For the love of God, SOMEONE star in Gravity!!!!

The saga behind who will star in (and thus save) Gravity is quickly approaching soap opera status.

Director Alfonso Cuaron: Angelina, you are the only woman for me, without you, I'm lost.
Angelina Jolie: Alfonso, you know that I love and respect you, but my heart is with Brad. Between my love for him, raising my litter, and perpetually trying to convince the world that I was never batshit insane, I have no time for you.
Alfonso: Woe is me! My one true love has left me! I shall never be able to move forward ever again. My life's work is dead, dead, dead. Wait, who is that over there?
Scarlett Johansson: I'm sorry, Alfonso, but my perfect heaving bosom does not have within it burning desire to be locked into an antigravity simulator and barf all over my perfect figure for months on end. Besides, nobody thinks I have the talent for what you want me to do.
Alfonso: We can make it work, Scarlett! WE CAN MAKE AN ASTRONAUT SUIT SEXY, I SWEAR IT! ALAS!!! Angelina does not love me, Scarlett does not love me. What am I to do? Wait, who's that over there?
Blake Lively: Dude, I'm like 12. You shouldn't even be looking at me like that.
Alfonso: ALAS AND ALACK! I have been spurned by Angelina, rejected by Scarlett, threatened with legal action by Blake. What would my friends do? Well, Darren Aronofsky would just cast his wife.
Rachel Weisz: Don't even think about it.
Alfonso: But I know that if we...
Rachel Weisz: You think I do weird artistic science fiction projects for just anybody? My HUSBAND asked me to do that last one, and I got to rub all over Hugh Jackman. Who would I be rubbing against in your film?
Alfonso: If you were wanting to rub, you would have to rub against yourself.
Rachel Weisz: Aaaaand I'm out.
Alfonso: That's it, my life is over. The ladies, they do not love me. My art will wither and die like a stubborn grape on a vine. Wait, who is that over there?

Alfonso: She is an angel! A divine being possessed of more beauty and talent than any of these women before mentioned! I shall send her a love letter in the form of my revised script! Surely she cannot resist the charms of my new draft! I will win her heart!

And that folks, is where we stand, although I left out Marion Cotillard, Naomi Watts, and Olivia Wilde because I got tired of this joke. The offer is out to Natalie if she wants it after reading the script. I have said before and I'll say again, I hope SOMEONE takes it so we see this thing, but I wouldn't hold my breath at this point.

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Ryan's Junk Drawer

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

When Netflix for the Wii brings about world peace and cures cancer, I'm not going to be surprised. I was enjoying the revolutionary awesomeness of its existence last night whilst watching some "Better Off Ted," a criminally underrated show, when I encountered the quotation that now resides beneath my creepy image. That quotation will stay there forever now. I love it.

And how true it is! My junk is powerful, lots of people look forward to seeing it week in and week out, over and over. Obviously, by junk I mean movie tidbits that aren't important enough for a whole post, and not whatever untoward thing it was you thought I was suggesting with all the "in and out" and "over and over" business. I can't help it if I get most of my verbs and adjectives from unsavory characters. Each week we begin this charade of awesome by staring at the image up top, the creepy one from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN. We pick an item from it and make up a story, because doing so amuses me and helps me celebrate Thursday. Today's item is the small pink square in the upper left corner. Despite rumors and myths to the contrary, Bigfoot loves to get his picture taken. Willing to pose in whatever semi-erotic or rugged position he's instructed, his only caveat is that he hates how everything associated with him is referred to as "big." He works hard for those chiseled-six-pack-monkey abs, but all anyone ever says is "OH MY GOD THAT THING IS ENORMOUS." Thus, his requirement is simple: He will only take incredibly small photos that can be reproduced in incredibly tiny formats. At least a half dozen National Geographic employees have junk drawers full of unusable, incredibly small portraits of a grinning Sasquatch. And the world will never know.

Now, on to the junk!

1.) Things are getting heavy for Gravity - Two bits of Afonso Cuaron news today, neither of which is particularly encouraging. First, they offered St. Angie another chance to star in the sure-to-be-brilliant Gravity, in order to secure financing.
She gave them that look, which apparently means "no" in crazy. What this means is that all of a sudden the sure, sure thing is no longer sure at all. This has to do with the second bit of info: ScriptShadow reviewed the November 2009 draft of the project, and says there's no way the rumored replacements can take on the role.
I know, ScarJo seems to be laughing at the implication that audiences will not want to watch her and only her for 2 hours. Blake Lively, on the other hand, is probably not the person you want handling a movie in which she is the sole star. I will grant you that. See, the review of the script reveals a few lightly spoilerific things, like the fact that 90% of the project involves a stranded female astronaut jumping from object to object to stay alive after her space shuttle is badly damaged. Oh, and by the way, the whole thing may take place in real time with no defined cuts. WHA?! HUH?! That's pretty incredible. For SURE the first 20 minutes is a continuous shot, but reports are that the WHOLE THING may be envisioned that way. Insane! The review also mentioned that the character is woefully underdeveloped and that the action is pretty repetitive, but this was an early draft. Look, I hope we get to see this, and I hope that the studio realizes there are other actresses out there other than Angelina Jolie. The problem is, she's quite literally the ONLY bankable female star, and they want one to justify a sci-fi budget. Where does this leave the project? Floating weightlessly. Let's hope it comes down to earth.

2.) Please, please, please bring us a dream - THR says that Warner Bros. TV is getting the rights to Sandman, a fact that should inspire terror in you.
The show-runner for "Supernatural" is on the job, supposedly, which is a good thing according to quite a few people in the blogiverse. I know Devin from Chud (formerly of Chud...God that's weird) claimed that he now believes "Supernatural" to be better than "The X-Files," which made a whole bunch of geeks from 1995 really mad. Now, on the one hand, a TV version of the material is absolutely the way to go. It's episodic by nature, not some defined story that you can tell all at once. On the other...well, it's weird. You can't possibly do a third of the things that Neil Gaiman wrote on the same network "Gossip Girl" and "Vampire Diaries" are on. I mean, the conceptual issues, the weird design and concepts, the offbeat sense of humor is just going to cruise past the heads of the target demo. The most likely incarnation will be an action-heavier version that is dumbed down, which nobody wants. So, in the win column: Sandman is going to TV and not the movies! In the loss column: Alongside the worst lineup in television history. Could really go either way at this point...kind of like some of the characters IN the comic.

3.) The slow, limb-dragging shamble toward justice - Pajiba has reported that Scarlett Johansson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are going to be in love whether they like it or not.

Boo ya! It's a two pictures of Scarjo kinda day! Not too shabby, eh? The two incredibly attractive humans are going to have a tough go of it, though, as JGL will be Andy, a zombie forced to endure a society that denies him basic human...er...zombie rights. The project is Breather, which is going to be penned by Diablo Cody from a book that you can read right now! Seriously, it has words and stuff all printed out, so you can spoil the movie by reading the source material! This pitch sounds interesting enough, described as District 9 meets Shaun of the Dead by Slashfilm, but I worry about the overexposure of zombies. And I'm not just talking about their often exposed internal organs and skeletons. That said, I like these two actors, I like Diablo Cody, and I like zombies, so I am throwing my full support behind this project.

4.) I want to see "Small Faces" - I wish Joss Whedon were writing The Runaways too. His run on the comic was absolutely brilliant, and I am not sure who can step in and make the young kid superhero team really work. But it's happening without him, as Production Weekly is now reporting that Marvel Studios will begin production in March 2011. The film is being shot under the fake title “Small Faces,” which is some clever song reference but has no purpose now that everyone on the internet knows the fake title. Kudos to whoever leaked that bit of info, you've officially rendered it useless. Drew Pearce is supposedly helming the adaptation, with Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett directing. I'm okay with the latter to some degree, as I really enjoyed that movie more than I should have. I do have one, rather huge question though.

How exactly are you going to feature a character whose power is a psychic bond with a velicoraptor? I mean, it works in the comic, but I'm unsure of the budget necessary to feature a CGI dinosaur in a bulk of the film. Also, I'm guessing it's going to be hard for audiences to get behind the whole thing with the dino involved...but you really need the dino, as it plays a huge part in the story! This could be a really inspired and original little take on superheroes, or it could suck like few projects have sucked before. We'll have to wait and see.

5.) Trailers, parked - Just one this week, sorry. Nobody wants to show us their movie trailers, I can't say why. This is the preview for Virginity Hit. I'm sorry I'm posting it.

Okay, that's it for today. I'm off tomorrow and Monday (probably). You have a sexy Labor Day and a fantastic weekend!

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Am I the only one who remembers Angelina Jolie was crazy?

Happy Wednesday. Angelina Jolie is crazy (pictured below when she believed herself to be flying).
Just wanted to remind a world convinced that Lindsay Lohan can't unbork herself or her career that everyone thinks Angelina Jolie did just that. What do I mean? Let's start with 5 facts:

1.) Angelina Jolie's dad is Jon Voight.
2.) Jon Voight is the single craziest actor whose name does not rhyme with Schmary Schmusey.
3.) Angelina Jolie was married to Billy Bob Thornton.
4.) When Angelina Jolie was married to Billy Bob Thornton, she used to keep his blood in a vial around her neck, engage in whoopy inside the limo of a premiere, and other general batshit insanity.
5.) Angelina Jolie used to do heroin.

I'm not sure what happened, if it was settling down with Brad Pitt or just making/adopting/stealing babies, but she went from heroin-addict-billy-bob-sex-toy to "St. Angelina" as she's been called. I love how much she seems dedicated to helping people, I love that she uses her voice in a positive way, and I love that her career has sorted itself out because we need high-profile actresses who aren't Cameron Diaz. I still think she's nuts, yo. She's got that look in her eyes where she seems to be sizing up what side of your neck to bite. Oh, and she used to do shit like bite people. Look it up. Anyway, I wasn't going to do a story on her next movie, because it's so much in the rumor stage right now, but this seemed like a good time to remind everyone she's crazy, because her next movie is supposedly going to be a romantic drama set in 1990s Bosnia during the war. Oh, and she's not starring in it. She's WRITING AND DIRECTING IT. That's right, having done absolutely zero writing and/or directing, she's going to leap into a war romance. Could it be great? Sure! Would I love to find another talented woman who can write and direct and has the clout to actually get her films financed? Youbetcha. Do I worry that this crazy person has read so many of her own press clippings that she now believes herself capable of anything? Uh huh. We'll see on this one. My money is on the project just never materializing. I know people can change, and I hope that I'm wrong, but the next time she does an interview, just look at her eyes and tell me you don't see a bucket of trouble.

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Movie Review: Salt

She Bang-Bangs
Salt lets ladies be lethal

Watching Salt is a contemplation of whether the increasingly skeletal frame of Angelina Jolie is capable of producing enough force to actually harm another human. It’s not likely, given that she was seemingly given the largest, most ridiculous wig not currently on Nicholas Cage just to keep her from blowing off set.

Why does this matter? Because beyond the crippling weight mandate Hollywood refuses to release females from, Salt is blissfully empowering and delightfully unapologetic about its lead. Originally written for former human action figure Tom Cruise, Kurt Wimmer thankfully did not appear to holistically change his script to configure stunts or subplots more befitting of the fairer sex so much as he seems to have hit “find and replace” to swap “she” for “he.” The result is a run-of-the-mill actioner turned slightly less run-of-the-mill-y. It ain’t feminism at gunpoint, but it beats bosom-heaving, damsel-in-distress buffoonery.

Evelyn Salt (Jolie), who would have been Edwin A. Salt had Cruise not split, is a C.I.A. agent who loves her husband Mike (August Diehl), gets along with her boss Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) and may or may not be a super-secret Russian agent embedded in the U.S. since she was a child. From the moment an alleged defector suggests that Salt may be more Yakov Smirnoff than Jason Bourne, she’s on the run. Mostly dodging the assault of counterintelligence agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a character so underdeveloped his name is rarely if ever used, Salt begins unraveling the Russkie plot, which unlike the real-life recent Russian spy scandal, has stakes that exceed “being really weird.”

With a plot as slender as its lead, Salt retains a few surprises, legitimately prolonging “is she or isn’t she a Kremlin lover” until late in the third act. Director Phillip Noyce not only shoots the physics-and-limits-of-Jolie’s-body defying stunts with graceful aplomb, he keeps the pace fluttering between exhilarating and “okay, seriously, just stop for a second.” Were the dialogue not filled with more lead than Jolie’s glock clip and had the final shootout not been set against a computer’s slowly ticking upload percentage, Salt would have been a damn-fine escapist romp.

Given that Jolie successfully carried a movie where the significant male was played by Liev Schreiber, here’s hoping the legacy of Salt is that girls can carry a stupid summer flick as good as boys can. So give them more opportunities, and give Jolie a sandwich while you’re at it.

Grade – B-

Friday Blitz 1: Kristen Stewart is Wanted?

This week hasn't been an all-you-can-eat buffet of movie news. Nope, it's been a prisoner's meal of gruel and water...and ain't nobody like no gruel. Then, suddenly, the dam breaks and we get news breaks like DAAAAMN. So, I'm going to stop making with all the jibber-jabber and start making with a series of quick pieces of really interesting news. Plus, given that the NFL Draft started yesterday (not that my team, The Chicago Bears, would know that...they had no first round picks) and continues into today, the football metaphor seemed right.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give unto you: The Friday Blitz.

First up, I've soften my Kristen Stewart position recently from "Uh, uh" to "why not" based both on her flippant attitude towards her own franchise and her willingness to do this photo shoot.
So, when E! Online reported that Kristen Stewart is up for the female lead in Wanted 2, I was surprisingly okay with it. First, she's cute. Second, if she wants to try action, now's the time. Third, I could sooooo care less about the integrity of the Wanted series that if they want to cast a talking monkey and Pia Zadora, I'd be able to enjoy it. A quick word of apology to Mark Millar. I thought for sure you were just talking out of your sideways smile about this sequel still being possible after Angelina Jolie departed. Turns out, this time you were talking out of your sideways smile and happened to be right. Mea culpa.

Jolie replaced with Downey Jr...wait, what?

Awhile back (like a week or so), we told you that Angelina Jolie was ixnaying Wanted 2 and was hopping aboard a spaceship for Alfonso Cuaron in Gravity, a movie that sort of sounds like Moon (insofar as it's about a solo space mission). Well, Jolie decided that movie didn't sound like it sucked enough, so she's out and Robert Downey Jr, who is on a hot streak hotter than skid-marks in the underpants of a lava pooper, is in. Obviously, the gender of the character isn't a pivotal issue, but it is weird to see Mike Fleming note that Downey Jr is getting a role Jolie almost had. For what it's worth, I'd rather watch Downey Jr in a one-man-acting show than Jolie flop her Oscar Meyer lips all over the screen for two hours, even though Cuaron probably would have gotten the best performance of her career out of her. In case you couldn't tell, I'm officially off "Team Jolie" no matter how many wonderful humanitarian causes she supports. She seems crazy and can't act all that well. Also, I never found her that hot. She looks like a cartoon of a woman someone would be attracted to. Thanks for visiting Ryan's grumpy Monday, try some coffee and have a bagel.

Mark Millar is a lying liar and other things that curdle my milk

About a week ago, I told you that Angelina Jolie was dumping Wanted 2 like a long-time girlfriend dumps her loser, go-nowhere boyfriend who has been mistreating her for years and years after she one day realizes that there's a line of better men standing at her door with money, positive healthy affection, and true love. Of course, I also told you that the jilted ex, comic writer and professional liar Mark Millar, would....well, let's look at EXACTLY what I said he'd say. If we set the DeLorean to February 26, 2010 (or, you know, click here), you can see me say the following: "I GUARANTEE you that Mark Millar, who wrote the original comic, is going to come out and state that the sequel is ON, he wrote the shit out of it, it's going to star some super-secret-mega-star, and be directed by Jesus. Millar is a liar." Well, click here to watch Millar open his lie hole and force a whole lot more lies out of it about the sequel still being on. (A) Nobody is clamoring for this sequel. Nobody even knows why you would have this sequel. No storylines were left out there to explore, no characters were all that compelling, and the only things that made it interesting were Jolie's butt and director Timur Bekmambetov's visuals, neither of whom will be back. (B) Everyone in the world has forgotten about Wanted except the guy who wrote it, so shut it doucheburger. (C) There will not be a sequel to Wanted just because you say there will be. If that shit worked, you'd be writing the Superman movie instead of talking up a nonexistent sequel, asshat.

This may sound angry...and you know what, I kind of am today. Why? Well, I won't bore you with personal details, so let's talk about a semi-professional one (professional meaning entertainment-related) I finished Season 5 of "Weeds" last night. So, basically, I'm pissed for having wasted 7.5 hours of my life on what is the poorest excuse for a season of television I may have ever watched. Characters I love, dearly love, behaved like idiotic cartoons and tread water for 13 whole episodes. I shit you not, this entire season could have been skipped over with a "one year later" card without losing an iota of significance. I won't spoil things but sweet tap-dancing Betty White this was a piece of shit season. They pissed on great actors and actresses and made them dance like pathetic clowns. If I had read the scripts, I likely would have just quit if I were them. Anyway, this is part of the reason I want to punch Mark Millar in his stupid lie hole. What can I say? I'm a dumpster full of drop kicks, you knew this going in.

But...but...what about Robocop?

Darren Aronofsky can do whatever the bleep he bleeping wants...especially because what he currently wants to do involves making Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman do it (if you haven't heard about his Black Swan right now, I'm too tired to do it justice so just re-read the last sentence and know that I'm not exaggerating...Kunis and Portman porkin'). The sad thing is, I want him to do Robocop, which is a brilliant movie that doesn't get the respect it deserves. If anyone else does it, we're going to get shitty shit that has shit shaped pieces of shit in it. So, in layman's terms, it will be bad. The problem is, Aronofsky and the studio (MGM) can't get their crap together for Robocop, so he just keeps booking other projects. This is good because (A) sometimes those projects involve Kunis and Portman freakin' each other and (B) Aronofsky is one of very few directors who has gone 4-for-4 to start their career. I tell you all of this rambling nonsense because it turns out I lied to you. Angelina Jolie is NOT signed for Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi tale Gravity (although she is in talks). According to The Hollywood Reporter, she's also in talks with Aronofsky to star in his adaptation of the novel "Serena," which is about a husband and wife in the depression era who start a timber empire and do other dramatic stuff. If you take Aronofsky out of this equation, it sounds as appealing to me as a rousing game of "eat some lint." But WITH him in, you get a weird There Will Be Blood meets, um, Angelina Jolie? All I can think right now is her yelling "I drink your milkshake" and a bunch of dudes who still find Jolie's overinflated tube lips and increasingly batshit crazy eyes attractive. I will say that she's circling two VERY interesting projects, and whether she ends up in either Cuaron's or Aronofsky's film, whichever one she picks will be the best film she's made in a decade. Although, my money is on neither. My money is on her suddenly dropping both and starring in Mr. and Mrs. Smith 2: Baby on Board. Shudder.

Angelina Jolie: Unwanted

I feel weird issuing a spoiler alert for a movie that came out like 2 years ago, but look away if (A) you haven't seen Wanted, a nonsensical action movie, and (B) you don't want to know the ending. Hi, welcome to those of you who have seen Wanted or don't give a shit about Wanted. I love all of you equally. News broke yesterday that the sequel to Wanted, presumably titled The Want is Real, is not going to happen. See, Angelina Jolie has opted out, which makes sense because her character FREAKING DIED in the last movie. Nobody knew what weird storytelling, magical reincarnation bullshit they were going to use to get her back for the sequel, but being as she was the only truly famous person in it (sorry, Morgan Freeman, you lost your famous person status when you did your stepdaughter), the sequel is now kaputsky. At least, that's the thinking. I GUARANTEE you that Mark Millar, who wrote the original comic, is going to come out and state that the sequel is ON, he wrote the shit out of it, it's going to star some super-secret-mega-star, and be directed by Jesus. Millar is a liar. So what is Jolie doing with her non-Wanted time (besides, you know, reconnecting with her douchey douchey father, Jon Voight)? According to Vulture, Jolie will star in Gravity for bad-ass mofo Alfonso Cuaron. Wait? WHAT! Apparently, Gravity follows the only survivor of some kind of space accident trying to get home and was written by Cuaron's 28-year-old son (wonder how he got that deal). Seeing as how Children of Men was an incredible, incredible science fiction masterpiece, I am so very in. Although, for the record, the only thing more overrated than Angelina Jolie is Dippin' Dots. Ice cream of the future my ass.

No mo Lobo

Nobody really needed a movie about Lobo, a comic book character created I can only assume on some kind of dare. The one-note figure went around doing dumb shit and saying words like "bastiches," which made people laugh because it sounded like bastards (teeheehee). So, count me one of the many who could care less that LAT’s Hero Complex blog's chat with producer Joel Silver seems to suggest that Guy Ritchie is bailing on Lobo for a return to Sherlock's village. Sherlock has done great business (should cross $200 million domestically and $400 million worldwide shortly) while operating under the shadow of Avatar, which HAD to be taking some of the audience away. With rumors flying that Moriarty will make his nefarious rise in the next flick, and with many rumors suggesting Brad Pitt has been (or will be) offered the plot, bringing Ritchie (who has a relationship with Pitt) back to the film may be a great idea. Since I mentioned Brad Pitt, this is also a good time to point out that I don't care if he and Angelina Jolie have split up or not. Although I applaud her humanitarian work and have sometimes accidentally enjoyed her movies, she seems to be a psychotic who not-so-long-ago used to drink Billy Bob Thornton's blood. Now, if she's paying down international deficits and helping poor people live, I'll forgive her the whole batshit crazy making-out-with-her-brother thing, but I draw the line at giving a squishy tomato about her personal life. Besides, I have a feeling they'll both be fine. Rich and fine. Rich, attractive, and fine. So, moral of the story: Guy Ritchie is likely doing Sherlock Holmes 2: The Case of Watson's Lube, Brad Pitt should play Moriarty because that would effing rule, and we've all forgotten that Angelina Jolie is the lunatic spawn of Jon Voight.

Ryan's Junk Drawer

I like this image because it's kind of creepy. This guy apparently keeps a mouse tail, a tube of what appears to be "love rocket lightning," a screw, Canadian money, and a snakeskin in his junk drawer. Creepier still, I got this from "Highlights" magazine. There was a poem that went with it, but any poem that doesn't have a line ending with "izzle" is dead to me (unless it's written in haiku form, which we all know to be the superior poetic formula). I'm going to use this image to introduce my junk (the top 5 non-big stories of the week) until I'm legally forced to stop.

Here's the top 5 non-big stories (aka, MY JUNK!)

1.) Red just got red hot - Why do I follow phenomenal comic writer @warrenellis on twitter? I don't know, because he delivers tweets like this: "I have 149,935 followers. The 150,000th must kill someone of my choosing or I will murder their family." That's good stuff. Ellis writes a shitpile of comics, some very good, some just weird. "Red" is one I haven't...ahem...READ yet, but I fully intend to. Back in April, Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis were joined in this tale of a CIA operative who is "too old for this shit," quits, and of course "knows too much" and thus gets people trying to kill him. Willis is the old CIA man, Freeman is presumably the bad guy, Helen Mirren has just joined (fingers crossed as the sexy-time love interest...I kid...unless you're into that), and the real exciting news just dropped this week. Apparently, John C. Reilly has joined up...and Willis got his real love interest (no, not Reilly...unless you're into that): this gal.

There were any number of photos of the lovely miss Mary Louise Parker that I could have chosen from in various states of undress, but I think this best proves why she must have made a deal with the devil to be so thoroughly beguiling at 45. LOOK AT THAT WOMAN. The beauty is she's somewhat age-appropriate for Willis's character BUT she still looks like a young hottie, so it satisfies Hollywood's hatred for aged women (other than Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, and Meryl Streep). Spy movie? Written by a comic nerd? With John C. Reilly? AND Mary Louise Parker? Red just shot to the top of my hominhominahomina-gots-to-see-this-NOW list.

2.) So, you're saying you think a Depp/Jolie movie will make money? - I have always admired Johnny Depp for not taking the easy way out. After his "21 Jump Street" introduction, he quickly went batshit insane, taking on roles in a John Waters movie and becoming Tim Burton's muse. Until Pirates, he was a leading man without a signature role or huge franchise hit. I didn't mind that Pirates became all PIRATES but now it looks like he's gotten a taste of the big-time bug and doesn't want to let go. According to Variety, Depp will be taking over for Sam "How the f**k did I get famous" Worthington in The Tourist, a movie about an average tourist who gets convinced to help the government track down an ex who is a major criminal...the criminal in this case being Jolie. It kind of sounds like every other Angelina Jolie movie, and Depp will probably want to play the tourist with a prosthetic leg and a lisp, but to be honest it sounds so commercial I'm shocked Depp is involved. I really hope we aren't losing one of the good ones to the path of least resistance. Also, to show I'm an equal time fella, here's a picture of Johnny Depp (albeit one in which he looks like the guy working at Starbucks who will give you your goddamn latte but resent you whilst doing it).

3.) Direct-to-TV sequel? - I kind of want to see 2012. I know it's going to be total crap story-wise, but you're talking to one half of a husband and wife team who have viewed The Day After Tomorrow about 3 times on FX after seeing it in the theater and not liking it. I haven't truly enjoyed the movie during any of my 4-5 times watching it...so that must say something about crapmaster Roland Emmerich's ability to make watchable bullshit (and about my wife's and my obsession about apocalyptic disasters). Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Emmerich is pimping "2013," a TV series that would be set after the events of 2012. I know, you were hoping for a series that explored what happened if you added 113 to 1900, but you'll have to wait. Sure, this kind of reveals that the Earth doesn't implode in 2012, but so long as it doesn't end with John Cusack facing down some of the worst computer-generated wolves of all time like Day After Tomorrow, I'm okay knowing that humanity survives. Again, I'm torn. I know that Emmerich makes crap, but I watched every episode of the poorly acted "Jericho" because I was so obsessed with post-apocalyptic scenarios. Damn you, Emmerich for putting me in this position. And now, to make myself feel better (and because I mentioned John Cusack above), here's a squirrel holding an invisible boombox above his head.

4.) Angelina Jolie tastes like familiar Salt - I like that we have a female action star, I just kind of wish it wasn't Angelina Jolie. First off, I don't buy that she's able to fling her 87-pound body around with any force. "Oh no, she hit me with all the inertia of a wet noodle." I mean, when Jennifer Garner was throwin' 'bows in "Alias," I bought it. Jolie, not so much. Plus, all of her stuff is starting to look the same. Watch the trailer for Salt, which was rewritten by Kurt Wimmer (the guy who rocked Equilibrium and then farted out Ultraviolet), and tell me it doesn't look exactly like Wanted and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie's a good actress...so maybe more of the acting should happen now.



5.) Dick Cheney's dream of a white Middle East is realized! - I don't know why no one is able to find a single Middle Eastern actor or actress to appear in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I also don't know why the first movie in a potential series can't just be titled Prince of Persia. Why we're at it, I don't know why Jake Gyllenhaal has a British accent for his role as a Persian prince...or why Gemma Arterton (who is totally hotsies, don't get me wrong) is the female lead when there are plenty of beautiful Middle Eastern ladies available...or why Ben Kingsley is the bad Persian guy...or why this trailer confuses me so much when I played the entire game it's based on...or why they decided to give Arterton, who nobody knows, the entire voiceover for the trailer...and why SHE speaks in a British accent. So, this appears to be a movie in which white people pretend to be Persian and a lot of computer effects happen. I want this to be fun but boy does it look like a hot white-Persian mess right now.

Bekmambetov is Russian for "no duh"

If you have yet to see Angelina Jolie's Wanted...I don't really care. It's fun, but nothing too terribly enthralling, and I'm about to ruin the ending for you (in case you care) in order to reveal how they're going to have Jolie bring her kickin' curves (I'm talking about her lips) back for Wanted 2: Want S'more. The movie, about a league of assassins who kill people (because they are trying to restore order) are told who to murder by a giant tapestry and...you know what, I'm going to skip all the crazy and get to the end. Jolie's character gets shot in the cabeza, something that several people have expressed a desire to do based on things not involving her fictional assassin work. So, the question has long been "how do you bring the star that people care about back to make a sequel after you made her brains all gooey (okay, gooey-er)?" Well, MTV considers this an EXCLUSIVE, so prepare yourself to deal with the obvious: In the movie, there are baths that heal you (don't ask, really, don't). The director has confirmed EXCLUSIVELY TO MTV that they are going to say someone put her in the magic tub, a solution that it took literally seconds to create. And there you go...except that the end of the movie seems to take place a little while after the climactic shootout and nobody dragged Jolie's hot carcass to the bath that makes her feel better. You know what, this movie is getting stupider every time I try to describe something from it. I really enjoyed the kinetic energy of it all, the spectacle and adrenaline of it, but good lord is it apparently the dumbest thing I've ever had to synopsize. I'm just going to move on now.

Can we call fans of Atlas Shrugged "Shrug Huggers?"

One of the things I like to do when nobody's watching is Google myself. You should try it. The first thing I found when I did this awhile back is that there is a dogged watchgroup with eyes trained on all things Ayn Rand, and they reposted something I wrote about the stalled-out film version (then starring Angelina Jolie). I thought that was cool and vowed I would cover any advances in the development of that film. That was three years ago. But I am nothing if not vigilant (that means lazy, right?), and today The Hollywood Reporter rewarded my vigilantism by letting me know that Charlize "One-step-better-than-Cameron-Diaz" Theron is meeting with producers and wants to star as Dagny Taggart. Theron is supposedly concerned about "losing the many nuances of the novel," despite having failed to prove in the past that she is familiar with what a "nuance" is (maybe she's thinking of nougat, you know, like in candy bars). So the idea is to turn it into a miniseries on a new pay-cable network that Lionsgate is forming with MGM and Paramount. In order to cover all of the material, the miniseries will last approximately 87 years. Also, Shrug Huggers should beware: This ruse IS designed to get the book's fans to subscribe to the pay site, Epix, which is not spelled right. Time is of the essence, as the deal mandates that filming must start before 2010, or rights issues get tricky (like rocking around the clock). So, Shrug Huggers, the official update is that a star who isn't Angelina Jolie is having meetings to maybe play the lead in what may be a miniseries that may shoot sometime in the next few months on a channel that doesn't exist yet. Sadly, this is somehow forward movement for this project. Until the next update: I remain vigilantic.