Ryan's Junk Drawer

With great junk, comes great responsibility - "Better Off Ted"

Here's my Thursday revelation: I don't know how to mentally relax. I just don't. I get the concept. I wish I knew how, but it seems like the minute I'm about to unclench my mental buttcheeks, someone does something that makes me tighten them again. You know who I blame for this? Spider-man. Seriously. You see that quote about responsibility up there? Most people's favorite superheros teach lessons about friendship or justice or fighting evil. My favorite guy taught me (A) never let anybody down if you can physically help it, (B) you can always physically help it, (C) the most heroic thing you can do is help others, and (D) spandex shows EVERYTHING. But hey, you didn't come here to hear me whine about the undo burden of "the guy who gets things done." No, you came here to stare at that guy's junk.

Obviously, by junk, I don't mean what you think I mean, unless you think I mean movie tidbits that aren't big enough to warrant full blog posts. Then I mean exactly what you thought. We begin each week by looking at the creepy-ass image above, which is supposed to be a junk drawer from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN, but is clearly a picture of part of John Wayne Gacy's kitchen. We look at the image above, pick one item from the image, and write a story about it, because doing so is amusing.

Today's item is the small round object in the upper middle of the drawer. As a young girl, Charlene had but one simple dream. While other girls were fantasizing about boys (or girls), babies (or careers), and cars (or donkeys), Charlene only thought about one thing: Building a shrink ray and capturing the moon. It wasn't just that she thought it inappropriate that the man in the moon was able to ogle all of earth, it was that she thought it would make a great conversation starter. "What have you done with your life?" they'd ask, to which Charlene could reply "I shrunk the f**king moon." Determination is everything, and after 15 years of intense study of quantum mechanics, inter-dimensional space-time warping, and watching "Twilight Zone" marathons, Charlene finally shrunk the moon. Turns out, it wasn't that great of an idea, as the changing tides and gravitational effects resulted in widespread destruction. So Charlene quietly crept to her kitchen, stashed the moon away, and never told anyone what she had done.

Okay, that's enough goofin' around, let's get to some movie news!

1.) Dear NBC, this is the event - Of course, by "movie news," I mean "entertainment news that interests me" or "whatever the hell I want." First up is the best news I could think of. These guys are indeed gettin' back together."Lost" may be dead, but "Joben Lockus" lives on! NBC has won a bidding war to get "Odd Jobs," which will not be called "Odd Jobs," on their networks. We don't know jack about the show, other than that it MAY involve black ops agents who are living in suburbia. But we DO know that it will star Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn, which thus makes it the most exciting show on television without having to be on television. I shit you not, this is already my favorite show. It cannot be bad. Having two actors of this caliber with JJ doing any kind of overseeing is a recipe for goodness that can't be beat. It's so good I can't believe it's real.

2.) Theory: Scarlett Johansson in leather MAY sell tickets - This just in: People want to see more of this:

Wait, what? They want to see more of Scarlett Johansson in tight leather doing flexible poses? That's insane! Why would they want to do that? Kevin Feige, the dark lord of Marvel movies, has previously briefly alluded to the potential of a Black Widow spinoff and now mentions more specifically that they've already begun meetings about it. It won't happen until after The Avengers, which is good, because so far the movie version of the character has done nothing but pose in flexible positions while wearing leather. I'm not saying I wouldn't pay to see 2 hours of that, I'm just saying unless it's going to be a silent film, we may need to develop the character first. Who knows if it will end up happening, but I think I may be interested if it does. Because I like comics. That's why. That's the reason. My interest in comics.

3.) Younger Gilmore loves murder - You have to kind of hate being Alexis Bledel. She has to keep playing these young roles, even though she's...let me check here...42. I'm kidding, of course, but she is DAMN near 30, and now she's going to play another teenager. In fact, she's going to be half of a pair of teenage assassins who, according to the writeup of Violet and Daisy, "are lured into what is supposed to be just another quick and easy job, only to find complications as the man they’re supposed to kill is not what they expected.”

Do you really believe that this innocent, adorable girl, who just shines with beauty is going to be a killer?
NO! I mean, she's so cute you just want to keep her in your pocket. And I'm sure she'll be paired with another sweet, adorable...
Okay, that girl will murder you. She will murder your face right now. My apologies to Saoirse Ronan, who I'm sure is a great actress...a great actress who will eat your eyeballs for pleasure.

4.) DC says they don't want to be successful like Marvel - I get not wanting to duplicate someone else's routine...even though Marvel and DC have been playing copycat for decades. One will do a major intergalactic crossover, the other does the same thing. One kills a hero, the other does the same thing. One figures out a way to make billions on movies, the other relegates themselves to obscurity by effing everything up and insisting they don't want to be successful.

Yeah, I'd glare at me too. Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment and money hater, said the following:

"People make an assumption that we're going to mirror Marvel's strategy, for example with Avengers. We do have a very different attitude about how you build a content slate." She also added, "There is not a single thing we've done that has been reactive to Marvel from the creation of DC Entertainment to today."

Good for you! Why possibly investigate a successful business model that applies to your own properties? That's a strong plan. Clearly, this means "don't count on a Justice League movie because we're keeping our characters separate." This will, of course, change in an instant if Avengers makes the kind of jack I think we all know it can. Whatever. You know, a Justice League movie would rule, with Superman and Batman together. But if it doesn't happen, it's only because DC loves being second best. Ha, take that! Marvel Zombie 4 life, yo.

5.) Trailers, parked - My brother-in-law got sworn in as a lawyer this week. He's getting married in 3 weeks. What I'm saying is, I have thought of gifts I could give him, and the best I could do is give him this: A movie starring Minka Kelly. Enjoy!

The Roommate

Gnomeo and Juliet looks stupid. It looks like Toy Story meets Shrek. Actually, that sounds like a nice thing to say, but I meant it mean. Folks, I honestly started laughing when I heard "from the director of Shrek 2 and featuring the music of Elton John." It felt like a spoof of a movie and not an actual movie. But it's an actual movie. Enjoy!



Okay, that's it for today. Let's meet back tomorrow and talk about weekend plans. Mine involves cleaning a garage. Jealous?

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Good news and bad news

Good morning bloggies. I'm trying to keep this rare "good mood" I've been experiencing going by stoking the fires of my happiness whenever a little black raincloud drops some urine-tinged raindrops on my head. That means that when I drop this first piece of bad, bad news I'm going to follow it with good, good, good news. Note the 3 goods to one bad ratio. That will be the key to keeping me a "happy person," although this smiling thing hurts too much to be good for my face. So, let's do this bad news business. This man just broke my heart.
That's Paul Thomas Anderson, and don't let his delightful semi-beard and tussled hair fool you, he hurt me. See, he's probably my favorite working director right now, and he just canceled his upcoming movie. The Master was going to skewer Scientology through a dramatic retelling of how it came to be, and it was going to be epic. Jeremy Renner and Philip Seymour Hoffman were going to star, among others, but apparently it wasn't a funding issue that did them in. It was Tom Cruise's threat to put aliens in the butts of whoever made the movie. I kid. He's not really a butt alien threatener. No, the problem is actually just creative. Apparently, Anderson couldn't get past some...thing in the script. We don't know what the thing is, but apparently he didn't like it and couldn't make it work. Here's hoping he can unlock the problem and reunite his cast, but even if he doesn't, even if he crushes my stupid, tiny heart with his whole not making a movie thing, you can see why I love him. You cancel a movie because CREATIVELY it's not working? That's how you should do it.

Now, speaking of better things, this one comes from the "stuff I can't make up" department.
We're going to get a show with those guys together. Yeah, you heard me. JJ Abrams is pitching a show that several networks are bidding on that will reunite Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson as aged assassins or spies or something living in suburbia. This description of the pitch is from like the 18th kid standing in line playing grapevine, but the fact that we know for sure is that the two of them are in a show together that JJ is shopping. Yeah, you can happy dance if you want to. We'll get to my desperate "Lost" missing in a few minutes with my next post, but you have to give it up for this concept. If anything can make the wounds in my heart heal from the absence of flight 815, it's reuniting the two best parts of it. Mmmmm.

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Ryan's Junk Drawer

Hola blog-migos. Congratulations on having lived to see my junk again. Here's hoping it's not all you were holding on for, and now you feel you can pass to the other side. That would be incredibly sad. I'm not feeling 100% at the moment, so let's see if I can't get moving a little faster than usual. Someone start the clock.

I say junk but I mean movie tidbits too small for whole blog posts, but tidbits isn't a well-known euphemism for genitalia (unless you're a Smurf). We start by looking at the creepy image above that's supposedly a junk drawer, from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN, but appears to have been drawn by an artistic ax murderer. We pick an item from above and write a goofy story about it. And by we, I mean me, I use the royal we for no reason sometimes. Today's item is the green and red blob on the right side. Barksy was a mostly a good dog but was sometimes a pain in the ass. Her favorite chew toy, a Christmas elf, was the perfect tool through which to teach the little shit a valuable lesson. One day when Barksy went for the bark/bite/pee trifecta, her master told her an elaborate story about where elves go when they die, while all Barksy heard was "wawawawawawawa." Sadly, the meaning was lost, as the pup lamented her lack of thumbs the only way she knew how: she barked, bit, and peed twice as much. Let this be a lesson to you, you can't fix a creature that only cares for its elf.

Okay, that's enough, let's get to it!

1.) Aw hell, boy - Guillermo del Toro set up Hellboy 3 in the sadly, madly underrated Hellboy 2 (yes, I still love it, it's better than Avatar). Seriously, look at just the poster and tell me the film wasn't beautiful.

Yeah, see how wrong you are in your memory of that film? I thought so. Unfortunately, getting the third film is proving a bit difficult. He told MTV, "I would love to do it. But the heartbreak for me is that I know how it ends and I don't know if I want to see that ending. But I would love to do it.

As the creator of Hellboy, Mike Mignola, elaborates: "The problem is, what del Toro's talked about to me is that 'Hellboy III' would be the end of Hellboy. And here's where we have the big conflict. My version of Hellboy in the comics is a finite story, but it's going to take me 15 years to get to the ending. If he makes 'Hellboy III' and it's the death of Hellboy, I'm left doing the comic going, 'But I'm not done yet. My Hellboy is not going to have kids. My Hellboy is going to die, but I want to be the one who does that. And if del Toro does my ending, there won't be a lot of surprise when I get to the end of the comic."

Personally, I don't think it would be all that crazy to end the cinematic series without ending the comic series, as anyone who is interested in either of them is (A) smart enough to know the difference and (B) going to read/see both anyway. What I'm saying is, GIVE ME HELLBOY 3 with total armageddon and the death of Hellboy before Ron Perlman is so old more makeup will be spent keeping his moobs up than his horns on.

2.) This is kind of how the game felt to me - Y'all know how I feel about JJ Abrams, so it's only fitting I'm about to talk about spending 7 minutes in a closet kissing. I don't remember playing that particular game very often, but I was with a particularly chaste group of young people at the time. We liked comics for God's sake, 7 minutes in heaven meant being locked in a vault with some great back issues. JJ Abrams has a different take, as he and buddy Jack Bender have a new thriller based on a simple premise: Two kids go into a closet to neck and when they come out everybody is dead. I know that it's like a slasher-movie premise, and they mean everyone at the party is dead, but I wish the world was dead and it was more like a "Twilight Zone" episode. How funny would that be? At any rate, it sounds interesting, don't it?

3.) More on that Battleship business - Maybe I wasn't clear yesterday but this lady is going to be an actress now.
That's Brooklyn Decker, and her talents are pretty much all on display right there. She's joining Rhianna and Taylor Kitsch from the fantastic "Friday Night Lights" in Battleship, a movie that's going to fail. It's not just plummeting because the best actor announced so far plays a high-school football player on a direct-to-cable show, but because it's (A) based on a board game, (B) going to take place in the water, which notoriously means problems shooting, and (C) now involves aliens. With every bit of casting and news about the movie, I become more convinced that the film is a giant joke, like it's actually a fake movie they're making in "Entourage" or something. If you want to look at it positively, that lady above is going to be shown on as huge screen. I guess it's not all bad.

4.) Eve ruins everything again - Comicbookmovie.com is on the case of "ruining my mood" today. Why? Well because their sources told them that the reason the lovely lass below, miss Alice Eve, left the cast of X-Men First Class wasn't because they booted her or because January Jones is a better corset-stuffer.
NOPE! It's because she read the script and rabbited. That's not a good sign. Marvel still likes her and wants her for something in The Avengers (my guess is the enchantress) but the fact that she bolted from a sure-fire money maker when reading the script both raises my opinion of her and lowers my expectations for the movie. This is not sounding particularly good for mutantville. They will probably address this problem by casting another voluptuous hottie.

5.) Trailers, Parked - Did I mention that the trailer for Black Swan came out yesterday? Because it did. That's the movie with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis making out. I may just run this every day until the movie comes out, who's to say? Either way, you should watch it in all it's brilliance right now. And then watch it again. And again.



I'm Still Here is the documentary/mocumentary/nobody-knows-what about Joaquin Phoenix's attempted rap career. I've now seen the trailer...and still have no idea what's going on, other than that appears to be Nick Nolte giving Phoenix advice of some kind. That's not even a good idea in a fictional way.

Sorry if I wasn't on my game today, but I'll do better next week. Get to workin' and I'll see you tomorrow for a grand Friday send off.

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Abrams hitting the bong

I post a lot about JJ Abrams, don't I? Well the man does a lot of cool things, from awesome TV shows to awesome movies to generally being and exuding the essence of awesome. Is it a man crush? Sure. Am I ashamed? Only if you tell him. More importantly, I have more JJ news! Turns out he may be teaming up with Bong Joon-Ho, who directed the incredible Host and the not-so-incredible-but-still-interesting Mother.
Slashfilm, who did this awesome mash-up image, has some ideas about why this partnership may work. Obviously, the Korean director has a flair for the weird, but I agree that if he pairs with someone who understands mainstream sensibilities as well as JJ does, this could be a divinely inspired match. Let me toss this out there: How do we know this isn't the American remake of The Host we heard about awhile ago? Abrams loves him some rampaging monster films, and he would be the guy to help figure out how to keep the best parts of the original without simply replicating it with Americans. Bong Joon-Ho is a supreme talent on the rise, and Abrams is just the guy to welcome him to this side of the globe. Love is in the air folks. So far we have cupcakes and cinematic artist romance. What more could you want on a Friday?

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This is why JJ Abrams rules

You can't really hate on JJ Abrams. You can try. If you're one of those small people who feels this compulsion to take part in every backlash imaginable because you covet the success of others and have a tiny no-no, then you can rage against several of his projects for no good reason. But the truth is, the guy makes entertaining features on screens both small and big. Without him, I would never have met


(I miss you so much, Evangeline, please come back to me in some way, I don't care how). And I would have never even known about
(I don't care how good The Town looks, this will remain the best work Ben Affleck has ever been a part of). So not only does JJ make incredibly fun and cool films and TV shows that introduce women I will love until someone pries the internet out of my cold, dead hands, he is also going to try to make a movie that will bring steampunk into the mainstream.
Boilerplate will be produced by JJ and is about the world's first robot invented in the late 19th century. The image above is a steampunk Iron Man, just to give you a flavor for what we're talking about. Shoving this fictional robot into real-life historical battles will be incredible, if they're able to capture the beauty of steampunkness, which nobody really has done on screen yet. Something about the genre, which is all about impractical ways to design and power awesome modern technology with old sources of energy, just makes me giddy. Some of the designs for steampunk things are so awesome I don't even know how brains imagine them. And now JJ is going to bring it to the big screen. See? He rules. Now, if he puts Evangeline and Jennifer in a steampunk setting, he will hit the trifecta. How is it a trifecta? You get two points for casting either of those goddesses, that's my rule.

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Hulk pants = Revolving door

Weekends are usually tame on news, as publicists and movie stars like to get pissed and slack off on days that start with S just as much as we do. I mean, sure, they do it on $1,000 bottles of liquor we normal folk don't know has been invented yet while sitting on top of nude, attractive people, but the idea remains the same: They take weekends off. This weekend was no different, with only three pieces of news worth noting:

(1) JJ Abrams is supposedly on the shortlist to direct Wicked.
Although nothing in his bio would suggest this to be a significant possibility (unless the songs are all going to be replaced by aliens), it's intriguing as a distant thought. Should this gain momentum, I'll care harder. For now, I'm going to note that the other directors on the shortlist all have experience with musicals and don't seem more interested in producing projects under their own labels. In other words, I do not believe JJ Abrams is going to direct Wicked any more than I believe Sarah Palin is going to start stringing together complete sentences that respect proper grammar.

(2) Kevin Bacon is in talks to play the villain in X-Men: First Class.
This one is actually interesting, but unclear at this point. Which villain? We already know Magneto is in it (and will be played by Michael Fassbender). Theories range from Mr. Sinister to Sebastian Shaw, neither of whom will wet the whistle of mainstream audiences. To be honest with you, I think I'm placing a casting moratorium on First Class for now. Like the cap intended to finally free us from B.P.'s tiny little gaffe, I'm containing all news spewing forth like vile bilge regarding who is playing who in this reboot until I have some good reason to believe it's all actually finished.

3.) Now, the interesting one: Ed Norton gets invited to suck it - There was an interesting squabble this weekend involving once-famous Ed Norton and Marvel Comics. Remember when Ed Norton was making movies? Me too. He played The Hulk once, right? Well looks like his days of heroism are over.
Marvel put out a press release saying they didn't want him back to play The Hulk in The Avengers. They more or less said he was a Class-A douchenozzle unwilling to play nice with others. This prompted a response from Norton's peeps, who promptly noted that Marvel had been deep in negotiations to bring back Eddie to said role, that they wanted to announce it at the San Diego Comic Convention, and that the two sides were close to a very amicable deal when Marvel suddenly changed their mind without telling anyone and issued the angry press release. Who's telling the truth? Who is more greedy/stupid? Eh, who cares. I mean, tales of Norton's jackassery are pretty common. The guy is talented, but exudes buttweasel pheromones that you can smell through the screen. That said, Marvel is INSANELY cheap, has a history of mistreating actors (cough, Terrence Howard, cough), and definitely fired the first shot here. So where do we go from here? Well, the next, most reasonable step is to fill the role with someone reliable. The last thing you want to do is find another temperamental actor who, although clearly talented, has a reputation for quirky behavior and may prove difficult to wrangle in an ensemble movie of the size and scope we're dealing with here.

CHUD is reporting that Marvel put out an offer to Joaquin Phoenix (shown here on the right).
Let that sink in, folks. Swish it around in your mouth for a minute. Joaquin Phoenix. The Hulk. You know what...it kind of makes sense. That's the strangest story on a Monday I've ever had. So...enjoy!

You leave my Sidney Bristow alone, dammit

E! Online is reporting that ABC, the only entity taking the loss of "Lost" harder than I am, is contemplating a reboot of "Alias." Allow me to be the first to say that when it comes to miss Sidney Bristow, I'll go George McFly on your ass. HEY YOU, GET YOUR DAMN HANDS OFF OF HER!

That's Sidney Bristow...the ONLY Sidney Bristow. See, it's like this, ABC thinks they can revive a JJ Abrams property they've already had before and "fix it." You don't "fix" things this great. Were there missteps in "Alias?" Oh yeah. Problem is, most of them involved LISTENING TO ABC. The show, which is about a superhot spy who is involved in double crosses, double-double crosses, and the occasional double-double-double cross (but never a menage-a-tois), was blasted for being too "bogged down with mythology" and for forcing viewers to "have to watch every episode." You know, the very things that made people love "Lost." They want to redo the series WITHOUT Rimbaldi, which means nothing to many of you but is causing seizures in those of you who are like me. This is like saying "we should do Star Wars but lose that 'Force' stuff, it's too weird." So, what you really are pitching, ABC, is a generic spy show. Um, NBC is launching "Undercover" this year...which is a JJ Abrams series about a couple who happen to be spies. At this point, I'm hoping that E! Online's sources are as believable as the reality TV stars on E! Entertainment Television. This is to say I hope they're more full of crap than a Kardashian. If they really want to capitalize on the series, why not bring back J-Gar up there (who last I checked was not particularly busy) to do a follow-up movie? That would be great...provided it had some Rimbaldi in it. Sometimes it amazes me that people can be so dense as to hate the thing that makes the thing good. So far, I'm poised to cut ABC out of my life (dance with those stars, suckers).

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Super 8 campaign is super great

Yes, I know the title of this post is cheesy, but it's a water-logged Monday here in Omaha and it is durn hard to wake up when it's this gray out. About a week ago, I caught Cloverfield on some movie station on our digital cable (I have long ago stopped trying to figure out the names of the movie stations, because their call-sign on the guide screen is some weird collection of letters that are supposed to form some kind of clever abbreviation but just leave me as confused as Tracy Jordan's license plate in "30 Rock": ICU81MI). Like any technologically inclined dude, I instantly posted my reaction on twitter and facebook to having rewatched this flick. It was some reasonable, even-handed comment about how I loved Cloverfield and anyone who hated on it for no reason was an ass-faced ass face who should lay down in traffic. Ah, the internet and what it's done to my discourse. Anyhoodle, lots of people instantly jumped in and started agreeing with me, a few of them even pointing out that they had almost as much fun with the viral marketing for the movie as they did with the movie itself. I agree. The mystery that surrounded the movie resulted in a great experience all around for me, even if some angry trolls felt like they were built up too much with hype to enjoy the final product. Those people make me laugh because they act like hype is some chemical they get rufied with that makes them unable to tell whether or not they think something is good on its own merits. I am really getting off track today. The point is this:

Super 8, the new super-secret movie that JJ Abrams is directing for producer Steven Spielberg, has started its viral campaign already. What we have here is a movie that is definitely about aliens (the trailer's opening text mentions Area 51), specifically some kind of terrifying creature. The movie's title, although it could refer to any number of things, likely refers to the handheld cameras used in the 1970s that ran on Super 8 film. I say this is likely because the last shot in the trailer cuts to Super 8 footage. So when you add up the secret movie with viral marketing about an alien creature who is going to be captured on handheld video, you can see why this clearly has nothing to do with Cloverfield, a super-secret movie with viral marketing about a creature captured on handheld video. Wait, what? That's what JJ Abrams swears. He swears that this is NOT related to that previous movie despite all appearances to the contrary. I don't know why he would swear that. Sure, it may be true, but at this point, that only leads me to believe that this is a terribly unoriginal idea, as it seems to be pretty damn close to something his production company has already done. I'm still pumped, but you can see why this is weird.

None of this is the point of this post. So congratulations if you've read through my crap long enough to get to this point. The "game" or viral marketing campaign around Super 8 kicked off in awesome fashion, and you can read all about it at Super8News.com. So far, it's not a whole lot, but what there is sounds rad, including buried letters in the trailer that spelled out "scariest thing I ever saw," which resulted in finding a web site that has a countdown timer on it to May 15. The speculation is that's when the official trailer will be released online, but I hope it's something cooler than that. As with the totally and obviously unrelated Cloverfield marketing, there are two ways to play along with this campaign. You can actively get in there and chase down clues...or you can do what I do and check in on Super8News every few days and see what they've got going. I am excited all the way around on this one, even if I feel like I'm being lied to by Abrams...again. I just watched Star Trek again last night and I'm geeked for "Lost" tomorrow, so I'm guessing if Abrams had a project called "Stick Your Finger in this Electric Socket," I'd be walking around with sparks coming out of my butt for a month.

God bless JJ Abrams

I love being surprised. It doesn't happen very often with movies. Lord knows I'm one of the reasons why, as I pass on every tidbit that there is to be bitten on the tid. Still, I love it when something gets by us, or when creative types reward us for NOT knowing. What I mean is, Cloverfield was awesome.

I ranted about this briefly on my twitter/facebook page recently, but allow me to reiterate. The movie Cloverfield is good. Not just because of the surprise, although you cannot tell me that the viral marketing wasn't the best ever because it was, but because the movie itself was pretty damn fun. It was suspenseful and fast. It felt like the Godzilla movie I always wanted in the U.S. Re-watching it again after a few years the other night, I was pulled into it again. I found myself waiting to see the brief glimpses of the monster again, even though I knew what it looked like. Despite the unfair backlash and excessive use of hipsters, I really like Cloverfield.

Why am I talking about this now? Well, because Drew over at Hitflix.com just found out that JJ Abrams has a secret project that is going to have a trailer shown before Iron Man 2. Yeah, that's right. It's called Super 8, and nobody knows what it's about. That said, there is a small theory going around that it's a Cloverfield prequel/sequel. The idea being, Cloverfield was all done on camcorders...so what if Super 8 refers to the first appearance of the creature caught on Super 8 film? Probably not. In fact, my first thought is that there's no way this is what's happening. Then again, who knows. That's the fun of this: NOBODY knows. There's no leaked info AT ALL. Whatever it is, I'm going to be sooooo pumped to see this trailer, and I hope that Bad Robot's production company manages the same level of excitement (and eventual quality of film) that they achieved with Cloverfield. Most days, I kind of want to kiss JJ Abrams on the face.

Ryan's Junk Drawer

Somehow we managed to once more stave off the apocalypse and reach Thursday. You may be thinking, "But Ryan, Thursday isn't Friday, and everybody knows Fridays are the best. There's no restaurant called 'Thank God It's Thursday (TGIT).' What's so special about Thursdays, doofus?" Well, for starters, I think TGIT sounds dirty, so you're a pervert. Second, Thursdays have the highest number of quality TV shows. As evident by this:

Third, it's the day you get to see my junk. Oh yeah, that's right baby. You get to see all of my junk. And of course by junk I mean movie tidbits that didn't warrant their own post (again, what were you thinking, pervert?). Before we peek in MY junk drawer, we always begin by taking a look at the creepy-ass illustration of the junk drawer above (taken from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN) and pick one item from said image to make up a backstory about. Today's item is the pink square in the upper left corner between the thread and the coin. Magdelena's husband, a total asshole, had collected stamps his whole life. In fact, it was the only thing he enjoyed doing besides acting like a total dillweed. When he wasn't singing karaoke Miley Cyrus songs, watching Twilight movies, or misusing the word literally, this douchebag loved nothing more than finding certain stamps. Too sweet to ever directly confront her clownshoes husband, Magdelena did the only thing she could do: She spent her life savings and purchased the rarest stamp in all of creation, the 1920s-era "Why would we worry, everything is going to be great economically forever" stamp. She then took the only stamp her husband needed to finish his collection and hid it in her junk drawer. One day...one day soon, she will present it in front of him, and use it to send in her fan letter to Boy George. Suck on that, tool!

Okay, enough of the nonsense, let's get to the amusing and entertaining junk!

1.) If the muppets make something, I post it - Of the few dictums that guide my life, this one is the easiest: I'm going to watch whatever the muppets do and probably try to force you to do the same. It's the reason God put me on this earth. We have two muppety nuggets of goodness this week, both are related to the phenomenal "Bohemian Rhapsody" cover my fuzzy, permanently sodomized friends did a few months back. The first video is Animal calling his "mama" to let her know that their video got a Webby nomination. Webbys are like Emmys, only nobody cares about them. So....they're exactly like Emmys.


This second video is the actual Bohemian Rhapsody cover...with Kermit's commentary. If you thought it couldn't get better, you were wrong.

Expect my nonstop muppet love to only increase as their next feature film gets closer to reality. You've been warned.

2.) The only Twilight movie that interests me gets a director - As we've discussed here many times, even wretched things can have some interesting facet. From the creepy guy who sits in the back of class mumbling what sounds like demonic incantations (but who does really great drawings of puppies) to the girl whose laugh sounds like she ingested a water buffalo (but can rebuild a car engine with her eyes closed inside of five seconds), there can be a nugget of wonderful in everyone and everything. What I'm saying is, I'm going to get excited for Breaking Dawn, the final movie (or movies, nobody is clear on that yet) of the Twilight torture. Again, this is not because it's going to be good. It can't be. It's because I cannot wait to see how they're going to do some of the hallucinogenic, batshit insane sequences that I'm told are in the book on the big screen. The best part is, most of these wacky shenanigans are tied directly to huge plot events, so you can't really not do them. Seriously people, if these things are weird enough to make me WANT to see one of these godforsaken movies, you know they have to be WEEEEEIIIIIRRRRD. The news is this: According to EW, Bill Condon is going to direct Breaking Dawn. Condon did Dreamgirls (meh) and Gods and Monsters (YAY!) and is generally seen as a good director that people respect. Sorry, he WAS generally seen as a good director that people respect. Now he's the guy who sold out for Twilight. Don't let that get you down, Bill! You just get to making the craziest thing that I've ever heard presented to teenagers!

3.) Magic 8-Ball finally gets its day in the sun - The craze over boardgames-turned-movies defies logic and good taste. And it's only getting worse. Battleship, Ouija, and Monopoly are all happening, really happening. Over at Vulture, the news gets worse: The Magic 8-Ball is going to get a movie. There is literally no way in which this can be made into something entertaining. I don't care if you resurrect Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick to team up with one another. Okay, I care and would totally watch that, but those guys are dead and you're no necromancer. Thus, the chances of this being anything other than a crime against humanity are slight at best. You know what I'd do? I'd make this Sandra Bullock's comeback project. It seems like she was following its advice anyway when she chose to marry the homophobic neo-nazi who bangs bags of silicon with people attached to them. Plus, I'm pretty sure her manager has been a Magic 8 Ball this whole time. It just got lucky with The Blind Side.

4.) The best team up since Spider-man/Man-thing - Vulture has some better news though. They say that JJ Abrams is teaming up with Steven Spielberg. Wow. That's really crazy good news! Abrams is primed to be the Spielberg of this generation, I feel, delivering mass crowd pleasers with true skill and heart. Supposedly, Abrams is teasing that his new secret project is going to be a collaboration with Spielberg and is very reminiscent of Stevie's projects from the 80s and 90s (please don't mean Hook, please don't mean Hook). Someone has also described it as "the anti-Avatar," which I can only assume means it will have an original script and not be directed by someone who is investing vast resources in cloning himself for the purposes of making out with it. More on this exciting movie pairing as it becomes available.

5.) Trailers, parked - We've got horses, horror, and horrible acting this week. Wowza!

First up is Secretariat, a movie my wife wants to see so bad she was almost late for work watching this. It's basically Seabiscuit 2, but I'm good with that. What? I like feel-good stories, and John Malkovich is in it.



If campy is more your thing, check out Piranha 3D. The franchise gave birth to Jim Cameron, and this somehow feels kind of fun. I'm sure it's going to fall short of the entertainment it could provide, but if it gets close, I'm going to love it.


Finally, it must be done: Here's the Twilight Eclipse trailer. Mind you, they can't show you all of the film BECAUSE THEY'RE STILL DOING RESHOOTS. That's not a good sign. Then again, what did y'all expect. It's more of the same. Again, all of this only serves to set up the insanity of the final chapter. You have no idea.


That's my junk for this week. Back atcha tomorrow for Friday, yo.

This mission just got a hell of a lot more impossibler

There was a time my friends, not so long ago, when Ben Stiller was funny and Tom Cruise was likable. I know, I know, it seems impossible...but it wasn't just impossible...it was a whole lot more impossibler.

Okay, if you skipped that video above because you've seen it before or because it was 6 minutes long, just go to minute mark 2:00 and stay through 3:00. It's worth it. See? Funny, right? Oh to be back in a time before Cruise's "Dawson's Creek" pedophilia and Stiller's Night at the Museum with the Fokkers.

Anyhoodle, I'm taking this walk down impossible mission lane because there has been a major MI4 development, namely everybody and their mother is reporting that Tom Cruise is returning in Mission Impossible 4. Good. Yeah, you heard me. Good. I LOVED Mission Impossible 3. In fact, I'm seriously contemplating buying it on Blu-Ray because I find it so insanely watchable. Now, nobody knows if JJ Abrams will return to direct (he won't), but I hope he helps pen the story. He got how lithe and simple it could be and still be vastly entertaining. What I liked about MI3, beyond the awesome action set pieces and wickedly great pacing, was that the story wasn't about a device that would destroy the world or a terrorist attack that would kill billions. We never knew what the device was the bad guy was after, we just knew (A) he was bad and (B) it was bad for him to have it. What they focused on was that this particular mission was insanely important TO THE CHARACTERS. The stakes were high for the people involved, and that's what matters. If you bring Simon Pegg back and expand his role, make it so that Ethan doesn't have to "go off the grid" and cross his organization like in every Bond movie or spy film ever, and cast a great bad guy (I'm thinking Ryan Gosling), you could make another awesome installment. People just don't appreciate how good Abrams did with that last movie, so I'm going to have to defend it until the day I die. You hear me, world? UNTIL THE DAY I DIE!!!

My favorite post ever...no sarcasm intended

I don't know if I can tell you how much I love Harlan Ellison. Ever since my best bud, Andrew, introduced me to him at the tender age of 15, I have been a devotee, reading everything and anything of his that I could get my hands on. I now know that his personality is a bit...difficult for most to handle (that's a nice way of saying that he is publicly seen as kind of a dick, and by kind of, I mean totally and supremely). I could care less, as I have long ago learned to separate the artist from the art. Fast forward a few decades, and I have become enamored with the work of JJ Abrams. From "Alias" to "Lost" and even Mission Impossible 3, I loved his work...and then came Star Trek, which is quickly rising on my list of all-time fun sci-fi movies. He just gets the kind of entertainment I like to enjoy. So when I read at Slashfilm.com today that Ellison stated on his blog that he is pretty openly campaigning for a shot to join the writing team of Star Trek 2, I nearly wept. I know that this is a long shot, but considering that Ellison wrote THE definitive episode of the original "Trek" TV series, "The City on the Edge of Forever," and considering that Abrams seems smart enough to at least take a meeting, this could actually happen. Look, I know that it will never outright work, because Ellison's personality and ego is such that there is no way in HELL he would take to rewrites or studio-mandated changes....but if Abrams is given control by Paramount (as he likely will be after the last film's success), what if he at least bought a pitch from Ellison. What if, after all these years, I finally get to see a big screen effort from one of my all time favorite writers? Could you imagine?

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go wipe this speck of dust that just won't leave my eye.

Ryan's Junk Drawer

Hello, children. It's that time again: the time when I compile into one post what would be an entire day's worth of meaningless naval-gazing about subjects that only I care a great deal about. I call this my junk drawer, in part because it seemed like a good name for a collection of odds and ends, and in part because it allows me to make a series of juvenile jokes referring to "my junk." I do this because it amuses me. If it amuses you, that's wonderful! If it doesn't amuse you, I'm probably going to keep right on making junk jokes. Also, I've now added this truly creepy picture up top (from "Highlights" magazine), which allows me to make more creepy jokes by speculating what you see in the drawer above. For example, in the upper left corner, you see what appears to be a lock of a young girl's hair! Terrifying, right!

On a separate issue, I do want your input on something. Twilight: New Moon once more falls on our Thanksgiving-time issue, so I'm likely not going to be forced at gunpoint to review it. I also have never really reviewed the first movie. Is this something I should make myself do, just as an exercise? I will not accept suggestions that seemed to be based in wanting me to be tortured, but if enough people think so, I would consider doing it.



Only vote once, pretty please. I can check if you're being honest...I just shouldn't have to. Onward and upward, here's the top 5 non-major news stories of the week!

1.) Dark Tower collapses - MTV spoke to JJ Abrams, who should really be busy making sure that "Lost" doesn't pound the pooch in the finale or at least trying to decide whether it's really worth it to bring Khan back for the next Star Trek movie (hint: it isn't), has realized that he and his posse are not really going to be able to make anything out of Steven King's "The Dark Tower" series, on account of them being batshit crazy. If you want to hear something crazy, I don't think they were ever going to make a movie based on the 7-part series of Western-meets-sci-fi-meets-horror-meets-WTF. Personally, I think Abrams bought the rights to the series because the ending of that may have a lot to do with the ending of "Lost" and they feared what would happen if they weren't protected. Yeah, you heard me. I think that there's every chance that the ending of the time-loopy "Dark Tower" bears more than a passing resemblance to how "Lost" shakes out. I could be wrong, but either way, they ain't gonna make a movie or TV series out of King's opus, likely because it was impossible to do so all along.

2.) Double sixes are just one six away from the plot of this movie - I could bore you with the details or I could just gloss over this one. The Internets have been a'buzzin' about the rumored plot for the Ridley Scott-directed Monopoly movie. SPOILER ALERT: It sucks all of the balls. The LA Times interviewed Frank Beddor, who is apparently a total asshole. How else do you explain this plot: Dude is a real-estate novelist (who never had time for a wife)...okay, JUST a real estate broker, and he is good at playing Monopoly. He falls asleep holding a "Chance" card and wakes up in Monopoly world. He sees a race car and rocking horse and ohmygod this is really the plot. Described as inspired by "Alice in Wonderland," it was likely also inspired by being a total hack. This is one of the worst ideas that didn't end in dismemberment or instant infertility.

3.) Three trailers (Part one: The good) - I have been on the fence regarding Clash of the Titans. On the one hand, why the hell do you need to remake a movie that is so perfect? Ray Harryhausen's effects? Harry Hamlin's perfect nips? Still, I got a thing for mythology, and effects have come a long way. Yeah, but stupid ass Sam Worthington, he sucks at life! Yeah, but some of the monsters are rumored to look very Guillermo Del Toro-esque. See: Conflicted. The good news is, this preview made it obvious for me: This is going to be stupid awesome.



Oh yeah! Once you get past the butt rock that is cranked loud, you notice three things: (1) This is a monster-driven movie; (2) They didn't let Worthington speak (maybe not at all in the whole movie); and (3) Liam Neeson will straight up put a lightning bolt in your wazoo. Rad.

4.) Three trailers (Part two: The bad) - A disclaimer: I still really, really, really want to see Kick-Ass. There were things I liked about this trailer, but really I wanted to like it more. This could be in part because people who have seen it are losing their mind over it. I know a lot of that has to do with violence of the sort you can't put in a teaser. Still, I expected a little more in the way of scope. They basically cut the second half to look a lot like all of the superhero movies out there...I wanted more play against it. I'm still loving this movie's promise, but I'm not 100% digging this trailer.



5.) Three trailers (Part three: The ugly) - You want to talk about a bad trailer, talk to me about Date Night. How do you take Tina Fey and Steve Carrell, put them together, and produce a 3 minute preview that looks like cat barf? I mean, Steve Levy is a total pile of crap as a director, but I didn't know he was a mean-spirited son-of-a-bitch. A gag where they BOTH walk into a sliding glass door? Tina Fey spewing lines of dialogue about mother-in-laws? The big laugh is supposed to be Fey confusing getting whacked for getting whacked off? Ow, ow, ow. Maybe these two stars need to be content with kicking ass on the small screen. I know everyone sees TV as the little league and movies as the pros, but that's not true. Be content to be the funniest people on the little screen and stop doing things like this to yourself. Seriously.

Abrams producing bad toy movie? I hope Micro-NOT!

My main man Dave DeMarco is a ninja when it comes down to remembering bizarre toys and products from the 80s. Seriously, it's a ton of fun at parties when you can ask him to sing every word or note to any obscure 80s cartoon in existence. Did you know that "Rubix Cube" the cartoon had a theme song? Dave can do a great version if you want. Thus, it's fairly safe to say that he'll be all over the news that JJ Abrams is in talks to produce a movie based on the Micronauts, who from what I can tell appear to be transsexuals. How do I come to that conclusion? Watch these ads from the 70s.





Seriously, how creepy is that music? I kept wanting to warn the children to look behind them for old Uncle Milt, the one who just got out of the joint. Back to my transsexual theory. See, they have "interchangeable parts," which only leads me to the conclusion that they are perverting God's design and want to further promote a liberal agenda. Okay, so they're really just crazy astronauts that explore "the microverse" or something. I really don't remember, even though I think I had a few issues of this

Doesn't that look like Darth Vader in the background? It isn't. It's some weird thing I don't understand. Abrams hasn't done a superhero movie. He flirted heavily with Superman but the two never hooked up. Thus, this could be his attempt to grab one of the very few remaining properties to explore a superhero world with...that said, it sounds totally generic and I don't know if I buy it. I'm not calling bull on the Wall Street Journal's story about this, but it is the "Wall Street" Journal, and we know that they lie to middle America like it's their job.