CONGRATULATION! A Winner Is Me!

Well, look at what we got here!

You see this? Well, get a good look at it because this is the first DVD I've ever won in a contest!

I had to take a minute and rest here from doing the Snoopy Happy Dance all day to first explain: a while back I entered a contest over at Erick's Wonderful Wonderblog, a blog I've not only visited more than once but one that always fascinates me with its wealth of entertaining posts, subject matter, and the fact that I think he may very well be an even bigger movie fan than yours truly.

And that, kids, is saying something.

The reason for my jubilation, my winning the DVD you see to the left, is two-fold. One: because I'm not usually the kind of individual who goes around winning every contest he enters, which makes this prize all the more outstanding.

And two: it's a Val Lewton!

Don't you dare say "who?" at that name....

Oh, you already did. Heathen.

For those who know no better: Val Lewton was a legendary producer who began as a publicist for MGM Studios, worked his way up as a writer, literary property scout for and censor board liaison for David O Selznick. But his greatest work came when he was hired in the 1940s as a producer for RKO Pictures, where he was given three conditions on the films he would produce: they had to be cheap ($150,000 or less), they had to be short (75 minutes or less) and his bosses got to choose the titles for each.

Yet it was from these conditions that movie-lovers and fans of deep, psychologically complex drama and horror everywhere got such gifts as Cat People, Youth Runs Wild, The Leopard Man, Bedlam, The Ghost Ship, and others.

The DVD I received has two of Lewton's classic endeavors - I Walked With A Zombie and The Body Snatcher. These are two of the most important and most wonderful movies I remember seeing as a young lad and cowering behind my pillow on the couch in a dark living room while watching late on a Saturday night. And now I can relive those moments time and again....

My thanks go out to Erick again, for the chance to win, the chance to watch my favorite movies again and for the opportunity to give a shout-out to a fellow blogger-in-arms when it comes to cinematic tastes. Go visit the Wonderful Wonderblog right now and see what I mean about this guy. Now. Do it. Go.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wait by my mailbox....

Dope out.

- TGWD

ANOTHER Award??! I Guess My Content is Improving!

Can you believe this??!

Me neither, but it seems that Sammy V. over at Next Door Critic was kind enough to bestow upon me this award for...well, lessee...it's called the Happy 101 and...for some reason I have the "Ice Cream and Cakey-Cake" song going through my head.

Although it took me a good week to get this post up here, I am very much appreciative of this award, just as I am of anything else that is given to me as such. Sammy V., thank you very much for your kind gift and I want you to know that I will not wrong it.

Now, as is per the rules of such a gift, I must now follow the following rules:

SHARE TEN (10) THINGS THAT BRING YOU JOY:

1) Finding a title on my special list of movies that are either "out-of-print", "hard-to-find" or "very very special". It's a unique list and I still have yet to find everything on it. But when I do find something, it's a great feeling.

2) Chinese food.

3) Telling a joke or story that contains references that are extremely obscure (esp. references to early-Seventies TV and/or pop culture) and the person I'm telling it to not only gets it, but laughs appreciatively.

4) Supersonic Man. I could watch that movie every day for the rest of my life until the day I die and love every minute of it. God Bless Juan Piquer Simon.

5) When I discover people (online or in real life) who share the same level of love for obscure and hard-to-find movies that I do. That's more rare out here on the street than it is online, I've seen.

6) "Mystery Science Theater 3000"

7) Every time I read the book "The Hollywood Hall of Shame", I find myself giddy at the thought that even as far back as the heyday of D.W. Griffith and Darryl F. Zanuck, there was such a thing as a plausible failure wherein even fledgling Hollywood magic can be flawed. Great writing and so many examples of huge projects gone awry. You should go read it. Right now. Go.

8) A quiet uneventful day where I can sleep in late, do anything I want and not have to worry about the cold deadlines and forgotten errands which life tosses at you nastily intervening. And yes, I have days like that, and they are wonderful.

9) Watching my children succeed at what they do. It's such a marked contrast to my own childhood. They're going to have very good lives.

10) Anything black and white that has a flying saucer in it or a giant rubber monster attacking a scale model town. That's magic, right there.

And now it is time to:

PASS THIS AWARD ALONG TO 10 OTHER DESERVING BLOGGERS:

1) Andre at The Horror Digest

2) Scare Sarah at Scare Sarah

3) Daniel Johnson at Film Babble Blog

4) Rhonda, Brandon and Eric at Dollar Bin Horror

5) CiNEZiLLA at Cinezilla

6) Univarn at A Life in Equinox

7) simoncolumb at Screen Insight

8) Billy and Jeremy at Tower Farm Reviews

9) Morgan Rankin at The Kid in the Hall

10) Professor Brian O'Blivion at The Cathode Ray Mission

Remember, you ten; in accepting this award you must all follow the rules of Sweet 101 in order to place this proudly on your site. Those two special things I did:

1) SHARE TEN (10) THINGS THAT BRING YOU JOY

2) PASS THIS AWARD ALONG TO 10 OTHER DESERVING BLOGGERS

Okay, y'all - think of what gives you joy and think of ten more deserving blog-meisters out there you want to give something as special as this.

Now, I shall place this award proudly on my digital mantle and think about all the things that give me joy. Thanks again, Sammy V.; you rock.

Dope out.

- TGWD

An Award? For Me? Oh, You Shouldn't HaveGIMMIEGIMMIEGIMMIE!

Well, look at this here: I GOT AN AWARD!

Actually, I won this as far back as July 13th, but the thing is, there is so much to get done on this end for me to finally display this on the site, that I had a lot of extra writing to do before I had a chance to show everybody what I won.

I'm not ungrateful. Understand that much. I just needed to finish my essay, was all.

And so, without any further adieu, I present my writings on the following:

THANK THE PERSON WHO GAVE IT TO YOU.

First and foremost, this is a very cool award to win and for it, I thank venoms5 over at Cool Ass Cinema (ooh, can I say that on my blog? Ah well...) for the recognition. It's one thing to follow someone and read their blog. It's an altogether different thing to follow and read and let them know that you fully and totally appreciate what they do. That's important. It's not lost on me, v5, believe me. Thank you so much for the award and I promise I will display this proudly and lovingly on my site for years to come.

SHARE 7 THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF.

1) The first movie I ever remember watching was when I had to be something like four years old. The movie was Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and I believe it is because of that remembrance embedded in my mind that I have followed the course in movies I have up to now. I could have remembered something like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Winnie the Pooh, but noooo....

2) Like everyone else who owns a blog or spends a lot of time on the Internet, I am socially awkward. I don't feel like I connect very well with people face-to-face. I'd much rather write to them or leave messages on their machines than engage them in a face-to-face way. Thank goodness I can deal with my ineptitude constructively, but also thank goodness that I don't go to chat rooms and leave abusive messages to people I don't agree with. I leave that for everyone else; I have bigger fish to fry.

3) The people who created and inhabit the Bad Movie Message Board have helped me out of many bad personal situations and rallied around me when no one else would give me the time of day. Sometimes with kind words, other times with monetary help to pay bills. I feel I am in a better station in life now than what I was because of those people. You can't see me crying right now, but I am. I love those guys.

4) I keep a movie pass on me at all times. I received it for giving blood and, since it doesn't expire, I decided to keep it for something that must definitely be seen in a theater. I'm very picky about theater movies, though, so I'll probably be hanging on to it for awhile.

5) Ever since I adopted a personal policy of learning to say no when people try to force me into doing things I don't want to do, I've found I've gained more enemies than I have friends. Which is okay. Some of those people I had around me weren't worth having as it was, I found. I'm freer than I used to be, which is very Seventies of me, I find.

6) My weight's fluctuated my entire life. I'm 5 foot 9 inches and used to weight as much as 235 pounds and then lost down to 165 pounds in just over a year. I am now wavering between 180-190 pounds; I think that's healthy enough, seeing as I walk several city blocks to and from work every day and try to eat well. If I collapse of a heart attack all of a sudden, we'll know I should have lost more.

7) I'm always having dreams where I find myself in a vast empty cityscape that is full of ornate sidewalks, unusual building facades, some abandoned apartment buildings and shacks, towering bridges and land that sprawls from cement urban landscape to high-grass country lanes in a couple of blocks. The same places are always there, but there is always somewhere new I go and visit every time. I never know the name of the city I go to, but I'd like to think I'll be there someday.

PASS THE AWARD TO 15 OTHER BLOGS YOU'VE RECENTLY DISCOVERED, ARE ENGAGING AND OF PARTICULAR INTEREST.

Okay; we'll make this one quick: seeing that I follow literally dozens of blogs online, I chose the ones I follow the most intently and appreciatively (and I also made sure that they didn't already have this award. That's an important thing to check!)...

1) B-Movie Holocaust by kappa02
2) Micro-Brewed Reviews by W.B. Kelso
3) Coolness is Timeless by Keith
4) Danger Cinema by Danger Cinema
5) Cult Movie Reviews by dfordoom
6) Direct to Video Connoisseur bymattthemovieguy (aka: The Direct To Video Connoisseur)
7) four of them by Simon
8) Freddy in Space by Johnny Boots
9) Heart In a Jar by zenski
10) Horror Blogger Alliance by Horror Blogger Alliance
11) Next Door Critic by Sammy V
12) Invasion of the B-Movies by Jason Soto
13) Ninja Dixon by Ninja Dixon
14) Sugary Cynicism by SugaryCynic
15) The Scream Queen by The Scream Queen

There. Youse guys are officially appreciated.

Now, for all of you who have won this award, you have to follow the same rules I did when I got this -

* THANK THE PERSON WHO GAVE IT TO YOU. (namely: ME)
* SHARE 7 THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF.
* PASS THE AWARD TO 15 OTHER BLOGS YOU'VE RECENTLY DISCOVERED, ARE ENGAGING AND OF PARTICULAR INTEREST. (if I had to do 15, so do you....)

And thanks again to venoms5 for thinking so highly of me as to award me something like this. The quality of mercy is not strained, my friend.

Dope out.

- TGWD