By Kim Filchak

It is a given that most people who are into geeky type things are into Joss Whedon. Not everyone mind you, but if you asked a random panel room at a random convention in random town for everyone who liked Joss Whedon to raise their hands more hands would go up than stay down. Even if some people are not fans of the Joss verse (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Doll House), most people really loved The Avengers. People like him and it has always been pretty clear that he likes us back and he is now apparently willing to prove his fondness and gratitude with expensive gifts. How so you ask? That is where it gets interesting.

Recently Joss Whedon made a new movie, the paranormal-romance In Your Eyes, which is not all that generous or unusual in and of itself except for the way he did it. Instead of releasing the film via the multiplex saturation, where ticket prices run from 10.00 to 15.00 dollars a pop and a bag of popcorn/icy combo pack will cost you an additional $10,00, he has made it available online through Vimeo for only $5.00. This is kind of a big deal, but not really the part of the story where it gets unbelievable, that’s what happened next. Randomly selected people who watched In your Eyes on Vimeo started receiving thank you gifts from him. For watching his movie. That many of would have happily paid out $15.00 to see in the theater instead of the mere $5.00 needed to watch at home with the added bonus of being able to do it in their pajamas with a bag of Funyuns and 2 liter of Fanta. The gifts themselves ranged from “OMG, who even does this?”to kind of weirdly adorable.

Sometimes it feels like the people in Hollywood who create the things we love really do not appreciate us outside of our ability to scavenger $15.00 from the bottom of our purse & in-between sofa cushions to go see their latest offering, but Joss Whedon is proving he sees more than that in his fans. It is for that reason alone I am going to watch In Your Eyes even though I swore off any and all paranormal romances with a blood oath the last time I was emotionally blackmailed into sitting though a Twilight marathon. Even if I don’t get a Weber grill out of it, it will be worth it.