What's on your (cinematic) mind?

Pardon my absence but what's going on with you & the movies. At least internally?

Submit Yourself to Processing. Win "The Master" on Blu-Ray

One of the creepiest and most clever FYC items I received this winter was a proselytizing newspaper "The Cause Footpath" for Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, featuring mostly articles and reviews praising the film but peppered with ads and items from Lancaster Dodd and The Cause.

So I've used that to guide me in this new Blu-Ray contest. The Blu-Ray comes out on Tuesday just after the Oscars and includes a WWII veterans documentary from 1946 called Let There Be Light by the legendary John Huston. And your normal mix of outtakes and additional scenes, a short called "Unguided Message" and so on.

I have two copies to give away. Do you want it?

To enter the contest you must submit yourself to processing...

You can answer those questions by Monday February 25th either by e-mail or by sharing your responses on facebook, twitter, your blog or whatever (so long as you link back here & comment so I know you've done so). You can answer as yourself or in character or with simple text, photos, videos, however you want to answer it. The point is just do it somehow. Submit yourself to processing! Without blinking.

I'll announced the winners by Wednesday next week. I'll choose two winners based on the responses I most feel compelled to share with the group ;) 

Happy Birthday Hannah (Plus: New Year's Resolutions)

Oops. Now I've ruined Kate Winslet's surprise for Hannah! It's a birthday cake.I've always felt bad for people whose birthdays fall around the holidays. They have to share the spotlight with something huge and impersonal (to them) and I hope that they pretend that the world around them is just celebrating their special day with a holiday-themed blowout party. So when I learned that Hannah M, a devoted member of the The Film Experience community was born on New Year's Eve I vowed to wish her a happy birthday this year. So...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!

And happy birthday to any of you reading who were born during holidays of any sort. I hereby vow as one of  my New Year's Resolution to bring back the 'Reader Spotlight' in 2013. That was fun when we were doing it.

As for other resolutions about life here on the blog, feel free to make suggestions in the comments though I'll be aiming for more interviews (albeit more spaced out), video blogging and festival coverage (maybe if I can find the money) and more commemorative hoopla for special films and actors. As always your comments, donations, subscriptions (see right hand sidebar), sharing and liking, and retweeting and whatnot are invaluable to keeping TFE going since this has always been a passion project indie site surrounded by behemoth corporate movie blogs. And more and more of them each year, too! It's not easy. Every year I think it'll be my last and then I here from one of you about what the site means to you or see the odd new subscription donation (one cup of coffee a month - cheap!) and I start typing again.

The point is. The site would have folded long ago without its passionate readership. So here's to next year (we survived 2012!)

MAY YOU ALL HAVE A MEMORABLE NEW YEARS EVE!

And here's to 2013 being a huge step up from 2012, which was a tough year for so many people around the world.

Be safe tonight. xoxoxo

-Nathaniel

Apologies & Open Thread

I'm sorry. A post on the oldest living Oscar nominees went up last night while I was sleeping that was in rough draft stage and written a month ago! Just a perfect byproduct of the terrible terrible no good week I'm having. Quick, someone distract us. Ooh, look at that bright shiny object over there!

While we wait for the Golden Globe Nomination announcement, what movie scene is playing through your head right now?

What's playing in your movie-addled brain?

"tell me about it... stud"There's been such an eery silence the past couple of days in the comments that I worry that 90% of you readers actually live in New Jersey and Staten Island and are totally without power. If so our prayers are with you. I have power so this weekend Oscar chart updates and lots of movie watching for me. Hitchcock today, actually!

For the rest of you with power, free of the ravages of Sandy on the East Coast, what's on your cinematic mind?