Posterized: Now Playing January 1981

And now, onward we move to 1981.

The 1981 Project begins with the posters for the films that premiered in theatres throughout the United States in the first month of the second year of the penultimate decade of the millennium (or Willenium, if you're nasty).

January has long been considered a bleak month for new releases, the Academy Award nominee hopefuls are still expanding, the holidays are over, and studios usually use the quiet period as a dumping ground time to release some of the dregs of their vault as financial write-offs. Though this has actually changed a bit in recent years, with high profile big releases with full marketing pushes such as Green Hornet and Cloverfield premiering in January.

Of course, as someone who appreciates the types of films teetering on the fringe of respectability, I find it fascinating to look at past year's black sheeps. Amongst 1981's offering are a film with a bitching poster that playfully subverts Jaws 2's infamous tagline, a Cronenberg film that may not be one of his best but features a scene that is probably he's best known amongst masses, and a guilty pleasure Nostradamus documentary that garnered some infamy after murky connections to the terrorist attacks of September 11th made it on the internet.