Bashing in Minds » whedon

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Emmy

cabridges — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:56:08 +0000

I know this is old news already, but I just had to post the acceptance speech:

Get ready for Dollhouse Season 2 with Double Dollhouse Days

cabridges — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:06:22 +0000

Season two of Dollhouse begins September 25 on FOX, and to get ready for it WatchDollhouseWeek.com is gearing up for another communal watching of the first season.

Beginning on August 14, join fans around the world in watching two episodes of Dollhouse back-to-back every Friday, a six-week communal re-watch of Season One in its entirety.

If you tweet about it while you watch (and you really should) add #dollhouse so others can follow along. Live international commentary, anyone?

The program schedule is up at watchdollhouseweek.com and it's set so that you'll finish the unaired 13th episode "Epitaph One" just before the premiere of season two.

Check watchdollhouseweek.com for more details.

Dr. Horrible DVDs are on the shelves!

cabridges — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:03:15 +0000

On a huge freestanding display holding hundreds of copies in neat rows underneath a massive, spinning cardboard-and-PVC diorama of Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible battling over the Death Ray rifle while Penny looks on and…

Actually they weren't even on the New! rack at Best Buy, they were over in the TV section next to the boxset for Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. But they were there! Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the handmade Internet sensation, is now available in stores. Best Buys, anyway. And other stores can order them. Ask your local Blockbuster to get some in.

Or if you still want to order online, you can now get them at Barnes & Noble ($13.49), Borders ($13.99), DeepDiscount.com ($9.27), Walmart ($10.32), Best Buy ($9.99), or from many other retailers. You can even get it from Netflix and Blockbuster Online now!

Yessss… it's all coming together now…

Dr. Horrible week begins with new DVD and new merch

cabridges — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:02:16 +0000

The Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog DVD is almost here!

Well, actually you've been able to get one for months now through Amazon's own DVD publishing system. But tomorrow it'll be available in other online stores, and even in real, physical, walk-in-and-buy-one shops! As far as I know it's the same DVD, with the same contents and extras (crew and cast commentary, original musical "Commentary!" commentary, various making-of videos, the 10 best fan-submitted Evil League of Evil video submissions, some Easter eggs, etc), but now if you've avoided buying it from Amazon for whatever reason, you have no more excuse.

Get it at Barnes & Noble ($13.49) or Best Buy (just #9.99)

Or sign up to be notified when the Blu-Ray version will be available! Evil has never been so high-def!

While you're waiting, don't forget the soundtrack or the many fine shirts and other merchandise available:

Shirts and accessories available from the Dr. Horrible store (the Dr. Horrible cartoon shirts and the Team Hammer tees are also currently nearly half price at TFAW.com)

Get 10 Whedonverse comics for 5 bucks!

cabridges — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:47:46 +0000

TFAW.com has added another great deal for Whedon fans: the Whedonverse Grab Bag.

We've got a bunch of great Whedon-inspired back issue comic books from publishers like Dark Horse and IDW, and now you can bring 'em home. We've put together 10 different Whedon comics for each bundle–that's only $.50 apiece!

When ordering Grab Bag comics we cannot take requests for specific titles or series. Besides, half the fun is the mystery of what you're going to get! Some of these comics may be warehouse finds, and may have minor dings, scratches, etc.

Want to get a friend hooked on your favorite Whedon-based comics? Or maybe you just like grab bags…

Just head here for more details.

'Dollhouse' Whedon's newest, strangest work

cabridges — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 23:58:42 +0000

From left: Harry Lennix, Fran Kranz and Eliza Dushku in "Dollhouse."

What if you could be anyone?

What if you could do anything?

If your memories were erased, again and again, would there be anything left of you?

These are the questions to be examined in Joss Whedon's new TV show "Dollhouse," starring Eliza Dushku, premiering Friday, Feb. 13 on FOX. Other, equally important questions to be answered are: Can Eliza Dushku convincingly play several different people every episode? Will viewers tune in and follow a storyline guaranteed to be as psychological as it is action-packed? Will viewers tune in at all on a Friday night, in enough numbers to satisfy FOX?

My quick review, for those "don't tell me anything, la la la I can't hear you" people who are avoiding even the slightest hint of plot: It's good. It's going to get even better. Watch it.

More details, and a promo video, after the jump.

For everyone else, the concept is a simple one. There's a super-super-secret place called the Dollhouse. For the right price you can get anyone you want, for (presumably) any task. Want the perfect girlfriend, the perfect assassin, the perfect musician, the perfect hostage negotiator, the perfect spy, the perfect, I don't know, backgammon player? The happily amoral folks at the Dollhouse will take your money and your specs, create that personality and download it, including skills, experiences, and muscle memory, into an "Active," a person whose own memory has been completely removed. The Active utterly becomes that newly created person, thinking and acting as such, until the assignment is over, whereupon the Active will feel a compulsion to return to the Dollhouse for a "treatment." The new memories get wiped and the Active is returned to a blank, gently puzzled state to await the next job.

Simple, easy to follow, straight-forward, only this is a Joss Whedon show so you know that can't last.

The Active we're following is Echo, played by Eliza Dushku. As the becoming-legendary story goes, she had a development deal with FOX and took Whedon to lunch to pump his brain for ideas. After they observed that everyone still sees her as "Faith" from "Buffy" without getting an idea of her range, Whedon went to the bathroom and came back with the name of the show, the storyline for the pilot, and several of the episodes already mapped out. This is the sort of thing that makes writers hate Whedon just a little bit.

And while there are many excellent actors in "Dollhouse" — Olivia Williams plays Adelle DeWitt, the person running the place; Harry Lennix is Boyd Langdon, the Actives' handler and DeWitt's unrequested moral compass; Tahmoh Penikett is the relentlessly persistent FBI Agent Paul Ballar; Fran Kranz as neurotech wizard Topher Brink; Reed Diamond is Laurence Domini, DeWitt's hard-edged security man; Whedon-alum Amy Acker as the scarred and silent Dr. Claire Saunders, medical doctor for the Actives, and the Actives themselves (Victor, played by Enver Gjokaj, and Sierra, played by Dichen Lachman) — the show's success lies squarely on Dushku's shoulders. Can she play the part, or parts, and make us believe it?

In the first episode, "Ghost," she makes a good start. We get a few glimpses of her past before we see her in several guises: party girl, harsh professional, and blank slate Active. Dushku still has some mannerisms she'll need to lose before we believe she's really become a new person — and I can't help seeing some Faith in there, still — but she does a good job and I think she'll get better. We get a hint that maybe her personality is a little stronger than the Dollhouse people are used to, and a startling peek at what may be waiting for her in her future.

We also get a feel for the rest of the cast, as every one of them gets some screen time that shows off their place in the story. And surprise! Almost all of them have conflicting desires and hidden agendas. Besides Echo, the two we learn the most about are Langdon, the handler and ex-cop, who is getting a little more involved in the Active's cases than he should be, and Topher Brink, who apparently has no problem at all mucking with people's brains and will tell you why, at length.

This is a show that grabs your attention slowly, and works its way into your brain more with re-watchings. The initial 10 or 15 minutes of the first episode started off gradually for me, and the rest isn't exactly nonstop raging, exploding violence. It's as close to a procedural show as Whedon's ever gotten, with more real-world interaction. There's also not as much humor as his fans have come to expect, although Topher Brink is clearly the one getting the best quotes (from a promo clip: "This is cutting-edge science in a house full of hot chicks!"). But it got my attention, it held my interest, and even after watching it again I found more new details and new questions every time.

There are warring personalities inside the company itself. There's a somewhat obsessive cop devoted to hunting the place down. There are jobs that won't go quite right. There are the hidden histories of the Actives' pasts. There are the hidden mysteries of the pasts of the implanted personalities, one of which surfaces in the first episode. There are other threats to the Dollhouse looming. There's the ongoing ethical issues of playing with someone's memories. And despite those memory wipes, Echo seems to be remembering things…

This isn't "Buffy," with pop culture references, teen slang and makeup monsters, or "Firefly," with space travel and an invented society. This is something new, something different.

This is "Dollhouse," a psychological thriller that will bring you back the next week, and the next.

"Dollhouse" premieres Friday night, Feb. 13, at 9 p.m. (right after the newly scheduled "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," which isn't a bad pairing at all). For more info, pics, and video interviews, check out FOX's official Dollhouse site, the Dollhouse Wiki, Dollhouse Facebook page, or the fansites Dollverse and Whedonesque.com.

"Dr. Horrible" on MySpace and Hulu… and here

cabridges — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:18:35 +0000

"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" is now available, for free (but ad-supported) at MySpace and on Hulu. Woo hoo!

Which means I can also embed it here, and I think I shall. Enjoy.

Head's up Bon Jovi, here comes Teresa

cabridges — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:34:27 +0000

Teresa has decided to become a full-time groupie.

Not just the type who gushes about her band online, pins posters around her room and writes "Mrs. Bon Jovi" on her notebooks, although she does that too (not the Mrs. part, she said she has no interest in leaving our marriage or breaking his; I believe she has in mind more of a sophisticated arrangement, like a time-share). No, she plans to be the one who follows her band, concert to concert, city to city, country to country, becoming friends and confidant to the road crew. The fact that we're broke has no bearing on this. You can't deny your calling. She has already begun looking into which countries allow you to sell your children.

Yesterday, on an extended and carefully planned last minute whim, she flew to Boston to see Bon Jovi in concert. She's even now in the air on her way back, possibly without waiting for the plane. With her are the well-wishes, advice, and (in some cases) open envy of the other ladies on the Bon Jovi forum she frequents. They have kept up on her doings from other forum members at the concert who are calling in song-by-song updates, and from me, as I've been hearing from Teresa and posting on her behalf with her account. (I am, apparently, "Mr. Teresa.")

Here's the last recap I posted.

OK, Teres made it back to the motel all right. She's still breathless and trying to absorb it all, and I'm sure she'll go into a lot more detail for you when she's back, but here's some highlights:

Jon was awesome.
The rest of the band was good, too.
She did, in fact, get to see him pretty clearly.
Her pictures didn't come out, though, and the one time he came out to her area to sing she's afraid she took too much time trying to take pictures and didn't spend enough time just gazing at him.
No luck with the binoculars; she tried 'em during the opening act and couldn't see through them so she gave up.
Jon was awesome.
The lady next to her kept getting beer – a lot of it – and then would spill most of it dancing around. When she left to get more, that's when Jon came over to sing. The person with her told Teres "Oh, she's gonna kill me."
Jon and the band walked under Teres, twice. Yes, she was on top of Jon Bon Jovi twice in one night, and she won't be forgetting THAT any time soon.
She's not sure that Richie got a cake (Guitarist Richie Sambora's 49th birthday is today), she thought it might have been a pyramid of champagne glasses with candles in it. Not sure.
Jon can't sing "Happy Birthday." He might have been singing it badly on purpose, but it's just weird.
She tried using the video recorder on the camera to record a few songs, figured she could get the audio even if the picture didn't come out. Got a few, then they started doing the acoustic encores and that's when the memory card filled up.
Jon was awesome.
She did get a recording of Jon saying he wanted to hear her scream. She wants that for a ringtone now.
Actually she's pretty sure the only thing she recorded was herself, screaming. A lot. Not with the music, either. Just all out fangirl screaming. Her throat is sore.
She thinks the crowd was especially rowdy. The band did the two encores, came out and held hands and bowed, and the audience kept screaming. The band huddled together, and then played one more song (a cover). Lisa (another forum member who met her there) said they never do this.
Teres kept walking into people coming out of the concert. Not just absentmindedly. Hard. Then she would apologize and walk away and do it to someone else.
She's afraid to go to sleep now because she'll forget everything. I assured it it would be stuck in her brain forever.
She will be in front of him next time. Not sure yet how she'll manage that, but she will. Oh, yes.
Did she mention Jon was awesome?

When I mention this to friends at work or online, I invariably get the same reaction: arched eyebrow (or smiley of same) and "Bon Jovi? Whatever, I guess." Apparently my friends are not part of the 120 million people who have bought Bon Jovi albums and CDs over the last 25 years, or who pushed his latest one ("Lost Highway") to the top of the charts worldwide. I like him, although I don't plan to follow his tour or work my way up the side of his apartment building in Manhattan on a window washer rig (Teresa at my side, with burlap sack and ether) any time soon.

Even if I didn't, I certainly can't talk. Most of my office area at home (and a fair amount at work) is taken up with Joss Whedon-related items, and I took off for LA last December on a trip I could ill afford just to march with him and his friends in the writers strike. I understand obsession. I may not be at the "I <3 Joss" notebook cover stage but that could just be because I haven't yet seen "Dr. Horrible" yet so it can't be ruled out.

She went, she saw, and now her casual obsession may turn into a career. Obsessions are like that.

This tour is almost over for Bon Jovi, so at least for awhile following the band won't be too difficult. Mostly moving from room to room I expect, and saying "woo!" occasionally. So she can ease into it.

Be like Captain Hammer

cabridges — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:58:23 +0000

The massive onslaught of Dr. Horrible-related coolness has begun, with this tie-in comic about his arch-nemesis, Captain Hammer called "Captain Hammer: Be Like Me."

Written by Zack Whedon and illustrated by Eric Canete and Dave Stewart, it's a civic-minded piece that serves to instruct children in the straight, narrow, and violent.

It's also free, part of this month's Dark Horse Comics "MySpace Dark Horse Presents."

Cool? Free? The new paradigm is working! Joss, where can I send you all of my money?

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

cabridges — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:18:18 +0000

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Joss Whedon likes to create things. He likes to share things. He especially likes to create things that become obsessions with lots of people. And recently, he started thinking about how to create and share things without having to deal with any of the big studios. What he came up with, with the help of his briothers and fiance-in-law, was "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog."

It's three minisodes, designed to be posted online. It stars Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion. It's a super-villain musical. And it's coming online for free starting July 15, with new episodes every couple of days, and then paid downloads and an upcoming massively-packed DVD. All without studio involvement.

What it needs now is attention. They have the website, the MySpace page, the Facebook page, and the Twitter account. They have banners and buttons. They have a Digged page climbing higher in the ranks. They have T-shirts on the way. There will be a Dr. Horrible panel at the San Diego Comic-Con. There will be a comic coming from Dark Horse at their Dark Horse Presents page on MySpace. And they have Joss waxing hilaric about it.

All they need now is for you to tell everyone you know (but not in a stalkery way, unless they're cool with that). This will be huge, and fun, and gioofy, and a slap in the face to the networks, and none of that is not fun. Spread the word, my people!