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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When given the chance, YOU WORK WITH PTA

Speaking as someone whose best chance of working for PTA will come after I have children, when PTA (Paul Thomas Anderson) asks you to join his film...YOU JOIN HIS FILM. I don't care if the role is "mute who stands in the corner touching himself," if someone who may end up being this generation's Stanley Kubrick asks you to partake in his vision, you drop whatever lame-ass romantic-comedy, talking-dog tentpole, or reimagined TV-series-turned-movie you were working on and get your ass to whatever whacked out location he is using. Why am I ranting about the need to bow to every whim of the man behind Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood? Because The Playlist is reporting that PTA is no longer waiting for a studio to come to their senses and fund the project, he's putting his damn cast together NOW. As all proper devotees of this writer/director/demigod know, his next inevitable masterpiece is about Scientology. Except, it's not called Scientology to avoid getting sued, but it may as well be called Schmientology in the film it's that obvious. Philip Seymour Hoffman is playing "The Master" (L Ron Hubbard...I mean, J Don Blubbard) and Jeremy Renner is also set to star. It's time to add the ladies, and PTA is beginning with a doozy. The role of Hoffman's wife (in the movies, in real life NOBODY touches Philip Seymour Hoffman because, you know, gross) has been offered to....
This is great, because someone really needs to keep Reese from doing something like Four Christmases 2 (would that be 8 Christmases or is there some kind of multiplier I'm forgetting). As for the role of the daughter of Witherspoon and Hoffman (again, in the movie, because in real life, Hoffman doesn't even have genitals), there are three actresses in contention:

Deborah Ann Woll

Amanda Seyfried

Emma Stone

Now, that Deborah (I believe it's pronounced deb-ORR-ahh, like on MILF Island) is out because...hellooooo did you see those teeth? Right, I'm being told she's a vampire on "True Blood" and that's why she looks like that. My apologies, now she's out because she stars on "True Blood." Seyfried is probably out unless PTA includes a plot that involves her writing letters or reading letters or stealing letters from someone she loves in some way (and unless it's "Nicholas Sparks presents Schmientology). So that conveniently leaves the only person who should be considered: EMMA STONE! You know my love for her, you know her talent in my eyes, and you know that I love PTA for coming to the same conclusion. Further proof the man is a genius.

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Ryan's Junk Drawer

Greetings junk junkies! Why, I can hardly believe it's been a full week since last we spoke to discuss my entertaining and expansive junk. In that time frame, I'm imagining that each and every one of us has put on the first layer of our holiday "padding," a fresh blurb of fatty fat fat to keep our insides warm and make us ever more ripe for zombie consumption. Huzzah! Before we dive into a close inspection of my junk, as is tradition, today's item from the creepy image from "Highlights" magazine above is the screw...for you see, it isn't just any screw...it's THE screw that held grumpy old Mrs. Winterbosom's rocking chair together. Oh, the old biddy may have sat on her porch and laughed before, but she won't be laughing now that she's having hip replacement surgery. Mwahahahaha.

Now, onward and upward to this week's tasty tidbits that aren't quite big enough to leave the nest on their own.

1.) Dude. RDJ is straight up pissed, yo. - Although you and I, being the semi-rational people we are (when it comes to matters other than sports teams or the heart), know that yesterday's Iron Man 2 poster was muy caliente, Marvel is not taking any chances. Despite the rest of the world's explicit and obvious boner for robots (I'm looking at you all-of-Asia), the studio felt a poster that displayed the kisser of its most famous star would be the best way to market the film abroad. Thus, with a spelled-out title and a demasked hero, here comes the foreign poster.

Jeez. I don't know who pooped in Robert's hot cocoa, but I would just fess up and run before he kills you with his mustache.

2.) I would watch PT Anderson's Care Bears if he made it - Few directors have absolutely crushed it every single time. Cameron Crowe broke his streak with the turdish Elizabethtown, leaving me only Darren Aronofsky (who really can't go wrong with his next movie in which Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis do it) and Paul Thomas Anderson, who has revealed that he's going back to an old friend and an old theme for his next film.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (shown above with his split personality), who was last seen doing his best to enjoy the crap taco that was Pirate Radio, has worked with Anderson on Magnolia (a supremely underrated film) and is set to play "The Master" in this next effort, which will once more explore themes of faith and power. Set in the 1950s and somewhat reminiscent of There Will Be Blood, the film will follow Hoffman's character and his young protegee as they set up a faith-based organization. Now, supposedly, this will be less angry towards spirituality and a bit more kind towards it. Still, I'm going to go right on ahead and guess that some groups are likely going to have a problem with the guy who wrote a murderous milkshaker doing them some favors.

3.) Robert Duvall still works harder than you - Despite being, let me check, 117 years old, Robert Duvall refuses to slouch into the role of Wal-Mart greeter as society demands. Instead, the charismatic and insanely talented thespian is being sought after by Terry Gilliam (and not just for his sweet disposition). According to Collider, Gilliam wants Duvall to be his Quixote in the once rolling then decimated Man Who Killed Don Quixote (the collapse of Gilliam's original attempt was chronicled in the brilliant Lost in La Mancha...so, you know, every crushed dream and wasted millions has a tiny documentarian silver lining).

Duvall is quick to note that funding isn't locked down yet (I'm guessing investors may have also heard about Lost in La Mancha), but this sounds like sheer genius. I'm waiting for Gilliam to put a bow on his fantastic career, and his determination to get this one finished, FINALLY, is something I admire. Why, this ridiculous quest to film this movie despite all odds and reason is downright....hmm, there's a word for this, a word for when someone is on an idealistic journey to do something....it will come to me....

4.) You sunk my Battleship....expectations even further - Devin Faraci from Chud.com took a crazy-ass trip to meet with Peter Berg the director of Battleship. Oh, he'll likely do other movies, and he's done other movies before, but now and forever he will be the man responsible for Battleship. Anyhoodle, Devin got a whole bunch of inside information regarding the insane flick (which is downright Roland Emmerich-sounding). In case you hadn't heard, the enemy is going to be aliens. Those aliens will be called The Regents. How nice that the aliens pick a name we can say. Anyway, Devin discovered a lot of tidbits like that the ETs are going to be stuck to a traditional 9 ship water-based battle, just like in the board game, and that someone will say "You sunk my battleship," which pretty much confirms that the movie is going to suck all of the balls. Of all of the intriguing little nuggets, the best was that Berg is planning a response to Stephen Colbert's blast on the film (below).

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag - Guns on Amtrak, Fake Lesbians & Battleship Audition
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

That's the thing I'm most excited for. Sad.

5.) This 44 Inch Chest is one Sexy Beast - I loved, loved, loved, loved Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast. He was so good and the film was so deliciously grisly and intense that it still resonates with me. Thus, I am incredibly excited for the next film from the writers of that movie (and one of the stars). The trailer only makes me more pleased, if only because it's a British gangster movie NOT from Guy Ritchie and because the cast looks like they could seriously kick my ass in real life. Oh, and the title is just sheer and total badassery. Lord, the more I think about this, the more I really want it to get here...which it probably won't because it's a British film that doesn't have Jude Law, so it won't get US distribution. It's why God invented DVD.



That's my junk for this week. I hope you like it. See you tomorrow with haiku in full effect.