Taste of Cinema is rapidly becoming one of my favorite blogs, and David, who runs the place, dropped my name for the 7 x 7 Link Award. Like any good web-based award, there are rules to follow, so here they are:
RULE 1: Tell everyone something that no one else knows about you.
RULE 2: Link to one of the posts that I personally think best fits the following categories: Most Beautiful Piece, Most Helpful Piece, Most Popular Piece, Most Controversial Piece, Most Surprisingly Successful Piece, Most Underrated Piece, and Most Pride-Worthy Piece.
RULE 3: Pass this award on to seven other bloggers.
So...
Part 1: Something no one else knows about me: There was a time in my life when I seriously (really!) considered going into full-time linguistic research. I took a class in historical linguistics, and my instructor, a guy named Cecil Brown, allowed us each the opportunity to explore one language family. I got one of the last choices in the class, and I selected Austro-Micronesian languages. By the time I finished my research, he told me that, based on what I'd done, I was one of the top 50 living experts on that particular language family. But then he retired, and his replacement wasn't nearly so supportive, so I moved on into theoretical linguistics.
Part 2: This will not be easy, as I have more than 500 posts to sift through. I'll do my best.
Most Beautiful Piece: This is probably the most difficult for me to pick. I'm not a particularly beautiful writer. If I have to pick one, I'll pick the reviews I wrote on my birthday in 2010 for three of my favorite films ever. I don't do any of them justice, but I can't think of another place where my love of film in general is more evident.
Most Helpful Piece: I don't know really how helpful these are, seeing that my blog isn't used in the creation of the various editions of The List, but every year, I suggest 10 films that should be included. Here's the latest of those.
Most Popular Piece: I have no idea why, but my review of Candyman has gotten more hits than any other. Go figure.
Most Controversial Piece: I'd have thought this would be Hugo since I'm evidently the only person in the world who didn't join in the Scorsese bukkake on this one, but it turns out that I caught more hell for my review of Chicago than any two other posts combined.
Most Surprisingly Successful Piece: Just as I can't explain the popularity of my Candyman review, I have no idea why the fifth most popular entry point to my site is a review of two old films about mental illness. However, it seems that there are a few fans out there of Shock Corridor and The Snake Pit.
Most Underrated Piece: When I write a review of an obscure film, it doesn't surprise me when I don't get a lot of comments. When I write a review of the one Bollywood movie that everyone's heard of and get no comments, I'm a little hurt. And yet, to date, no one has anything to say about what I said about Monsoon Wedding.
Most Pride-Worthy Piece: As a critic, I stand on the shoulders of giants. A lot of what I have to say about a film is informed by critics who have come before me. However, I do have an insight every now and then. As far as I know, I'm the first person to connect Hitchcock's The Birds to the start of the zombie movie phenomenon. It's there--really--and it's an observation that's entirely from my own brain, even if someone else said it first.
Part 3: So, who should do this next?
Squish Lessard at The Film Vituperatum
Nick Jobe at Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob
Jason Soto at Invasion of the B Movies
Nolahn at The Bargain Bin Review
Klaus Ming at Movie Reviews in About 100 Words or Less
Dan Heaton at Public Transportation Snob
Kevin at BigHominid's Hairy Chasms
Haven't seen Moonsoon Wedding, sorry. I can totally see a Zombie connection with the Birds.
ReplyDeleteI didn't find your site until late in 2011, so I hadn't seen most of these posts. I've read them now, and commented on some. Usually when I start following a blog I go back through the older posts, but you've posted so much, and on films that I've quite often seen and have thoughts on, that I just have not yet found the opportunity to read your older reviews.
ReplyDeleteNice recap,man.I know I've got a lot to discover,I will start with the ones you mentioned above.
ReplyDeleteBTW,I'm very interested in the language you researched,I was always thinking of learning a language which is spoken by less than 100 people in the world,could be some native language spoken by African tribes or something.
ReplyDeleteThe Micronesian languages I studied had a few more speakers than that--most were in the tens of thousands. But still, they're in danger of going away forever, as are many others.
ReplyDeleteLots of Native American languages are down to just a few speakers.