Ryan's Junk Drawer

What's up kittie cats? Welcome to another chance to see my junk. I know it's the moment you wait all week for, impatiently looking at your calendars, asking "is today the day? Is today the DAY I VIEW RYAN'S JUNK?!" Yes, yes it is. Now, about 90% of people asking that question are well aware that by junk, I mean "movie tidbits that aren't big enough to warrant a full post." The other 10% are really, really disappointed right now. Chin up, perverts, maybe next week. As is our special Thursday tradition, we begin by looking at the creepy, creepy ass junk drawer image from Highlights Magazine (FOR CHILDREN) above and pick an item from it to make up a weird story about. Today's item is the tiny rope in the upper left-hand corner. Despite the impressive effort it took to create such a thick, sturdy rope of appropriate length from the few strands of browned grass, Paul couldn't let things proceed. Try though he might, Paul couldn't think of a single reason that Papa Smurf wanted to kill himself that badly. "I'm surrounded by smurfin' half-wits," Papa had explained, "I need a smurfin' out, man. You don't know what it's smurfin' like here. Sweet Jesus I want to smurfin' die. I swear to you, I'm one wacky adventure away from smurfin' mass murder." Although Paul knew Papa would try to find a different way, by keeping the noose in his junk drawer, he ensured that he would never one day look down on the mushroom kingdom to find its ruler swinging in the wind.

Now, on to this week's movie nuggets!

1.) I know the title of the last episode of "Lost" - It's so ground-breaking, so shocking, so revelatory that I can't even...pretend that this is the truth. It's called "The End." Not exactly jaw-dropping, is it? On the one hand, it actually makes me happy, I mean, not as happy as this:

The reason the title brings some joy to my life is that it seems to suggest that they are at least TRYING to fully wrap up the story. I know that's what they've promised for a long time now, but they also lied to us a whole lot. Remember the whole "everything has a scientific explanation" bullcrap line? Unless Jacob is suddenly revealed to be a time-traveling robot, I don't think that's true. I do think that they'll leave numerous dangling participles and hanging chads, but for the most part, the title seems to indicate an intent to be declarative about the series' finale. That makes me happy. Not slapping-Claire happy, but happy.

2.) El Diablo strikes another deal - I love me some Diablo Cody. That fiesty ex-stripper deserves better than the backlash she's unfairly suffered for years now, and she makes a damn good point when talking about the script she just sold: Young Adult. First off, she describes it as "f**ked up," which I love. THR reports that it's about “a thirtysomething, divorced, young-adult fiction writer in Minneapolis who returns to her hometown to chase the ex-boyfriend, who’s now married with a kid, that got away.” That doesn't necessarily sound f**ked up, but that's because we instinctively think of the neutered, Sandra Bullock-friendly version that we've become accustomed to. Sorry, I know it's too soon to be making Bullock references, what with the fact that her marriage fell apart. Seriously, what's with people making such a big deal about that. Does it suck? Hell yes it sucks. That tattooed, hog-faced douche-nozzle ought to be ashamed of himself for pumping the exhaust of a tranny-looking, fake-boobed Nazi. But it's one of about a billion Hollywood marriages that have ended this way, and the global decision that we care most about Bullock's is weird to me. Anyhoodle, back to Diablo's movie. Diablo explains that the f**ked up part is that the female lead is an anti-hero. Not a freakshow like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, but more fundamentally broken a la Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. This is interesting to me. It sounds like a complex role that is nuanced and different...and it's for a female?! I know it may be older than the "30-something" that Diablo described, but I'd get Julianne Moore for this and get her an Oscar. Just my opinion.

3.) Mission Impossible 4 is for the Bird? - I won't defend Mission Impossible 3 ad naseum again (but it was really good, jerks), but my excitement for MI4 just picked up even further. So should yours. You see, HeatVision is reporting that Brad Bird may direct. Who is he? Well he just so happened to direct The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Iron Giant. Now, I know what you're thinking, but when you really stop and consider it, is directing a cartoon really that different from directing Tom Cruise? Especially when he'll be against a green screen a lot with tons of computer-generated effects. Bird isn't just a good director, he's a great one. I adore each of those movies listed above, and he has more than earned the good will to do whatever project he wants in my humble opinion. I'd get him to have a hand in the screenplay too. I think the decision to skew this franchise more towards fun was a good one, as the first one took itself far too seriously and the second one took itself far to John Woo-y. I know that nobody but me is saying it, but I'm saying it loud enough to be obnoxious: I CAN'T WAIT FOR MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4.

4.) Rewarding evil with evil - This is the world we live in: You write poopy poop poop and you get a big payday to write even more poopy poop poop. Fact is, even if you LIKED Alice in Wonderland, it wasn't because you thought Linda Woolverton's script rocked. It was because you're an unabashed Tim Burton/Johnny Depp apologist or you're 13 and gothy. The script was not just stupid, it was a savaging of the work of Lewis Carroll...for no good reason. From my perspective, this was a literary hate crime. So the fact that THR is reporting that Woolverton is writing Maleficent, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of the evil queen, fills me with all the excitement of waiting to be cut in half by a chainsaw. Plus, this only increases the chances that Tim "I'm a hack, follow me off this cliff lemmings!" Burton is going to get involved. Okay, if you get Johnny Depp to play the evil queen MAYBE I'm interested, but if it ends up being Helena Bonham Carter, I may have to genetically turn myself into a dragon and breathe fire on every print of the film. I like the "evil-perspective" concepts of stories, like "Grendel," and we haven't seen many of them. This could be good...or could have been good until Woolverton got to it. Yucky.

5.) Trailers, parked - We've got nothing but new versions of old trailers this week, but that doesn't mean they're not entertaining.

First up is the last Last Airbender trailer...okay, I don't know that, but I don't think there's much else to show. If you set aside the hatred that we've all justifiably accumulated for M. Night Shyamalan, this looks good.


Despicable Me looks slightly more Pixar than Ice Age to me, but I may be getting fooled here. I like how they've done the advertising, and I love the voice talent. Heck, I really love that the score is being done by Pharrell and Hans Zimmer. This could be fun.



Adele Blanc-Sec looks like wacky French joy to me. I liked the first two trailers and I didn't even have English subtitles. This is one I'll likely have to catch on DVD, but I'll be happy to do so.


Okay, that's all the junk I have to show today. Come back tomorrow for our usual Friday excitement...and by excitement I mean fairly boring crap. But it's all made with love.

Ryan's Junk Drawer

I really don't know how I'm going to top yesterday's blog post (right down there) with a faux Megan Fox using the phrase "open dumpage," but I'll throw a bunch of items from this old junk drawer here at it. This week has seemed pretty dead for the most part (really, really not a John Hughes joke), and it seems as though everyone is dragging (even the rumor mongers). So, bear down Chicago Bears, I'm going to stretch these bits of tid as far as I can.

1.) John Hughes is dead and nobody younger than 28 cares - What's sad is that the man so deeply understood what it meant to be a teenager in ANY generation, and yet was relegated to the 80s. He wasn't about pop culture references or social commentary so much as he was focused on delving into the emotional turmoil that teens felt, arguing that it was a good thing (reiterated by the clip that all TV segments have been playing for his death, where Ally Sheedy says "when you grow up, your heart dies"). He got how, well, how f*#ked up being a teen was (noting that at that age, feeling sad was as cool as feeling happy...how true). Everybody over 27 has a favorite Hughes movie, mine is probably Ferris Bueller, but you could make a case for a few others. What's sad is that, as Bryan Lynch pointed out on Twitter, his most recent work included Curly Sue and three Bethooven movies. So, long story short, John Hughes died and it sucks.

2.) Just because I'm excited for Mission Impossible 4 doesn't make me an asshole - Variety is reporting that Josh Applebaum and Andrew Nemec, a couple of guys who worked on the underrated "Alias," are hard at work on the next installment of the MI series and yeah, jerks, I'm excited. Look, the third one kicked ass and played like a big-budget, bad-ass version of "Alias." It had everything that I want in a spy/action film (including Simon Pegg), so I don't get where the bashing of the series is coming from (other than from people who still think Tom Cruise deserves it...I've decided that 5 years of public verbal whippings is enough, personally). So, yeah, I am excited gosh-darn-it, and I hope that JJ Abrams directs it (even though he won't) and if he doesn't I hope he uses his clout to let "Lost" vet and "Alias" helmer Jack Bender take a crack at it. Don't photoshop a "Team Tom" shirt on me, but I've got my fingers crossed on this one.

3.) "Fraggle Rock" was terrifying, and if you don't agree, you're a monster - If you have been wondering why we haven't gotten a "Fraggle Rock" movie yet, (A) you're a sick bastard and (B) we're going to. According to MTV, Brian Henson (son of the muppets, not the former "Talk Soup" host) is moving forward on the Fraggle front and plans to ramp up the music numbers (oh, goodie, my sleepless nights thank you). He also declares the Dark Crystal sequel still alive, which is the one thing more freaky than the thought of a "Fraggle Rock" movie. Oh, I love muppets, don't get me wrong, but those bizarre humanoids in Dark Crystal and the talking trash heap in "Fraggle Rock" are what I would flash to if I were to use poorly cut acid. So, rejoice sickos, you're about to get two helpings of crazy shit. Oh, and visual proof of terror (the ACTUAL image they ran on the MTV blog, from Dark Crystal)



Yeah, sleep now, jerks.

4.) This one is for my best friends in Chicago, nobody else will care - I mean, I suppose it's possible that one or two of you out there have a sick fascination with Thomas Pynchon like my friends Andrew and Jess, but I doubt it. The dude is a recluse that vomits pretty words of nonsense onto paper and people go apeshit for his stuff. According to Slashfilm.com, who got it from The Playlist, who noticed an interesting line in the Wall Street Journal’s piece about Pynchon's new novel "Inherent Vice:" “The Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles is handling film rights.” Huhbuhwha?! I mean, for reals? Somebody is going to try to adapt that? How does one even BEGIN to adapt a Pynchon novel (without the benefit of serious antipsychotic medication). I mean...good luck to whoever tries but let's face it, it ain't gonna happen.

5.) It's VoD Day (victory over douches)! - Although I have a friend who knew this information weeks ago and failed to pass it along (harumpf), Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz are no longer TV stars. The douchey duo are out at "At the Movies," which is a good thing. The only bad thing is that there are no plans to bring back Ebert at all (you will one day be judged in hell for this, producers). The new duo is AO (Tony) Scott of the The New York Times and Miuchael Phillips of the The Chicago Tribune (neither one really does anything for me...I mean it, I've asked). They still can't use "thumbs" to review things, as Ebert and Siskel wisely patented that, but rest assured they will find some insipid, pithy way of summarizing their feelings. My feeling: BRING BACK EBERT! Hell, bring him back as some kind of host, just bring him back. "At the Movies" without Ebert is like showering in high-school gym class without shame, it just doesn't feel right.

Okay, that's the news we missed this week (wasn't much, was it), I'll be back with some Haiku box office predictions for you shortly. Until then, try to be productive, the boss is looking.