Awards Given and Received

Sundance, Slamdance, Rotterdam, Berlinale, Golden Globes, SAG, Oscars -- it's certainly awards season all over the place, so why not here as well, if just for a few moments.

The first bit of news is that Like Anna Karina's Sweater was nominated for a Movie Blog Award by TotalFilm.com, the online wing of the UK-based glossy film monthly magazine, Total Film. I was nominated in the World/Indie category, along with LoveAsianFilm, Boyd van Hoeij's European-Films.net, and Ray Pride's Movie City Indie. (For truth be told, ours are the only four such sites on the Interweb.)

I'm pleased to announce that I won with a whopping 78% of the vote (take that Obama!) -- a number that's not so impressive when you consider that only 65 votes were cast. Still, I'm flattered for the recognition from across the pond, particularly from a magazine that's been around for over a decade. Here's thanking the magazine for the nomination, and those that helped lead me to victory.

In other news, Glenn Kenny chose my site to be one of five recipients of the Premio Dardos, an award whose origin is shrouded in mystery. (To me, at least.) I'm honored to be included in Glenn's list along with such personal heroes as The Cinetrix, Girish, Campaspe and Craig Keller. The official description:

"The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the web.

The rules are: 1) Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his/her blog. 2) Pass the award to another 5 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement, remembering to contact each of them to let them know that they have been selected for this award."

So, in the spirit of pay-it-forward (and other forgettable Kevin Spacey films), I hereby bequeath a Dardos to:

Fin de Cinema: Saint Louis' own Joe Bowman runs this lively, extremely well-written site that contains a healthy balance of cinephile-friendly news and analysis, and reviews of films both hi-art and low, with an emphasis on film that don't receive a ton of coverage elsewhere. It was his review of Julia that first drew me to the site, yet his brief write-up of Agnes and His Brothers (a film I thought I was alone in liking) turned me into a regular fan.

More Than Meets The Mogwai: The blog of Aaron W. Graham, who also write for the Canadian magazine Uptown. Much like this site, posting frequency on the Mogwai has been lighter than in the past, but his quality has never faltered. Interspersed with his film reviews are phenomenal YouTube clips, classic album art, and even some notes on music.

Boredom at its Bordest: Filmmaker (Cocaine Angel, Silver Jew), musician, passionate cinephile, dedicated champion of American independent cinema and all-around great guy Michael Tully calls this IndieWire blog home, even though he spends most of his time at the Indie collective Hammer to Nail. Unabashedly subjective, Tully loves to share his discoveries with the blogosphere, and there are easily fifteen films I've looked into based solely on his raves. (I'm convinced it was his praise of Glory at Sea that led to its standing-room-only screening at the Walter Reade last year.) His open letters to Sam Mendes about Revolutionary Road (both pre-production and post-release) are the reason I didn't bother writing about the film, for they say it all, and then some.    

Out of Focus: Friend, occasional antipode, and fellow miserablist Aaron Dobbs is one of the first bloggers I ever met in person, and both our sites date back the late 60s or so. We've had some notorious dust-ups both online and off, mostly about Vincent Gallo, but the past two years have found us in agreement as to the best film of the year. (Should it happen three years in a row, something cataclysmic is bound to happen.) Along with film, Aaron is equally as passionate about theater and television, and to this day I enjoy hearing about programs I never knew existed. Aaron hasn't been posting all that much lately, and I'm hoping this award serves to jumpstart his passion. To his defense, his employer keeps him quite busy, particularly around this time of the year.

GreenCine Daily: Yes, yes...Aaron Hillis is both my business partner and a good friend, but his inclusion has nothing to do with cronyism. As most of you know, Aaron recently took the reins over at GreenCine after David Hudson set up shop at IFC. Big shoes to fill, to say the least. Rather than a direct continuation of what the site was, Aaron is making efforts at building a site that encourages dialog, while avoiding the snark and outright nastiness that's become the lingua franca of the web. Amen to that. His posts during his inaugural month have ranged from drunken podcasts with some of NY's finest critics, thoughts on Sundance, the state of distribution and the Oscars, as well as reviews of overlooked gems.

Congratulations awardees. Now go do unto others....

Comments

[Jimmy]

Filmbrain, no one deserves the honors more than you, and I'm very pleased to see you receive them. But why does the Premio Dardos sound like a pyramid scheme to me? Each blogger has to pass the award on to five more in order to receive it? How long is it before recipients start scrounging through moody teenagers' musings in order to find a blog that has not yet received the Premio Dardos?

[Ray Pride]

It's snowing in Chicago right now in the early morning hours and on the city streets traceries of the last taxi that let the last couple off onto their proper corner are about to be submerged in crystal white oblivion several inches deep... nature's edition of this little nod my page got alongside your honor. I like the snow.

[Peter Nellhaus]

Congratulations on your overwhelming victory! By the way, based on your recommendation, I have Agnes and his Brothers on my rental queue.