One Year of Blogging

Last month marked a full year since this blog was created in July, 2006. I also was very honored to discover, several weeks after the fact, that this blog was awarded the THINKING BLOGGER AWARD by Mike Kitchell of the ESOTIKA EROTICO PSYCHOTICA blog, which is also a recipient of this award http://esotika.blogspot.com/ . Mike's blog intriguingly and perceptively covers many directors, films and subjects which should be of great interest to readers of this blog, if you haven't bookmarked it already. Mike's blog was cited by another blogger and the idea is to pass it along from blog to blog. It is suggested that each winner bestow the award on blogs deserving of that title. I'll be back next month to pass the award along to several blogs which have consistently made me think. Engaging the mind is always a good thing when cruising the internet.

I would like to thank all the readers who have visited, replied and supported this blog. Your visits, replies and emails are highly valued and directly influence what I will continue to explore, review, illustrate and question. This blog is really about your interests, feedback and perceptions as much as mine. It could be just about Jess Franco and his films but I really enjoy introducing related, and sometimes unrelated topics. Actually, I've always believed that Cinema is an ocean where everything is somehow related at some level. And the cinema of Jess Franco certainly is oceanic in the sense that influences, images, characters, music, situations, mythologies from the silent era to the present digital video age crash into our consciousness as we watch his films. It's probably no accident that Jess Franco and my favorite contemporary American filmmaker, David Lynch, now both work in DV, flying under and over the radar of the mainstream.

I will continue to attempt to surprise, inform, make you think and hopefully delight the regulars readers and new visitors here with blogs on outre, cult, genre, art, experimental, classic and mainstream cinema/video from all over the world from the beginning of the 20th century to the present and anticipating the future. And I'll always return to Jess Franco, the calm center of the storm and the inspiration for this blog.

Remember, if you have any reviews, images or suggestions you want me to post contact me at the above email.

Thanks for your continued interest!

Robert Monell