congratulations!! today is your lucky day!! you have been invited to the most exclusive, underground, celebrity club in the world!! its name is only spoken within the strobe-lit walls, its doors only open for a password, and its members only pass the velvet rope with a ticket!! this club is club fionnguin!!
okay, we're sorry the poster looks kindergarten-y and serial-killer-y (and yes, we're sorry for creating this combo - it was not intended)!! film is our skill, not photoshop. you can cut us a break!! but yes, if you couldn't tell, that's a club penguin avatar with a fionn whitehead head (different sidetone if you don't know who that is: click here), and we will get to why the heck that is in a minute, but first, a little backstory.
like always, a big, bad club doesn't get the hype of being big and bad without starting out as a baby!! and oooh sweetie, club fionnguin had the baby-est of beginnings. belonging to the gen alpha baby club (less superior than the '03 baby club we know, but still), this future a-lister spot was born in the midst of the crazy times of the c-word pandemy. and if an actual lil gen alpha (or coronnial which we're hoping sticks) is reading this, just know these were real savage times. isolation, cabin fever, repetition, boredom - basically think if you were 'quarantined' to only one tiktok video on a loop - just one - for an entire year - and you couldn't create any tiktoks yourself either, because sorry, social distancing is a real kicker...but worst ;) and while some took on unnecessary house reinventions and others picked up silly hobbies in all this hysteria and madness, two twins from texas decided that the only way to stay sane was by creating a movie club!!!!
yeah, yeah, we know, we're geeks...and even more so because we took this 'movie club' way too seriously. like, next level serious. blame the lock down or our inner aries, but we're pretty sure our parents thought we were mental because of how serious we took it. however, to our defense, we had nothing better to do, so mental so be it. we had finally found something to look forward to, and we were going to look-the-fudge-forward to it!!
to be honest, there is still controversy and uncertainty about who came up with the idea first. while one of us (annie) had the initial idea of doing something special during the c-word like a movie club, the other (katie) might've assumed that 'a special movie club' meant taking the entire week prior to the designated weekend to make tickets for the watch-list-movies, printing out the celebrity guests' faces on full sheets of paper to tape to the couch, playing 'roger the bouncer', who had to wait until annie guessed the password correctly, and giving the official stamp on people's hands once in the club. so, it's debatable. but as you can assume, an event like this every weekend, we didn't care who started it as long as we were invited!!
which leads us back to the wonderful full circle of why the heck it's called 'club fionnguin' and why we photoshopped fionn whitehead on a penguin. you see, in honor of the club's very first watch party for the so-so film, 'dunkirk' that stars the young and talented mr. fionn whitehead as the leading man, we wanted to dedicate it to the memories and name it after him. and since, 'club penguin' was already a well known club and 'fionn' kinda sounded like 'pen', we thought it would stick better and make the rounds more if, one, people could remember the name of it, and, two, say it!! so, 'club fionnguin' was born!!
til this day, in the fresh year of 2022, club fionnguin has (funny enough) had a total of 22 club events, 21 celebrity guests, and has seen a whopping number of 124 shows (a total sum of movies and tv series combined - tv episodes not included)!!
and although this is a very exclusive club, and we can't explicitly list out all 21 names of our celebrity guests, let's just say mr. keanu reeves might've stopped by, the parx bois might've said hi, and billie eilish and britney spears might've made an appearance or two.
something we can explicitly list out for y'all tho is all 22 events that club fionnguin has seen:
1) FIONN FRI-YAY
the very first o.g event that kicked everything off!! obviously, obviously on a friday - duh the title!! and because we're bffs with fionn, (assuming he'd let us be bffs with him), it's the bff pass!! shows that weekend included: the children act, a million little pieces, black mirror: bandersnatch, dunkirk, american animals, and sing street.
2) THE BABY MA EFFECT
'baby ma' being a quote from fionn whitehead in his movie don't tell a soul. a very, very good part in the movie may we add!! so good that we even named a dessert after it, but that's not the point. shows that weekend included: dunkirk, don't tell a soul, batman begins, roads, boy erased, and i, tonya.
3) AND HIS SON SENIOR SPECIAL
'and his son' being another quote, but this time NOT from fionn - what?? plot twist!! we know!! it is said by tom glynn-carney in dunkirk (a movie that we had watched a couple of times by now) but it happened to be his birthday that weekend, so - guess we'll tell you - he popped in the club for a celebration. shows that weekend included: him, don't tell a soul, the little things (spoiler, it's not a 1D music video), palmer, dunkirk, rialto, and roads.
4) NO BROKEN HEARTS IN DA CLUB FIONNGUIN FUNNY VALENTINE NIGHT FEVER
honestly a mouth full of a name. this was already a very interesting weekend pass to begin with, but even more so because it was a four day weekend and valentines day on the 14th!! ooooh!! unfortunately we only made it through the 14th tho because of SNOVID. still, shows half of the weekend included: roads, rocketman, don't tell a soul, suicide squad, valentine's day, and black mirror: bandersnatch.
5) F*CK YOUR DAY UP GOOD & PROPER
this was the quickly created SNOVID pass, and as you can read from the title, it was a pain!! we had to watch things either downloaded or on dvd for a week which made club fionnguin tricky. luckily tho, we had good options to choose from, so shows that weekend included: him, spiderman, love, simon, don't tell a soul, and roads.
6) TOM CHOWDEE ROWDEE
now that things were back to normal after SNOVID we could party it up, so we decided to rowdy. (we only used two ee's to go along with the name of a character in don't tell a soul, a party boy named tom chowdee. seemed fitting since we were gonna throw one). shows that weekend included: requiem for a dream, memento, don't tell a soul, birds of prey, and new moon!
7) FIONN'S FANGTABULOUS FIVE PART S-BOY SAGA
obviously, obviously we couldn't just watch one of the films without doing a full on twilight saga-marathon. like, you gotta have one once or twice a year at least. but also, billie's doc came out that friday, so we had some priorities first. shows that weekend included: the world's a little blurry, twilight, new moon, eclipse, breaking dawn pt 1, and breaking dawn pt 2. (and btw 's-boy' was a term we coined at the time to encourage smart-bois rather than f*ck-bois in society, but soon dropped down to stupid-bois because we were disappointed in the surprising rise of f*ck-bois shortly afterward).
8) BLUE HAT RED BAG(GINS) BABY BIRD BLOOD DRIVE IN CONCERT
we weren't on acid we promise. this was an extremely weird name, we know. but there was meaning to the madness. you see, young billy in shazam wears a blue hat. in him, there is a red plastic bag that just floats. the actor in days of the bagnold summer plays a character named frodo in another show, which gives us the 'baggins' reference. baby is an incredible jb song, so incredible that one of us (katie) might've said that she would give her blood - even though she hates needles to the nth-degree - if fionn whitehead sang baby by jb at a, you called it, blood drive. so other than the bird thing which idk what that was about, that's why it was called that. shows that weekend included: shazam, him, days of the bagnold summer, don't tell a soul, and never say never.
9) A SPRING BREAK CHET CAN'T EVEN FAKE :-)
heck yeah, when spring break came around, you know what we were gonna do. a week long club event!! shows that week included: justin bieber's believe, sister, music, a simple favor, thoroughbreds, teen spirit, cherry, crash, uncle frank, plus one, castle in the ground, and mean girls.
10) MUSIC OFF MARATHOUGHT TOM HO WAS UP FOR AN OSCO!!
after spring break, we came back loving cherry, so we had to watch it again!! and it was around this time that we really wanted tom ho (tom holland) to be up for an osco (oscar). we insta-ed about it. btw 'music off' - you guessed it - is another fionn quote. shows that weekend included: cherry, don't tell a soul, sound of metal, blackbear, and 10 things i hate about you.
11) BRADLEY SIMPSON'S BASEMENT PARTY
as you may know, one of us (katie) llllooooovvvveeeesss boy bands. so much!! and while the other (annie) has to painfully endure most of it, her soft spot is for the vamps. so, this was a very special event, because we had bought the 'meet the vamps' cd that came with their documentary. and since we were already doing that, we thought, why not watch all the docs. shows that weekend included: meet the vamps, framing britney spears, dancing with the devil, justin bieber's next chapter, everybody's everything, and dominic fike, at first.
12) STELLAN SKAAAARRRR'S SAVVY MATE MOVIE DATE
we had already done a twilight run, and while we love harry potter, that was too long for just one weekend, so, we did pirates instead. shows that weekend included: duh pirates of the caribbean 1, 2, 3, and 4.
13) YOSHI -- HOW DID WE BECOME ADULT-SIZED SUPERHEROES?? MAR BRO WII HAVEN'T EVEN MET THE WIZARD!!
yeah, it was our birthday weekend!! we were hyped. we were turning 18. and while we originally wanted to go to an actual club before the c-word pandemy hit to dance and celebrate, we were still gonna make that happen by going to club fionnguin. shows that weekend included: voyagers and shazam. (and, obvs, there was some mars bro action up in da club).
14) IT'S THE BLUE...FIONN FRI-YAY PART II
it all started with fionn fri-yay, why not have a part II?? 'it's the blue', being, yet again, another fionn quote. go figure!! shows that weekend included: voyagers, the children act, roads, don't tell a soul, and him.
15) SCOTT GIRL SUMMER
photoshopping skills still not improved, but you still can understand that we were having an x-men prequel marathon. shows that weekend included: x-men first class, x-men days of future past, x-men apocalypse, and x-men dark phoenix.
THE VIP LIMITED ADDITION SCOTT SUMMERS CYCLOPS PASS
and just to be special, this was a very, very, fun 'christpopher and zac voyagers fan ship' pass. this also comes with a fionn whitehead pass that the other one of us has.
16) FUDGSICLE POOP PANTS PARTY ONLY FOR DUPE FANS + ROBBIE
another marathon was expected, wasn't it?!?! but this time it was a tv show binge. yes, for dupe fans (inside joke credit to annie, because she was the one who accidentally pronounced 'dope' as 'dupe', and katie was the sister who wanted to remember that heheheheh) and robbie because, guess we'll tell you this one too, richard madden aka robb stark was in da club for that event. shows that weekend included: my babysitter's a vampire - yes it still scared us!!
17) AUDI PIMP PRESHOW PASS
we stopped everything for this show when it dropped!! falcon and the winter solider (aka faws) is the best marvel show - facts!! and yes, we still ship samucky!! a whole spotify playlist of ours is dedicated to them. (the reason it was audi pimp was because the show pimped a ton of plug ins of audis, which then led us to creating an alter-ego-rap-persona for the winter solider called white claw, who had a hit single 'audi pimp' off his first studio album, "when your therapist goes woah" featuring tracks like 'hottest winter', 'hydraulic heartbeats', 'flirt flirt skirt skirt', and bonus track 'gay feels in the grass field'). shows that weekend included: voyagers, mainstream, monday, french exit, faws, i,tonya, and mare of eastown.
18) SHUT UP MEG!! WE'RE LIVIN IT UP BEFORE WE THROW CAPS!!
it was graduation week, and the one way katie wanted to celebrate was by doing a marathon of john wick all in one day - that day being the last day of school. but, we still had a week, so shows that week included: dark knight, faws, and john wick 1, 2, and 3. (keeping you on your toes as always, it wasn't film quotes this time, it was music lyrics. 'shut up meg' being a reference to asher angel's interlude on his mixtape before going into his song 'livin it up'. yes, we know he says 'shout out meg' but when we first listened to it we heard 'shut up meg' lol - and the line 'before we throw caps' is from our boy roy (roy blair)'s beautiful song, 'thunder').
19) PAUL 2 PAUL PARTY PASS
did we find it ironic that fionn whitehead plays a character named paul in a movie that stars the same person that is in another movie with fionn, whose name is paul? yes. and yes, now typing this, it sounds soul-sucking-ly stupid, but we found this hilarious at the time. tho we can't remember for the lives of us why we put Jacob elordi on the cover. guess it will always be a mystery. shows that weekend included: port authority, him, the children act, and roads.
20) MERRY CHRISTPASS
this next one was epic. you see, a very long time had actually passed before this diddy was created. easily about six months had gone by, and it was around then that annie was wondering when the next club event was gonna happen. so, being the sweet other half she is, katie, decided to surprise her twin and make a secret pass with all of the shows she had heard annie say she wanted to watch over the last couple of months and wrapped it up inside a britney spears dvd for christmas. and even though when annie opened her present and katie told her to open the disc, no one understood why annie was freaking out, it was all still worth the wait. the special shows that week included: shazam, him, the mickey mouse club, crossroads, the end of the f***ing world, port authority, and snow white.
21) RED OR BLUE! THE CHOICE IS YOURS IN 2022!!
what?? another marathon?? shocker!! and what?? katie, once again, had a request to celebrate something (new years this time) by watching another keanu reeves series all in one day!! double shocker!! lol...we gave our parents passes too, which was cool because they got to experience club fionnguin for a sec. shows that day included: matrix marathon
22) NATE'S CHILLI JAN PASS
this is the last pass for an event we just ended recently. it was the longest club fionnguin event despite it being the smallest pass. it was for season two of the show euphoria, however it hadn't dropped quite yet. so, we went back and binged season 1 to prepare just to then realize they were dropping it one episode at a time. how fun!! as you can assume, this took us a while to get through, making it the longest event in club fionnguin history. and probably the worst event in club fionnguin history. spoiler, we didn't like season 2. but yeah, january is chilly in texas and nate helps his dad with the chili in season 1 at the carnival, so it seemed a fitting name to do the job.
so, yeah, that's club fionnguin!! and, yes, it definitely plans on redeeming itself after the event above with many, many more parties in the future books...
but, all that said, it is super sweet to end on the fact that roger is still the bouncer after all this time. and if you see him at the door to club fionnguin, just give him a little wink and he'll know you're with us. and, hahahahaha, we'll probably be watching another marathon or something, but you'll be invited to whatever it is.
and fionn whitehead, if you are reading this, congrats, you're 24 years old and already have a club named after you!!