Ryan's Junk Drawer

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

Well hello there, you delicious readers of blog! It's the Thursday of a week that is short but has felt long, a week that needs to go away forever as soon as possible, a week that is only permitted to exist in my memory because it is the launch of the NFL season (may Favre be hurt tonight).

But you haven't come here to hear me wallow or for Fantasy Football suggestions (free hint: start the unicorn). No, you've come here to see my junk! You have to wait all week for me to get it up, and then when I do, I'm always distracting you with other things. Well no longer, it's time that you looked upon my junk and enjoyed it!

Obviously, by junk I mean movie tidbits too small to warrant their own posts, despite how randy and inappropriate the term I have chosen sounds. Every edition of this weekly column begins with me looking at the creepy image of a junk drawer above, from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN, picking an item from said drawer, and writing a goofy story about it. Today's item is the green and red item in the lower right corner.

"Cornelius did not like to lose a bet, a problem compounded by his compulsive gambling habit and the fact that he was legally stupid. After a weekend spent losing money on pro football games, a weekend that did not go Cornelius's way despite his sure-to-be-dead-on 'pick the teams based on mascot fights' strategy, he needed a way to get back to even. While at the grocery store, he began trying to entice strangers with bets like "I bet I can get 10 eggs in that basket without breaking one" and "guess how many times the butcher washes his hands in one day despite touching all of your meats." Finally, a stranger proposed to him the oddest game of all. Desperation can make a man do incredible things. Women have lifted cars to save their children, men have punched through walls. That day, because he was that desperate for cash, Cornelius turned a cucumber inside out, a feat that has never been done before or since. Good for you, Cornelius."

Okay, enough tomfoolery, let's get to some movie nuggets!

1.) Captain chubby - This one is for my homey, Matty L. Sorry I've been uber busy, pal. I hope these shots that were actually taken from the set of Captain America make you feel better. Oh, do note that the chubby bunny in the suit is actually a stunt double and not the rock-hard Chris Evans. Also note that there will be better lighting and cinematography than these spy pics.
I actually don't mind it so much the more I look at it. It's pretty much Captain America, right? I mean, aside from the fact he appears to be wearing jeans and has his abs painted on. Let's take a look at his shield.
Okay, now that's Cap on a motorcycle, right? I mean that's pretty awesome, even from the rear ( a phrase I just don't say enough these days. Now let's see it all in motion.
Okay, first the positives: The rifle up front is pretty awesome looking, right? And I like his boots. The wings are...I mean, they need to be there but...hmm. You know what, I'm going to say I like it. At the very least, it's not the eye abortion that is the Green Lantern costume. I think that on screen this will look great. Let's get excited people, I give this a qualified thumbs up.

2.) Joel McHale to scare children with his skinny ties - I love Joel McHale, and you should too. Not only is he hilarious each week on "The Soup," but "Community" is the funniest show on TV. I don't care how many Emmys they give "Modern Family," which is so predictable and unoriginal that I literally say the jokes out loud while watching the show before they get to them, "Community" is better. No lie, "Modern Family" is "Two and a Half Men" with less Sheen and more people duped into believing it's clever. Anyway, McHale is going to bang Jessica Alba. WHAT?!?!? Hold on, turns out it's just in a movie. He's going to star in the next Spy Kids movie as a "spy-hunting reporter married to Alba's character, the stepmother to his kids." This means they'll probably have him playing a douche, which sucks because I think he's someone I like to like. So on the plus side: He gets to star in a movie and touch Jessica Alba. On the negative side: He has to play a douche and listen to Jessica Alba try to make words come out of her face.

Oh, one last salvo in the "Community" rules war:


3.) Forget deporting anchor babies, let's import Anchorman 2! - Adam McKay, who somehow willed The Other Guys to a rather impressive box office total given the spectacular mediocrity of that film, may have enough cred now to get things cooking on the sequel I want most at the moment. He told Collider that Paramount has finally wised up to the potential popularity. The uproar about the death of the film rippled through the Internets, something I like to think we started at this here blog (we didn't, but I like to think that). According to McKay:

"It did, it made a difference. Paramount heard it. Adam Goodman, the President of Paramount, was on the first one so he loves it and when that outcry came, he was kind of excited because he knew it could maybe push it towards happening. That having been said, I’m clearly going into it like another movie so if it does happen it’s still two years away or a ways away. And I haven’t talked to anyone. There’s nothing happening right now but it helped, it helped."

Does this mean we're getting another hilarious installment? Not necessarily. But if we keep up the noise, it sure does become more possibler. Let's do it! Let's all keep squawking enough to make more better the chances of this becoming possibler!

4.) Assholes keep getting bigger - Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride together sounds like a great idea. Nevermind that the idea is a little stale. Basically, the want to star in the sure-to-be-retitled Olympic-Sized Asshole, about an Olympic star who comes back to town and bangs the wives and girlfriends of Ansari and McBride, who declare revenge on him. Bitter, angry humor is what these guys can do best, and any excuse to put two truly funny guys together works for me.

This is also a great excuse for me to post this:


I don't care what you say, this stand-up act was one of my all-time favorites.

5.) Trailers, parked - We're in a lull as far as trailers right now. I don't have any explanation as to why, because I'm not very smart sometimes. I do now that I have two weird projects to show you.

First up is Hobo with a Shotgun, which is kind of like Machete, in that it was inspired by a fake trailer. I'm guessing with the relative meh with which Machete was met, this film will do much, much worse, as it features 100% less Lohan boobies and zero Cheech Marin. Still, it's a hobo with a shotgun, so enjoy.


Amigo is underrated, off-the-radar director John Sayles' take on the turn-of-the-century conflict between American forces and the Philippines. It's something we don't talk about very much, just like the talented director!


That's all the junk for this week! Let's meet back tomorrow and discuss weekend plans and (God willing) Brett Favre's career-ending injury!

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Ryan's Junk Drawer

Well helloooo again. I somehow have survived until Thursday this week, which I wasn't entirely sure was going to happen. Being that I was off my blogging game for about a week there, we've lost a decent chunk of my viewing audience. I can only hope that promises for them to see MY MASSIVE JUNK will bring them back. For those of you who have been here before (and really, who could resist returning once they've tasted the sweet succulent nectar of my junk juice), you obviously know that by "junk" I mean movie news that isn't big enough to warrant its own post. I call it that so that people think they're about to see something tastier than movie tidbits. We also start each edition of my junk drawer by examining the creepy-ass picture above from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN. We pick an object and make up an insane story about it just for funsies. Today's item is the blue cylinder with the lightning bolt on it. Although it pained him to do so, Kevin knew that he must keep the proton capacitor from being reinserted into Kerplong, his best friend and android companion. Although the two had shared wonderful adventures together, stopping the rebellion on the planet Steepnort and helping create a new galaxy, Kerplong's cameras never stopped recording. This meant that not only did Kerplong know what Kevin had done to that creature from the Nerblon galaxy, he had evidence. Kevin loved Kerplong, but he wasn't about to go back to Galactic Jail for nobody.

Okay, enough already, let's get on to the week's movie nuggets:

1.) I heart Aziz Ansari - Aziz Ansari's "Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening" is perhaps the funniest stand-up routine I've heard in a few years. Check this clip out, it has some salty language, but it is HILARIOUS and worth it. Fine, don't watch it at work if you're one of those annoying people who doesn't use headphones but rather giant desk speakers so that everyone else is forced to listen to whatever talk radio nonsense you endorse.

Seriously, hilarious right? Rumor has it that Ansari will star in Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer's 30 Minutes or Less, which features a script that had made the prominent "Black List." It's an R-rated comedy about a pizza delivery dude who gets a bomb strapped to his chest by two criminals who make him rob a bank for them (PS - this kind of actually happened). Ansari will play that dude's friend. Obviously, the lead role is just begging for a Seth Rogen type, but I hope they go weird on it. I hope they pick someone like a Ryan Gosling to play the lead, not the expected scruffy-faced chubby guy. I mean, where's the joy in seeing Jonah Hill do this sort of thing...again? Unless he explodes. Then I'm down. For the record, although I've heard some interesting things about Ansari's personality (people have said he's a douche), I've never met him and his CD is hilarious, so I'm going to see whatever he's in (everything except "Parks and Recreation" that is...still not funny to me). If he'd like to invite me to hang out with him to prove he's not a douche, I'm down with that too.

2.) Marvel comics: Making movies the tight-ass way - I know that movie stars make so much more money than is fathomable by us mere mortals, and I'm not trying to say that we should feel sorry for the Richie McRichRich folks out there...but Marvel is known for straight low-ballin' their cast. They made Samuel L Jackson sign a 9 picture deal. NINE movies. Granted, that's one year of work for Sam, but for a regular actor that's like a decade. Plus, they paid him $25. That number may not be right. Point is, when Marvel first announced the short list for the role of Peggy, Captain America's girlfriend, it included Keira Knightley and Emily Blunt, two well-known actresses. E! Online now says those two are out in favor of someone whose top grossing movie didn't clear $40 million, meaning they likely lowballed the shit out of this role. So instead of people we know, we get Alice Eve.
As you can see, she's a hideous she-beast with a hunchback and leprosy. Okay, fine, she's gorgeous. What bothers me isn't that they've swapped one hottie for another, it's that Marvel seems to be paycheck casting and not actor/actress casting. If you want to pick the better actor/actress and they happen to be cheaper because they aren't famous, I admire that. If you want to go unknown, I admire that too. If you want to run down the sliding scale of fame until you find someone willing to take your money, I have a problem.

3.) Swamp Thing that Old Spice can't cure - Slashfilm has a great write-up on the path of Swamp Thing that now winds its way through Vincenzo Natali, whose film Splice is going to light shit up this summer from what I hear. I know Natali (not personally or anything) from Cube, which remains to this day one of the most surprisingly good movies I've ever seen. The director, who has long toiled off the studio grid, has made some great comments about wanting to "sell his soul" to the studio now. He also seems to be more interested in the Alan Moore version of the character, rather than the original monster-style Bernie Wrightson stuff. Upon hearing this, Alan Moore spewed out some near-pornographic exclamations and summoned the demon that lives inside his murder-beard to haunt Natali in his sleep.

4.) The only lasting element of Hot Tub Time Machine - I wanted Hot Tub Time Machine to be funnier, but it wasn't. Instead, we did get a breakout performance from Rob Corddry, who is now set to take over for Jim Carrey in a major project. Wait, what? The LA Times is reporting that Corddry will star in Butter, another 2008 Black List script that is a satire of the 2008 Iowa caucuses featuring a butter-carving competition. Corddry will play a womanizing butter-carving champ who is forced to give up his title, so his wife runs against a talented young upstart. Obviously this is Bill and Hillary versus Obama, so I'm there. This sounds brilliant. Not to mention the fact that one of my glorious top-5 ladies is in it.
Oh, Jennifer Garner...I even watched part of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past on HBO for you. That's love, people.

5.) Trailers, parked - Okay, we have some fun ones this week.

First up is Dinner for Schmucks. I know that it's not really all that original, but if you put Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell, and Zach Galifianakis in a movie together, I'm going to see it and I'm going to laugh. Also, as wrong as it sounds, I find the concept hilarious. Also, the McCartney quote/mousterpiece comment is enough to warrant its inclusion here.


Next up is a creepy one, Splice looks like my favorite types of sci-fi/horror movies. It is making an interesting point about genetic tinkering, and also looks to be a pants-shitter. I know it kind of looks and sounds like Species, but that's okay. I love it anyway.


Finally, I wish I didn't want to see this movie...but I do. The A-Team looks to be as dumb as the dumb show I loved in my youth. I'm there.


Okay, that's it for my epic junk. Go tell your friends about it.