24x36 (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Shown here at the 2016 Cleveland International Film Festival, director Kevin Burke's feature is now available for the small screens, so you don’t have to risk getting shot going downtown to see it. Not that the movie isn’t good – but not quite at intensive-care unit level. Which would be a pretty cool criteria for seeing a worthwhile movie, these days.

24X36 isn't the first documentary by far to dwell on the nerd-tastic topic of Hollywood movie-poster art – I recommend DREW: THE MAN BEHIND THE POSTER and THE MAN WHO DREW BUG-EYED MONSTERS - but it covers the subject nicely and comes up with a fresh 21st-century twist.

CinEvent in Columbus, June 2-5

Why go all the way down to Columbus for a movie convention and expo? Isn't this the CLEVELAND movie blog? Shouldn't Columbus get a movie-blog website of its own?

Well, let's face it. The Republican National Convention is coming to Cleveland next month to determine the nominee for president, and while City Hall is putting a brave face on things, let's just assume for sake of argument that Cleveland is about to be destroyed. Completely. Riots, disorder, protests, dogs and cats living together, all our worst nightmares. You've seen those photos of Stalingrad after the Soviets beat back the Germans? Cleveland will end up being kind of like that.

So it would behoove local residents to get used to going to other cities for their movie conventions, is all we're saying, in case Cleveland is just a pile of smoldering ruins.

There's a second reason, of course. Going downstate to the 50th annual CinEvent Classic Film Convention is simply worth it.

Oriented to the greats and the unsung curios of Hollywood's golden age (sorry, THE FORCE AWAKENS doesn't count), CinEvent is the state's oldest and best established movie-nostalgia expo, and unlike other "cons" it's less focused on celebrity guests (although a few VIP authors and actors do show up) than on memorabilia and relics of a cherished bygone era in film.