In a sleep-deprived haze this morning I had a pleasant surprise when a quick check of my emails showed that we have been given The Liebster Award! The Liebster Award is an award that is passed from blogger to blogger as a recognition of quality work. Blueprint: Review was nominated by Lindsay from the rather excellent French Toast Sunday. It’s not a simple case of handing over a statuette and thanking our parents and God though; to accept the award there are rules that need to be followed.

The Rules are:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
2. Answer the 11 questions the person who has given the award has set for you.
3. Create 11 questions for the people you are giving the award to.
4. Choose 11 people and send them a link to your post.
5. Go to their page and tell them.
6. NO TAG BACKS

Of course Blueprint: Review has a large team of writers and getting everybody involved would be a bit of a mission, so I figured I was qualified enough to take the reigns for this, being the primary editor. The questions asked and interesting facts given will be answered by me personally, so these aren’t meant as general thoughts for the whole site – anyone that listens to our podcast will know that we don’t all share the same opinions on things!

Anyway, on with the questions…


11 Things About Us (or me):

1. I’m almost as much of a music geek as I am a film one. I don’t write about them (other than my soundtrack reviews), but I own a hell of a lot of albums (almost 1000 on CD alone and God knows how many on MP3) covering most genres and I play the piano, sing and used to play the saxophone.

2. I’m an obsessive collector of CD’s and DVD’s. I buy more often than I watch my DVD’s though. According to my Movie Collector Database (sad I know) I’ve only seen about half of my 1200 strong collection (this is debatable though as many box-sets are down as one film and I’ve often seen chunks of the box set, just not all titles).

3. I’m a karate orange belt (for those unaware, this is only the first one up from white – i.e. beginners)

4. I am half-American – although I’ve always lived in the UK, my mother is from the US.

5. I count myself as an honorary Finn too as I’ve been married for one and a half years to Anna-Kaisa, who is Finnish.

6. I still own and watch quite a few VHS titles, despite having a Blu-Ray player – mainly for the movie weekends I take part in with friends. Many B-movies still haven’t seen the digital age.

7. My full time job is as ‘technical manager’ for Blueprint: Film and I edit most of the films for the company as well as do a fair bit of camerawork.

8. I performed in the Royal Albert Hall playing my saxophone as a teenager, one of my proudest moments, despite only being 3rd saxophone in the group.

9. I don’t have a toenail on my left big toe (sorry I’m running out of ideas!).

10. I have pretty much fulfilled two of the life long goals I made as a youngster – to make a feature film (I’m working with Blueprint to edit as well as generally assist with Vigilante at the moment, our first feature length film) and become a film critic (OK, I just review movies for a couple of blogs, but that’s close enough for me!).

11. Although I’ll eat pretty much anything you put in front of me (yet stay disturbingly thin) I’m an incredibly fussy drinker. I don’t drink caffeine so no Coke, coffee etc. I’m not much of a hot drink person in general and I try to not drink alcohol because it doesn’t agree with me.


11 Questions from French Toast Sunday:

1. What movie character would you want to date?
I recently watched The Innkeepers and totally fell in love with Claire (played by Sara Paxton) – sorry Anna!

2. Is there a movie that truly scares you?
I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to horror films and get scared quite easily, but in terms of a horror film really getting under my skin, the original Night of the Living Dead, Jaws and The Shining all really shook me up when I first watched them. I wouldn’t say they have the same impact on repeated viewings though.

3. What movies have you seen in theaters more than once?
Ha! The only one that springs to mind is Titanic unfortunately and I think, including the recent 3D re-release I’ve seen it 3 times in the theatre! I quite enjoyed it when it first came out and got free tickets for the 3D version. I also saw Avatar twice to compare IMAX to the cinema experience. There are probably others, but these are the only two I remember.

4. Describe your best movie theater experience.
I recently saw Lawrence of Arabia in Cannes – a fantastically well remastered new digital print of a film that I adore. I also really enjoyed watching The Dark Knight Rises recently on IMAX in a fairly new screen with pin-sharp projection, booming speakers, loads of leg-room, sat with my dad and a packed cinema that were astonishingly quiet throughout.

5. What movie quote do you use in real life?
I probably quote TV shows like The Simpsons and Alan Partridge more than movies, but I can recite This is Spinal Tap pretty much word-for-word and I squeeze quotes from that in from time to time. One I can remember using a lot when I was at uni was the rather random “look who’s ‘ere!”

6. What was you favorite movie in high school?
Jurassic Park – I adored that film as soon as I watched it. I can see flaws these days, but still love it.

7. What is your favorite movie to come out the year you were born?
The Thing or Blade Runner – can’t decide.

8. Have you ever met any celebrities in real life?
I saw Clint Eastwood twice when I was in Cannes in 2008. Once when he presented a special screening of Dirty Harry and again walking out of a screen whilst I waited at the front of the queue to see the next film showing there. I’ve seen a few other celebs at the festival, but none on that level or that I got as close to (distance-wise of course, we’re not best buddies).

9. What’s a movie you’re embarrassed to admit you haven’t seen?
Seven Samurai – it’s especially embarrassing to me as I’m a massive fan of Kurosawa, samurai movies and East-Asian cinema in general.

10. Is there anything film related you totally geek out about?
Lots of things. Martial arts movies are my guilty pleasure that I can happily watch no matter how bad they are.

11. What’s your favorite film to come out so far this year?
I’m not sure it counts as a film or even as coming out this year, but Mark Cousins’ documentary Story of Film: An Odyssey. It showed on TV in 15 parts in the UK (beginning in 2011 but ending in 2012), but has shown at film festivals as a whole and Cousins has expressed disgust at it being labelled as a TV series on IMDB. If I can’t be allowed that as my choice, I’d probably go for The Avengers Assemble. I just enjoyed the hell out of that.


Create 11 Questions:

1. Have you ever made a film? And if so, what would you rate it out of 5?
2. Have you ever confronted/yelled at someone in a cinema that was being noisy or annoying?
3. What was the last film you saw (at home or in a cinema)?
4. Can a film ever be ‘so bad it’s good’ and if so, what is the best example you’ve seen?
5. How do you organise your film collection (if at all)?
6. Have you got any autographs from any celebrities/filmmakers?
7. What is the most deceptive movie trailer you’ve ever seen (either because it looked great but was bad or the story/content ended up being nothing like what the trailer suggested)?
8. If you could go back in time and stop a film from ever being made, what would it be?
9. When (do you think) was the last time you watched a film on VHS?
10. What film genre can you happily watch even if the film isn’t very good?
11. What film have you seen most often?


11 Bloggers that deserve this award:

DVD Infatuation/2,500 Movies Challenge
Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind
Bill’s Movie Emporium
Cine Outsider
Flickering Myth
The Frame
Comeuppance Reviews
Cool Target
Direct to Video Connoisseur
Attack From Planet B
Soundtrack Geek

P.S. Apologies to any blogging friends that I’ve missed off – I quickly picked these from the feeds on my Google Reader that I visit most regularly and I’ve missed off a couple of more popular sites (Film Junk, Twitch etc.) because I figure they’ve gained enough recognition over the years.

And special apologies for my friends over at Row Three – I’d love to nominate you guys, but I figured that because I contribute too it would be rather cheeky to pass the award on to another site I’m involved with.

About The Author

Editor of films and videos as well as of this site. On top of his passion for film, he also has a great love for music and his family.

3 Responses

  1. Lindsay

    1) I need to check out The Innkeepers.

    2) Your Cannes experience sounds perfect.

    3) I pretend that Jurassic Park has no flaws. I like my world better that way 🙂

    4) I really really need to set aside some time for the Blueprint Podcast.

    Reply
  2. David Brook

    You should definitely check out The Innkeepers, it’s one of my favourite releases this year – it’s a good old fashioned haunted house movie which has a nice balance of scares, humour and heart.

    And yeah I’ve been to Cannes three times now and it’s always good fun. I wish I could have stayed longer this year though – I missed a lot.

    Speaking of Cannes – I should have put that Dirty Harry screening on my choices for ‘best movie theatre experience’. Watching that on the beach with Clint Eastwood presenting it was pretty special.

    And you should definitely listen to our podcast – it’s maybe not the most professional of podcasts but it’s good fun!

    Thanks again for the nomination and for supporting us.

    Reply

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