1) Joss Whedon fan Dori Smith wondered last week:

Okay, here's something that's been puzzling me since yesterday: you've got Joss Whedon, who's a well-known Hollywood liberal type and John Kerry supporter. He's got a new movie coming out next week, name of Serenity.

So why on earth is Whedon, or the studio, or the PR folks, only working with rightwingers to plug the movie?

Maybe it's 'cause there aren't any progressive bloggers who are long-time fans of the show?

I seriously doubt the latter is true, but I do have a partial explanation for Smith: the motto of Grace Hill Media -- the PR firm tasked with the blogger promotion -- is "Helping Hollywood Reach People of Faith." I wonder if there's another PR firm to hype the event for liberal blogggers.....

2) And I wonder if they're better than Grace Hill Media, because I must agree with this blogger's complaint about the confirmation e-mail they sent to everyone. Juuuust a bit too bossy.

3) As someone who was captain of my high school math team, I can say with some certainty that I know from geeks. With that background knowledge, I must confirm what one of my moviegoing compatriots said: "I've been to Star Wars and LOTR openings, but this was easily the geekiest moviegoing audience I've ever seen."

3) Universal studios showed one preview before Serenity -- Doom, starring The Rock. From an audience primed for Joss Whedon quips, it provoked a... bemused reaction.

4) Despite the high fan-to-nonfan ration, there were enough interested outworlders such that the preview accomplished what Whedon said was the marketing strategy in this New York Times interview:

The idea was always that if the fans got excited enough, made enough noise, somebody fan-adjacent would go, "What's that noise?" And somebody near him would go, "What's that noise?" It was about those people, the people who don't know where to look, but then they start to see it or hear about it.