For the past year now, the Colony Theatre and local film enthusiast Matt Pennachi have been working to give Triangle audiences a proper grindhouse-movie experience with the Cinema Overdrive series.
On the second Wednesday of every month, Pennachi brings in a print of a long-lost motion picture from the '70s or '80s, whether it be a hilariously dubbed samurai flick, a cheapo monster movie or even a cheerleader sexploitation film starring a very young David Hasselhoff, and the audience takes in the cultish, enjoyably kitschy splendor of it all.
Attendees of this periodic gathering also enjoy the specially made, limited-edition posters Pennachi and his Cinema Overdrive partner/co-conspirator Adam Hulin sell in the lobby before each movie.
"I have been a poster and print art collector myself for several years now," Pennachi says, "and had always wanted an opportunity to be able to offer some original artwork for our shows at a reasonable rate."
It started last October when Pennachi asked Carrboro artist Danny Miller to provide posters for the screenings of "The Evil Dead" and "The Monster Squad." Miller created two colorful, 12.5-inch by 19-inch posters for each movie, and they quickly became best-sellers.
Miller did a couple more posters for Pennachi. But when Miller wanted to concentrate more on making posters for the horror-movie screenings, Pennachi and Miller bought in more local artists.
"Danny introduced me to Matt, and I liked him immediately," says Carrboro graphic artist and printmaker Ron Liberti, who designed posters for "Switchblade Sisters" and "Road Games." "I really enjoyed the movies that he was putting together. He was so passionate about these movies and Cinema Overdrive, and I really respected that."
The same thing goes for Durham illustrator and designer Laurie Shipley, who did posters for "Cut-Throats Nine" and "Revenge of the Cheerleaders." Thanks to her work with Cinema Overdrive, she says, audience members have acquired some of her original work. Hulin even asked her to design the poster and DVD cover for his film "Vault of Darkness."
"Reaction has been great," Shipley says. "I'm very lucky to be doing something I love for a living."
Pennachi says the artists get most of the profits from their posters, and he keeps a small amount to reinvest in the series.
Collectors seek them
Eventually, Pennachi began to round up artists outside the Triangle. Phoenix-based artist James Rheem Davis has designed several Cinema Overdrive posters, including a poster for the Colony's yearly anniversary screening of "The Big Lebowski." (That one sold out quickly.)
The posters are starting to become more popular than the film screenings themselves. Online sites such as ComicsAlliance.com have written about the posters.
Colony general manager Denver Hill said he received an e-mail from the U.K. asking for a poster Davis made for a recent screening of "Goldfinger." (That buyer is going to have to wait; the original prints were damaged, and Pennachi decided to scrap those and reprint the whole batch.)
A $35 print for the Walter Hill film "Southern Comfort," also designed by Davis, is even going on eBay now for $49.99. (You can still get a print of the poster for its original price.)
"The response from collectors from other parts of the country - and the world, actually - has been terrific," Pennachi says. "We started off with a very small mailing list of people who aren't local but wish to collect all of our stuff, and in the past few months that list has absolutely exploded in size! While we always try to give local patrons first crack at any poster we produce, we have seen the demand go up a lot and things sell out much more quickly than they did at the beginning."
Something different
Collectors both inside and outside the Triangle will most likely be clamoring for the item that will be up for grabs before tonight's screening of the 1979 film "Rock 'n' Roll High School." Instead of a poster, Pennachi will be selling a vinyl picture disc, designed by Liberti.
"I saw a screen printed vinyl record he did as a gift for a friend, and asked him if it would be possible to do that type of project as a full run," Pennachi says. "He said it would be no problem. I had told him we were interested in running 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' in the near future, and it turns out he loves the film as much as we do. So he got the assignment on that one, and all of the 'posters' for that particular show will be a round piece of vinyl outsider art."
When it comes right down to it, that's what you can call all of the posters that have been created for this film series: outsider art. They are vivid, wildly original designs that not only show off what this kooky, nutty picture show has to offer, but what the Triangle art community has to offer as well.
