Every year around this time, I start getting a series of emails from an old college bud who’s now in Tampa. Tom Gale, theatrical artisitic director non pareil, usually takes classic pieces of art, Photoshops in a Christmas tree, has maniacal fun with Goya or Picasso or Gainsborough, and makes me laugh.


This year, he’s changing things up.  Merry Christmas from Tom and from me.  I’ll be presenting his works as I receive them, and there should be twelve this year, one for each day of Christmas…

So this year will mark a serious departure from the last seven years of Famous Artists Holiday Greetings for a number of reasons.  In no particular order I have very little spare time this year for either imaging or background research.  I have, for reasons of my own, been browsing through books about famous and infamous movies.  This year I’ve spent a lot of time designing posters and fliers both big and small.  And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, my principal source book, The Annotated Mona Lisa, has just about fallen apart and I can’t yet afford a new copy.

So instead of witty, hip, and topical parodies of famous works of art twisted into idiosyncratic and edgy holiday greeting ecards, this year you will be receiving witty, hip, and topical parodies of famous movie posters twisted into idiosyncratic and edgy holiday greeting ecards.  Wow.  Big difference. 

Don’t expect any deeply considered reviews or comparisons with other films or riffs on why the film did or did not make it onto AFI’s top 100 films or Leonard Maltin’s 100 Must See Movies List or really any list at all.  Frankly, as Tommy Lee Jones said so well in The Fugitive, “I don’t care.”  I expect the cards will stand on their own (at least they will if you print them out on heavy card stock and put a crease down the center) and if they make you chuckle or think then great.  If they make you go see the movie in question or rent the DVD, even better.  I am copying these to all the appropriate studios with a self addressed stamped envelope (who else would I get to address my envelope?) so they can send me royalty checks against all increased sales and viewings of these films due to the influence of my greetings.  My business plan is modeled after the current plan for reducing the national debt and lifting the country out of its recession.  I also just told Eric that his allowance won’t go up for the next two years. 

Be that as it may, I hope that these e-greetings will spread a little of the joy, wonder, and bemusement of the season.  The heck with the Christmas Parade in NYC or black Friday in October, this marks the TRUE start of the holiday season.  The best is yet to come.  

Happy Holidays.

Tom

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