- published: 10 Dec 2015
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Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon ( /ˈwiːdən/; 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 co-wrote and produced the horror film The Cabin in the Woods (2012), and wrote and directed the film adaptation of Marvel's The Avengers (2012).
He is also notable for his work in film, comic books, and online media. Many of Whedon's projects enjoy cult status.
Joss Whedon was born in New York City. He has been described as the world's first third-generation TV writer, as he is the son of Tom Whedon, a screenwriter for The Electric Company in the 1970s and The Golden Girls in the 1980s, and the grandson of John Whedon, a writer for The Donna Reed Show in the 1950s. His mother, Lee Stearns, taught history at Riverdale Country School as Lee Whedon, and was an unpublished novelist. Joss Whedon is the younger brother of Samuel and Matthew Whedon and older brother of writers Jed Whedon and Zack Whedon.
Dark horse is a term used to describe a little-known person or thing that emerges to prominence, especially in a competition of some sort or a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed.
The term began as horse racing parlance. A dark horse is a race horse that is not known to gamblers and thus is difficult to place betting odds on.
The earliest-known use of the phrase is in Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke (1831). Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."
The term has been used politically in such countries as Peru, Philippines and United States.
Politically, the term reached America in the nineteenth century when it was first applied to James K. Polk, a relatively unknown Tennessee Democrat who won the Democratic Party's 1844 presidential nomination over a host of better-known candidates. Polk won the nomination on the ninth ballot, and went on to win the presidential election.
Mark Kermode (born 2 July 1963) is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons. He also co-presents the BBC Two arts programme The Culture Show and discusses other branches of the arts for the BBC Two programme Newsnight Review. Kermode writes and presents a film-related video blog for the BBC.
Kermode, born Mark Fairey in Barnet, North London, England, attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent boys' school in Elstree, a few years ahead of comedians Sacha Baron Cohen, Matt Lucas and David Baddiel and in the same year as actor Jason Isaacs. He was raised as a Methodist, and is now a member of the Church of England.
Mark Fairey's parents divorced when he was in his early 20s and he subsequently changed his surname to his GP mother's maiden name by deed poll. (Neither of them is related to the literary critic Frank Kermode.)
Actors: Joss Whedon (actor), Elisa Donovan (actress), Tom Lenk (actor), Rachelle Carson (actress), Paul Adelstein (actor), David Alan Basche (actor), Greg Kuehn (composer), Emma Caulfield (producer), Emma Caulfield (actress), Joe Roseto (actor), Patrick Day (actor), Selma Al-Faqih (producer), David Fury (actor), Camilla Rantsen (writer), Camilla Rantsen (producer),
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