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Film

The Most Deranged Horror VHS Cover Art

By Alison Nastasi on

Let’s have a moment of silence for the granddaddy of commercial video stores: Blockbuster first opened its doors in 1985 today. Whether you rented films at your local mom and pop shop, or ventured to the chain that has been steadily fading into obscurity, movie memories were made in the aisles of those stores thanks to the visual impact of DVD and VHS cover art. VHS has been making a comeback, with multiple documentaries and limited-edition videotapes being produced in recent years, and the format reminds us of the heyday of horror cinema. With Halloween around the corner and outrageous VHS box art on the brain, we hunted for some of horror’s most deranged cover images — the gory, creepy, and bizarre artwork that beckoned to audiences from the shelves of video rental stores everywhere. Travel back to the days of VHS, below, but be warned that some images may be upsetting to horror newbies. … Read More

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Pop Culture

10 Funny and Frightening Vintage Sex Ed Films

By Alison Nastasi on

Earlier this week, website Open Culture unearthed a video gem from Disney. The Mouse House created several educational shorts during their heyday, including animations about sex education and family planning (oddly, starring Donald Duck). We feature one of them past the break, along with other vintage clips that offer absurd and inappropriate advice about our bodies, our sex lives, and our health. … Read More

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Books

20 Vintage Diet and Beauty Book Covers

By Alison Nastasi on

Earlier this week, we read what health experts are saying about the summer’s best-selling diet books. There’s the usual assortment of good, bad, and confusing advice in the titles reviewed, and really, not much has changed. We traveled back in time to amuse ourselves with the strange, charming, and hilarious diet/beauty books of the past. Here are 20 book covers advertising some crazy ways to beautify and boost your health. … Read More

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Art

Naughty Paintings from a Soviet Erotic Alphabet Book

By Alison Nastasi on

Famed Soviet sculptor Sergey Merkurov, best known for his towering monuments honoring leaders like Stalin and the death masks he created (the faces of Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky included), dabbled in the erotic arts. The former director of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts made an A to Z picture book of people having sex in impossible positions. It contains multiple references to Greek and Roman mythology, hence the horny satyr that appears throughout. We’re still unsure about the inspiration behind the severed male appendages, some of which have wings. See more of Merkurov’s erotic alphabet, which we spotted on Animal, in our gallery. … Read More

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Design

Minimalist Posters of Cassette Tape Labels

By Alison Nastasi on

Neil Stevens’ minimalist poster series Don’t Forget the Cassette, which we spotted on Design Taxi, started out as a personal project to fill the wall space of his loft studio. The artist started to realize that the typography, colors, and simple shapes of cassette tape label designs were actually quite nice to look at. Stevens’ bold posters feature printed text from the vintage medium, such as “low noise,” “normal base,” and “standard quality.” It’s also nice to see a few designs from other countries in Stevens’ work. Click through our gallery for more minimalist cassette posters.

… Read More

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Photography

Otherworldly Snapshots Captured on Expired Film

By Alison Nastasi on

Advances in technology strive to make our devices lighter, faster, and more powerful, but it seems that just as many companies hark back to the days of vinyl, cassettes, and other vintage mediums. We want speed, but can’t let go of the styles from the past. Polaroid photos are a physical medium — our memories in the palm of our hand, captured on tiny paper and plastic sheets. Before we start sounding like a Mad Men advertisement, take a look at the work of German photographer Bastian Kalous — an artist we discovered on Photojojo. He experiments with expired film and various instant photo mediums to create hazy landscapes, blurred portraits, and otherworldly snapshots. We think they’re beautiful. … Read More

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Art

Hyperrealistic Paintings of Vintage Summertime Kitsch

By Alison Nastasi on

We can practically feel the plastic lawn chairs sticking to the backs of our thighs while looking at the hyperrealistic paintings of Leah Giberson, an artist we discovered on Booooooom. Her fascination with suburban kitsch — Airstream trailers, boats, and other shiny middle-class trophies — may have developed since she was “raised by artists deep in the woods of New Hampshire.” Giberson’s attention to the reflections in the leisure behemoths and surrounding environment offers a quiet and curious narrative. Take a closer look in our gallery. … Read More

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Pop Culture

Delightful and Hilarious Vintage Library Videos

By Alison Nastasi on

We haven’t stopped giggling over the hilarious 1987 workout video for librarians that we told you about earlier this week. Seeing Betty Glover and her team of aerobicizing bookworms do the “horizontal drawer pull” and “Coke machine kick” to Van Halen and Paul Lekakis’ “Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room)” inspired us to seek out other vintage library clips. Find out what happens when pop culture and books join forces for literary raps, a Stevie Nicks reading, Captain Kirk confessions, and more. … Read More

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Design

Vintage Photographs of Swanky Nightclub Interiors from the Rat Pack Era

By Claire Cottrell on

Gangster Squad, a star-studded noir crime drama set in 1940s Los Angeles, opens in theaters today. The film is based on the true story of an undercover “Magnificent Seven“-style crew assembled by the LAPD to hunt down and kill celebrity mob king Mickey Cohen, who’s played by Sean Penn. A confidant of Bugsy Siegel, and a friend to everyone from Frank Sinatra to Richard Nixon, Cohen was a fixture on a then swanky Sunset Strip scene, home to now infamous nightclubs like Slapsy Maxie’s and Ciro’s that drew the likes of Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, and Marilyn Monroe. From the world-famous Coconut Grove night club in the since demolished Ambassador Hotel to Tony Duquette’s Latin American-themed interiors for The Mocambo featuring glass cages holding live cockatoos, pigeons, and parrots, click through to check out the haunts of the rich and the infamous in a time when gangsters ran our cities. … Read More

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Art

Vintage Album Cover Art Inspired by ‘Homeland’

By Alison Nastasi on

If the Claire Danes cry face meme has worn out its welcome for you, check out these fantastic “vintage” record covers that give a nod to the gripping drama, Homeland. California-based designer Ty Mattson created the LP artworks that replicate the jazzy tone of the series soundtrack. Mattson even went to the trouble of creating all the creases and seam splits that every well-worn album cover contains. We love it. See more in our gallery, and thanks to Inspiration Grid for the tip. … Read More

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