Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Random Musings - November 2011

Random Notes of the Month

The end of another month means it's time for some random musings.  Why does it seem like I just did one of these last week?

November saw some steady growth in traffic here at Bonjour Tristesse, we passed the 20,000 pageview mark for the first time, and also moved up to PageRank 4 in Google's toolbar.

One thing I did notice was a sharp dip in traffic corresponding to the recent American holiday.  It seems people don't do as much blog reading around turkey day.

I was able to catch up on several more of the 2012 Foreign Oscar hopefuls, bringing my watched total to 13 out of the 63 films in the running.  It's still a bit early for me to make an official shortlist prediction, but I've already seen quite a few very strong films this year, and it's shaping up to be quite the race.

I'm also quite enjoying watching and writing about the films for my new feature on the Czech/Slovak New Wave, which is just getting to the good stuff now.  I will continue to cover another one every three or four days until I make it through the entire list. 

Earlier in the month I received another prize from a fellow blogger.  A very cool pair of felt zombies, pictured below, for submitting a winning caption over at Rorschach Redemption.


They were made by Dustee, a frequent visitor here who sells these wonderful creations from her blog I Get Lost When I Wonder... and Etsy store Sweet Tart Art, visit them for some cool gift ideas.  A huge thanks to Phil for selecting my entry, and Dustee for crafting and donating them!

Random Links of the Month

I've been enjoying following Jandy's recent coverage of the 2011 AFI Film Festival, on her blog The Frame.  Including many of my most anticipated watches of the year such as Kill List, Snowtown, and Faust.

Also been closely following Scott's coverage of the Brighton Film Festival at FrontRoomCinema the lucky guy has already been able to see Hara-Kiri (the remake), The Artist, and Shame

The ever prolific Andy Buckle, has been catching up on several of Jean Luc Godard's films for his Classic Throwback series, including possibly my favorite one, Contempt.

Catch the trailer for Inside directors Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo's latest horror film Livide at the Horror Smorgasbord

See Tyler's in depth profile on Hungarian master Béla Tarr at Southern Vision.  One of my favorite directors who won the Jury Grand Prize earlier this year at the Berlin Film Festival for his latest film The Turin Horse.

Steven is counting down the top 50 albums of 1991, at The Void-Go-Round.  That was such an amazing year for music.

Finally, a few bloggers have posted their early Oscar Forecasts:

28 comments:

Bonjour Tristesse said...

You're welcome.  I hope to have several more of the foreign film hopefuls watched and reviewed this month.

Jandy said...

Thanks for the link! It's taken me a while to get through all the AFI films, even in capsule review, but I'm glad I kept at it. :) I've really enjoyed seeing your reviews of all the foreign Oscar hopefuls. It's so hard to know much about those ahead of time, so it's great to follow someone who's sought out so many of them.

Those zombie dolls are so cute. In a flesh-eating monster sort of way, of course! :)

Bonjour Tristesse said...

I wonder if the December holiday season will be more of the same.  Last year I was still just starting out so I didn't notice any real change.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Who knows, you might rant about some topic that is popular with searches and find some new readers that way.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks and congrats to you too.  Hopefully your traffic gets a bump because of it.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Yeah I do, the numbers in GA are generally lower by about 25%.  But they don't sound as good... :)

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks Dustee, and LOL now I will never look at them the same way again.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

No worries, and thanks.  Hopefully we can both get up to 25K soon. 

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks Lurker.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

I wonder if it's that people were busy on the holidays.  Or if everyone in America just surfs the internet when they are at work.  I think the latter because weekends are usually slower too.

CastorTroy said...

Glad to hear your blog is doing well! We had a small dip in traffic around Turkey day  but that's understandable for all sites with US audiences.

movies and songs 365 said...

thanks for the linkage,will check the void for top 50 albums of 1991.  from Chris

NeverTooEarlyMP said...

Thanks for the link love. Tis the season for all the Oscar craziness to start (and yes, I love it more when it gets crazy than when there's a guaranteed winner. HAhaha!)

Steven Flores said...

Thanks for mentioning my music blog.  20k hits this month?  Nice!!!  I'm not doing to bad myself.  I hope to have 200k hits by the end of the year.

Max Covill said...

I've been feeling the dip since Turkey Day. Views have gone way down. Maybe it will just take some more inspiration to get people to keep coming. Congrats on the level 4 page rank. 

Shutter Bug said...

Isn't receiving snail mail fun! Congrats on winning those zombie dolls! They are too cute!

Hoi-Ming Ng said...

Huh. I don't have aspirations for my Google Page Rank. I don't think my blog has enough focus to draw tons of viewers.

d_4 said...

I noticed the dip on turkey day too. Pretty obvious one.

And holy biblical character, those numbers!

Michael Parent said...

Glad for your Page rank and total pageviews!!! I take this tribune to say that I also upgraded to Page Rank 4! Keep up the great work BT 'cause I like this blog!

Dustee said...

Oh! I'm so glad that you won them!  I like knowing they went to someone I follow on here! I do wish I had dressed them though. They look so naked, like they are about to do a Plushie Porn video.*cue the terrible music*  haha  Congrats on all the  page views  that's really great. :) Be Well!

The Reel Foto said...

wow, congrats! do you use google analytics? sometimes blogger can inflate those numbers a bit. :)

The Angry Lurker said...

Good musings my friend and a good month, keep it up!

Andrew Buckle said...

Thanks for the link my friend, and congrats on passing 20,000 page views. I had a mild drop off in the first half of the month. Didn't quite get there.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks Castor.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

No problem.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

You're welcome.  I love this time of the year.  I enjoy the speculation much more than the actual awards.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

You're welcome!  I've enjoyed reading your entire 1991 coverage.  Hopefully some traffic trickled your way.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Yeah it's great! Especially when its free!

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