Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Kreativ Bloggers


Many thanks to Hans at Quiet Cool for passing on the Kreativ Blogger award to me. It's now my happy duty, adhering the rules set out below, to nominate some of my fellow bloggers.

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.

2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.

4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.

5. Nominate 7 Kreative Bloggers.

6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.

7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

So, without further ado, and allowing for the fact that Hans has already nominated Aaron at The Death Rattle, the Kreative Blogger award goes to:

1. Francisco at The Film Connoisseur

2. Bill at The Kind of Face You Hate

3. Evil Dead Junkie at Things That Don't Suck

4. Kate at Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire

5. Kimberley at Cinebeats

6. and 7. Brothers Troy and Kevin Olson at, respectively, Elusive as Robert Denby and Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies

All of these bloggers write insightful and perceptive film criticism and all of them have an immediately recognisable style tinged with wry humour.

Now: a few random facts about yours truly:

1. I've met Quentin Tarantino. In 1994, he was guest of honour at the Broadway Cinema's Shots in the Dark Festival in Nottingham. 'Pulp Fiction' had just won the Palme d'Or. I was in town early for a screening of Terence Malick's 'Badlands' and decided to kill some time browsing in the Virgin megastore. Tarantino was looking round the video section (that shows my age: I remember when video was the prevalent medium!). No entourage or security people. I went over and congratulated him on the Palme d'Or. "Hey, thanks man," he said, enthusiastically shaking my hand, and for the next few minutes we talked cinema. Or rather he talked cinema and I listened and learned.

2. Outside of film, one of my great loves is literature. I'm a big fan of Iain Banks, and have bought each of his books in hardback, first edition, on the day of publication since 'Dead Air'. I've got almost the whole collection signed. When he published 'The Steep Approach to Garbadale', his signing tour didn't bring him anywhere near Nottingham. He was, however, appearing at a branch of Waterstones in Plymouth. Which is about 300 miles from Nottingham. Two minor problems: my car was off the road and I was out of annual leave. Solution: hire car, hotel, 600 mile round-trip and a two-day sickie from work.

3. As a result of my book on the films of Sam Peckinpah, the publishers asked me to write an overview on violence in cinema. They already had the title: '100 Violent Films That Changed Cinema'. It wasn't my best piece of writing and it didn't set the publishing world on fire. It did, however, lead to ...

4. ... an American production company asking me to appear in a documentary about 'A Clockwork Orange' that Warner Bros had commissioned them to make as a special feature for the Director's Series Stanley Kubrick box set. The documentary's called 'Great Bolshy Yarblockos' and I get about twenty seconds of screen time spread across four clips. I had a stinking cold the day they filmed it and was convinced they'd leave me on the cutting room floor.

5. To the best of my recollection, I've only ever walked out of two films. The first was Peter Greenaway's 'Prospero's Books' where the image of a child standing on a swing and urinating made me ask serious questions about why Greenaway is allowed access to camera equipment. The second was Gus van Zandt's 'Last Days'. I was on a date with the girl who would become my wife. We sat through about forty minutes, then she excused herself to the ladies. She was gone a good 15 minutes. When she came back, she whispered "Have I missed anything?" I replied that she hadn't. We looked at each other and simultaneously said "Wanna go for a pizza?" It was good pizza.

6. Seven films I wish I'd walked out of: 'The Baby of Macon' (it's that Greenaway fella again!), 'Titanic', 'Pearl Harbour', 'Into the Wild', 'Ultraviolet', 'Next', the remake of 'The Wicker Man'.

7. Seven unmade films I wish had gone before the cameras: Sam Peckinpah's 'Deliverance', Alejandro Jodorowsky's 'Dune', Andrei Tarkovsky's Dostoyevsky biopic, Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon biopic, Nicolas Roeg's 'High Rise' (from J.G. Ballard's novel), David Lean's 'The Lawbreakers' and 'The Long Arm' (a projected two-film epic dealing with the mutiny on the Bounty and the settlement on Pitcairn Island).

13 comments:

Bryce Wilson said...

Thanks for the nom Neil.

I actually got picked the night before, and was about to send you one of my seven noms when I saw that Quiet Cool has beat me to the punch the bastard (Well can't say he doesn't have good taste). But thank you very much, I admire your work greatly and your nomination means alot.

PS. You might get a kick out of this. I REMEMBER 100 Violent Films. Years ago I found it at a Bookstore while my Mom was browsing, I read through as much of it as I could before she was ready to go.

I was still young and didn't have my own income, so I had to ask my Mom to buy it for me. As she was somewhat protective the answer was a resounding "Fuck No."

I've often wondered about that book.

So it might not have set the publishing world on fire, but it sure made an impression on me.

Troy Olson said...

Ha, I was kind of dreading getting nominated if only because it means I'll have to stop being lazy and write something semi-creative. Plus I have to come up with 7 people who haven't already been nominated. See how difficult you are making my life, Neil :)

Surely you know that if you walked out of WICKER MAN you wouldn't get to see the masterclass of acting from Nic Cage during the final 15 minutes.

"OH, NO! NOT THE BEES! NOT THE BEES! AAAAAHHHHH! OH, THEY'RE IN MY EYES! MY EYES! AAAAHHHHH! AAAAAGGHHH!"

Oh, but for PEARL HARBOR, I thought that piece of crap would NEVER end. Sweet Jesus, that was horrible.

Bryce Wilson said...

My favorite part of the Wickerman climax is when you hear the leg break sound off screen and Cage starts shrieking "My Legs! They've Broken My Legs!"

Kevin J. Olson said...

Thanks, Neil! I appreciate the thought. Coming across your blog via the Italian Horror Blog-a-thon was one of the real pleasures of the whole venture. Thanks again!

Troy Olson said...

Sheesh, and it takes my brother to remind me that in my sarcastic complaining above I forgot to actually say thanks for the compliment, Neil. Thanks!

(Oh, and Kevin, all this talk of Wicker Man reminds me of something we need to take care of, post-haste).

Neil Fulwood said...

Evil Dead Junkie - thanks for the sharing your memory of '100 Violent Films'. To think your Mom tried to protect you for the potentially corrupting influence of my prose, and here you are years later reading my blog anyway!

Troy - for making your life difficult and forcing you to get semi-creative, you're welcome. I found the hardest part was coming up with 7 allegedly interesting things about myself. I resorted to asking my wife "What are seven things about me you'd consider interesting"; she thought about it for a while then replied "Um, don't know."

Kevin - my pleasure. The Italian horror movie blog-a-thon was a blast. Like you, I discovered some great sites because of it.

Nic Cage in 'The Wicker Man'. Guys, I'm undecided whether "My legs! They've broken my legs!" or "Oh no! Not the bees!" is the most hysterically awful line in the film. Cage's gurning is infinitely scarier than any of the supposedly horrifying scenes. His acting in this film is a personal nadir - and that's saying something when you consider his turns in 'Ghostrider' and the truly abysmal 'Next' round about the same time. He must still be thanking every deity in the firmament that he got the call from Herzog.

Franco Macabro said...

Hey Neil, thanks for the nomination man!

Movies I walked out of (which is something I almost never do): Virus and Supernova. Had I seen Cages Wicker Man in theaters...I would have burned the theater screen on fire in sacrafice to the Sun God.

Neil Fulwood said...

'The Wicker Man' and 'Ultraviolet' were two movies I went to with my wife where we agreed beforehand that they probably wouldn't be much good and that we'd leave if we weren't enjoying them ... only to find ourselves staying to the end in a state of dumbfounded disbelief, purely to see just how much worse they'd get.

I almost walked out of 'Sunshine' after its stunningly brilliant first hour got flushed down the can and it turned into a stalk-and-slash-in-space flick a la 'Event Horizon', but was still intrigued enough to see how it ended.

Unknown said...

Congrats on your accolade! You certainly deserve it for running a classy blog with really thought-provoking posts. I really enjoyed your month of Peckinpah!

Neil Fulwood said...

Thanks, J.D. The Peckinpah tribute was incredibly rewarding.

It'll be interesting to see who prevails in the poll for the next retrospective (Chan-wook Park and Tim Burton are currently neck-and-neck).

Bryce Wilson said...

I'm pushing for Burton myself.

Aaron said...

1) Thanks for considering me, and I didn't even know Hans nominated me because all of this awards stuff took place when I was a little out of it and not reading any of the blogs while I dealt with some personal problems.

2) It's great to see how many readers you have and how many people comment on your blog now as opposed to when I first started following you a long time ago. Next to Hans and maybe a handful of others (maybe), you're one of the best writers/bloggers out there and you deserve the attention and accolades. Cheers, buddy!

3) Peckinpah's DELIVERANCE and Jodorowsky's DUNE? I would quite possibly give up one of my testicles to see either. Well not really, but you know what I mean.

Neil Fulwood said...

Thanks, Aaron. It's taken me two and a half years to develop The Agitation of the Mind into the blog it is today. I'm not sure how long you've been following me, but things were a bit hit and miss in the early days.

Thanks for bearing with me while I found my voice and got into my groove with the blog. It's been during the last five or sixth months that my readership has increased and comments have become more frequent.

The Peckinpah project took The Agitation of the Mind further out into the blogosphere than I had any reason to expect. The response was incredibly gratifying.

Re: Jodorowsky's 'Dune'. It would have starred Salvador Dali. And featured psycho-sexual production designs. It certainly wouldn't have had Sting in a codpiece. We were robbed!