Here It Is, the Worst Kickstarter
Hamilton Nolan · 06/03/15 12:25PMPeak startup:
Peak startup:
Famed sexter and former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen isn't letting a lawsuit or a scandal or losing all his money get him down . Especially not when he can have yours instead. Tomorrow, Hansen will launch a Kickstarter campaign for a new series that is apparently not a joke: Hansen vs. Predator.
Have any interest in funding a zombie outbreak response team? How about an eight-foot-tall sculpture of a hummingbird, or the children's book Ants in the Plants at Gramp's? Do these Wig Hatz 4 Cancer inspire you to open your wallet? If you answered "yes" to any of them, congratulations: You're the only person who ever has.
Can you believe it's 2014 and no one has made a documentary about Joan Didion? Neither can Griffin Dunne, Didion's very proud nephew via her late husband, John Gregory Dunne. The younger Dunne, the erstwhile director of Practical Magic, is asking the public for $80,000 to make a movie about his 79-year-old aunt (and maybe a little about himself).
Back in July, Zack Brown asked Kickstarter for $10 to make potato salad ("I don't know what kind yet") He ended up with $55,000, and his modest project sparked a debate between people who found it harmless and fun and those who say it reveals a privileged internet class with too much money and not a clue how to spend it.
Last month, crowdfunding site Kickstarter loosened its strict(ish) guidelines for projects, allowing users to ask the internet to pay for basically anything that's not illegal. So Zack Danger Brown was well within the rules when he asked for $10 to make potato salad, and his 1,700 backers didn't violate the site's terms by giving him $23,000 and counting.
Zach Braff and Donald Faison have one of the greatest friendships in Hollywood—so great, they wrote themselves an epic love song. Last night, they performed it live to promote Braff's new film.
Spike Lee, a very accomplished New York film director and NYU professor, has spent a substantial part of this summer promoting a Kickstarter campaign he'd launched to crowdsource a $1,250,000 budget for his vaguely defined next movie. (On Friday, his $1.25-million goal was met.) One of the ways he'd drummed up publicity for the project was by releasing the academic list of essential movies he considers "the greatest films ever made," a slugsheet of cinematic titles he'd routinely hand out on the first day of class, which we published here.
Spike Lee, the very accomplished director, producer, and Madison Square Garden defender, has been a film professor at NYU for the last 15 years. Every semester on the first day of class, the former Harvard instructor distributes a list of essential movies he considers "the greatest films ever made," cinematic titles he deems required education for all aspiring directors. Now, Professor Lee has entrusted this academic canon to the electronic world.
Now that the Crackstarter has closed, you're probably scouring the internet for another worthy cause to crowd-fund. We've found one for you! Zosia Mamet and her sister Clara Mamet, both children of David Mamet, have started a hipster folk band and no one is giving them a penny to make their music video.