title: Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Busin

Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Busin

There’s not much to this one. It works well on the shelf, it maintains the humor of the title.

My beef is that the author’s name gets in the way of the impact the cover could have had. Reading “Bambi vs Godzilla” from half way across the room would have been great. As is, you have to work for it. It competes too much with itself.

— , 2007-02-21 02:48:00 -0500

“Bambi Meets Godzilla is the title of a 1969 Canadian cartoon created entirely by Marv Newland. In 1994 it was voted #38 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.”

Funny title for a book like this. I think the cover has one too many thnings going on. Can’t decide whether it’s the boxing poster motif or the film frames…

— , 2007-02-21 03:19:00 -0500

... it’s the rainbow background, in my opinion anyway. They could have done something really nice with this – an echo of those old title frames from films from the 1940s/50s, or maybe the text could be printed on a label on a film can…?

— , 2007-02-21 03:48:00 -0500

It’s supposed to look like one of the ‘meanest man’ contest posters.

It looks dead on

— , 2007-02-21 05:40:00 -0500

I searched “meanest man” contest, but only got a band called “meanest man contest.”

Would Pantheon want a book about the movie business to look like a band poster?

I agree about the author’s name being too big. I also agree this could’ve been much nicer, i.e. film can, etc.

— , 2007-02-21 05:47:00 -0500

The multicolored poster has been around since Victorian times and has advertised boxing matches and rock concerts and everything in between. Barth obviously got his inspiration from Mamet’s title. But perhaps the film frames were a bit too much.

— , 2007-02-21 08:17:00 -0500

Those don’t look like film frames to me. They look like marks where a strip of these would be cut into individual posters. And re. Ben’s original comment, this thing LEAPS off the shelf.

— Joseph , 2007-02-21 08:29:00 -0500

No doubt!

— , 2007-02-21 08:34:00 -0500

Yeah I saw it at the store and had to go look. But it would have been all that much better if I had been able to figure out the title without putting effort into it.

— Ben Pieratt , 2007-02-21 08:36:00 -0500

Please note that I realize that the size of the author’s name is surely due to pressure from the marketing department, what with Mamet being such a well-known name.

— Ben Pieratt , 2007-02-21 08:47:00 -0500

Actually, I have to concur with the band theme. This style of poster was used so heavily in the 60s and 70s rock scene, that it confused the hell out of me why one would use the design element for a book referencing film. But of course, this could just be my own experience.

— , 2007-02-21 13:24:00 -0500

Strikes me as a very quick rendering of a mixed bag of ideas. The boxing contest poster model seems to be the strongest element, but one that is made woolier by the repeating frames and multi-coloured background elements. A slight clash of ideas.

I would have liked to see the boxing poster format strengthened by running with more text in a bill of entertainment format down the cover incorporating different type and sizes; ‘A David Mamet Presentation’; ‘A Critique in Twelve Rounds’: that sort of thing, and seeing the whole of the type block justified and upper-case.

I’m sure the yellow bleeding out into the spectral range is the big visual ‘hit’ here, but it’s unsatisfactory when looking at a 3-inch tall JPEG.

— , 2007-02-21 16:08:00 -0500

I think it must be the rainbow gradient that kicks up my gag reflexes.

This book looks like it was self-published at Kinko’s in 1991.

I love the title though.

— C-Dog , 2007-02-22 05:16:00 -0500

This is fun. Remindes me of old mexican wrestling posters or Coridas. I like that because it is naive and works for the word choice of these two very opposite characters.

There seems to be an effort in this to make it look like a rotating film strip which is nice. Over all it jumps off the shelf and that works for me.

— , 2007-02-22 07:40:00 -0500

In thumbnail view, the rainbow effect looks more like a Rastafarian flag of some sort, which makes the title even more surreal.

— , 2007-02-24 17:24:00 -0500

It looks better in person (less neon).

— GH , 2007-02-26 05:47:00 -0500

Ehh, this leaves me pretty flat.

I get the concept. It just doesn’t seem to be a very good one.

Although I really don’t have anything to offer it myself. So maybe I should zip it.

m welch

— , 2007-03-03 07:05:00 -0500

a conflict of concepts here for my taste.
the boxing/wrestling poster idea KO’s the moving film reference. just doesn’t work for me. the title of the book is a lot to digest. the color and typography are grabby. something’s missing.

— , 2007-03-06 07:02:00 -0500

— , 2007-03-14 16:41:00 -0400

— trc , 2007-03-14 16:41:00 -0400

— trc , 2007-03-14 16:47:00 -0400

sucks

— ff , 2008-08-25 02:34:00 -0400

Who wins?

— , 2008-09-30 23:22:00 -0400

garlica

— garlica , 2010-01-20 08:06:19 -0500