Announcements and general blog merriment on tap.

Ahh, November. A chill is in the air, Christmas commercials are already playing on television, the anticipation for turkey and dressing is running high, and thousands of writers are revving up their laptops to participate in National Novel Writing Month.

Carrie and I have each signed up to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, so in essence, we’ve each agreed not to have a social life for the next thirty days. This may mean blogging will continue to be sporadic for the next few weeks, but that’s not to say we won’t be posting every week. There are a few great events coming up before the end of the year that we’re excited to be participating in, and we have several things planned for later this month as True Classics approaches its two-year anniversary.

First, the ladies of The Scarlet Olive are hosting a “For the Boys” blogathon.

Allow Hilary and Katie to explain:

“There’s a staggering amount of estrogen in our blogs and podcasts. We’d like to shake the content up a bit and expand our masculine audience. Many classic films fall under the manly umbrella: shoot-‘em-up westerns, shadowy noir, timeless war tales, and action-filled gangster ploys. Females are capable of enjoying these types of films, but we feel they were primarily geared towards men. So, here is what we ask of you:

• Think about the quintessential films in these genres

• Reflect upon why these films appeal to men

Write a blog (or podcast) regarding the masculine gender in film, genres that appeal to men, films in these genres, or a combination of any of the above. If you are male or female and disagree with this completely … write about that!”

As there is an equally staggering amount of estrogen in our posts here at True Classics (not that we’re apologizing for that!), we thought it would be interesting to throw our hat into this ring. I don’t know what topic we’ll tackle, but it will be a lot of fun regardless!

In December, there are two interesting blogathons on tap. On December 20th, Lara from Backlots is kicking off three days of “Dueling Divas.”

The guidelines, per Lara:

“I am hosting the Dueling Divas Blogathon, which I have scheduled to take place between December 20-23. It’s a ways off, so as to leave enough time to plan your blogging schedules accordingly.

Participants may blog about any of the following types of Dueling Divas:

• Those who had a rivalry in real life, either over a particular film role or over a personality clash, ie Bette Davis and Joan Crawford
• Those who had a rivalry on the screen, ie Mildred and Veda from Mildred Pierce
• Any dual role (see what I did there? Duel? Dual? Be proud.) played by an actor or actress in a classic film, ie Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap.

It’s totally free reign, you can write about the divas themselves, compare and contrast one of each of their films, and if you’re going to write about dual roles, you can talk about the differences in their characters or the actor’s technique in portraying them…you get the idea.”

There are so many directions from which this topic can be approached–it’s an inspired choice for a blogathon, and we’re really looking forward to participating in this one!

Overlapping a bit with the Dueling Divas is the Humphrey Bogart blogathon, hosted by Forever Classics’ Meredith.

This one is pretty wide-open, too:

“In honor of [Bogart’s] 112th birthday on December 25th, I’ve decided to host my first blogathon, which will run from December 23-December 25th. I realize that’s it’s three months away, but if you’d like to participate, I ask that you let me know by December 22nd. Your post can be about his films, his life or anything else Bogie-related.”

Our love for Bogie is pretty well established, so you know we’ll be contributing a post to this one. After all, we can’t deny ourselves the chance to lavish praise on one of the greats!

Finally,  just a reminder: entries for the “Great Citizen Kane Debate” need to be posted on your blog by November 13th. Once you’ve completed your post, just post a link in the comments OR email the link to trueclassicsblog (at) gmail dot com. We will be judging the entries and announcing the winners on November 30th. I can’t wait to read everyone’s thoughts–I know it’s going to make for some interesting reading!

The rest of the year is stacking up to be pretty interesting! Are there any other blogathons or classic film-related events coming up that we should know about? Tell us in the comments!