Opening Titles: B is for Blog.

Famous still from the 1902(!) film "Le voyage dans la lune", directed by Georges Méliès.

Ray Bradbury's books "R is for Rocket" and "S is for Space" made Neil Gaiman think of giving the title "M is for Magic" to his collection of short stories. So it is now my turn (having already gone beyond the point of quoting Gaiman ten times a day) to use the same play on words when introducing this blog of mine. And it really seems appropriate because we are going to talk about magic here, about how you can create a universe and give it life with a camera, a photogenic face and a handful of spoken phrases. About how you can break a heart, and then mend it with just the strings of a guitar, how you can summon the spirits with a stage and a spotlight, or how you can start an illusion with hand and pen. Simple ingredients, difficult potions. But it's okay, you just need to get the proportions right.

If you do, the trick is done. Just think what happens with a good movie. You press 'play', and snap! You're somewhere else, living someone else's life, at another place. It is not teleportation. It's merely magic. If it isn't, then I don't know what is!

And it's this extensive talk of magic that justifies the name of this blog.

Some of the first fairytales my parents ever read to me were stories from the russian folklore. In these old myths, the witch, depicted as a horrid-looking old woman with an extremely long nose, always lived in a hut right in the middle of a dark forest. That hut was standing on chicken legs, walking and running around, never staying put. Now, if the hero (or usually, the heroine) of the story wanted to enter the hut to rest and ask for the witch's help after a long journey, they had to humbly ask it to turn the door towards them and stand still, so they could walk inside. Otherwise, the hut would never stop moving, and they would be left alone in the cold, dark, scary forest.

To me, this image -the hut on chicken legs, running crazily around the clearing- is the most primitive symbol of fiction, of stories told and never forgotten, buried somewhere deep inside me, just like all the other fairytales and mythology I was reading instead of doing my math homework and all the movies I was watching instead of Saturday morning cartoons.

So, I'm giving this name to the blog.

Now, before I start posting, there are a few things I want to say, for the record. Please note that...

~ I am just giving my opinion here, my personal view on things. I do not think (and you shouldn't think) that what I believe is objectively correct and indisputable.(Well...there are of course some minor exceptions...;D) Therefore, I definitely do not mean to insult anyone's personal taste. If you have a different opinion than mine, I am open to discussion at all times.

~ English is not my native language. I am a quite confident english speaker, though, and I am trying my best to write in good english that is pleasant to read. But yeah, I will make mistakes, so I apologize in advance. Please, if you spot a mistake you can't forgive, kindly bring it to my attention. Thank you!

~ Please do not use any of this blog's content without my permission. And by content, I mean the text, or parts of the text. Please ask me first if you want to, or Morpheus will uncreate you! No, seriously, stealing is not cool.

~ Regarding images and videos used in this blog: I do not own them, unless I state otherwise.

~ If you happen to catch the references I make here and there, comment and say it! It always makes me happy.

~ There will be a 'series' of posts called "bloopers". These are going to be more random, off-topic posts, and you can always skip them if you're not in the mood for slightly pointless stuff.

~ REGARDING SPOILERS: I will try to keep details and major spoilers to a minimum, because you know, you might actually want to watch that movie afterwards, and I wouldn't want to ruin it for you. HOWEVER! If a movie is more than 10 years old, I suppose you've already gotten enough chances to watch it, so I'll talk more freely. It depends on the movie, of course - I'm not going to spoil "The Sixth Sense" for example, although you should have watched it by now, if you're a cinephile...;)

~ I have to confess that my blog's not-so-extravagant design doesn't exactly thrill my eyes, but that will change soon enough. Just bear with it for now, please.


Cut!