Ryan's Junk Drawer

Good morning, sinners. I can't take credit for that. That's how Warren Ellis (the comic writer, not the musician) greets his followers on Twitter. As I've said before, he also refers to his beard as a "hobo rape thicket," which is the creepiest description for facial hair not currently on Ben Affleck's face. As you know, today is Thursday (unless you didn't know...maybe I should have said SPOILER ALERT: Today is Thursday). That means it's the day that I expose my junk. By junk, I mean my movie tidbits that aren't big enough to warrant a post of their own. We begin each session of junk exposure by examining the image above of a creepy-ass junk drawer from Highlights Magazine (FOR CHILDREN) and picking one item out to make an insane backstory about. This time, we're going to choose the mysterious white substance in the middle of the drawer. Despite years of research proving that it was (A) both perfectly harmless and (B) delicious, Susan's invention, "Cocaine for Kids," was shot down by every investor available. Although packed with essential vitamins and nutrients, and only a very small amount of stimulant/hallucinogen, mainstream America was just too stubborn and refused to consider letting children snort the chemical cocktail. Susan's dreams of school lunchrooms where every toddler shoved kiddie-blow up their nose were just never meant to be.

Okay, enough preamble. Let's get on to the amble! Here's my junk for this week!!!!

1.) First Whedon, now Munn? Nerds REJOICE! - Before we get to the sexytime comic news you're thirsting for, a quick follow-up. It seems that Marvel reads my blog. Okay, fine, probably not. But at the very least, they arrived at the same bright idea I did, which was to let Joss Whedon take a crack at the Avengers screenplay above all else. He may do a good job directing...but he WILL do a good job writing the mega-comic movie. So, yippee, the Avengers may not suck. Actually, this leads perfectly to the next bit of nerd-vana. I'm told that nerds like this girl:
I can't see why. As you likely know, that's Olivia Munn who you know from G4's "Attack of the Show" (and from the many, many downloads of her picture on your boyfriend's/husband's computer). She loves geek things and had a small cameo in Iron Man 2, which was cut. Then they called her in and said that she needed to come back in and shoot something else for the movie, a role that she tweeted made her "an actual marvel character." The theory today has it that Munn may be playing the Wasp. Now, what I know of Munn's acting is mostly from that commercial where she plays the fortune teller. That's not a good sign. Still, how hard is playing the Wasp? Sure, if the character is in The Avengers, which she should be because she's a staple of the team in the comics, she'll have to deal with getting domestically abused by Ant Man. Until then, who cares if she only looks good in leather? Take this all with a grain of salt, as Munn could still be playing a much more minor role. Still, nerds have to be salivating over this prospect like they salivate over the thought of a world with no further human interaction.

2.) Butter sounds very good for me - Butter, which seems to have an awesome script AND an awesome casting director, just keeps landing big name talent. The film is both a satire of the 2008 Iowa Caucuses AND an opportunity for people to make tons of jokes about butter. Win-Win, I say. I'm going to go pictorial on your asses. Here's your cast so far:

Jennifer Garner

Ashley Greene

Olivia Wilde

Alicia Silverstone

Hugh Jackman

and (sexiest of all) Rob Corddry

How can you not want in on this one? A great script and a cast composed of every sexy person ever...and Rob Corddry?! This is one satire that I think has a real chance at making us all very, very happy.

3.) In the name of Kubrick, I declare thee awesome! - Given the uninspired, remake-heavy bullcrap we often suffer through, the prospect of getting a little new Stanley Kubrick on us is awesome. The late brilliant director keeps giving, as the treatment for Lunatic at Large, which was written for Kubrick in the 50s by Jim Thompson, is going to be made into a movie starring Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson. It's drawing some comparisons to Shutter Island, but I don't care. This is literally as close as we can come to seeing Scarlett in a Kubrick movie. That makes me happy. I don't know who will end up directing it, but I hope it's someone with a degree of talent. When paired with good directors, Scarlett shines (Woody Allen, Sophia Coppola). When paired with bad directors....she sure is pretty. See?

4.) The last time they worked together, I cried a lot - I have never blubbered at a movie quite like I did at The Fountain. There were a lot of reasons why, but I still hold that at least part of the equation was Darren Aronofsky and Rachel Weisz (and Hugh Jackman) just absolutely committing to the material. Well, Aronofsky (who gets to sleep with Weisz EVERY NIGHT because they're married and stuff) is going to need that same level of commitment again, as Entertainment Weekly is reporting that he will direct his honey as she plays Jacqueline Kennedy in the days after her husband's assassination. Anyone smell the Oscars in the air? I do! First off, she can look the part (see below):
Second, he's got the talent to make this something more than a boring biopic. Third, the subject matter is still riveting. Look at that, a major movie that will get Oscar talk that is headlined by and almost entirely about a woman. Things have changed! I kid, of course, as just earlier this week Sigourney Weaver said the only reason James Cameron didn't win the Oscar is "he didn't have boobs," as in, Kathryn Bigelow only won because of her female status. Nope. She won because she did the best job directing. Oh, and if Cameron's loss had ANYTHING to do with genitalia, it isn't his lack of boobs, it's that he's a dick.

5.) Trailers, parked - Some fun ones this week, really, as we're going all comedy!

Ryan Reynolds' superhero obsession continues, as he plays a figment of Jeff Daniels' imagination in Paper Man, which probably won't be very good. It's played at numerous festivals to little praise, even though the trailer makes me want to see it.



Next up is The Other Guys, which as someone else put it is obviously the movie that Kevin Smith's Cop Out wanted to be. Will Ferrell has been seriously licking his wounds since his last few flops...here's hoping there's a second act to his career that begins with this.

Finally, we have an Annette Benning sighting. She only appears once a half decade before disappearing into the shadow of Warren Beatty. This time, she's a lesbian mom with Julianne Moore. I think the movie looks great, and is the type of entertainment we need to push acceptance of lesbian/gay families into the mainstream. Huzzah for The Kids Are All Right trailer!!!



That's it for this week. Sorry for all the salacious photos of scantily clad women and Hugh Jackman (and double apologies for Rob Corddry's picture). It just lent itself to that theme and I thought I'd run with it. Remember, celebration of hot celebrities doesn't mean I'm not still a staunch believer in gender equality and other important things! Happy Thursday!

Ryan's Junk Drawer

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the weird and wacky world that is my junk drawer, where we collect tiny movie news tidbits that don't quite warrant their own blog post (or do, but I'm too lazy). As per usual, we begin this week by looking at the above creepy-ass image taken from Highlights for Children (CHILDREN!) magazine and making up a ridiculous backstory about something we see. Today's object is the tiny pink square in the upper left corner. Had her father not intercepted the note that Suzie was going to pass to Matt, he would have known of her undying love. In fact, the two would have begun dating in middle school, briefly gone their separate ways in high-school and early college, before once more uniting at a reunion when Matt recalled the wonderful note she had given him. But with the note now trapped inside her father's junk drawer, Suzie ended up going out with Jason, who convinced her to take up huffing paint and committing small acts of vandalism. After a stint in Juvie, Suzie emerged hardened, and stabbed a math teacher when he dared correct her on her algebra. To think, if Suzie's dad had just minded his own business, she wouldn't be doing 25 to life. Oh well!

Now, on to all the glory my junk has to offer!

1.) Alicia Silverstone is not dead - Although the world thought she had perhaps died after her last failed television pilot, as it turns out, Alicia Silverstone is alive and somewhat kicking. Not only is she willing to get bare-ass naked to prove she likes vegetables (seriously, I would put images up here, but it ain't proper, google it), she's apparently going to reunite with Clueless director Amy Heckerling. Screen Daily is reporting that the pair are reuniting for Vamps, which is another f**king vampire movie. Now, even though the description of "two young vampires in New York city" sounds dumb as all get out, my hope is that Heckerling is able to bring some of the subversive genius she dropped with Clueless, but I'm guessing that's too much to hope for at this point. Instead, we're probably dealing with just another middling entry into the ever-expanding body of vampire films. Seriously, centuries from now, when our descendants finally figure out how to operate a DVD, they're going to be very disappointed in us. Very.

2.) I will refrain from all Cruz/cruise jokes - THR reports that Penelope Cruz doesn't mind scurvy...or at least she wants to hump Johnny Depp's peg leg. Why, whatever do I mean? I mean that this lovely lass:
Is going to wear an eyepatch. Or not, She's going to appear in the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie is what's actually going to happen, but she's likely going to just be filling the corset-stuffing quota. She's an improvement over the bland Kiera Knightley, that's fo sho, but why she wants to basically play a thankless supporting role is beyond me. Oh, wait, there's that whole Johnny Depp angle. Apparently, women will do all sorts of strange things to get near him, even though he looks like he would smell like the bathroom in a French bar. I liked the first of the series, didn't mind the second, and pretty much loathed the third, so here's hoping that cutting the fat (as in the skinny Orlando Bloom and Knightley) helps.

3.) Spider-man will be in 3D, so we can see all the angles of love - The only thing Avatar really did was to make everybody want to release their movies in 3D. Between Clash of the Titans going back and 3D-ing their movie and the announcement that just about any movie that can get away with it is going to dump their flick into the 3D bin, I'm about over this whole thing. It's a gimmick. It's a gimmick that they can use to charge us a lot more money. I'm not saying I won't ever go 3D again, but it's just not what gets my motor running. So news that Spider-man's reboot is going to be 3D fills me with the same meh feeling that the rest of the news about the project has left me with. Although, I would like to point out how stupid it is to drop your budget to $80 million, return everyone to high school so you can get cheaper, younger actors, and focus more on the love story...only to do this all in 3D?! I mean, seriously? Are the lovey dovey moments going to look more impressive if we see Peter Parker's emo hair flopping in all 3 dimensions? I'm guessing the device will be used like twice in the movie, so they should pro-rate the ticket price to reflect how little of it is actually in the third dimension. Whatever.

4.) Robocop is alive...but on life support - I want to see what Darren Aronofsky does with Robocop sooooo bad. I've loved each and every one of his movies and I cannot, cannot, cannot wait to see what he would do with a cyborg cop. Don't get me wrong, he can't excite me more than he already is by pairing up Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman in a carnal sense for his upcoming Black Swan, but Robocop is a distant but respectable second place. So here's some good news/bad news, screenwriter David Self tells STYD that he and Aronofsky are STILL on the project...but that MGM has its head up its ass. They can't agree on the rating (Aronofsky wants an R, because he's not an idiot...you can't do a PG-13 Robocop, you just can't) or the whole (sigh) 3D angle (here we go again). I'm not sure if this will be worth Aronofsky's trouble, or if he can deliver the movie I want him to deliver given the constraints of stupidity he's being shackled with. That said, the dream is flickering but still burning. I can only pray...and count down the days until I see Portman and Kunis and become Portikunis.

5.) Trailers, parked - Some REALLY good ones this week y'all. I'm not even going to flap my gums too much about it.

First up is Toy Story 3, and it looks as great as you'd expect. Plus, they get a "great ascot" joke AND a wonderful chase sequence. I'm so stoked, it's like I'm 5.


Toy Story 3 Trailer #2 in HD

Trailer Park Movies | MySpace Video

Speaking of children's stuff that shouldn't excite me but I'm not a real grown-up, check out the new Last Airbender trailer. Although I am a little unclear why I haven't heard the main character SPEAK in any of the trailers (oh, please don't let him be as terrible as it appears he may be), I'm very interested in a property I had never before had any interest in whatsoever. This is your last chance, though, Shyamalan. Your LAST CHANCE.

That's it folks! I hope you are having a good week. Let's meet up again tomorrow for Friday, the only day of the week that everybody loves. Sorry every other day, but we do play favorites.