Tuesday, June 15, 2010

White Elephants on Parade! (Last updated: 6/19/10)

Well, the day has arrived, folks- the day of the 4th Annual White Elephant blogathon. And I’m happy to announce that this year’s blogathon is shaping up to be as good as it’s been in years past. I’m pretty relieved, truth be told- when I took this thing over, I wasn’t sure how well it would go, getting uprooted from its original home and taking place a good 2 ½ months after its usual April Fool’s Day street date. But thankfully, things worked out in the end. So I’d like to thank everyone who made this year’s White Elephant possible- to Keith Uhlich for helping to spread the word, and of course to Ben Lim for starting up this whole thing.

And a special thanks to everyone who contributed reviews this year. Considering some of the stink bombs that got submitted, I would have understood anyone who had second thoughts, but everyone has come through nicely. I had initially intended this year’s White Elephant as a way to keep Muriels voters active in the off-season, and although there are plenty of friends o’Muriel in the mix, this year’s White Elephant participants hail from throughout the cinephile blogosphere. There should be a number of names listed below that you’re already familiar with, along with plenty of others that you really ought to know. So do yourselves a favor and check out everyone’s review. I hope that you’ll find at least a handful of new writers worth reading.

And now, without further Apu… this year’s White Elephant Blogathon lineup!

Simon Abrams reviews The Pest!

Ali Arikan reviews The Survivors!

Kent M. Beeson reviews Ishtar!

Josh Bell reviews Dr. Doolittle: Million Dollar Mutts!

Brandon reviews Roller Gator!

The Dread Pirate Steven Carlson reviews Gymkata!

Paul Clark reviews Gorilla at Large!

KC Costanzo reviews Olga’s Girls!

Dennis Cozzalio reviews Mannequin 2: On the Move!

Chris Devlin reviews Strange Circus!

Andy Fernandez reviews Play Dirty!

Kenji Fujishima reviews Scream For Help!

Daniel Getahun takes a break from his newly wedded bliss to review Summer/The Green Ray!

Richard Gorelick reviews Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare!

Abigail Graber reviews The Gate!

Jaime Grijalba reviews The Suckling… in Spanish!

Ivan Lerner reviews Johnny Mnemonic!

Matt Lynch reviews Pieces!

Jeff McMahon reviews Guy Ritchie’s Swept Away!

Britt Parrott reviews Reptilian!

Michael Peterson reviews Taoism Drunkard!

Shaka Shervington reviews Attack of the 50-Foot Woman!

Philip Tatler reviews Crimes of Passion!

Patrick Williamson reviews Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze!

Finally, the review I’ve looking forward to most this year: Victor J. Morton, Rightwing Film Geek, reviews Claire Denis’ The Intruder. Honesty requires me to admit that I was the one who submitted this title. However, in keeping with the rules of the game, I selected The Intruder before I knew who would end up reviewing it, my reasons for choosing limited to its polarizing, love-it-or-hate-it nature. But when my random assignment process (too boring and complicated to discuss in the space) ended up giving the film to Victor, a Denis non-fan of long standing- the dude didn’t even like 35 Shots of Rum, and I thought everybody liked that one- I couldn’t help but smile and think, “think is gonna be gooooooooood.” And Victor’s succinct and decidedly vulgar response upon learning his assignment let me know that my gut feeling was right. Check it out here!

There are a few stragglers still out there, but they should be posting by tomorrow (right, guys?), so keep checking in here for all the White Elephant festivities! You’ve already got plenty to get you started. Enjoy!

3 comments:

Simon said...

Dude. I, like, want in on this next year.

Paul C. said...

Simon,

Glad to hear you're interested. I hope to do this thing again next spring on Ben's original appointed date- April Fool's Day. Check back in January or February for the announcement.

Ivan said...

Paul,
Thanks for going through the trouble of wrangling all us bloggers for this.

This was fun!
--Ivan