Archive for April, 2008
Decoded for acronyms, that translates into this question: Why is the so-called Joss Whedon Fan Club listed as a global sponsor of this year’s Can’t Stop the Serenity? The answer is that I have no earthly idea.
Their “contribution” to the screenings is listed as a “special fan club membership package”. And yet membership in this alleged club is free for the asking, and offers no benefits other than “being able to tell everyone you’re a member of the coolest fan club in the ‘verse”.
As near as I can tell, this “club” has been around since 2006 and has done nothing except put ads on its website and open an eBay store to sell you stuff, despite its founders claiming to be “proud of what they’ve accomplished so far”.
This “special membership package” being provided to CSTS events in exchange for being listed as a global sponsor reportedly includes not just the club membership (which, as noted, is free anyway) but “t-shirts” — although as of early April it was indicated that this year’s CSTS coordinator did not even know what t-shirts, exactly, allegedly were being contributed, and to date this information still has not been provided.
What’s more, this “club” appears to not actually know very much about Joss Whedon or his activities.
According to their Joss Whedon 101 page, “he is currently in pre-production on a new Wonder Woman movie and a film he’s written called Goners. Whedon also writes comic books. His comic book work can currently be seen in the Astonishing X-Men series for Dark Horse Comics.”
Almost nothing in that statement is correct accept for “Whedon also writes comic books”. Outside of including no mention of recent, current, or future projects (such as Sugarshock, Dollhouse, or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog), it’s so out of date that it misses that he got kicked off of Wonder Woman and that Goners has long since stalled in development.
Not to mention that I’m quite sure it would be news to Dark Horse that they, and not Marvel, own the X-Men franchise.
All of which leads to the point: Why is the so-called Joss Whedon Fan Club listed as a global sponsor of this year’s Can’t Stop the Serenity?
All the evidence suggests fairly convincingly that this “club” shouldn’t be on anyone’s radar at all, let alone allowed to attach its name to a charity endeavor which needs to have far more credibility than this improper sponsorship suggests.
Who’s flying this thing?
Addendum: See their MySpace blog for more on just how half-assed and semi-existent is this “club”.
Last night I dreamt that there was something stuck somewhere inside my nose, and I slowly was getting it to work its way down my left nostril. By the time it was finished and fully out, it turned out to be an entire (and large) bulb of garlic.
And so today my sister discovers something I was disconcerted to find I had never before seen or heard. Apparently, as a part of their Venue Songs, They Might Be Giants have one about The Egg, a building in which, in essence, I grew up.
Back in March, the Tim Robbins film The Heretic, scheduled to begin filming here in Portland, dropped into hiatus instead. Earlier this month, The Hollywood Reporter said that the film “fell apart for reasons likely connected to financing”.
But this week, the latest edition of Production Weekly has a new listing for The Heretic. Unfortunately, they’ve gone subscription only and finally learned to protect the directory from which they serve their files, so I can’t see what it says.
Upon returning to my building after breakfast down the street, I open the door to the empty elevator to the sound of a woman’s voice.
“Hello?” it says.
After a disconcerted pause, I respond. “Hello?”
“Yes, I’m calling from Nielsen Media Research,” the woman informs me. I don’t catch the rest of what she says as I step into the elevator.
In fact, I interrupt her. “You know you’re calling an elevator.”
“What?”
“You’re calling an elevator.”
Cue her own disconcerted pause. “No, I didn’t know that,” she says. “Well, have a good day!”
