BADASS Art: Striking New PACIFIC RIM and UPSTREAM COLOR Posters (One of Which We’re Giving Away)

Two 2013 films we've been very supportive of here at BAD are Shane Carruth's mindbending Upstream Color and Guillermo del Toro's mindblowing Pacific Rim (see both immediately, though preferably not simultaneously). The former is a meditative, thought-provoking experience that's more felt than it is understood, while the latter will literally rattle your goddamn teeth with its thundering awesomeness.  

Extremely dissimilar experiences, to be sure, but they do share one key characteristic: immediately after you've seen Carruth and del Toro's latest, you will wish you had a reminder of those films - a screenprinted movie poster, for instance, or maybe a whimsical sampler - hanging somewhere in your house. Lucky for us, the good folks at NYC's Bottleneck Gallery and Austin's Odd City Entertainment have us covered on the screenprint front (stay tuned: Hallmark may follow-up with a series of explosive Pacific Rim samplers later in the year).  

Let's start off with a look at Odd City Entertainment and Graham Erwin's Pacific Rim print:

• Size: 12x36"
• Edition Size: 175 hand-numbered screenprints
• Price: $50
• Available: Thursday, July 11th via the Odd City Entertainment store

Those in the know will likely agree when I say that the above piece is very Kevin Tong-esque. For those not in the know, that statement's intended as a big compliment; indeed, this is unquestionably my favorite thing Erwin's released since landing on my radar.  Tip o' the hat, good sir.  Here's what Erwin has to say about the creation of the piece:

When first approached by Odd City to work on a poster for Pacific Rim, I immediately dove into watching all the trailers available to get a sense of what I found personally exciting about the film. The thing that struck me was how the Jaegers seemed truly massive, towering, and powerful. Each robot was designed with very strong silhouettes and such high levels of detail that I knew they would work well as a focal point with my illustration style. After some talk with Odd City's CEO, Roman, we decided to go with the 12" x 36" format and custom lettering to hopefully put a unique spin on what is already a great property.

Like it says above, Erwin's Pacific Rim poster will go onsale at a random time via the Odd City Entertainment store, and - like everything else in Poster World - once it's gone, it's gone. Keep your eyes trained on the Odd City Twitter feed to find out when the piece has gone live (you can also keep tabs via my Limited Paper feed, as I'll be reTweeting the announcement like a total stalker).

Moving right along, we've got another piece to share (and I do mean that literally), this one from NYC's Bottleneck Gallery. This Friday, Bottleneck's kicking off its latest themed showcase (a collection of original and screenprinted pieces they're calling Where Is My Mind?), and while everything I've seen from the show thus far is really cool, the piece below is straight-up perfect. Check it out:

• Size: 8x24"
• Edition Size: Numbered edition of 20 (!!!)
• Price: $30
• Available: In-person at Friday's opening, online via Bottleneck Gallery on Saturday

I realize that many of you may not have seen Upstream Color just yet (it apparently snuck onto Blu-ray while I wasn't paying attention, sneaky bastard), but I can assure you that this piece perfectly captures Carruth's film.  Here's what Hughes told me when I asked him about the creation of the piece:

Upstream Color was a movie I admired more than I enjoyed the first time I saw it, but also one that really opened up to me upon second (and third) viewing. I thoroughly enjoy the film now as well as the haunting soundtrack, which I listened to on repeat for about a week straight. The movie seemed to me to be an experience more felt then understood... about implied connections and consequences, and a lot of the meaning was left to be mined the more you engaged with it.

 

I wanted to make a print that touched on some of those things that I had experienced while watching; the distance between us and the characters, the implied connections, the quiet beauty of the film but also an unease. The title of the piece - like the imagery I used - was a way for me to make a connection to several parts of the film; it is a quote from Walden and a song from the soundtrack that begins to play in the scene depicted in the poster.

"An experience more felt than understood". Huh. Well, that's about as good a description as you're likely to find regarding Carruth's film. In my attempts to describe Upstream Color, I've come across like an embarrassing-to-talk-to, scarf-adorned film student, blurting out phrases like "Malick-esque," "a tone poem," "willfully obtuse," and "often achingly beautiful," as though that's how anyone actually talks. Going forward, I think I'll be blatantly stealing Hughes' version (see also: this article's intro), primarily in an effort to avoid being justifiably punched. Thanks, Steve!

Oh, and speaking of thanking Steve Hughes:  we also need to thank him for offering up one of his Upstream Color prints for our little giveaway today (reminder: only 20 of these were printed, which makes this a genuinely rare piece).

How to win? Shoot me an email at LimitedPaper-at-Gmail-dot-com with a subject line reading "WORMS TOOK OVER MY BRAIN AND MADE ME WRITE THIS," and include the following info inside: your name, address, and - just for funsies - your best guess as to what Shane Carruth's favorite breakfast food is. I'll select a winner over the weekend, announce their first name/last initial via the Limited Paper Twitter feed, and then Steve will see to it that one faithful BAD reader receives one of these amazing prints.

Much like Highlander, however, there can be only one, so the nineteen other people who snag one of these will need to do so either by attending Bottleneck's Where Is My Mind? showcase when it opens Friday or by snatching up whatever copies remain when online sales start (typically that's the following afternoon, on Saturday, via the Bottleneck Gallery online store), but stay tuned to the Bottleneck Twitter feed for up-to-the-minute info regarding the drop.