The Velvet Café

Let’s talk awards!

Nope, not THAT award. Everyone else has been talking so much about it lately that I thought I could as well stay out of that discussion. Besides, I’m not much inclined to speculate and have strong views when I haven’t been able to watch half of the movies that were nominated. I can’t guarantee this will remain an Oscar free zone forever, but for the time being I really don’t have much to say about it.

But there are other awards at swing right now, namely a blogger’s award called “Liebster Award”. This is some kind of pay-it-forward meme for small blogs – blogs with fewer than 200 followers. The rule is that if you win the award you’re supposed to nominate five other blogs you think deserve some recognition. You should also copy the Liebster Blog Icon into your post like a medal.

Without being a mathematician I have the feeling that there must be an end to this meme. Eventually we’ll run into the point where all potential candidates already have gotten the award. We’re not quite there yet though, so I’ll take this as an opportunity to highlight a few of the less known favorites from my own blogroll. and if I by accident appoint someone with more than 200 readers, I apologize (while also congratulating to having such a big readership).

But first of all I want to thank the two bloggers that were kind enough to nominate The Velvet Café, namely Max at Impassionedcinema and Steve at 1001Plus. Steve’s blog has been one of my favorites for quite some time now; not only are we about the same age – we’ve also got an appetite for science fiction. Max’ blog is a new acquaintance, which looks cool and I’ll be happy to check it out further.

And now with no further delay, here are my nominees:

1. Just Atad
As a thumb rule, I think general musings are more fun and interesting reads than reviews. Corey Atad is one of the very few film bloggers I know of to specialize in this area. Some of his posts spark quite a bit of discussion. He can be provocative at times and always interesting, like when he wrote about how he was kicked out of the premier of A Woman in Black.

2. The Movie Review Warehouse

“Film Blogging Going Gonzo” is the additional title to a small and quite unknown blog called The Movie Review Warehouse. As opposed to Corey, Bondo writes a ton of reviews. The sheer volume at this blog is quite impressive. He doesn’t hesitate to go in completely the opposite direction of everyone else in his assessment. I don’t always agree with him, but I admire his honesty and integrity. If you’re interested in feminism and female directors this is the place to go to. He writes more about this than any other film blogger I know of.

3. A Journal of Film
Melissa is unfortunately not a very productive writer, but when she writes, she’s does it so well that she puts everyone else at shame. What can I say? She’s teaching in writing, so she’s definitely an expert in the area. Her blog posts are in-depth reviews which always provide new insight and perspective, even if you think you’ve read dozens of other reviews of the said movie. For instance in her take on Melancholia, she did fascinating parallels to art history. It would be a crime to keep Melissa’s blog a secret.

4. A Swede Talks Movies
I guess you could suspect that I’m biased since he’s a fellow Swede, but I swear that this recommendation is objective. If it wasn’t for the blog name, A Swede Talks Movies, you wouldn’t even guess that Emil is from Sweden since he’s writing so well. This blog has a healthy mix of reviews, musings and lists. I know how much work it takes to write good lists and I’m particularly impressed by his year-by-year top 10 lists, which are very well thought out with some good motivations.

5. Genre Hacks
I’ve never ever been as astounded as I was when I mentioned the screenwriter Sean Hood in a blog post and he then turned up at this place and commented on the post. Since then he’s been back a couple of times and he has always got something interesting to say. If you want more of this you should check out his blog Genre Hacks where he shares things that pop up in his head, occasionally makes interviews with other people in the business or links to interesting reads.

Final words
Dear nominated bloggers! If you see this, feel free do as you like. You can just cherish the link love – or you can pay it forward if you feel the inspiration. I’m generally not a fan of chain letters, so you have my blessing if you let it stop here.

For my own part I realized how much I love to talk about the blogs on my blog roll as I wrote this post. I might very well get back to it and write about other blogs who weren’t mentioned here, but are just as deserving of attention. This reward thing was a push to get going, but I really don’t need it as an excuse to get back to it.

Finally I want to thank Max and Steve once again for picking me for this award. It gave me fuel to keep going for a while longer.

Just like any Oscar winner.