Now that Sarah, Lori, Karman, Dara and Jill have made video blogging the Hot New Thing at AfterEllen.com, I broke down and gave in. Yes, I, too have gotten myself a camcorder and slapdashedly taught myself how to cobble edit together a video blog, co-hosted by me and my friend Sarah Pecora (who was also on my panel rating the Top 15 Hottest Butches), talking aimlessly (and hopefully, a bit humorously) about a subject we hold near and dear to our hearts: people like us of color in entertainment!

Sarah (left) and Malinda (right) explain themselves

Since this is our first video blog, please bear with us while we goof around with the technical details and learn how to light ourselves properly (yes, I see the huge shadow looming behind Sarah's head — oops!). We also do not yet have a name for our vlog, but we do have a suggestion for what we'd like to call it, and we hope you'll contribute your ideas, too.

For our inaugural episode, we offer you a wrap-up of some of the women of color we saw in TV and film this summer, namely: … continue reading

Back in 2004, ABC commissioned a pilot for a new series from thirtysomething and My So-Called Life creators Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. That show, called 1/4life, never made it to air. Now, Zwick and Herskovitz have revived the show, recast it, rewritten it and re-shot it for a different medium. Beginning Nov. 11, you'll be able to see the revamped show on MySpace TV. Even the name has been revamped a tad. It's now called Quarterlife.

Quarterlife stars relative newcomer Bitsie Tulloch, who took over the lead role played by Shiri Appleby in the original 2004 pilot.

Zwick and Herskovitz have already tackled teens and thirtysomethings, so this time they're taking on the age group in the middle. Quarterlife tells the story of a group of artsy twentysomethings looking for creative outlets, including a female video blogger who manages to find herself in some rather hot water when her friends take issue with what she posts about them. Here's the trailer. … continue reading

I gotta say, I love Episode #6. It's the introduction of MONIQUE, as well as MISTY and COLBY. Rose Rollins is an effing genius. I told her to go off on my friend, JOEL MICHAELY, who is playing IRRITATING LAUNDRY GUY. Hilarious. A couple of years ago, we didn't have a washer-dryer and would have to go do our laundry at this laundromat in Hollywood, and I ran into this annoying guy who took my damn clothes out of the dryer before it was dry and gave me this big bulls--- explanation — anyways, this is my filmic revenge.

We had about a half hour to shoot the laundromat scene. The owner of the location said we could shoot there, but didn't want to shut down, so we had to do the crazy scene with people around doing their laundry. … continue reading

In the second segment of our video blog this week (watch the first one on Lesbians and Ladies Rooms here), Lori and I rate and review the movies and TV shows we watched in the past 10 days or so, which include the new Harry Potter movie Order of the Phoenix, Gray Matters, Puccini for Beginners, Girltrash, Hell's Kitchen(Fox), Army Wives (Lifetime), Baldwin Hills (BET), Greek (ABC Family), Entourage (HBO), The Closer (TNT), Standoff (Fox), and the History Channel documentary The Star Wars Legacy.

Yes, I realize it looks like Lori and I did nothing but watch TV and movies this week, but we're discussing a few TV episodes from the previous week, too, and it's not very often that a Harry Potter movie and two lesbian movies get released around the same time. If only they would put a lesbian in a Harry Potter movie, our life would be complete!

You'll notice a few differences in this segment: We didn't use captions because it would have taken WAY too long, since we covered so much ground in this one — and as much as I like doing this vlog, I don't want to give up my entire Sunday for it. But we'll still use captions whenever it makes sense (which will be often).

We're also using this segment to introduce our new Bunny Designation System (BDS), which is sort of like a rating system, but with bunnies. It's hard to explain, but basically ... Lori likes bunnies. And it was better than anything else we could come up with. So if you don't like it, no chocolate from the Easter Bunny for you this year! … continue reading