Cutting Room: Ryan's Junk Drawer

Why, good morning you beautiful blog-enthusiasts! Once more, I'd like to congratulate you on both surviving until Thursday and your immense curiosity about my junk (I don't blame you, it's huge this week). As always, congressional rules and my good upbringing require me to mention that I don't mean what you think I mean when I say junk. Oh, great googly moogly, no. What I actually mean is that I'm about to present unto you a collection of movie tidbits that are too small to warrant an actual, full blog post unto themselves. That sentence had two "untos" in it, which means I win that game of bizarre blogger bingo I've been playing. Anyhoodle, the other tradition we partake in before getting started is weird. I'm just being honest. I don't know why I started it or why I continue it other than it's tradition and it amuses me. What we do is look at the creepy image of a junk drawer (taken from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN) and pick an item from it to write a funny, weird-ass story about. Today's item is the screw in the middle of the drawer. Sally was a sentient screw. Fully conscious and very much filled with intellect and awareness, Sally discovered that her major obstacle in life was not the rampant invasion of her screw-person by a Philips-head screw driver (she rather liked that, to be honest) so much as it was her complete lack of a mouth. She had tried to communicate with God, the giant being who moved her to and fro with his giant hands, by scratching out words in the wood, but he only blamed his children, the Godlings who once shoved Sally up their noses. She had managed to work her way from the wall back into a safer place after years of trying. Now, if only she could convince the twine next to her to forgo the centuries of conflict between the screw people and the rope people, maybe she'd have a chance...

Okay, enough shenanigans, let's get to this week's junk!

1.) An idea so good it won't happen - I thoroughly enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, and not just for the rampant Rachel McAdams-ness of it (although, wow did that not hurt things). It was a good time and a nice introduction to the new versions of Holmes and Watson, who are totally gay for each other. If you don't get that comment, I'll just briefly summarize that the wench who owns the rights to the characters took such umbrage at Robert Downey Jr's suggestion that there was homoerotic tension between the two leads that she threatened to deny future use. I took that as an invitation to assert that Watson is the pocket for Holmes's magnifying glass as often as possible. I may not be able to teach her tolerance, but I can damn sure guarantee ample material will be found when she sadly Googles Sherlock Holmes + Watson + Gay Lovers. Back to the movie. The problem wasn't the Brokeback-ing; the problem was the villain, who was just weird and irrelevant. Well, Superherohype.com claims this won't be a problem next time. Early rumors had it that Brad Pitt, good buddy to director Guy Ritchie, had shot a cameo as Moriarty. Well, he didn't. So who may play perhaps the greatest supervillain ever in the next flick? Oh, howsabout this guy?

I realize the chances of DDL deciding to forgo his dedication to offbeat projects with incredible artists directing them is slim, but boy howdy would he be a great Moriarty. His role in Gangs of New York remains one of the best villainous performances ever. This may all be pipe dreams (get it, Holmes smokes a pipe...and Watson), but I'm holding out hope big time.

2.) Redemption, Damon by thy name! - I want so badly for Cameron Crowe to come back to us. As I've mentioned before, homeboy straight killed every movie he touched before dropping Elizabethtown on our faces and running away, screaming "Damn you, Dunst! Damn you and your weird teeth straight to hell!" That movie was dead in the casting phase, as somehow he picked Orlando Bloom to carry an entire film that seemed written around creating another good soundtrack (a Crowe staple). Well, if casting is a concern this time, Variety has some good news: Matt Damon is the front-runner for the lead in We Bought a Zoo. Based on the true story of a family with no zoo experience who bought a zoo to live in, the film will likely be schmaltzy and have too much animal humor for my liking (my liking is for zero animal humor). Still, if Damon takes the lead, I feel good about it. Dude doesn't pick a lot of bad projects. I hope this is a sign that Crowe is back on the road to awesome, a place where the Bloom/Dunst population is zero.

3.) Escape from this idea - MovieWeb has an interview with Breck Eisner. Yes, calm down, the guy who directed Sahara does still occasionally give interviews to us mere mortals. He's going to direct the Escape from New York remake, which should in no way happen so it will. In discussing ridiculous things about how 9/11 has some kind of influence on the remake of a campy John Carpenter film, he dropped the news that he would like Timothy Olyphant to play the Snake Plisskin part. That's a really good idea, if the rest of this wasn't such a bad idea. That's like saying, "let's take our Hispanic family and move to Arizona where I have a winning lottery ticket to cash in." See, on the one hand, you're rich...but you still live in Arizona. Whenever I think of Olyphant, I'm reminded of when I saw Kevin Smith at the comic con shortly after he filmed Catch and Release. He told this great story about how he and Olyphant almost came to blows after Smith said something to the extent of "This ain't 'Deadwood,' Olyphant, you aren't sheriff here." That's just great. Smith also talked about dirty things Ben Affleck told him about Jennifer Garner. I liked that even more than the Olyphant story. So, quick recap: Remaking Escape from New York is a terrible idea. Timothy Olyphant rocks, but shouldn't be in this turd. You shouldn't move to Arizona if you're Hispanic because they will look at you cruelly even if you're rich. Jennifer Garner does weird dirty stuff.

4.) I was already freaking out, now I'm freaking out harder - Peter Travers reviewed Inception way early. Why not? That dude likes EVERYTHING. If I made a movie, I would send it to him first and beg him to release his review. Seriously, if you played a drinking game at your local theater (I don't recommend it...okay, yes I do) where you took a shot every time you walked past a poster with a splash quote from "Rolling Stone" Magazine's quote whore, you would die. What's interesting is that, as Slashfilm notes, the part of his review with zero spoilers (the only part I'd read, I want to go into this one dark) isn't what Warner Brothers would want him to say, even though it's incredibly positive. Here's the excerpt: "We’re so used to being treated like idiots. How to cope with a grand-scale epic, shot in six countries at a reported cost of $160 million, that turns your head around six ways from Sunday? Dive in and drive yourself crazy, that’s how." See, normally old Pete just repeats the company tagline, calling any summer blockbuster a "thrill-ride" and any significant Oscar candidate "A sure-fire Oscar contender." Here, the company friendly play would have been to punch up comparisons to The Matrix and talk about the visuals and exciting action aspects. Instead, he more or less calls it really smart and suggests it's almost an art film. Now, while that's what I want to hear (and boy howdy did it whip me into even more of a frenzy for this flick), I'm guessing Warner Brothers will be searching hard for a quote somewhere in the review that reads "Leonardo DiCaprio is dreamy and the movie is an explosion-fest that even morons will love." Oh, and one more word of warning, do keep yourself limited to Inception coverage on the interwebs. Spoilers are afoot and you don't want to be spoiled, even on your feet.

5.) Trailers, parked - Perhaps the best cast in a movie being made right now is the cast for Red, based on a graphic novel by lunatic and genius Warren Ellis (the comic book writer whose twitter you simply should follow, if only for his brilliant, French-blasting World Cup tweets). Now we have a full trailer, which only serves to further excite me with its fun tone and incredible use of ageless beauty Mary Louise Parker. I'm easily excitable today, I guess. Here it is:

Finally, we have Tomorrow, When the War Began. It's not Red Dawn. Why not? Um, because it's set in Australia...and they have Australian accents? Other than that, it is 100% Red Dawn. This may be a good thing, because the Red Dawn remake supposedly has hit a boatload of snags, so we may never see that. Instead, we get to see the exact same movie, only with weird accents. I'm okay with that.