Good Poster Art

   The quality of studio posters are on the upswing while fan posters have gotten increasingly worse.

  Most Fan Posters amount to very little. When they're not pastiche/reference slop, they're typically esoteric visual puns that reek of desperation. They want, so badly, to be perceived as 'clever' but garner nothing more than an "ah-ha" in the viewer. Or, worse: woefully ill-fitting font, textures, and imagery misrepresenting the movie. Absent is a sense of awe, intrigue, mystery, et all purely alluring spectacle.

  And I used to eat up the former, too. I thought this was the coolest fan poster ever:

  But now I look at it and I'm like "Yep...that sure is a shark fin, alright............." It's definitely clever but that only gives it the illusion that it's intriguing. It grabs my attention but it can't sustain a hold on me. I especially hate the narrow and weightless font, a baffling change that subtracts from it.

  I was going to post the original here for contrast but I don't need to: It's already conjured in your head. It's so simple, so evocative, so textured, and concise. Same goes for the Silence Of The Lambs poster (which is the greatest poster of all time), I don't need to show you what's already in your frontal lobe right now! And that's an example of a poster that has the best of both worlds: it's just as eye-bugging as it is clever. There are layers and complexity to it but it also manages to be subtle and concise at the same time. It's a remarkable one sheet.

Meanwhile, a fan poster:

  

    So I decided to celebrate some of the best Studio-mandated posters that have come out this decade. I've wanted to do this for a while now, especially since we're dangerously close to most studios using generative A.I. to make, upscale, or touch-up posters (like A24 did with Civil War in 2024).

Mix Tape: John Lennon

Mixtape will be a new feature on Between the Reels wherein a group of songs from a specific artist will be curated into a disc (or two) worth of aural bliss. A mixtape should act as two things. The first should be a strong representation of not just who the artist but what they are capable of. It shouldn't just be limited to the hits either. Every bargain bin 'greatest hits' album is an attempt at jettisoning the 'deep cuts' of any given artist while packaging it with songs we've heard on the radio dozens of times in order to push units. The second should have some semblance of structure instead of being haphazardly put together. In the spirit of this, the opening and closing songs on a disc would normally be considered opening and closing numbers normally found on the album of said artist. Then comes the meat in between. Does the mixtape flow seamlessly from song to the next? What I want in a mixtape are these things and the overall sense that every track is one I wouldn't want to skip. So personal curation falls into play. This is where you come in. Do you have an alternate track listing? Is your song not listed? Let me know in the comments. 

Future installments will color outside the lines. Perhaps the mixtape will feature music from a director's work or the music used on a television show. Keep an eye out for them down the line. 

The first artist up for the series is John Lennon. His solo stuff was recorded from 1970 to 1980 until his life was tragically cut short on December 8, 1980. Who knows what else he had in him to share. What we do have is a series of albums where some are considered classics (Plastic Ono Band, Imagine) and some are underrated (Walls and Bridges, Mind Games). 

What comes to my mind when I think of Lennon's solo work? Yoko. The Peace movement. All of which are represented here. But there's also the tragic history with his mother. There's his insecurities all of which are on display in tracks like Jealous Guy and Crippled Inside. 

Mother is the only logical choice to open the first disc. It's just too good an opener not to use it. John's declarations of independence from the Beatles is all over his solo work and abundantly clear in the closing track of Plastic Ono Band, God. So it is a fitting track to close out the first disc. 

Instant Karma has the feeling of an opening track even though it was a stand-alone single. Nobody Loves You might be my favorite Lennon song from his solo career. The last three tracks on the 2nd disc were the trickiest but paid off. I Know is the closer to Mind Games so it fits here. Then there is the one-two punch of Beautiful Boy and Happy Xmas. Both sequenced next to each other because of the whispers of love to Julian to close out Beautiful Boy and the whispers of Merry Christmas from John and Yoko to each other in Happy Xmas.

DISC ONE: THE DREAM IS OVER...

Mother (Plastic Ono Band)
Isolation (Plastic Ono Band)
#9 Dream (Walls and Bridges)
Mind Games (Mind Games)
Jealous Guy (Imagine)
Crippled Inside (Imagine)
Oh Yoko! (Imagine)
Cold Turkey (Some Time In New York City)
Stand By Me (Rock 'N' Roll)
Power to the People
Give Peace A Chance (Live Peace In Toronto 1969)
God (Plastic Ono Band)

DISC TWO: ...IF YOU WANT IT
Instant Karma
Remember (Plastic Ono Band)
Love (Plastic Ono Band)
Old Dirt Road (Walls and Bridges)
Scared (Walls and Bridges)
Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out) (Walls and Bridges)
Out the Blue (Mind Games)
Watching the Wheels (Double Fantasy)
(Just Like) Starting Over (Double Fantasy)
Nobody Told Me (Milk and Honey)
I Know (I Know) (Mind Games)
Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) (Double Fantasy)
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)