Paris, Egypt & Rome landmarks and for promotion there was a T-shirt and light key ring also.

For Sweeney Todd a film poster was produced and withdrawn making the withdrawn posters rare and collectable. I was lucky to get a set of the banners featuring Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett. I also got a second set still sealed in their packaging.

Posters seem so sanitised these days. Not at all like they used to be: pulpy and eye catching. The promo artwork for Captivity upset a few people, much like how Dawn of the Dead 2004 did. In Lincoln the local paper ran a story of how the poster was scaring kids.

One of my other favourite poster images is Exterminator 2. Its cartoonish pulpy just like this one. If you have seen The Mist then you will know what I mean. The Guardian ran in their money section on the 16th Feb. an article on investing in film posters.

There are some great sites to buy from, and Ebay is a constant source of posters with some going for great prices.

Here are some sites that I have found

www.filmposterworld.co.uk/index.htm http://www.atthemovies.co.uk/

Over on http://www.hammerfilms.com/hammerindex.html you can subscribe to them and receive reproduction posters of some of the classic hammer films.

And for wallpapers for your comp http://www.moviewallpapers.net/

Whenever I go to a cinema, I always ask about posters. You never know what posters you might find. I picked up Waz, 3.10 to Yuma, Captivity, The Hitcher and Daywatch recently. And its not often I get a short sharp no. Its always worth asking. I have recently found myself surrounded by posters as a cinema my partner knows was disposing of its collection and very kindly brought loads back from surrey.

Although lots are damaged I have lots of multiple copies.

So I’m going to give some fellow FrightFesters a chance to have some of these posters. Ian is going to run a competition in the next week or so, so keep watching.

Till next time.

Nicola.