Our Liebster Award Nomination!!

Okay, so I’m not huge for blogathons and things like this, but after Grog over at Grog’s Movie Blogs nominated me here, I guess this means I’m destined to actually go ahead and respond to the current thing-doing-the-rounds-of-the-web, the Liebster Awards. Although I’ve yet to hear how one actually wins a Liebster, once you’re nominated (I think I’ve also been nominated by Ruth at Flixchatter, as well as Dell over at Dell On Movies, previously, so hats off to you guys too!), you have a bunch o’ rules to follow to keep the thing going.

Rules:

1. Thank the blog who nominated you and link back to them.
2. Nominate up to 11 other bloggers to receive the coveted award. 
3. Answer 11 questions from the blogger who nominated you. 
4. Tell your readers 11 random facts about yourself. 
5. Give the nominees 11 questions to answer on their blog when they post their nomination.

Okay, here are the questions Grog gave me!

1. Have you ever walked out on a movie at the cinema? If so, what film?

No, but I’ve come damn close. The first film I remember thinking about doing just that was The Astronaut’s Wife, with Johnny Depp, a film so awful it scarred me off the man for ages. Poor Charlize Theron – she’d got her kit off in Reindeer Games and Devil’s Advocate so I was hot for her at the time, but this film was so abominable I can’t even remember what she does in it. Oh, and I had a similar response to Men in Black, too; for a film lasting barely 80 minutes, I expected to love it, and I didn’t.

2. What’s your favourite song from a movie?

I’m gonna cheat a bit and say the “Love Song Medley” from Moulin Rouge. Hard to go past that.

3. What actor/actress do you like but no one else seems to?

Shia LaBeouf. I know, he gets a bad rap for his stuttering, screaming, self-indulgence, but in his early films (Holes, anyone?) he’s not a bad actor. Plus, he wasn’t half bad in von Trier’s Nymphomaniac.

4. What actor/actress does everyone else seem to like but you don’t?

Brad Pitt. You know, for all the awesome films he’s been in, he’s just not my favorite actor. With the exception of 12 Monkeys and Fight Club (and possibly Babel), his acting is – to me at least – merely adequate. Being married to Angelina Jolie gives him some justification, though. If I was married to that, I’d barely give a shit about stretching myself as an actor either.

5. What’s your least favourite film from your favourite director?

Munich, from Spielberg. I just couldn’t handle that film, and I desperately wanted to when everyone was singing its praises.

6. What’s the first R-rated/18 film you saw in the cinema?

The Australian R rating is equivalent to America’s NC17, so I’m going to assume that The Devil’s Advocate is the kind of film you want to hear about. That’s the first R-rated film I remember, anyway. True story: an Asian family rocked up to the film with their kids (one looked about three years old, at best) in tow, which I found surprising. Several members of the audience around me began to whisper among themselves that kids weren’t allowed into an R-rated film, so I got up and went and grabbed a cinema steward. Naturally, the family were kicked out, but not after some minor protest. After seeing The Devil’s Advocate, my sense of vindication was complete. No way a kid should have to sit through that film.

7. What’s your favourite Sci-fi movie?

Starship Troopers. I could watch that film on repeat forever. Desert island stuff, that.

8. What’s your favourite explosion in a film?

The finale of The Mask Of Zorro, where the mine blows up. Best explosion ever.

9. Who’s your favourite YouTube reviewer, if any?

I don’t watch much reviewing on YouTube, I prefer to read reviews.

10. What’s your favourite video-game movie?

Resident Evil. The first one. Best video-game-adaption ever made, IMO.

11. What’s your favourite remake (film, game or TV)?

Armageddon was a pretty good remake of Deep Impact, as I recall, so I’m gonna have to go with Armageddon. Or the recent Netflix version of Daredevil, which was enormously superior to Ben Affleck’s film-turd version.

Okay, now here’s 11 random facts about me.

1. I’m terrible with names. Faces, no worries, but if I meet somebody and they tell me their name, I’ll have forgotten it by the end of the first sentence.
2. I have two kids, and two cats. Anyone following me on social media will know of my cat-obsession. When I was young, I got to the crazy level of having nearly 20 cats at our house once, before dad shot most of them and made me take the corpses to be buried out under a tree at the back. True story.
3. My seething anger at Shakespeare In Love winning Best Picture over Saving Private Ryan has never subsided.
4. My favorite country (that I don’t live in) is Ireland, followed closely by France. I’ve been to both, and they’re awesome.
5. I do not have a political persuasion – I hate and distrust all politicians equally.
6. My favorite authors are Stephen King, David Eddings, Peter F Hamilton, and, because f@ck you, Dan Brown. I’m not a fan of non-fiction, either.
7. My first kiss was on the school bus in Grade 3. Her name was Leah. I pretended not to like her, but was secretly infatuated. She moved away a year later, and I lost contact. If she’s somehow reading this: please friend me on facebook.
8. I once lied to my parents to get out of a school project I hadn’t done. I pretended to have appendicitis. A week later, I went back to school sans appendix. Yes, that’s how committed I was.
9. I nearly downed in a really stupid snorkeling accident.
10. The closest I’ve ever been to an actual Academy Award was the one donated to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
11. I’m a Gemini, I’ve kissed another man (as part of an acting class I once took about 20 years ago) and one of my guilty pleasures is staring at my movie collection without actually watching anything, just daydreaming.

Right, now I have to nominate people. Instead of trying to find a dozen of my friends to lay this award on, I’m only gonna pick two, because their answers to the questions below will be enthralling reading, and because most of the people I would nominate have already done this.

I hereby nominate Will at Silver Emulsions, and The Brick over at Awesomely Shitty.

Their questions, which they must answer honestly, are as follows:

1. Your favorite and least liked Hitchcock film.
2. The worst film you’ve ever seen.
3. Favorite film score.
4. Your favorite use of “Bad CG” in a film.
5. Favorite film with a scene set in a toilet cubicle or bathroom.
6. Best and worst foreign language film.
7. Best use of a previously released pop-song used in a film.
8. Verhoeven’s Showgirls: trashy brilliance or unmitigated shit?
9. Best twist or “gotcha” ending to a film that you didn’t spot coming?
10. Name the one literary property (novel, comic book or other) that you would love to see made into a movie.
11. The best comedic, and the best dramatic, films starring Jim Carrey.

Once again, thanks to Grog (and the others) who’ve nominated me for this award. It’s a pleasure to sit here and talk shit for half an hour and make people laugh.

Who wrote this?