The very groovy Richard Harland Smith over at Turner Movie Classics much admired Movie Morlocks Blog invited me to participate in a sort of “meme” with the following rules attached to it:
) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing…
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.
I tend to dislike these sorts of things but the meme was easy enough and didn’t require much thinking on my part so I took Richard up and his offer and in the end I was happy to be invited to participate.
At the time that I got Richard’s email the nearest book laying next to me was an autographed hardback copy of Annie Nightingale’s biography Wicked Speed that I bought at a Tower Records store when I was in London in 2000. Annie Nightingale was Britain’s first female DJ and she’s a fascinating woman who has mixed and mingled with many of Britain’s best bands. After writing my recent post about The Mod Musicals of Lance Comfort I’ve had the early days of British pop music and radio on my mind so I had recently been revisiting Nightingale’s book. From the book description:
“Britain’s first female DJ. A suburban schoolgirl whisked into the world of music, whose passion led her to the world of the Beatles, the Yarbirds, the Rolling Stones and the Who. As a young journalist she put herself on the line for young bands - and she’s still at it with Shaun Ryder, Primal Scream and Daft Punk, just to name a few.
Annie Nightingale became one of the hardcore “birds” of London’s growing Sixties pop-art scene. She got married, was a Cosmopolitan columnist, and had kids. She also had parties. But more than anything, she wanted to become a DJ on Radio 1 - hard in the days when the BBC was a male-dominated environment. Yet she won out in the end - and for years was alone in her field.”
Three sentences from page 123 of Wicked Speed:
“I’d be interviewing the Minister of Nuclear Procurement, say, and I’d address him by his first name, which would throw him completely, and ask him if he believed in God. Both Margret Thatcher’s children appeared on the show as guests; Carol was preferable of the two. French and Saunders, who were just starting out at the time, were also guests on Mailbag, in their newest guise as Duranies.”
When I bought Wicked Speed eight years ago I had no idea who Annie Nightingale was but I needed a quick read for the plane trip home and the book description sounded fascinating. I’ve been a fan of sixties era British rock and pop since I was just a kid (the first concert I ever attended was a Rolling Stones’ show when I was only 13 years old). I also briefly worked as a DJ myself in the late ’80s spinning dance music and popular club hits at a local nightspot so I was curious to learn more about “Britain’s first female DJ.”
Annie Nightingale is not a great storyteller and if you’re bothered by run-on sentences you should probably avoid it. The book also lacks an index, which is especially annoying if you’re someone like me who wants easy access to her entertaining stories about interviewing a bored Sean Connery after he had just completed the first James Bond film or driving Scott Walker’s Mini Cooper. But if you enjoy all the name dropping Nightingale does and are interested in what life was like for the first female DJ in Britain, Annie Nightingale’s Wicked Speed is an entertaining and quick read.
I hate the idea of “tagging” anyone but if the following people would like to participate please feel free to!
Elke Sommer and her bunny want to wish everyone
a happy holiday weekend!
Real world responsibilities, job hunting and a bad cold have been interfering with my writing and blog updates lately. I’m also going on a brief vacation tomorrow and I won’t return until Tuesday next week, but by then I should be feeling a lot better and you can expect me to start regularly updating Cinebeats again.
During my downtime I have been catching up on some reading. I got some interesting books for Christmas last year including Geoffrey Nowell-Smith’s Making Waves: New Cinemas of the 1960s and Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art, which have been keeping me busy. Both books make for some fast, fun and fascinating reading.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about how I write about film and the way I approach viewing and analyzing the movies I watch after the film critic Adrian Martin was kind enough to consider my blog in a brief piece he wrote for de Filmkrant which you can read here:
I’ve admired Adrian Martin for awhile and I find his writing and interviews very inspiring so I was extremely surprised and deeply flattered when Girish kindly pointed out Adrian’s piece in his own blog, which led to an interesting conversation there. I tend to get a little intimidated by all the wonderful and extremely thoughtful conversations that take place at Girish’s blog and I get nervous about jumping into the fray, but Girish has always made me feel very welcome there even when the other commentators occasionally seem to be twisting themselves up in small knots trying to talk around me and over me
I must also say that I’m really happy to be considered an ‘enthusiast’ by Adrian since it was really my love, appreciation and interest in unusual films that have often been maligned in the past or overlooked such as Boom! and Blood and Roses, which really motivated me to start writing about cinema and I find the original Cahiers du cinéma writers extremely inspirational.
Before I disappear for a few days, I thought I’d share a few links to various things of possible interest…
My buddy Kate has started her own film blog called Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire. If you enjoy horror films and unusual subgenres like nunsploitation, please stop by Kate’s blog and tell her I sent ya!
- Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire
Ferdy on Films is putting together a blogathon May 4th - 10th called Invitation to the Dance that will focus on various forms of dance found in films. I have a serious weakness for musicals that makes me drop everything I’m doing and watch them if I ever come across one playing on TV so naturally I plan on excepting Marilyn’s invitation and I hope other film bloggers will as well!
- Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon
And last but not least, Tim Lucas recently offered up a sneak peek at the upcoming Criterion - Eclipse 3 Disc DVD Box Set of The Delirious Fictions of William Klein, which has me super excited since it promises to be one of this years most interesting DVD releases. I’ve only seen Klein’s wonderfully surreal and fantastic film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?, 1966) myself, but the print I saw many years ago was from a horrible multi-generation VHS tape that was barely watchable so I’m really looking forward to this release. Now I’ll finally be able to enjoy Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? in all its glorious widescreen splendor, along with many of Klein’s other films that I haven’t had the opportunity to see yet.
- The Delirious Fictions of William Klein
You can experience a little bit of William’s Klein’s magic in the following clip from his film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966)
Apologies to anyone awaiting my DVD Pick of the Week, but I’m afraid I’ve been too busy compiling my list of Favorite DVDs of 2007 to keep up with current releases. Next week I’ll try to get back on track, but in the meantime I wanted to share some of my thoughts on last year’s DVD releases, which I’m still enjoying.
Even with some of my favorite DVD companies such as NoShame Films missing in action in 2007 and Blue Underground seemingly stuck in redistributing Anchor Bay’s old catalog, the year still turned out to be a terrific one for fans of ’60s and ’70s cinema. Lots of great movies from my favorite film eras found their way onto DVD for the first time. Many other previously released films also got deluxe DVD treatments such as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), Richard Lester’s Help! (1965) and Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974). As usual, Criterion offered buyers a wide array of remarkable movies from many different countries and many other smaller companies and boutique labels such as Fantoma, Media Blasters, Kino, Severin, Synapse Films and Dark Sky Films left an impressive mark on the DVD market.
The Stanley Kubrick - Warner Home Video Directors Series DVD Collection
was one of the years many highlights.
I was especially happy to see British and Japanese cinema so well represented on DVD last year. You’ll find a lot of rare and previously hard to see films from both of those countries on my list of Favorite DVDs from 2007. Many of the Japanese films on my list were never theatrically released in the U.S. and have never been easily accessible in any form. I was frankly rather surprised and disappointed after looking over countless lists of “Best DVDs of 2007″ at the end of the year published in newspapers, magazines and online to find that so many critics continued to overlook and underestimate the quality of the great Japanese cinema being released on DVD lately. Even though western audiences now have access to lots of noteworthy films, Japanese cinema from the sixties and seventies continues to suffer from very little critical response. This is really a shame since some companies who release Japanese films on DVD have already announced that they will be cutting back on the number of films they release in 2008. Considering that my brief look at the pinky violence genre last year generated the most blog hits I received all year and was linked to, copied and quoted from numerous times, I suspect that things will change in the future. As I pointed out in that piece, many critics and potential viewers are just discovering that there is life in Japanese cinema outside of the work of Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi.
I was also thrilled to see lots of great spy films from the sixties find their way onto DVD thanks to a renewed interest in James Bond after the success of Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale (2006). Even though I only included Caprice (1967) on my list, I seriously considered adding Dark Sky’s wonderful Drive-in Movie Double Feature of Assassination in Rome (1965) and Espionage in Tangiers (1965) as well. I also really wanted to like Image Entertainment’s Kommissar X (1966) DVD Collection more, but the poor quality of the film transfers made some of the movies almost unwatchable and they weren’t helped by the horrible packaging and lack of extras. I really wish Image had made an effort to restore the Kommissar X films since they are terrific entertainment and worthy of a much better presentation. Because of the problems with this set it was probably my biggest DVD disappointment of last year, but I’m happy that I finally got to see these great movies. Besides the release of so many terrific spy films and satires, fans of the genre were also gifted with some great television shows made available on DVD for the first time including Jason King (1971-72), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-68) and more episodes of The Wild Wild West (1965-69). I expect this trend to continue well into 2008 and beyond since anticipation for the upcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008) is high.
There were a surprising number of DVD re-releases last year, which I often found rather frustrating since I personally don’t have the extra funds to buy multiple copies of the movies I enjoy, but I’m also glad that so many previous releases were improved upon. Unfortunately many of these noteworthy re-releases were left off my list because I haven’t seen them yet. Few American films managed to make my list and I was really disappointed by the lack of giallo films that were made available on DVD in 2007. My Favorite 2006 DVD list was dominated by great Italian thrillers and many American classics, but both are relatively absent from my 2007 list. Naturally I wasn’t able to see every film I was interested in seeing and I’ve found that my local DVD rental options are becoming narrower every month. After Borders, Blockbuster and Best Buy moved into town and the much missed Tower Records sadly went out of business, small local shops and rental options started disappearing as well. Even the large local retail outlets like Borders have stopped carrying many DVDs released by small boutique labels and new Criterion releases are not available for rent anywhere. This is a sad state of affairs considering that I live in the Bay Area right outside of a major metropolitan area like San Francisco. It’s frustrating to have so many great films now available and so few options to rent or purchase DVDs. I’m an occasional impulse buyer and sometimes I enjoy being able to jump in my Mini Coop, visit a local shop and pick up a DVD I suddenly have an urge to see, but that hasn’t happened in months.
Complaints aside, I do want to stress that 2007 was a truly great year for DVD releases. Many of my favorite films were released for the first time and I was introduced to some amazing movies that I had never seen before. Although we’re only six weeks into 2008, it’s already shaping up to be another fabulous year for DVD releases and I expect it will only get better!
The 3 Rules I followed when compiling my list of Top 30 Favorite DVD Releases of 2007: 1. All DVD were released in the U.S. in 2007 (NTSC Region 1) 2. All the DVDs feature films that were originally released in the ’60s or ’70s. 3. Selections are listed Alphabetically and without numerical preference.
Part II. of my Favorite DVD Releases of 2007 will be posted soon so stay tuned!
Normally I don’t discuss modern films here at Cinebeats, but after seeing Cloverfield on Monday night I’ve been thinking about the movie all week. I decided to follow up my viewing by reading some of the criticism the film has been receiving, which probably wasn’t the smartest idea since much of it left me cold. Thankfully I’m not alone in my excitement about the film since Tim Lucas seems to have enjoyed it as much as I did and I figured I’d weigh in myself.
As a lifelong horror fan and monster movie enthusiast I found myself reserved, but excited when the ad campaign for Cloverfield started. Compared to the boring and often redundant advertising that typically prepares you for a new film’s release (quotes from well paid critics or highlights from an otherwise lackluster production), Cloverfield used an abstruse marketing campaign designed to keep audiences in the dark about the film and its giant monster. At the same time it also borrowed from the golden age of horror movie marketing that was mastered by directors like William Castle back in the ’50s and early ’60s. I was thrilled by the mere fact that Cloverfield was an original film. At a time when remakes and sequels are the norm, and audiences have a library of classic films on DVD at their disposal, a good original horror or science fiction film should be celebrated and Cloverfield is well worth celebrating. Instead of appreciating what the film does get right, many critics seem to enjoy pointing out what they consider to be the film’s three main flaws, so I thought I’d address them in three easy to follow steps. (more…)
Happy New Year! The holidays are winding down and I’ve been enjoying catching up on my film watching and book reading lately. Apologies for neglecting to share any DVD Picks of the Week for the month of December (besides Latitude Zero), but I’ve been slowly compiling a list of my Favorite DVD Releases of 2007 which I plan to share soon. It will be a Top 30, much like the list I shared last year.
This weekend I spent some time catching up with various blogs I like to read and I want to mention a few things of possible interest:
- I’m in a Jess Franco State of Mind
I recently helped Robert Monell revamp his terrific blog I’m in a Jess Franco State of Mind. Robert is a great writer and he covers all kinds of different films with a special focus on European cult cinema. If you’re interested in the films of Jess Franco I highly recommend spending some time at Robert’s blog.
- Wildgrounds Now Available in English
One of my favorite blogs covering Japanese cinema is Michael’s Wildgrounds, which I first mentioned here way back in September. Wildgrounds is a French blog, but it now has a sister site in English so English speaking readers can easily enjoy all of Michael’s posts now.
- The Mod Squad at Moon in the Gutter
At Moon in the Gutter Jeremy has been enjoying the recent release of The Mod Squad on DVD and reviewing each episode. This terrific television series is easily one of the best DVD releases of December so if you’re curious about the show I highly recommend checking out Jeremy’s thoughtful review of the series. He recently covered one of my favorite episodes of the show called When Smitty Comes Marching Home.
- Oscar Chatter
The 80th annual Academy Awards are scheduled to happen in February with lots of interesting filmmakers like David Cronenberg, the Coen Brothers and Todd Haynes possibly in competition this year it could make for a worthwhile show. Over at Cinema Styles Jonathan has been warming up for the event all year by covering various aspects of Oscar history and if you’re a history buff like myself, you might find his posts on the topic as interesting as I do.
- Pro. Bertram Potts Hella Homework for the Holidays
Over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule Dennis has put together a Christmas Break Quiz for his blog readers to take part in. I always enjoy participating in these things and reading everyone’s responses and this Quiz might be his toughest one yet. If you’re so inclined please stop by his blog and participate. You can find my own answers there as well as below: (more…)
I’m afraid that I’ve been really busy this month so I haven’t had a lot of free time to write, but I’ve got a two week vacation planned so you should be seeing a lot more from me soon.
Holiday plans and various other commitments have been interfering with my writing and movie watching lately. Hopefully I’ll have some new things posted later this week, but in the meantime I wanted to mention that today is a Bloggers Unite event that I’m taking part in.
So what is Bloggers Unite? From the website: “It’s an initiative designed to harness the power of the blogosphere to make the world a better place. It tries to challenge bloggers to blog about a particular social cause on a single day so a single voice can be joined with thousands of others to help make some kind of positive difference in the world. Today’s theme is Acts of Kindness and it aims at putting a human face on bloggers responsible for so much good in the world. The goal is to expose their kindness and generosity as well as serve as an example to non-bloggers that volunteering for a charity, donating to a cause, or simply doing something kind for another person has a ripple effect around the world.”
Since the season of sharing is upon us, I wanted to mention that I plan on giving to a charity I try to give a little something to every year and that is Toys for Tots. I collect toys as an adult, but I know what it’s like to have to go without on Christmas, and I hope by giving to Toys for Tots every year that one less kid will be without a toy to play with on Christmas day.
Around this time of year, I also try and give to some other causes that I personally think are worthwhile. A few other organizations I try to support whenever I’m able include the independent news organization Democracy Now, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and my local PBS stations. I may only send them $5 or $10 every year, but I know my dollars are going toward good causes that are important to me. If there are any charities you like to give to during the holidays, please feel free to share them in the comments below!
I’ll give the last word on “Acts of Kindness” and peace on earth to my favorite Beatle, John Lennon:
Official “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” video from the Imagine Peace website
I hope everyone has a fabulous, funky and freaky Halloween this year! If you’re in the mood to step back in time and enjoy a little retro-Halloween fun, I recommend visiting some of the links I’ve posted below. Happy Horrordays!
Every month Brian who runs the terrific StinkyLulu blog hosts a Supporting Actress Smackdown covering Oscar nominated performances for a particular year, depending on whatever year his blog readers vote for. This month they voted to have him cover the nominees for 1990 and Brian was kind enough to ask me to participate in this month’s Supporting Actress Smackdown.
I don’t normally like chatting about post-1979 cinema here at Cinebeats for numerous reasons, but I thought participating in the Supporting Actress Smackdown would be a lot of fun and I’ve never been opposed to breaking my own rules. In preparation for the Smackdown I tried re-watching all the Oscar nominated films, but at times it was tough going and in all honesty I couldn’t finish a couple of them even though I had seen them all before. There were some real stinkers in the bunch in my not so humble opinion and the ratio of bad hairstyles worn by actresses in 1990 is just damn astonishing and frankly distracting. There were numerous times while I was watching the Oscar nominated films and became so distracted by the terrible haircuts on the actresses that I actually lost track of what was happening in the films.
But enough about really bad haircuts…
Before you make your way over to StinkyLulu and read my comments on the nominated performances I have to warn my gentle readers that I didn’t hold back on expressing my dislike for many of the Oscar nominated performances in 1990. In my mind there was one clear winner in the bunch and she didn’t win. So simply put, read my comments with caution and if you’re easily offended by negative film criticism you might want to cover your eyes and notclick this link.
Critics and film scholars have spent countless hours analyzing Luis Buñuel’s film Belle de Jour (1967) and the mysterious Asian box that appears in one of the movies most memorable and erotic scenes. As someone who has read a lot of Marquis de Sade’s work, I’ve personally never seen the box as being very mysterious or profound, so I thought I would share my own thoughts about the buzzing box for the Luis Buñuel Blog-a-thon currently being hosted by Flickhead.
Many reviews of Belle de Jour seem written by rather chaste critics who often insist on weighing Buñuel’s film down with its clear social implications and debatable morality, instead of fully embracing it for the erotic masterpiece that it is. Like most of the surrealists, Luis Buñuel was clearly inspired and fascinated with the work of authors like Marquis de Sade, Octave Mirbeau and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and traces of Buñuel’s obsession with their work can be found throughout Belle de Jour. From its emotionally distant characters, to its masochistic ideas and brothel setting, the film could be read as a checklist of erotic themes found in early French literature.
When I saw Belle de Jour for the first time and watched the scene with the infamous buzzing box, I was immediately reminded of the sounds of insects and a brief passage in Marquis de Sade’s erotic classic Philosophy in the Boudoir, where he referenced a tale told by the 15th century Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. This titillating tale involves native women in Florida who supposedly made their men place “small poisonous insects in their male members until they swelled up tremendously and caused an insatiable libido.” It also explains that these insects could cause a man “dreadful pain” and “ulcers, ” but the negative implications aren’t as interesting as the erotic ones. With this odd tale lingering somewhere in the back of my mind, my first assumption about the buzzing box was that it contained insects that the box’s owner planned to use on himself as a sort of aphrodisiac to pleasure Catherine Deneuve’s character Séverine with.
This somewhat unusual assumption on my part is also fueled by Luis Buñuel’s own personal fascination with insects which appeared in many of his films, but at first glance could seem notably absent from Belle de Jour. Buñuel’s fascination with insects was first shown in An Andalusian Dog (Un chien andalou, 1929), but you can also find insects in his other films such as the scorpions in The Golden Age (L’ Âge d’or, 1930) and the cockroaches in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, 1972). According to Buñuel scholar Julie Jones who also provides the commentary for the Belle de Jour DVD and seems to agree with me about the insect quality of the sounds emanating from the mysterious box, Luis Buñuel associated insects with “the life of the instincts” and even wanted to make a film about insects.
If my casual assumptions are true and Buñuel is referencing the Amerigo Vespucci/Marquis De Sade tale in Belle de Jour, it could also easily explain Séverine’s sudden joy in participating in a sexual act with that particular client at the brothel. Séverine is clearly a submissive woman who the Madame Anais has insisted needs a “strong hand.” Her desires seem unquenchable and a long session of intense lovemaking with a sort of “super man” would undoubtedly excite and please her. The untranslated conversation between Séverine and the man seems to indicate to me that he will be the one using whatever is in the box during their sexual encounter, which is why he clearly tells her “Don’t be afraid.” It’s also important to notice how the man guards the box and holds it closely to his body in the film. It’s his secret and his possession, which could indicate that whatever it contains directly affects him even more than those around him.
Buñuel never fully explained the contents of the box within the film himself and seemed to enjoy the confusion it caused among critics and audiences, but I think the influence of de Sade’s writing on Belle de Jour and Buñuel in general might betray him here. As I mentioned above, the work of Marquis de Sade greatly inspired the Surrealist movement and Belle de Jour is ripe with references to Marquis de Sade’s novels, including Philosophy in the Boudoir where the tale of strange insects and their effects on the male anatomy are alluded to. It is a book that Buñuel read and must have known well, and I’m sure his own personal interest in insects would have made the Amerigo Vespucci/Marquis de Sade tale incredibly fascinating and appealing to him. Especially because it so deeply and directly links insects to “the life of the instincts” which Buñuel clearly obsessed over.
Renowned Surrealist Margritte’s artistic interpretations
of Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy in the Boudoir
Since I’ve never read Joseph Kessel’s original novel Belle de Jour which Buñuel based his film on, I can’t elaborate on my assumptions as much as I would like to, but the inspirations for Kessel’s book seem very clear. It’s obvious that Kessel based his fictitious female character of Séverine on the male character of Severin found in Sacher-Masoch’s book Venus in Furs and he probably found inspiration in the erotic writings of Anais Nin, who I assume inspired the name of the brothel in Belle de Jour and its Madame. With all of these erotic literary references littered throughout Belle de Jour, I think it’s natural to assume that Buñuel’s mysterious buzzing box could possibly be linked to the insects briefly referenced in Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy of the Boudoir.
So the next time you find yourself wondering what’s in the box, I can only suggest considering insects and their erotic implications, as well as their symbolic importance in Buñuel’s own work.
I only have access to what we call “Standard Basic Cable” TV in the San Francisco Bay Area so I don’t watch a lot of television because there isn’t a lot to watch. The only semi-24-movie channel I get is AMC and this week they’re offering viewers a spectacular Seven Nights of Hitchcock. Since Hitch is one of my favorite directors I couldn’t be happier. I’ve decided to try and spend my evenings this week getting re-acquainted with a lot of his films since many of my favorites are included in the great line-up AMC has scheduled.
Last night I watched The Birds and Rope again. I’ve seen both films countless times but I never get tired of them. The suspense Hitchcock conjures up in Rope is just unbearable at times and the script has an incredible rhythm that I always find really mesmerizing. It’s the perfect example of “less can be more” when it comes to great filmmaking. John Dall, Farley Granger and James Stewart are all really terrific and together they seem to make up some kind of perfect unholy trinity that always astonishes me. Rope also has one of my all-time favorite Hitchcock film endings. I always get chills when Stewart turns his back to the camera and red lights flicker and fill up the small apartment as sirens are heard in the distance.
As for The Birds, I love the ambiguous story and the way it plays out. Tippi Hedren is terrific in it and I’ve always thought she was an underrated actress. Like most of Hitchcock’s films, Rope and The Birds are both loaded with sexual innuendos and an uneasy eroticism that really appeals to me.
Publicity shots from The Birds (1963) and Psycho (1960)
Hopefully I’ll find the time to write-up a few more thoughts on some of his films in the future, but in the meantime here’s a list of my personal Top 15 Favorite Hitchcock Films. I was only going to post a Top 5, but Hitch deserved better than a measly Top 5 so I’m sharing my Top 15 Hitchcock Films instead (the numerical order isn’t significant).
1. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
2. Rope (1948)
3. Psycho (1960)
4. Spellbound (1945)
5. The Birds (1963)
6. Vertigo (1958)
7. Rebecca (1940)
8. Marnie (1964)
9. North by Northwest (1959)
10. Strangers on a Train (1951)
11. Dial M for Murder (1954)
12. Frenzy (1972)
13. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
14. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
15. The Trouble with Harry (1955)
Is anyone else enjoying AMC’s Seven Nights of Hitchcock as much as I am? Feel free to share your own list of Top 5 or Top 15 Favorite Hitchcock films below if you’re so inclined.
Two fantastic bloggers - Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule and Stacie Ponder at Final Girl - were kind enough to give my own blog Cinebeats something called the Thinking Blogger’s Award recently and I’m super grateful for that, but there are rules that go along with this award which I’m having a hard time following. Here they are:
Thinking Blogger’s Award Rules
1. If, and only if your blog is one that is tagged on my list below, you must write a post with links to five other blogs you like that consistently make you think (hence, the Thinking Blogger’s Award).
2. Link to this post so people will know whose good idea all this was. (see above)
3. Proudly display the “Thinking Blogger Award” logo with a link to the post you wrote.
The hard part was trying to come up with my own list of 5 great blogs that deserve the Thinking Blogger’s Award because there are lots of fantastic blogs that I read every week on my “Blogroll” that make me think in one way or another. With that being said, here’s a very small sampling of some great blogs that make me think, but please check out my Blogroll for more great reading!
1. Moon in the Gutter
Jeremy Richey and I seem to have a lot of similar interests so it’s no wonder that we’ve become blogging buddies over the past 6 months. It would be easy to say that I love his Moon in the Gutter blog because he writes about a lot of stuff that interests me, which he does, but he also has a great easy going personality and I’m often impressed by his knowledge of films and music. I like the smart and personal style of his blog and if you enjoy good thoughtful writing then Moon in the Gutter is well worth a look.
2. The Horror Blog
Horror is far and away my favorite film genre, but I don’t write about it enough. Thankfully I’ve got The Horror Blog’s wonderful Weekly Roundtable to participate in which reminds me to spend a little energy every week thinking about horror films and why I love them so much. The Horror Blog is put together by Steven Wintle who has a great sense of humor and it comes across in his writing. The Weekly Horror Roundtable is one of the things I look forward to constantly since it brings together the thoughts & opinions of lots of great bloggers who share their ideas on the same topic.
3. If Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats
If I’m having a bad day at work or the world just doesn’t seem right, I head over to this wonderful blog for some great eye-candy and it almost never fails to put a smile on my face and make me think. The blog is 99% visual, but the images shared are always poignant and interesting. It’s run by the very thoughtful Tom Sputen along with Stephen Cooke and Richard Gibson who all clearly have a great eye for thought provoking imagery.
4. Flickhead
The Flickhead blog is run by Ray Young and he was one of the first bloggers who welcomed me into the blogging world. Ray’s blog and website are chock-full of great writing about film and if you enjoy cinema they’re both stop worthy sites on the information super highway. Ray and I have exchanged films as well as pictures of our toy collections and I appreciate his opinionated style of writing even if we don’t always agree on everything, as well as his smart insights into the films he enjoys.
5. Esotika Erotica Psychotica
I’ve known Mike Kitchell for about 3 or 4 years now and I always enjoy reading his thoughts about films. We met online in various film communities and we share many similar interests, including a mutual love for giallo films. As the years have passed I’ve become increasingly impressed with his inquisitive mind and thoughtful examinations of the films he enjoys which he now shares in Esotika Erotica Psychotica. If you like interesting dark, erotic and esoteric cinema, Mike’s blog is a must read.
At the time that I got Richard’s email the nearest book laying next to me was an autographed hardback copy of Annie Nightingale’s biography Wicked Speed
I was also thrilled to see lots of great spy films from the sixties find their way onto DVD thanks to a renewed interest in James Bond after the success of Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale (2006). Even though I only included Caprice (1967) on my list, I seriously considered adding Dark Sky’s wonderful Drive-in Movie Double Feature of 
- The Mod Squad at Moon in the Gutter
Holiday plans and various other commitments have been interfering with my writing and movie watching lately. Hopefully I’ll have some new things posted later this week, but in the meantime I wanted to mention that today is a 
So the next time you find yourself wondering what’s in the box, I can only suggest considering insects and their erotic implications, as well as their symbolic importance in Buñuel’s own work.
by Marquis de Sade
by Iwan Bloch
by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
by Octave Mirbeau
by Anais Nin
by Anais Nin
by Anonymous
(1967)
(1929)
(1930)
(Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, 1972)
