Banner Bicentennial

My apologies in advance for devoting a post to my love of banners, a post that will hold little interest for many I am sure, but I couldn't let number 200 go by without a brief look back. It's a way of assessing for myself what I do here at Cinema Styles and writing a post on a blog has become, for better or worse, a public written equivalent of thinking out loud.

When I first began Cinema Styles in July of 2007 I made a banner that I thought would be the banner of the site for years to come. This one:

After about a month I became restless and wanted to change it and did. Still, by October, I had only used three banners and wanted to create a different one for my first theme month ever, Cinema Styles Shocktober. I created three new ones and rotated them out throughout the month. Then by December I had become bored with the whole look of my blog, changed the design and banner size and began rotating them out more rapidly, a new one every few days. By January, I had created so many I decided to change them for every new post. At present I have enough already complete but still unused banners to carry me through the year without creating another until 2010 (the year we make contact). And yet I still make them regularly and still make ones specific to a post if I can find nothing I have already done that fits. In a way, I consider them secondary mini-posts next to the main one above which they are displayed. And they do serve a purpose outside of my photoshop graphic design tinkering obsessions. They are my way of signaling to the new reader both a love of film and an invitation to relax; we'll discuss movies here but we won't be reverentially solemn about it all. That said, here are some highlights for 2008 in which today's banner is the 186th of the year so far and the 200th overall.

This one is my most viewed banner on my Flickr account. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the movie but I have used many popular films whose banners barely have any views. Who knows, but for whatever reason, it's number one. And it's animated. Click on the pic to see the full animation.

I did nothing but animated banners for a couple of months but it became too cumbersome and time consuming so I stopped. Still, I liked the results and these are my three favorites:

This one was done for Marilyn's blockbuster blogathon on Dancing in the Movies. Click to see the animated celebration of dance.

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I did this one because I love doing Metropolis banners, period. I've done three so far and have several more already made waiting in the wings. Click to see Maria's transformation.

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This one was done for my good friend Bill who won my first ever DVD giveaway game. He was stuck on the first of eight riddles while Adam Ross had already made it all the way to the last one. And Bill won! Sorry Adam, not trying to bring back bad memories but I found that kind of amazing at the time and still do. Kind of like the tortoise and the hare story come to life, only Adam was never cocky. Also Kimberly and Marilyn came just a hairsbreadth away from winning themselves. Whoever wins the next one will have their own animated banner too. Could Arbogast be the next Adam? Will Fox be the next Bill? Stay tuned. Click to see Bill's winning answer.

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This banner was designed by me and written by Marilyn and Arbogast. Marilyn wrote the top part, Arbo the tagline.

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Finally, for whatever reason, I've always liked these banners but there are plenty of others to choose from. Thanks to everyone for their patience with me and this post. Much appreciated.

A Meeting of the Minds

So last night I had my first face to face encounter with a fellow blogger. Nathaniel R. of The Film Experience, where I semi-regularly guest blog, was in town (Washington, D.C.) on some other business and we decided to meet up for dinner and drinks. The first hour went about as you'd expect: We drank one Aqua Velva after another and tried to determine the identity of a cryptic serial killer known only as "The Zodiac." Finally I slammed my fist down and shouted, "It's Larry King! Why won't you just accept that?" Then we moved on.

As you can probably guess, that didn't happen but we did have a great time and, surprisingly, talked very little about movies and blogging. Oh we did talk about movies and blogging but not as much as each of us thought we would. But I'll not bore you with details. Suffice it to say I had a great time. So much so that I couldn't help but wonder, when are some of you other bloggers going to make your way down here (or up here or over here depending on where you are) and share some blog/movies/life talk with me?

Now I don't mean someone who blogs that I'm not familiar with or anything, because one of the advantages of meeting up with Nathaniel is that we already "knew" each other well enough that there wasn't any tedious small talk. I mean my fellow bloggers that know me well from comments and discussion. You know who you are. Anyway, I'll get something more substantial up later today, tonight or tomorrow (even though I'm sure everyone loves reading about my nights on the town) but for now I just wanted to mention the Movie Blogger Meeting of the Minds. Hopefully more will follow.

Cinema Styles OctoberKillFest Teaser Trailer

Here's my teaser trailer for OctoberFest. October Kill Fest that is. Enjoy.

[ed. note] By the way, for whatever reason, the sound is muted for the first three seconds then comes in strong. After that it's fine. Don't know why.

UPDATE: Now available on my YouTube page as well here.

*****ARCHIVED COMMENTS FOR THIS POST HERE*****

Who Says You Can't Have a Trailer for a Blog?

In a couple of days I put up my teaser trailer for Cinema Styles October Kill Fest. Yeah, that's right, I've made trailers for October. It's one of my favorite times of the year (the weather's crisp, kids are back in school, fall colors abound, kids are back in school, ghost stories are shared, kids are back in school - did I mention the school thing?) and I'd like you to know what I have planned. So look for it this week. Cinema Styles October Kill Fest - Coming Soon!

*****ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS FOR THIS POST HERE*****

Cinema Styles Needs Your Help So Put on Your Thinking Caps!

You may have noticed I have this thing with constantly changing banners. You noticed that right? Now I want you to get involved in the process! Whenever I make a new banner (I make about ten or so a week on average so I'm well, well ahead of the game) it's always the same process. First I take the screengrab or what have you and format it to 750 by 300 pixels so they're all the same size. Quality control and consistency is very important here at Cinema Styles. So for instance, if it's a pre-widescreen era film then I have to do some photoshopping to get it to fit the 750 by 300 requirements. Like this one for The Red Balloon:

On the left you see the final banner and on the right you see the pic I started with. Then once I've photoshopped everything into place I come up with a clever, or stupid, depending on how you look at it, tagline for the banner. Like this from I Walked With a Zombie:

Now it doesn't have to be a take off on the title. It can be anything, like my Lord of the Flies banner that was captioned, "We'll never use Piggy's glasses to light the fires of controversy. Promise."

So where do you come in? With a new banner, that's where. It's a screengrab from Gaslight and as usual I have expanded the frame by drawing in the back wall to fit the 750 by 300 requirements of the banner size. But...

But...

I don't know what to say! This actually happens quite a lot so this might be the first of many I ask for help on. I have banner pictures I put together months ago that I still don't have a caption for. With this one I came up with "Cinema Styles. We'll never try to gaslight you," but that's kind of boring and how many blogs are purposely trying to make you think you're insane anyway? Well Arbogast maybe. Can anyone come up with something better?

Here's the banner:

You'll notice I have a nice blank space on the left side just waiting to be filled in. Top left will say "Cinema Styles" of course, and the bottom left will say... I don't know. You tell me. Submit your captions in the comment section and let's fight over who's is the best. Then I'll put it on and put it up. And thanks in advance. Sometimes I just need a little help with these things.

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Click banners to enlarge.

*****ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS FOR THIS POST HERE*****

A Year in the Bag

Well I've been doing this a year now. I'm not going to write anything special or meaningful about blogging because I wouldn't know what to write. I know this is the last time I'll point out any anniversary dates to anybody until, and if, I make it to the ten year mark. I'm not much for doing this kind of thing every year and it seems silly and a little ego-centric anyway. After all, it's a blog, nothing more. But I do want to send out a technorati firestorm of linking thanks for everyone who has commented here and made me feel welcome in the film blogosphere in this last year. Comments mean a lot to me here and in case you haven't noticed I enjoy responding to comments and carrying on conversations well past the point of the topic at hand. So without further ado, and in alphabetical order, I'd like to thank

Arbogast

Ali Arikan

Larry Aydlette

Jeremy B

Cool Beveridge

Bill

Campaspe

Dennis Cozzalio

Brian Doan

Mike Doc

Editor A

Jim Emerson

Marilyn Ferdinand

Flickhead

Patricia Fraser

Fox

Peet Gelderblom

Ed Hardy, jr

Mrs. Emma Peel

Dan Jensen

Kimberly Lindbergs

Ken Lowery

Marisa

Moviezzz

Lucas McNelly

Peter Nellhaus

Rick Olson

Sheila O'Malley

Mr. Peel

Ted Pigeon

Pat Piper

Nathanial R

Adam Ross

Rick Ryan

Neil Sarver

Matt Zoller Sietz

Bob Turnbull

Gautam Valluri

Hedwig van Driel

It's inevitable that I will forget someone as I'm doing this from memory so if I do, I apologize. And thanks to all the other film and pop culture bloggers who've never commented here but keep me interested in everything they write on their own blogs.

In two days I'm off for my annual adventure in Vermont. I'll have laptops handy but I suck at preparing posts in advance so for the rest of the week and into next week I'll mainly be doing more "Favorite Moments" video clips and photo scans for "Cinema Still Life." Actually, I do have a few written posts prepared but I want to be a part of the comment conversation so I'm not posting them until I get back on Tuesday. And for the video and picture posts that I have scheduled to go up I won't have the opportunity to comment back and forth on them like I normally do but don't let that stop you. I promise I'll respond, just not as quickly as normal.

I leave you with a look back at Cinema Styles' first year in banners. Several of the later ones are animated when on the blog but all I show in the slide show is the final frame of the animated banner so if you want to see any of them in all their glory just click on the "Animated Banners" button on the sidebar. And I recommend watching it on the high quality setting so it's not all blurry like. Of course, everyone here should know the music used, its composer and movie. Thanks again everyone!

Gameday's Coming Soon

Mark your calendar and put on your thinking cap because tomorrow's the big day: The Cinema Styles DVD Giveaway Trivia Game. All the rules will be explained tomorrow. I certainly hope as many people as possible play. I'm not getting anything out of it (actually I'll be losing something - the cost of a DVD) but I have connections and I like playing games. So please stop back by tomorrow at 2:00 (or maybe a little before for some rules heads up, or maybe not). I'll see you then.

Game begins at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Tuesday, April 29th.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

The proprietors of Cinema Styles, all one of us, have decided that a game must be held. It is a movie game and it comes with a prize, provided there is a winner.

The game is open to all and hopefully all will compete in the spirit of international peace and camaraderie and all that stuff. The game begins next week so keep your calendars open. This is not a game of obscure movie screengrabs but of movie knowledge.

I will not describe the rules until the game begins, lest some nefarious gamester get a heads up. Suffice it to say you will be provided with a riddle that will, hopefully, bring to mind a movie title. That will lead you to an undisclosed location on the interwebbing netting tubes where you will receive another riddle. Once you have successfully navigated the oh so clever minefield of websites and their various riddles you will at last be directed to one more undisclosed location where you will be presented with a trivia question. A single, solitary trivia question. The first person to answer the question in the comment section is the winner. And I don't care if you know it or have to look it up, as long as it's the right answer. The prize, as with the last picture game, is a DVD of your choice with the following caveats:

1. It must be $49.99 or under. I am not a rich man but I do have some DVD ordering tricks up my sleeve. Which leads me to ...

2. It must be available on Amazon.com, because that's where I'm getting it from, due to certain shipping deals I have as well as credits.

And it is open to all! Ladies, gentlemen, bloggers and commenters alike. And don't worry if you're an anonymous blogger like The Siren or Arbogast and you want to play but think, "Oh no, if I win he will have my real name and address." I'm anonymous too, as we all now know, and I can tell you absolutely and wholeheartedly I don't care to ever discuss your real name with anyone, anywhere at any time so don't worry. If you don't believe me just ask Larry Aydlette. I knew who he was long before anyone knew him as anything other than The Shamus and trust me, I didn't tell anyone. I do not gossip and I do not divulge anonymous identities to anyone for any reason. Really, I truly don't. I know how important they are.

So come one, come all to the First Annual Cinema Styles (insert clever movie trivia game name here) Game Thingy. Play as often as you like, although I'm not sure why you would because there's only one winner: Whoever gets that comment answer up first.

The game will begin Tuesday, April 29th at 2:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. That places it in the middle of the day so that those up late on the other side of the world can play, those on the East Coast just coming back from lunch and having no intention of doing any more work for the rest of the day can play and those on the West Coast who will be only an hour away from lunch and, in all likelihood, have no intention of getting any work done before then can play. It's a win-win situation all around.

Tuesday, April 29th, 2:00 P.M. EST. Be there!

Cinema Retro: Celebrating Movies of the Sixties and Seventies

Cinema Retro celebrates classic and cult films from the sixties and seventies. Currently issue number 10 is making its way to the states through nasty Atlantic weather. I was contacted recently by Cinema Retro about a write-up on Toshiro Mifune, who died ten years ago today. The post is currently up both here and there. It was a pleasure to write about such a fine actor and have a great Retro cinezine like Cinema Retro post it.

Cinema Retro has an impressive list of luminaries engaged with the publication. They include Christopher Lee (do I really have to tell you) , Richard Kiel (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker) , Raymond Benson (author of several James Bond novels, post Ian Fleming), Caroline Munro (Dracula 1972 AD, At the Earth's Core, The Spy Who Loved Me), Lee Pfeiffer ( The Complete Idiot's Guide to Classic Movies 1915-1969, The Essential James Bond, The Films of Clint Eastwood), Jon Heitland (The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Book: The Behind the Scenes Story of a Television Classic) and many more. Read about the full team here.

I highly recommend giving it a read (and not just because of my post, really) if you have an interest in films of the sixties and seventies (and if you don't - what's wrong with you?). You can't go wrong. And if you're not a fan of that period, you will be after thumbing through the archives. Whether cult or classic, they've got it covered.

What a Short, Perfectly Normal Trip it's Been

December marks the sixth month of my blogging on Cinema Styles. My profile says I've been on Blogger since March 2007 but Cinema Styles did not begin until July. That's because when I first started on Blogger I ran a couple of other blogs that eventually became one blog, Cinema Styles. I wrote about politics, religion, science and whatever else piqued my interest or ire, including movies. By June it was becoming increasingly difficult with my workload to maintain a focus for my blogs and they became disjointed and confused. The main thing I wrote about was politics. The reason, as some of you may have discerned from my comments on other blogs, was because I have a feverish and intense dislike and distrust of government and politicians and so used blogging as a way of venting my frustrations.

After two months of blogging it seemed I had found a niche. Chris Weigant, a fine political writer who writes for The Huffington Post as well as his own page ChrisWeigant.com, commented on a post I had done on the "Bong Hits for Jesus" decision. After that we commented on each other's sites and he linked a post I had done on President Bush's capital punishment record while Governor of Texas in a post of his own. It wasn't long before I was getting combative comments from right-wing bloggers looking for a fight. I tried to be kind and conciliatory in my responses but it became clear that none of them were looking for a middle ground. And frankly, I just didn't have the time or energy for the fights they wanted to engage in. I don't know if any of you have ever been involved in an online clash of political ideologies with someone before but I can tell you from experience, it's pointless. No one concedes a point, no one budges an inch. Flames fly back and forth. It's draining and futile. And absolutely no fun. So I decided to make a change.

In my original blog I had posted articles on Oscars picks and the occasional performance or moment in a film. I decided in July to create a new blog, Cinema Styles, and put all the movie posts there. As for the other blogs, they're still there but there's nothing on them. I use them now to test new templates, design ideas and format posts that will be transferred here. As for the name, Cinema Styles, it's dull. I know that. My other blogs (there are ten in all) have much more creative and fun names. They include Magnificent Bile, Like a Sinner on the Wet, Toys of Desperation, Plastic Spiders, Treacherous Guile, The Synchronicity of Fish and a personal favorite, Screaming Electric Genitals on Fire. But when I started my movie blog I wanted the content to be memorable, not the name. So I purposely chose something generic. I knew I wanted the word "Cinema" in there, and since almost every variation of cinema phrases had been taken for blog titles already, I came up with Cinema Styles and never looked back.

Luckily my first comment on Cinema Styles came from Dennis Cozzalio. Why is that lucky? Well, certainly not because he's a mischievous leprechaun (although I have my suspicions), but because in a post like this one, looking back over the first five months, it just wouldn't be impressive to write, "And that's when I got my first comment from some guy named Fred in Missouri." Anyway, he commented on my Birth of a Nation analysis and I was thrilled. It inspired me to keep going because frankly I wasn't sure if I wanted to. I had gotten used to comments on Magnificent Bile for my political posts and it was feeling kind of lonely on Cinema Styles. But it also let me know that there were others out there interested in dissecting film and film history. Right now on Scanners, Jim Emerson's terrific blog with the Chicago Sun Times, there is a discussion about separating style from substance, technique from content. The very ideas I discuss in my piece on Birth of a Nation. As I said there, and on Scanners in agreement with Jim, I don't see the two as being separate. One works with the other.

But as much as I love dissecting film and film history, and debating the state of film criticism (a very popular topic of discourse on the Internet film-blogging community), one thing I don't care a lick for is discussing the state of film blogging. In fact, my first reaction is usually, "You're joking, right? The state of film blogging?" The state of film-blogging is pretty simple to sum up: It's in its infancy. There's nothing to discuss. In ten or twenty years maybe. But right now, no. We're all getting our feet wet at this point and I'm not going to worry about whether or not we're all the best writers in the world or who's better than whom. Do you know what I do here on this blog? I write reviews of classic movies, write up performances, scenes, do the occasional list and parody post. You know how that separates me from most other film bloggers? It doesn't! That's what we all do! Reviews, lists, recommendations, debate starters, etc. And what's wrong with that? For one thing, it provides a wonderful alternative to the Mainstream Media Critics. And that's great! Before I started blogging I read all of their stuff. Since I've been blogging I get reviews and reactions to current and older films almost entirely from the bloggers. I still read Ebert and Rosenbaum occasionally but I'll be honest with you: Since I know how Dennis, Kimberly, Ken, Brian, Neil, Rick, the Shamus, Jim, Ed, the Siren, Peter, Eddie, Ray, Justine, Kim, Hedwig, the whole gang at The House Next Door, TCM's Movie Morlocks (and so many more I'm probably leaving out) feel about movies, because of the intimate personal atmosphere blogging provides, I'm much more trusting of their reactions to films than anything I could get by reading the latest Tomatometer on a movie in current release. And if Bill had a blog, I'd read his reviews too.

Who's Bill you ask? That's another thing I love about blogging. The interactions and connections you make with people that you would have never met otherwise. You see, I love commenting on other people's blogs. That probably comes as little surprise to anyone reading this. I love the interaction and discussion. Some blogs I stopped commenting on because they never provided a response. And that's fine. There's no hard fast rule on this kind of thing nor should there be. But for me I love the interaction. Whenever someone comments on my blog I always respond and I love it when a discussion gets started. Sometimes it goes off topic and I don't mind that either as long as everyone knows it's still okay to comment on the original topic. For instance, a couple of weeks ago Kimberly and I went off about World War II in the comments section of a post I did on racism in Hollywood. Then Jim came in and commented on the post itself instead of the WWII discussion. Terrific. I'm always worried when the discussion goes off topic that others will be dissuaded from commenting on the original post and I want everyone to know it's okay to ignore the discussion at hand and comment on the original topic to your heart's content. But what about Bill? Oh yeah, Bill.

So, a couple of months back I was reading Cozzalio's blog. Bill came on and disagreed with Dennis' views on Dazed and Confused. The two of them went back and forth, completely ignoring my "pay attention to me" wise-ass remarks in between. Then Sal, an old buddy of Dennis' and a fine regular commenter there, asked who this entity called Bill was. Well, Bill took offence to that and told him to "pack it full of walnuts." This amused me to no end so I commented that I wished I were an entity and asked how does one become one. Bill commented back about the annual dues and we were off to the races. Sal, being the great guy he is, apologized and then Bill and I just kept going on until Dennis finally stepped in and told everyone to get back to the topic at hand. Or was that the other post where Dennis and I started trading Steely Dan quotes to purposely bewilder Bill? I can't remember now. The point is Bill now comments here and I'm a better blogger for it.

So those are my views on blogging and commenting on blogs. I hope I never get spammed to the point where I have to hold comments for approval because I feel that interferes with the "of the moment" beauty of commenting. I understand that some blogs have to do it, but when there is no delay between commenting and seeing the comment posted there is no confusion of ideas. For instance, how many times have you commented on a delayed comment blog only to see that when the comment appears three other people agree and two others have radically different ideas. If only you could have seen their comments when they made them a much richer discussion of the agreements and disagreements could have taken place. But again, I understand it has to happen because of spamming and I personally despise that jerk who spammed the Shamus at Bad for the Glass (one of my favorite stops) and forced him into delayed commenting approval. It hasn't hurt the site at all as the Shamus is a great cultural blogger regardless of comment discussion, I just wish we could still see each other's comments as they were posted.

And one last thing about commenting. I love writing about movies and commenting on them. Sometimes my comments are a little too jokey, sometimes too dogmatic in tone, sometimes too bland ("Great Post") but I hope they are taken in the nature they are given: A love for movies and discussion of movies. I know I probably annoy some bloggers out there like Arbogast from time to time, but I enjoy commenting on Arbo's blog because he seems quite humorous and good natured and able to take any smart-ass remarks I can give him. And then give them back to me two-fold. And even though her blog has very little to do with film, The Sheila Variations is one of the most amazing cultural blogs in existence and Red herself is one of the most genial hosts and most timely comment responders out there and I'm very glad to have made her acquaintance.

Okay, I think I'm done except to say thanks to everyone I haven't mentioned and thanks to all those without blogs who visit here regularly. Now on to the plastic surgery.

You see, I bore easily with the look of things here on my blog. I've changed the sidebar a hundred times and I've never had a banner last longer than two weeks before changing it (the banner at the top of this post and the one to the right are the first and second banners I used). So now I've decided to change the whole damn look of the thing. New template (self-designed) and everything. Just a warning so the next time you come here in December you don't think you've clicked the wrong link and immediately back out. And the design's nothing special, just different. It will allow me to change the background more often so that the banner doesn't carry the whole weight of the look of the blog. Oh yeah, and the content will now be entirely concerned with toiletry products of a questionable nature. Okay, maybe not. It will still be all about movies (mainly from the teens through the seventies) with the occasional rant outside those perimeters. And I wouldn't want it any other way. I love writing about movies too much and I don't care that I'm not getting paid for it or read by millions. I didn't start this in the hope of winning the first-ever Pulitzer Prize awarded to a blogger. I started it because I loved it, and still do. As a wise man (Brian, the Cinephile of Bubblegum-Aesthetics) once said about blogging: "It's writing, not as obligation or propriety, but as bliss." Thanks for the summation Brian. I agree. Bliss, indeed.