Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Elitist Bastards Go To The Movies



In my spare time, I do the artwork for a film podcast entitled Elitist Bastards Go to the Movies.
It's hosted by Ken Hanke and Justin Souther, the film critics for Asheville, NC's Mountain Xpress newspaper.

I've been reading Hanke since I was thirteen years old. He is, hands down, my favourite film critic. (Sorry, Dr. Kermode). He's had a discernible influence on my writing style and he's worth reading for the prose alone, separate from his cinematic insight. He's always happy to engage with his readers on the Xpress site's comment sections and I've built up a great relationship with him online over the years. He liked BSATCOP.

Justin Souther is Robin to his Batman. Joining the paper a few short years ago, Justin is often dealt an underhanded blow by his boss, who palms off the latest talking animal monstrosity onto him. Mr. Souther was once threatened with having to review Marmaduke, but he threatened to quit rather than throw himself on this particular grenade. Justin's prose style is of a very similar strain to Ken's, to the extent that readers who can't read by-lines often address abusive comments to Ken by mistake.

Exactly one year ago, the two started up a podcast together, under the generosity of the paper (who provides file hosting) and the Carolina Cinema on Hendersonville Road (where they record the episodes). Production is handled by 'Miami' Steve Shanafelt, who has been dubbed the show's Coherer for his editing ability.

From the second episode onwards, I have been providing the artwork - at first variations on Ken's oft-spoken theory that 'nothing can't be improved by a monkey stampede', which resulted in art like this:

After I while, I ran out of simian-based ideas, so I switched over to a more cinematic theme, parodying posters of the films under discussion. These are some of my favourites:

If you're intrigued by the imagery, take a stroll on over to the Elitist Bastards fan page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ElitistBastards

The podcast is also available through iTunes once a week, but I recommend heading over to the Mountain X site and joining in the discussion.



1 comment:

  1. The 1 year anniversary show can be heard here:
    http://www.mountainx.com/ae/2011/elitist_bastards_bastardversary

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