Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon, born June 23, 1964 is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures. He is best known as the creator and showrunner of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Angel (1999–2004), Firefly (2002) and Dollhouse (2009–2010), as well as the short film Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008). Whedon wrote and directed the movie adaptation of Marvel's The Avengers which will be released in May 2012. He is also notable for his work in film, comic books, and online media. Many of Whedon's projects, as well as Whedon himself, enjoy cult status.
Following a move to Los Angeles, Whedon secured his first writing job on the television series Roseanne. After working several years as a script doctor for films, he returned to television, where he created four TV shows.
Years after having his script for the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer produced, Whedon revived the concept as a television series of the same name. Buffy the Vampire Slayer went on to become a critical and cult hit receiving an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series in 2000. Buffy ran for five seasons on The WB Television Network before being relocated to the UPN Network for its final two seasons. Angel was a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, featuring Buffy's vampire-with-a-soul ex-boyfriend as the title character. Debuting in September 1999 on the WB, Angel was broadcast following Buffy during its first two seasons. The WB canceled the show in February 2004 while it was in its fifth season.
Whedon wrote or co-wrote several films, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Toy Story, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Alien Resurrection and Titan A.E.. The song "My Lullaby" from The Lion King II: Simba's Pride was written by him and Seattle native Scott Warrender. He was nominated (along with six other writers) for an Academy Award for Toy Story's screenplay.
He also wrote uncredited drafts or rewrites of Speed, Waterworld, Twister and X-Men, although in interviews, Whedon disowned the latter three films.[citation needed]He claimed that he had a good script for Alien Resurrection, which he felt was spoiled by its director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. His Waterworld script was thrown out[citation needed], and only two of his lines were kept in the final script of X-Men. Even the Buffy movie bore little resemblance to his original screenplay. According to Graham Yost, the credited writer of Speed, Whedon wrote most of its dialogue.
He wrote and directed 2005's Serenity, based on his television series Firefly. Serenity won the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. Beginning in January 2006, fans (with Universal's blessing) began organizing worldwide charity screenings called "Can't Stop the Serenity" (CSTS), a play on a line in the film: "You can't stop the signal", to benefit Equality Now, a human rights organization supported by Joss Whedon. Over $500,000 has been raised for Equality Now since 2006. As of May 1, 2011, 45 cities were registered for CSTS 2011 in 6 countries and 24 U.S. states.
Whedon, a lifelong comic book fan, is the author of the Dark Horse Comics miniseries Fray which takes place in the far future of the Buffyverse. Whedon returned to the world of Fray during the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight arc, "Time of Your Life".
Like many other authors from the Buffy TV show, he also contributed to the show's comic book version: he wrote three stories in the anthology Tales of the Slayers (including one featuring Melaka Fray from Fray) and also the main storyline of the five-issue miniseries Tales of the Vampires.
The three-issue miniseries Serenity: Those Left Behind, based on the Firefly series and leading up to the film Serenity, was released June through August 2005. Co-written with Brett Matthews and pencilled by Will Conrad, the first issue featured covers drawn by John Cassaday, J.G. Jones, and Bryan Hitch, as well as other artists for the second and third issues. The first two issues went to a second printing. The trade paperback featured a new cover by acclaimed painter Adam Hughes.
A second three-issue Serenity miniseries Serenity: Better Days, was released in March, April, and May 2008. "Better Days" reunites Whedon, Matthews, Conrad, and Adam Hughes, who will provide all three covers. The three covers form a larger panorama of the ship's crew. "Better Days" is set before "Those Left Behind", and features the full crew of Serenity. A trade paperback featuring a cover by Jo Chen was released in October 2008.
The dialogue in Joss Whedon's shows and movies usually involves pop culture references both notable and obscure, and the turning of nouns into adjectives by adding a "y" at the end of the word ("listy"). According to one of the Buffy writers, "It's just the way that Joss actually talks.
Whedon also heavily favors the suffix -age (Linkage, Lurkage, Poofage, Postage, Scrollage, Slayage).[60] Also, phrasal verbs usually ending with "out" are changed into direct verbs, for example "freak" rather than "freak out", "bail" rather than "bail out", or "hang" rather than "hang out". Whedon also tends to change adjectives into nouns such as "happy", "shiny" (positive thing), "bad" (mistake), "funny" (joke) – for example, a character may say "I made a funny" instead of "I made a joke".[citation needed] So many of Whedon's altered usages, new words, and heavily popularized words have entered the common usage that PBS in their article series "Do You Speak American" included an entire section on "Slayer Slang".
In an issue of Buffy Season Eight where Buffy travels to the future, Whedon writes Buffy's reaction to the future dialect of Manhattan; this allows Whedon to comment on Buffy's distinctive style of dialogue. "Buffy blames herself for what's happened to the English language, and there's a lot of hubris in that joke. I like to think that adding Y's to words that don't usually have Y's is going to destroy the whole fabric of our society.
[edit]Spiritual and philosophical beliefs
Whedon has identified himself as an atheist on multiple occasions. When interviewed by The AV Club on October 9, 2002, Whedon answered the question "Is there a God?" with one word: "No." The interviewer followed up with: "That's it, end of story, no?" Whedon answered: "Absolutely not. That's a very important and necessary thing to learn. In one of the Buffy DVD commentaries, Whedon comments that "I don't believe in the 'sky bully'", referring to God under a name coined by his colleague Tim Minear. In addition, during a question and answer session found on the Serenity DVD with fans of the Firefly series at Fox Studios in Sydney, he identifies himself as an atheist and absurdist.
Whedon has also spoken about existentialism. On the Firefly DVD set, Whedon explains in detail how existentialism, and more specifically the book Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre, was used as a basis for the episode "Objects in Space". On this commentary he claimed interest in existential ideas and described the impact of Nausea on his early life.
Whedon also identifies himself as a humanist. In April 2009, the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard presented Whedon with the 2009 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism.
A cruise ship with 4,200 people on board ran aground and ripped a 165-foot gash in its hull off the Tuscan island of Giglio on Friday night, and local officials reported that at least six people died. Some on the island said eight were dead.
At least three bodies were recovered from the sea, the Italian coast guard reported.
Helicopters were working to pluck to safety some 50 people still trapped aboard the badly listing Costa Concordia on Saturday, said Coast Guard Cmdr. Francesco Paolillo.
Some people were thrown into the sea when the Costa Concordia started listing, others jumped to evacuate the ship, officials said.
The ship was three-quarters under water and sinking fast, a Giglio hotel clerk told NBC News on Saturday.
The Telegraph of London said some passengers jumped from the steeply listing ship and swam a short distance to the island. A photo showed the brightly lit ship teetering just outside a harbor wall.
One official said that among the dead was a man around age 65, who might have been ill or who might not have withstood the cold of the sea at night, Il Messagero said.
The 290-meter Costa Concordia had left the port of Savona at 7 p.m. local time and was sailing to Civitavecchia, its first port of call, when it ran aground around 9 p.m.
Costa Cruises said 3,200 passengers were aboard, along with 1,023 crew members. Coast Guard Officials said the liner was listing at 20 degrees but was not in danger of sinking.
A local mayor on Giglio, a popular vacation island about 18 miles off the Tuscan coast, said he was trying to find rooms to house the stranded passengers and crew overnight. The cruise ship had departed from the Civitavecchia port near Rome earlier on Friday with scheduled calls at Palermo, Cagliari, Palma, Barcelona and Marseille.
The Italian news agency ANSA said the Concordia started to take on water and lean on the right side after running aground on Giglio's southern tip, in an area popular with divers and close to high cliffs.
ORIGINAL POST: More than 4,000 passengers and crew are being evacuated from a cruise ship off the coast of Italy in the wake of an accident, the AFP is reporting.
Citing the Italian coast guard, the news service says the 114,500-ton Costa Concordia ran aground late Friday shortly after setting sail from the port of Civitavecchia, near Rome, and has taken on water and begun to tilt.
The five-year-old ship is operated by Italy-based Costa Cruises, which is owned by industry giant Carnival Corp.
"The passengers are not in danger," a coast guard spokesman is quoted by AFP as saying, but "a rescue mission is underway.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Costa Concordia disaster, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia
HILTON HEAD, S.C. — Mitt Romney made an appeal to veterans here in what could be considered the political equivalent of the doctrine of overwhelming force.
Mr. Romney and his endorsement brigade — Senator John McCain of Arizona, Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, and John R. Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Romney — offered up rousing patriotism (Mr. Romney), a recycled comedy routine (Mr. McCain), a warm South Carolina welcome (Ms. Haley), and some hawkish, fighting words (Mr. Bolton) in an effort to win over the crowd. But it was his answer to a question on his religious views that might have provided the evening’s most memorable exchange.
Mr. Romney, a Mormon, fielded a question from an older woman who stood and said, “Governor Romney, I’m for you. But I need to ask you a personal question. Do you believe in the divine saving grace of Jesus Christ?”
“Yes, I do,” Mr. Romney said quickly, and to some laughter, before launching into a more lengthy explanation about his views on religion.
Also Bolton endorsed Romney earlier this week. In touting the former Massachusetts governor's candidacy, Bolton said voters "want a president who has judgment, who has steadiness of purpose, who has leadership, who won't falter in a crisis, and who doesn't believe that the role of America in the world is to be a well-bred doormat."
Bolton - who flirted with launching his own presidential bid last year -- also contended it was the military, not Obama, that deserved credit for killing Osama bin Laden.
"You know, the irony is, he's campaigning on the basis that he's a success as a foreign policy president," Bolton said. "It's just really amazing and you ask, What is it that made the success? And it's because Navy SEAL Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden. That's his definition of success. As somebody pointed out, in 1969 when Americans landed on the moon, it's like Richard Nixon taking for credit for that, because it happened to occur during his presidency.
Newt Gingrich unveiled perhaps the silliest slander of the campaign season Friday by mocking Mitt Romney’s ability to — Mon dieu! — utter a few words in halting French.
The 68-second attack ad tries to link Romney to his moderate Massachusetts political brethren and then takes a surreal turn when the narrator breathlessly intones “... and just like John Kerry, he speaks French.”
A clip of the 2004 Democratic nominee saying “Laissez les bons temps rouler” — “Let the good times roll,” the Mardi Gras slogan — is then followed by footage from 2002 of the current GOP front-runner introducing himself: “Bonjour. Je m'appelle Mitt Romney.”
That video was released as a promotion for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, for which Romney served as chief executive. English and French are the official languages of the Olympics.
The attack ad — which is dubbed “The French Connection” and also includes politically infamous images of former Bay State Governor Michael Dukakis in a tank and Kerry wind-surfing — was not funded by a Super PAC, but rather by the Gingrich campaign.
That means Gingrich — a former college professor who fancies himself as an intellectual — gave his approval for an ad that mocks the ability to speak a second language.
Gingrich has not always been such a Francophobe.
He lived in France for a few years as a teenager and has repeatedly compared himself to French World War II hero Charles de Gaulle.
The former House Speaker did, however, attempt to tone down one line of anti-Romney rhetoric by asking his Super PAC to cut out any errors in a documentary it purchased about Bain Capital.
“I’m calling on them to edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire film,” said Gingrich, who said he could not coordinate with the Super PAC, but hoped they would heed his advice. “I've said all along that these Super PACs ought to have some sense of responsibility.”
Meanwhile, Romney maintained a slim lead over Gingrich in South Carolina in a poll released Friday afternoon. The ex-governor of Massachusetts was the choice of 29% of likely voters while Gingrich got the backing of 24%, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling.
Ron Paul followed with 15%, then Rick Santorum with 14%, Rick Perry with 6% and Jon Huntsman with 5%, according to the poll.
The Sunlight Foundation mined federal campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics and state campaign finance data from the National Institute for Money in Politics in producing its report. It also examined Internal Revenue Service filings from state-level 527 organizations as well as published reports of donors to Romney’s inaugural committee.
Romney, who enjoys commanding momentum in the GOP presidential nomination race, has nonetheless struggled to convince voters that he created jobs and economic opportunities for middle-class Americans during his Bain Capital tenure.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich roundly criticized Romney’s work at Bain, before largely dropping the issue after facing criticism himself for it.
Pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future, however, this week launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign in South Carolina that in part slams Romney’s Bain involvement, and it’s released a 27-minute documentary that highlights people who lost their jobs because of Bain shutting down their companies.
GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, meanwhile, has continued attacking Romney as engaging in “vulture capitalism” that would “destroy people’s lives” during his time at Bain.
But Romney has enjoyed support from broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, as well as former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who’ve painted attacks on Bain as being anti-capitalist.
