Ebony and Ivory

I bring you news today of the return of two particular blogosphere favourites from last year. Benjamin Lim’s White Elephant Blog-a-thon over at Lucid Screening and Odienator's Second Annual "Black History Mumf" at Big Media Vandalism.

This will be the 3rd Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon over at Ben’s blog. The rules are simple:

1) Submit the title of a movie that you want someone else to review (preferably something available via Netflix).
2) Review the movie that you get assigned and post the review on April 1st.
3) Have fun.

My assignment last year was Flash Gordon, the 1980 camp classic that is more famous for its soundtrack than anything else (with the possible exception of Brian Blessed’s gregarious turn as Prince Vultan, King of the Hawkmen: “GORDON’S ALIVE!” Indeed, Brian).
And the film I submitted, which Ferdy over at Ferdy on Films, etc. had to review was the seminal Whoopi Goldberg classic Theodore Rex, the film that so neatly captures the existential drama lying at the core of a truly Bergmanesque story involving a sassy female cop and an anthropomorphic dinosaur.
I have submitted my film for this year (not telling), and can’t wait to get my assignment.

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Odienator’s Black History Mumf series features some of the wittiest pieces of writing on the blogosphere. Last year, I was especially taken by Odie’s review of a personal favourite:

The trio is standing outside a building on the Boulevard of Death in Queens, a building that, with the exception of an M made from arcs instead of arches, looks exactly like a McDonalds. It’s a hilarious sight gag for most people, but for Black folks it’s doubly hilarious. We’re used to knock-offs sprouting up in the ‘hood. On the corner of my brother’s block, for example, there’s a restaurant called Kantacky Fried Chicken. They sell a pail of chicken instead of a bucket. I bet in your ‘hood you can find a [fill in the blank with a place other than Kentucky] Fried Chicken. My cousin said she went someplace ghetto and they had Idaho Fried Chicken. “Their french fries were the shit,” she told me. I bet they were.

Anyway, this year’s Black History Mumf started on a different note than last year’s. But it’s still great.

Whenever my mother would tell me that I could be President if I worked hard, I would look at her as if she’d lost her mind. In our school history books, the only time the pictures had a tan were when they depicted cotton picking slaves, Sitting Bull, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., or George Hamilton. Every single president, from the wooden teeth of George Washington to the Log Cabin Republican called Lincoln, from the heft of William Howard Taft to the lustful heart of Jimmy Carter, from Tippicanoe and Tyler to the Forgetful Jones imitation who once had Bedtime for Bonzo—every single one of those pictures looked nothing like me. If you were a woman of any shade, they didn’t look like you, either. But one thing at a time.

Click here to go to central links page at Big Media Vandalism.

Oh, and one last thing.

"He beat Joe Louis’s ass!"