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:

• Amiresque has a good run down of what he thinks will be the nominees for the main categories.
• Stevee @ Cinematic Paradox has a thorough analysis of the major awards in what she calls Annual Awards Nerdism.
• John Likes Movies has a list of 7 actresses he expects will be nominated plus a few other prediction posts on his blog.
• Don't forget about the blog dedicated to analyzing Oscar chances - Never Too Early Movie Predictions, where you'll find endless lists of potential winners and nominees.