 The future's so bleak he has to wear shades. 
Above, a poster for the game changing science fiction adventure The Terminator painted for the Czech (then Czechoslovakian) market by Milan Pecak. The fading effect at the bottom of the art is the way Pecak painted it, rather than the result of a bad scan or photo. This movie may look a bit clunky to modern viewers, but so will Avengers: Infinity War in twenty years. Along with stunners like Alien, Blade Runner, and others, The Terminator changed the idea of what cinematic science fiction could be. It premiered in the U.S. in 1984 and eventually arrived in Czechoslovakia as Terminátor today in 1990.
 Got a little porn in your past? Don’t worry—the internet will find it. 
This Japanese poster promoting a double bill of 1974’s Gosh! (aka Alice Goodbody) and 1975’s The Fireworks Woman features softcore/hardcore actress Sharon Kelly/Colleen Brennan front and center, but she appeared in only one of the films. The other starred Jennifer Jordan, aka Sarah Nicholson, who also appears on the poster, though in the background. Gosh! is a softcore comedy directed by Tom Scheuer featuring Kelly/Brennan as a waitress/wide-eyed ingénue trying to survive/succeed as an actress in Hollywood, while The Fireworks Woman is a fully hardcore tale about a man who joins the priesthood to escape an incestuous relationship with his sister. Spoiler alert—it doesn’t work. It was helmed by Wes Craven—yes, that Wes Craven—under the pseudonym Abe Snake. Porn, whether softcore or hardcore, just makes people want to hide in fake personas, doesn’t it? Scheuer was the only one who didn’t bother and he never worked in cinema again, so the incognitos had it right. But the beauty of the internet is that everyone gets outed in the end. Schwarzeneggar, Stallone, Cameron Diaz, everyone. Happy New Year.
 I heartily endorse this event or product. 
In this Japanese ad from the mid-eighties, Arnold Schwarzenegger shills for Go West brand coffee. We’ve been running across quite a few old Japanese ads lately, and you’d be surprised what sort of mundane products big stars were willing pitch in exchange for a wheelbarrow of yen. Of course, Arnold had already starred in unforgettably bad films like Hercules in New York and exposed his Schwarzenugget in that infamous what-the-hell-were-you-thinking nude photo, so selling canned coffee must have seemed like endorsing Fabergé eggs. But just like old nudes, old ads come back, and we’re happy to have found this one. We feel a theme emerging.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1938—Alicante Is Bombed
During the Spanish Civil War, a squadron of Italian bombers sent by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to support the insurgent Spanish Nationalists, bombs the town of Alicante, killing more than three-hundred people. Although less remembered internationally than the infamous Nazi bombing of Guernica the previous year, the death toll in Alicante is similar, if not higher. 1977—Star Wars Opens
George Lucas's sci-fi epic Star Wars premiers in the Unites States to rave reviews and packed movie houses. Produced on a budget of $11 million, the film goes on to earn $460 million in the U.S. and $337 million overseas, while spawning a franchise that would eventually earn billions and make Lucas a Hollywood icon. 1930—Amy Johnson Flies from England to Australia
English aviatrix Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly from England to Australia. She had departed from Croydon on May 5 and flown 11,000 miles to complete the feat. Her storied career ends in January 1941 when, while flying a secret mission for Britain, she either bails out into the Thames estuary and drowns, or is mistakenly shot down by British fighter planes. The facts of her death remain clouded today.
1934—Bonnie and Clyde Are Shot To Death
Outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who traveled the central United States during the Great Depression robbing banks, stores and gas stations, are ambushed and shot to death in Louisiana by a posse of six law officers. Officially, the autopsy report lists seventeen separate entrance wounds on Barrow and twenty-six on Parker, including several head shots on each. So numerous are the bullet holes that an undertaker claims to have difficulty embalming the bodies because they won't hold the embalming fluid.
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