A while back we asked you to submit your film blogs to us for consideration in future Film Blog Group Hugs. And, wow! Did you ever come out in droves. I was flooded with submissions -- so many, I haven't made it through them all yet, but there are some promising blogs on my list now. Some of them, I've added to my already lengthy regular-read list, some I've put on a list for our team to pull from, and some of those, I'm pulling from today for this Blog Roundup -- consider it the best of the submissions I've had that I've managed to make it through so far. And hey, if you don't see your blog here, it doesn't mean we thought it was lame. It probably just means it's one of the 89,000 submissions I haven't had time yet to read.

(Note: I'm still looking for blogs with the following specific focuses: Pacific Northwest, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, horror, and geek. If that's you, email me your info at kim@cinematical.com).

On to the blogs!

Strange Culture, who was already a semi-regular read before RC submitted the site for the Group Hug, has an interesting bit up on a conversation around which Nicolas Cage film people like best. Cage is a bit of a conundrum for me: I like him as an actor (well, a lot of the time, anyhow), but every time I see the man in an interview he drives me insane with boredom. He strikes me as the guy you accept a date with because he's cute and seems like he ought to be interesting, but then over dinner all he can talk about is his Elvis obsession. "yawn*. What's your fave Cage film?

Slam Cut is a witty, irreverent blog (and we love our irreverence here at Cinematical, dontcha know). This week, Slam Cut makes the Group Hug cut for a fascinating story on whether Courtney Love is, in fact, an alien (oh, come now, was there ever really any question?). He also has a scorecard of celebs who have officially come out "for" or "against" the beleaguered Mel Gibson. Personally, I've had all the Mel I can stomach -- at this point I'd take coverage of the war in the Middle East or even that commercial of Tana from The Apprentice pimping the ever-loving Bedazzler over more Mel Gibson, but this was pretty funny.

If there's one thing I like, it's guys with Brit accents, which is why Andy Coughlan caught my eye. The UK filmmaker writes about screenwriting and filmmaking (two subjects of interest to me, and I expect, to a lot of our readers) and is currently chronicling his efforts to get his film, House of Donn, into festivals. I haven't seen House of Donn, but I have seen Andy's short film, Secret Thoughts of Angels, which was intriguing enough to keep me watching for 14:32 and then to top that off by downloading and reading the shooting script. I know, I'm a geek.

Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee is one of my fave film blogs. Not just because of the name (although I admit not only to being a Seattle coffee-snob but also to needing to keep my blood-to-caffeine ratio at about 2:1 or I start to get a tad bitchy), but because Peter has lots of really brilliant things to say about film. How many people do you know who not only know there's a book (written by Tim Lucas) coming out about late director Mario Bava, but have dedicated time to watching Bava's films for a retrospective in anticipation of the book's publication date? I'll bet not many. Peter is such a supreme film geek, he out-geeks me, Martha and Jette put together. And that, my friends, is saying quite a lot.

Peet Gelderbloom has a nifty little site called Lost in Negative Space where he posts all kinds of eclectic stuff. What's not to like about a guy who challenges his readers to come up with five words that describe their cinematic erogenous zone? Peet's five words are: Rapture, Gloom, Sensuality, Imagination and Wonder, and he defines himself therein as a "sexist romantic nihilist." Gee, Peet sounds just like a chronically depressed cinephile-would-be-screenwriter I once dated briefly. We'll give Peet a pass on the "sexist" bit because I don't think he means it in the negative sense, and also because he's from Holland. Okay, Peet, my five words: Warmth, Incandescence, Spirit, Sensuality and Intrigue.