Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Stylish Blogger Award

I will regard this great honor not so much as an award for what I have achieved, but a standard to hold against what I have yet to accomplish.


In this case, I think Anne Baxter said it best. I was surprised and very flattered to wake up this morning and realized the always stylish Caroline from Garbo Laughs had chosen me as one of her seven honorees for the Stylish Blogger Award. I've been an admirer of Caroline's since my lurker days; she's got a snazzy name and layout, she participates in blogathons, she gives Fridays a touch of glamor, and she appreciates the talents of Patricia Neal and Conrad Veidt. If you aren't watching her blog, you should be.

According to the rules of the award, I must post seven stylish facts
about myself. I'm going to narrow it down to film-related facts since trying to be "stylish" makes me come up blank.

1. The first movie I ever walked out on was Disney's Aladdin. Or more accurately, I whimpered and clung to my parents until they took me out. The scene that so terrified me was that giant sand lion head swallowing up the thief right at the beginning. Mom was none too pleased since she had been looking forward to Robin Williams as the genie.

2. The best movie experience I ever had was not in a theater. I was in middle school and I had been hit with 24-hour flu on the day of our school's medieval feast. My parents were working and I was stuck at home on the couch, huddled up with blankets and tissue boxes. I popped in the first episode of the BBC's Our Mutual Friend, which was the only movie we had on rental. For that entire day, all I did was watch that mini-series, all 360 minutes of. And it was glorious. By the end, I was giggling and euphoric. I've since bought the DVD and loved it all over again but it's never had the same magic of that old flu-driven binge.

3. I wrote my college entrance essay on my love for Hitchcock films. Hitchcock was what drew me to classic film and he remains my first and deepest love. However, I do have an ongoing fantasy that I can find a classic film devotee, who just plain doesn't like Hitchcock movies so I can have some fun debates.

4. At the age of three or four, I saw the movie Airplane!, but all I remembered from it was a scene where the doctor examined a sick woman and an egg came out of her mouth. So for about ten years, I believed there was a creepy horror movie out there where people got sick on a plane and eggs came out of their mouths.

5. My parents had one cinematic archnemesis: Robert Mitchum. They just plain refused to watch him. To this day, watching Mitchum movies makes me feel like a kid stealing from the liquor cabinet.

6. My own cinematic archnemesis is Kevin Costner.

7. The first Shakespeare film I ever saw was Branagh's Much Ado about Nothing. As a kid, I memorized most of Beatrice and Benedick's dialogue and can quote most of it by heart to this day.


Now it comes to the other part of this award, tagging seven others. I thought long and hard about this one after reading Movie Viewing Girl's thoughts on the subject. I'm a newcomer myself (a whopping four posts already) so I consider my own award more a statement of approval and support rather than a mark of my own achievement. I'm still a hat-check girl. But in the spirit of giving love to other blogs, I'm tagging seven blogs I think are richly deserving of more attention and that I think show plenty of style. For anyone I've tagged who's already been honored, pardon me and take it as a compliment.

1. Christianne at Krell Laboratories. Because she writes so damn well.
2. Christian at Silver Screen Modiste. Because I know of nobody more stylish.
3. Gareth at Gareth's Movie Diary. Because he's got great range.
4. Adam at Hitchcock and Me. Because he set himself a worthy quest.
5. Mary at Laughing Willow Letters. Because she's just starting out too and she began with two Ophuls films.
6. Beth Ann at Spellbound. Because her posts on film noir had me wanting more. Much more.
7. Jonas at All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing!. Because he awes me with his knowledge and I hold out hope he'll return.

All About Eve screencap credited to Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans

4 comments:

  1. Rachel,
    Thank you for the award! How very kind of you. Usually I'm no good with awards but I accept this one because I have been away so long. I will celebrate it with an intriguing story about how a Swedish songwriter got so inspired by an american movie theme that he quite shamelessly borrowed most of it for his own movie. Post will be up within the end of the week.

    Jonas

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  2. Thank you so much Rachel for the Stylish Blogger nomination for my Silver Screen Modiste. It's always a pleasure to develop it and to see other great blogs too. I should be able to have seven stylish things to say - should I?

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  3. Thank you for the kind words, Rachel. :) As a blogging veteran (Garbo Laughs has been around for a whopping six months now!), I can tell you're going to be fantastic at it.

    I like your facts! I wanted to pass on the award because I like getting to know more about the people behind the blogs, and hearing what they think is important or interesting about themselves. I tried to make mine mostly movie-related, too, but then I ran out of ideas. ;)

    -Caroline

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  4. Okay. Now I'm blushing!

    I'll get something put up today.

    --Christianne

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