Tuesday Dumping

This isn't going to become a permanent column. I don't want my Junk Drawer getting jealous. Still, I'm face with two choices: Either (A) overlook a bounty of interesting news or (B) dump it, and dump it fast. I'm going with choice (B), because I think this dump will make me feel better.

Here are a bunch of quick looks at stories I should spend more time on but won't because I'm busy and because I'm thinking about "Lost."

• If they weren't talking about whether or not Kevin Smith is too fat to fly Southwest Airlines (a feud that has launched 10,000 fat jokes), everyone in the world was talking about a certain rumor. This includes the Godfather of movie critics Roger Ebert (be he ever so holy). Everyone was tweeting and posting and commenting and generally spazzing to the max about a potential remake/sequel of Taxi Driver by Lars von Trier that would have the blessing of Martin Scorsese and potentially feature Robert DeNiro. Interesting thoughts were espoused on the subject, huge treatises were written, much flagellation and whining and gnashing of teeth occurred...and it turns out it's all a load of shit. von Trier's business partner tells ScreenDaily that it ain't happenin'...and it was never happenin'. Rumor = KaSMOOSHED.
• While we're in the business of KaSMOOSHING, Chris Pine probably won't be Captain America. I know, he'd probably be great, but are we really ready to live in a world where Captain Kirk and Captain America are the same person? Too weird. I mean, unless you had Shatner doing both, because then F**K YEAH! He would over-emote the Red Skull to death, yo.
  
  
  
  Anyway, it ain't happening because Joe Johnston already claimed he wanted an unknown for the part ages ago, and if that weren't enough, I think the shooting would at least potentially conflict with his "Stardates." Are there really enough nerd properties out there now that famous dudes each get two? Ryan Reynolds as both Deadpool AND Green Lantern for example? This seems a bit greedy to me.
  
• Oscar nominees are being asked to prepare 2 scripts for thank yous this year. One with the cool stuff we like to hear (when they try to relate to world peace, world hunger, or totally just sound like shallow asshats who don't understand that 99% of what they do is pure entertainment and not game-changing art), and one with every accountant, tax preparer, and grape fluffer who make their lives easy. The latter will be filmed by a camera to be shown on the internet and the former will be what goes out live. Nobody's going to do this, for fear that in relegating their accountant to the Internets they'll suddenly develop massive tax problems, but it's a good idea. I hope some people do it. It makes for a more interesting show and I don't think it makes anybody look less gracious. I think this may be a good excuse to have the winners put the spotlight on themselves, something you KNOW they want to do anyway.
• A new Tron Legacy trailer may be released on February 24th. In related news NOBODY BOTHER ME ON FEBRUARY 24th. Apparently, there's a countdown of some kind using viral marketing that suggests the new trailer will drop that day. I hope so because I'm itchin' for some glowin' lightcycles like you wouldn't believe!
  
• Finally, I saved the most hallucinatory for last, Nick Cave is doing a motion capture version of The Threepenny Opera with Gollum. Yep. That's Nick Cave + Andy Serkis (the guy who played Gollum in Lord of the Rings) + CGI animation + Bertold Brecht's "Threepenny Opera" = Holy shit that's insane. I'm pretty sure this will give my nightmares nightmares...but I kind of can't wait.

Okay, now we're caught up. On to "Lost!"

Demonic board game gets movie

No, that blog title doesn't refer to Wes Craven's Candyland. Nope, the movie that's getting made is about this slice of mass-manufactured terror:

That's right, the guys who wrote Tron Legacy are writing Ouija: The Game: The Movie. Now you can have all the fun of someone pushing a cheap plastic magnifying glass over a fifty-cent piece of cardboard on the big screen! I wonder if the plot point will involve a mean-spirited person who manipulates the device to convince someone that the person they have a crush on hates them...or a mean-spirited friend who manipulates the device to convince someone that they will die in a horrifying fashion...or a mean-spirited friend who manipulates the device to convince someone that everyone knows about their embarrassing health condition. Not that this is in any way my personal experience with the totally innocuous game (although if it was about someone specific, that person should feel really bad now that we're grown up and I have a cool blog and they don't). I love how people think this thing really works...as though Parker Brothers somehow got the rights from Satan to mass produce millions of portals to the next dimension. I'm rambling, the point is we've fully entered the world where any object can be turned into a movie. So I look forward to My Desk: The Movie any day now.

Like ill-prepared Mexican food...WE'RE BACK!

In what I can only assume is the opening salvo in the impending and inevitable war in which the machines kill each and every one of us, The Reader's server went all Hal on us for a few days there and turned this blog into something that was updated as infrequently as Mischa Barton's IMDB page. I wasn't at the office for the resolution, which I assume ended in a standoff with the server on one side of the room and a brave soul holding a blowtorch next to an iPod declaring "Turn it back on or I'll do it, you metal son of a bitch, I'LL DO IT!" Point is, we are back and more Australian than ever. This is what counts as an apology for my absence, I'd send flowers but I'm not a wuss.

As luck, fate, and divine intervention would have it, Thursday is the day that I peek inside my "junk drawer," which is a clever construct in which I hit a bunch of news blurbs of interest all at once. Let's recap all of the fun news that you would have gotten sooner if the R2D2-lookin' compu-asshole hadn't decided to wonk out.

• Some chick from Twilight I've never heard of is not going to continue being in Twilight and is somehow acting as though she wasn't just spared from a firing squad. Her name is Rachel Lefevre (her last name is French for "Favre"), and she looks like this (thanks to Slashfilm.com for the image):
I could walk past her in a grocery store without noticing. Anyhoodle, she was replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard, a much hotter and more well-known actress (and fruit of Opie's loins), in a move summed up by someone on Twitter (I forget who, it was DAYS ago now) who noted that between Spiderman 3, Terminator 4, and Twilight 3, Howard has really earned her high-school reputation of "girl with worst taste in sequels." What makes this story "interesting" (those were sarcasm quotes) is that the lovely redhead above wasn't so much told by Summit that she was being dumped. This is not the first dick move from the studio, who dumped Catherine Hardwicke after her first directorial effort, as though it were her fault that the Twilight series has all the intellectual integrity of a shitty episode of "Dora the Explorer." Every time you think that this franchise can't sink lower, it manages to abase itself further. Next up: Jennifer Love Hewitt is honestly actively seeking a part. I say do it.

• Everyone is peeing their pants over this new Coen Brothers trailer. That includes ol' soggy-pants Ryan
  
• You can't see the Iron Man 2 footage they showed at the San Diego Comic Convention, but you can see a re-enactment that is hilarious.
  
• Not totally geeked for the geek-out-geekfest that is the new Tron movie? Here's the theme for it performed by Daft Punk, who is scoring the film and touring in support of it. Suck some techno, fools.
  
  Tron Legacy Theme by tuxboard
  
  
• Universal is doing The Lorax as a 3D animated feature. It has subtle themes of environmentalism, if you think Kathy Griffen is subtle. I am actually really looking forward to this. They should totally get Al Gore to do the voice.
• Devin at Chud.com like GI: Joe. I have now slid this movie up a notch on my anticipation scale from "Hey what smells so bad? Oh, God, it's what I'm eating!" to "I'm not sure if this hurts or feels good."

That's it for now. I guarantee there was more I missed, but blame the evil machines for me missing it. It feels so good to be back.