Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Random Musings - February 2012

Random Musings of the Month

Happy Feb 29th!
Well the awards season is over without much surprise, and I am pleased that A Separation won for Best Foreign Language film. For the first time since 2003 I agree with the Academy's choice.

It was also nice to see a French film dominate the major awards, even though I wasn't as impressed with it as much as most. However, the ceremony as always, was way too long and boring. I wish they would cut the unfunny fluff and let the winners have more time at the podium. Also why didn't they perform the nominated songs? Terrible decision.

The funniest line of the weekend was delivered on Friday by Antoine de Caunes, host of the César Awards, which was otherwise just as dull as the Oscars were. Just before the presentation of the in memoriam montage he quipped: "This year, we lost a giant of cinema. Megaupload."

For some quick blog news, I took a slight dip in page views compared to January, but still managed to pass the 250K mark. With some help from an increased interest in my coverage of the foreign language nominees, and also being selected as Lamb of the Month.

I've also been toying with the idea of adding a ranked blog roll widget to my sidebar. Similar to the LAMB's Leaderboard, to reward the blogs who send me the most referral traffic, except this one will be automatically updated. What do you guys think?

I caught up with quite a few 2011 releases this month, but there are still a bunch more I want to see, hopefully I can get to them in soon. In March, I'll also be continuing with my Czech New Wave series which I'm about half way through; and I've begun to source some films for my next major spotlight, I'm not yet ready to reveal what it will be, but the idea was inspired by this year's Berlinale.

Random Blogging Tip of the Month

For this month's blogging tip, check out my article at Stupid Blog Tricks where I compare the different related post widgets offered by LinkWithin, Outbrain, and nRelate. They are a great way to boost your blog's traffic (accounting for ~5% of my pageviews), to keep visitors on your site longer, and to call attention to your older forgotten posts. If you don't have one on your blog, you should seriously consider it.

Random Links of the Month

I usually highlight my favorite new blog finds in this section, but I've already mentioned most of them in an earlier post, so this month's links will be a random assortment of posts that caught my eye from new and old favorites:

Andy Buckle's Film Emporium has changed addresses and can now be found at http://thefilmemporium.blogspot.com/ and this month I enjoyed reading his reviews of Dario Argento films, especially the one for Deep Red

Fogs Movie Reviews had a great post on Big an old childhood favorite of mine

Movies and Songs 365 discovered Lost in Translation, easily one of my top ten films from the last decade.

Aidy Reviews... takes a look at Briefcase, a cool suspenseful short film by Nate Golon.

Big Thoughts from a Small Mind sings the praises about Letterboxd a site that helps you keep track of what you've recently watched.

Southern Vision lists the 50 Essential Arthouse Movies a great starting point for those with an interest in the less mainstream. 

Genkinathito's Blog does a fine recap of the Japanese Films at the 2012 Berlinale, with some very interesting titles to look forward to. 

Surrender to the Void continues it's Favorite Films series with Chungking Express an incredible film that happens to be one of my all time favorites as well. 

Taste of Cinema presents a list of Top 10's from 19 of the Greatest Directors of all time.

Cinematic Corner created a very cool visual post of 48 hidden images you may have missed when watching Black Swan

Le Mot du Cinephiliaque has begun looking at classic films from the province of Québec in a series titled Je me souviens, starting with the work of Denys Arcand.

Bonjour Tristesse 

How was your February? Did anything new and exciting happen? Share your comments below!

45 comments:

FrontRoomCinema said...

Congratulations on passing the big 250K!

I am here most days, so I like to think I played my part :-)

Andrew Buckle said...

Thank you so much for the mention of my updated url. I have thoroughly enjoyed your Argento reviews too. Deep Red is the best film I have seen this month, and I was so happy to see you rated Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebrae all above 9.0. Also, I really liked Inferno, though I haven't written anything on it. Pretty underrated. 

Margaret said...

Congrats and thank so much for linking my post! I'm gonna see Opera tonight thanks to your review!

The Angry Lurker said...

It's your blog and you can basically do what you want and we will still come back....on my way to Stupid Blog Tricks!

Joel Burman said...

Hey Bonjour I don't know which blog platform you are using but I'd definitively be interested in getting one of those self updated traffic leaderboards for the LAMB since its as of now is one of the most tedious things to update on there. It would be awesome if we could do some kind of collaboration with that if possibly. 

I also think you are high lighting the wrong Leap Year film. =) Hahaha

Bigthoughtssmallmind said...

Thank you so much for the linkage! Much appreciated.

I have really been enjoying your Stupid Tricks Blog of late.  Still getting use to life without word verification but so far so good.  Any chance you will be doing a post on how to add jquery slider in blogger?  I have been toying with the idea of adding one similar to yours on my site.

Michaël Parent said...

Congrats for the 250K again! I like the idea of a Blogroll! I also want to to do some self-promotion by announcing my Je me souviens feature that highlights and presents films from my Province; Québec.

Ryan McNeil said...

Congrats on eclipsing 250K - quite the accomplishment!

My February was busy as all hell, and it was just this past weekend that gave me the biggest takeaway. I went to an "Unconference" on podcasting, blogging, and all things social media and it gave me a lot of ideas for improvements to my site and its various soapboxes.

There were even a few sessions that I found myself wishing I'd recorded to share with my fellow bloggers and podcasters. What's that they say about hindsight?

Bonjour Tristesse said...

and always the first one to leave a note too. Thanks for the loyal support Scott!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

You are welcome Andy. You keep me updated on what's happening down under like no other.

Inferno has it's moments. Especially the beginning. That underwater scene is unmatched. But it starts to lose me when the focus shifts to the Mark character.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

You are welcome Margaret ! I hope some people do go and check it out.

And it always makes my day when someone watches a film because of my posts. I look forward to hearing what you think of Opera.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

 Thank you as always @f2ee4944de9a100da0bef87e09c99722 !

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks Joel Burman  I'm flattered that you can't tell that this is a Blogger blog. :)

I would definitely be willing to share, or even help implement the leaderboard thing over on the LAMB whenever I get it done. It's only an idea right now, I haven't actually started creating anything yet. But it's nice to see there's some interest.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

 You are welcome!

Glad to hear you got rid of the dreaded captcha. Hopefully you are seeing an increase in comments now.

Good suggestion, a jQuery slider tutorial is something I've been meaning to do for awhile now. I'll work on that next.

Max Covill said...

I didn't make on the list this time, but next time Gadget! Thanks for the always helpful tips. This is my favorite post of the month two months running. 

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks, and I've added a link to your series in the post above.

Jason said...

Thanks for the link Bonjour! Getting over 250k in page views is pretty damn awesome so congrats on that.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

 Thank you @32c5a01113e5d61d59e42b010d861304 !

That conference sounds fascinating. I would love to hear about some of the ideas you learned about.

NeverTooEarlyMP said...

Great job and I like how you are always experimenting with new gadgets and widgets. Keep up the great work!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thank you Max Covill, I confess I haven't been following your blog very closely this month, but you are now on my radar.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

No problem, and thank you!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Yeah thanks, sounds trite but I think it's very important to constantly try and improve. 

Sam Fragoso said...

Well since I link to you quite often, I think the leader board concept is a good one :D

Keep up the great work - all of the recognition you've been receiving is much deserved

Michaël Parent said...

Thank you so much! Btw I love the Czech New Wave posts.

d_4 said...

The ranked blog roll is a decent idea to show off the bigger supporters, but as an internet user I've never used the system, it's always been clutter on the websites I visit. I keep mine to max 5 for that very reason.

R.I.P. Megaupload. You shall be missed.

Lisa Thatcher said...

ALL your posts are great, but I do love the Czech New Wave ones!
I also loved that megaupload quote - ah the pain the pain....
And thank you as always for great new links.  Your blog is great and one of the few I visit every day. 

Mette said...

I've seen a lot of good movies, which I'm happy about :). And of course, I was über-happy about A Separation winning...

Steven Flores said...

Thank you!  Next month... Never Let Me Go which is half-done for the time being as well as reviews of films by the Coen Brothers, Ingmar Bergman, and Michael Winterbottom.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thank you Sam, I appreciate it. I'll see what I can do to send you back some hits.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

I agree with you, I never use them that's why I've never installed one. I used to years back when blogs were a new thing, but most people add links and never take them off, so after awhile many of those links end up going to dead or abandoned blogs. Now I've conditioned myself to see all blogrolls like that.

I think a nice endorsement within the context of a post is much more effective, but I also figured it would be nice to have a top 10 to pay back blogs that send me traffic.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thank you so much! I'm actually in awe of how you manage to find so much interesting material to post about every day.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Yes, for once I'm actually happy with the Academy!

I'm on my way over to check out your monthly recap now.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Cool, looking forward to those posts. I still haven't seen The Trip, but that looks hilarious.

CastorTroy said...

Congrats on 250K pageviews! On to 1 million :D You have such a cool website because you review movies that very few people actually even hear about. Keep up the good work!

DEZMOND said...

congrats on the page views! We know how difficult it is to get those :) You have to be original and always creative!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Many thanks CastorTroy. I think a million is still a long way off, but I appreciate your encouragement!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks @c3811b631e58a9be7adc34ae2f3f120e, and nicely photoshopped sexy photos don't hurt either :)

Eric said...

Looks like you had a great February. Congrats on the 250K and for being the LAMB of the Month! Those are both terrific accomplishments.

365 moviesandsongs365 said...

Thanks for the link, buddy!
 I'm heading over to that 50 essential arthouse movies post at southern vision.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

 Thank you Eric!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

 Any time!

David Zou said...

Thanks for the mention!! and there are also some good links I found in the post.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

 You are welcome!

Lisa Thatcher said...

Thank you for your brilliant festival coverage and huge congratulations on your award nomination. You've certainly got my vote! Thanks also for the excellent new links.
Always love to come and visit your blog.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thank you for the kind words Lisa. You'd have my vote too if you were a LAMB member.

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