U, Me and Films is 2 Today!

Two years ago on this day, on 13th June 2011, after preparing myself for about a month, I finally summed up the courage to click on 'Publish' button for the very first post on this blog. I wrote in general about what do films mean to me? What’s their place in my life? And about what do I intend to do with this place? Looking back to it now, I feel embarrassed about whatever I wrote but happy to have done that and so much more. It is amazing to see how far I have come in these past two years and how much this blog has helped me to grow as a cinephile and in some ways, maybe even as a person.

Back then when I started it, I had no idea how long will I be doing it? I started it because I had some time to spare and wanted to do something related to films. After finding couple of blogs that concentrated on films, I immediately knew that is exactly what I wanted. But the problem was not having written anything ever before and if I am to do something, I wanted to it properly. I took some time to prepare, a month I talked about earlier, tried to write something and see if it's readable. After testing some posts on my roommates, I jumped in and have managed to stay afloat for the past two years. So, all things considered, it ain't that bad right?

Off course, none of this would have been possible without each and every one of you reading this post. People like you, who have read these posts or any of the posts in past two years, commented on them, interacted and encouraged me on this or other platforms like Twitter are the chief source of inspiration for me to continue writing all this time and I wish to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. Hopefully, this has been just as wonderful journey for you as it has been for me. (Don’t worry! Even if it sounds like a Goodbye speech, it isn’t. Unless something unforeseeable happens, I am not going anywhere in near future. :))

On this occasion, I have managed to revise my Top 100 list. You can see it here or on the menu bar above. I hadn't updated it since I published it first in March 2012, so there was a lot to update. I have 21 new films that I have seen since then added to the list and almost twice as many films that have gone either up or down from their previous position. I would have loved to find some space for the films like Chinatown(1974), The Maltese Falcon(1941) and Taxi Driver(1976) that have grown on me since the last time I made this list. They didn't make it, not because I don't like them enough but because I wanted to watch them once more before getting this list done and unfortunately, I could not find time for it. I wanted to update 'A Life in Movies' page as well as I am pretty sure my choices now will be drastically different. But once again, life intervened! I will try to update that as soon as possible though.

Thank you once again for your support and hopefully you will keep coming back for more. Let me know if you like the updated list in the comments. Cheers!!

Versatile Blogger Award

Over the last year that U, Me and Films has been in the game, various friends have nominated me from various blogging awards. However for certain reason, I have never responded to it before. On the first day of this year, Ruth @"...let's be splendid about this..." nominated me for another award, The Versatile Blogger award. This isn't the first time she has nominated me for such an award, Ruth is one of the oldest followers of this blog and I thought that, now that I have much more settled with this blog, this would be a good opportunity to do one myself. So, I wholeheartedly thank Ruth for considering me worthy of this and the previous awards as well as  all the support and encouragement and give you the rules of the award that Ruth passed on to me.

The rules:

• Display the award certificate on your website
• Announce your win with a post and include a link to whoever sent you the award
• Present fifteen awards to deserving bloggers
• Create a post linking to them and drop them a comment to tip them off
• Post seven interesting facts about yourself. 

So, the seven facts. This should be easy, considering I have never done this before. So, most of you do not know much about me. But as it turns out - rule says "Interesting" facts. So, lets see if I can make them interesting.

1. Since I was a kid, I was always good at Mathematics, specifically doing calculations orally. As I grew older, I got better. So much that in College, my friends used to yell random questions at me just to test me out. Off course, I got them all. 

2. I think I have said this before but English is my Third Language. Not first, not second, third but such is the case for most of us, Indians. So, it really isn't a big deal.

3. I am a late bloomer when it comes to being a movie buff. I think I became much more serious after coming to US 3 years ago, even though I did see many English movies before. I was a bookworm long before that.

4. In the Summer of 2003, just before starting my college, I read 50 books in 90 days and quite a few of them were more than 500 pages long. More interesting fact is the reason I remember this is I made a list of all the books I read and since then I have kept it updated.

5. Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone was the first book I read in English when I was 16 and if my memory serves right, Home Alone(1990) was the first movie I saw in English. I must be 8 or 9 then.

6. Just like I keep the list of books, I also keep the list of movies I have watched but it's online - on IMDb. Over the last three years, I have religiously voted every single movie I have seen. As of today, I have rated 1316 titles on it.

7. Back in India, we own almost 300 movies. You want to guess how many I have here in US? 2. Judgement at Nuremberg(1961) and The Family Stone(2005) which I haven't seen yet. I Know. On the other hand, I have close to 30 books here and almost 100 at home. Not many, I know but if you compare them to the movies, you will see the contrast.

Now we come to the final part - nominating other bloggers. I am going to do two things different though. First, there is no way I am nominating 15 bloggers and secondly, as I said before that there have been more than one occasion where U, Me and Films was nominated before but since this is my first time replying, I am going to nominate those who've given some award to me before, as a vote of thanks to them. In case if I have forgotten someone, because I have a crappy memory like that sometimes, you know who to blame. 

Here are the bloggers -

Alex Withrow @And So it Begins...

Nikhat Zahra @Being Norma Jeane

Murtaza Ali @A Potpourri of vestiges

Stevee Taylor @Cinematic Paradox

Steve Honeywell @1001Plus

Lady Sati @Cinematic Corner

Tyler @Southern Vision.

Thanks Ruth for giving me this chance and thanks to all of you for thinking of me in the past.