Yes, we’re halfway into the first month of 2013 — but I realized I forgot to do one of these Beehive Year in Review posts. I swear it’s the last looking-back-at-2012 post I’ll write. If I didn’t do this post, though, how would you know which contests you entered the most and which commenters are still in our “top 10?” See. You’re welcome.
So without further ado — unless you want me to drag this out another 14 days — here are the most read and most commented Beehive posts of 2012, along with our most prolific commenters.
Whether you’re on the list or not, thanks to everyone who participates in the site, either by reading and responding, sharing links with your friends or even grumbling to yourself about what we write. You’re all appreciated.
ARTHOP, JAZZHOP AND — INTRODUCING! — THURSDAY NIGHT LIVE: Thursday is the first Thursday of the month, meaning it’s ArtHop and JazzHop . There are fliers for those below, but might I suggest stopping by the Warnors Theatre complex? Thursday is also the start of a new weekly concert series — Thursday Night Live on the Fulton Mall. If you remember, Fulton Plaza Thursdays, it’s kinda like that, but hopefully better. MoFo Party Band plays the first one. There’s no cover. More deets.
TWO BIG DOWNTOWN FESTIVALS: The downtown calendar overlaps this weekend with the two big annual events: the Fresno Tattoo Expo (Saturday and Sunday at the Fresno Convention Center) and the Cinco De Mayo festival (Friday-Sunday on the Fulton Mall).
APCAL IS BACK: The popular summer concert series at ApCal Winery in Fresdera (the address is in Madera, but it’s just an exit past Herndon on 99) returns on Friday night. Local band Deja Blues, which set the attendance record last summer, kicks things off. It’s also hosting a beer and wine festival with comedians for Cinco De Mayo on Saturday.
THESE AREN’T THE DRINKS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR: Got your Darth Vader costume yet? The Star Wars Pub Crawl is Friday night — ya know, for May the Fourth Be With You. Read more in my recent column about the event.
ALSO IN NERD WORLD: As you know already, “The Avengers” opens this week. To get you ready, Sierra Vista Cinemas 16 is having an all-day Marvel movie-a-thon on Thursday. See all the Marvel movies leading up to the midnight premiere of “Avengers.” More info here.
IN TOWN THIS WEEK: A few concerts you need to know about — rockers Middle Class Rut play Fulton 55 on Wednesday night, Morris Day & The Time lead the Cinco De Mega concert at Rotary Amphitheatre at Woodward Park on Friday and San Francisco salsa band N’Rumba plays Saturday night at Starline for Cinco De Mayo.
Just like you don’t have to be a doctor to play one in a movie, Chris Evans didn’t have to be a fan of comic books to be qualified to play costumed heroes in movies like “Fantastic Four,” “Captain America: The First Avenger” and the upcoming “The Avengers.”
Evans tells me during a chat after seeing the world premiere of “The Avengers” that his choice of reading materials was something quite different when he was young.
“As a kid, I liked those ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books,” Evans says. “Those were so much fun.”
For those of you not familiar with that literary line, the books start with a basic story. Then at various points in the book, the reader has the option to go to one of two different pages to continue the tale. This continues until the end. The idea is that the books can be read in many different ways.
Evans is trying to figure out if that format can be used to make a movie.
“Maybe it could be an app on your phone where somewhere in the film the audience has to vote together so every time it could be a different film,” Evans says.
If he had come up with that application before the opening of “The Avengers,” moviegoers could have the team win a battle, lose a battle or even skip a battle to have a snack. It could happen.
UPDATE, 10/20: Apparently “The Avengers: Sweded” will be on tonight’s “Attack of the Show” on G4 at 7 p.m. Yesterday the show’s Twitter account linked to the Swede.
UPDATE, 10/20: “The Avengers: Sweded” is officially a viral hit with over 88,588 views since yesterday. It’s since been picked up by Laughing Squid, MTV SplashPage and the Yahoo! Movies blog. On top of that, the Swede Fest Twitter feed just announced that the Swede is the fourth most popular video “around the web” on YouTube’s charts for Film and Animation, and it was even seen by one of the producers of the movie The Avengers.
Can’t wait to see how much farther this video goes.
Original, 10/19: This is a friendly reminder that Swede Fest 8 submissions are due November 1. You’ve been working on yours, right?
To encourage you to get going, the guys at Dumb Drum put together and released their Swede early. Check out their version of the newly released trailer for Marvel’s The Avengers, due in theaters May 2012:
If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out the Swede Fest page, which has submission rules and links to entries from the previous seven events.
