Ryan's Junk Drawer

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

Oh Thursday, how you continue to sneak up on me like a fat ninja; I see you coming, but you still shock me. As you know by now, Thursdays are special to me, because that's the day I show you my junk. And I'm really proud of my junk, it's something I have that nobody else does. And I've heard a lot of compliments on it. People often say how much they look forward to my junk, and it gets a lot of buzz on Twitter.

Obviously, I'm not actually talking about the thing you think I'm talking about, although one day I will talk about that and really freak everybody out. Maybe not. Anyway, by junk I mean movie tidbits too small to include as full blog posts. I call this my junk drawer in part so I can use that awesome illustration up top that is so creepy cool that I can't believe it's from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN. Shudder. We begin by picking an item from said illustration and writing a goofy story about it for funsies.

Today's item is the drawer itself. Sarah had always been lucky. Whenever she forgot her homework in high-school, the assignment got moved to another day. Whenever she needed money for lunch, she'd find a $20 bill on the ground outside the cafeteria. In college, when she decided she needed a major, a famous archeologist stumbled upon her and gave her an internship overseas. Her first day on that job, she found an old wooden ship that everyone seemed to be quite impressed with. The problem is, Sarah was also incredibly stupid. This is the reason why Noah's ark was cut up and made into a quaint junk drawer in Sarah's house.

Okay, enough already, let's get to my junk!

1.) M. Night Shyamalan kinda listening - Shown here re-enacting his first twist ending ("Just do it, put your hands like this and then slide them between mind, then open them and look in the middle...it will totally blow your mind!"), M Night has a new project.
According to Heat Vision's blog, Shyamalanadingdong has been reading MY blog. Probably not, as I haven't gotten a cease-and-desist order yet nor have I received the kind of revenge The Last Airbender money can by you (hey, those paper bags you light on fire with poo in them are expensive). Still, for his upcoming One Thousand AE, which instantly calls to mind 10,000 BC, a project everyone clearly aspires towards, ShyamalalalalaIdon'thearyou is having someone else write the script. ABOUT DAMN TIME! He's FINALLY going to have someone else write so he can focus on directing this sci-fi opus that will star Jaden Smith (uh, oh). And the dude he hired to write it is the guy who wrote The Book of Eli. Ooooh, so close and yet, so far away. If you're scoring at home, Shyamalanotgonnaseeit gets +1 for not writing his next movie, +1 for trying sci-fi, -1 for trying to direct ANOTHER kid after The Last Airbender, and -15 for hiring The Book of Eli guy to write it. When you consider the point total he was starting at, he's now at -379.

2.) I take strong offense at the "middle age" designation here - A few days ago in the print version of this column, which you should be reading in The Reader because (A) it's how I actually get dollar-dollar-bills yo and (B) ink smudges on fingertips are straight-up sexy, I mentioned that Zack Snyder put the ka-bosh on the idea of an older Superman with his statement that it would "go back to his early days." Combine that with rumors that David Goyer's treatment has something to do with Clark "I'm the least interesting alter-ego in history" Kent deciding whether he should even BE Superman, and you had another yawn-inducing origin type story sure to be low on action. As Lee Corso would say, not so fast my friend. Just yesterday, Slashfilm.com ran a headline reading "Zack Snyder Looking for a Middle Aged Superman" and then revealed that casting is looking for someone 35-40. MIDDLE AGED? You jerks, 35 is NOT MIDDLE AGED. Dill holes. Anyway, this is good news for Jon Hamm, who needs to be Superman (if only to make up for his misogynistic role on "Mad Men"...try to argue THAT ONE with me people who argue with me about whether or not the show is misogynistic, you have to concede his character is). Anyway, this is good news potentially, as we don't need another Gorram origin story for Superman. Oh, and middle aged Superman in the comics totally looks like Morrisey.

3.) Ben Affleck ready to take big bite out of next projectSeriously, this photo will never get old. I don't even understand how it is physically possible. I mean, there is some SERIOUS jaw detachment going on there. I would make some lewd joke about "maybe that's why Jennifer Garner is married to him" but that doesn't even make any sense. Maybe his butt chin hides some kind of button that when you press on it releases his jaw fully? I don't know. Anyway, he's passed on a billion other projects after the success of The Town but may have settled on Replay, which is my cousin's favorite book. The plot is this: "The protagonist is a 43-year old radio journalist who dies, wakes up in his 18-year old body, and gets to relive his life over and over. With his original memory intact, he takes the opportunity to travel down roads he passed up the first time around." Sounds like it could be really nicely handled. That touch of magical realism that's awesome if it never explains HOW this happens. Maybe Affleck's detachable jaw is the gateway to the past?! No word on how Replay will be rewritten to include Boston.

4.) Sandra Bullock keeps taking movies, not making movies - I don't know how many movies Sandy B is attached to, but we have another to add to the list.
She's going to appear in a movie for the director of The Proposal, and it's being described as having elements of An Unmarried Woman and Saturday Night Fever or, more simply, my worst nightmare. I like S-Bulldog. I really do. She's sweet, cute, has a great self-deprecating sense of humor, and I'm one of the 2 people who reviewed Miss Congeniality 2 positively. That said, what the sam hell is this? You have the option after WINNING AN OSCAR of doing work with Alfonso Cuaron, and instead I hear you're lining up a project like this? Sandy, Sandy, Sandy. I like you, but that can change. Oh, and if you had forgotten about my Miss Congeniality 2 review...I was totally kidding. I didn't give it a positive review. Not me. Must have been somebody else.

5.) Trailers, parked - This is Halloween-time, right? I have barely had a bit of candy corn to snack on, have yet to consider what half-assed attempt at a costume I'll try to pass off as clever, and haven't watched a scary movie yet. So I forget. But let's get you in the right mindset by showing you something scary: Anthony Hopkins slumming it.

The Rite is YET ANOTHER exorcism movie, albeit one that thinks it's higher class because it has Sir Anthony Hopkins. It isn't. See for yourself.


Next up is another pseudo-horror flick, one that's a little more anticipated. Scream 4 is finally arriving, and now the most interesting part is this: If they make a Scream 5, how cold with the scenes between Courtney Cox and David Arquette be?



Finally, let's class the joint up a bit with Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s Biutiful, which will win some Oscars and shit.



The only thing scary about that one is how much my wife is attracted to Javier Bardem. She saw No Country For Old Men and STILL thinks he's dreamy. Yuck. Anyway, that's it for my junk today, hit me up tomorrow for weekend plans!

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This racquet is a fart

Let's get something straight, this is obviously Superman.
As much as I detest "Mad Men," Jon Hamm endeared himself to me with one simple "30 Rock" quote featured in this post's title. He also is unquestionably the actor who looks the most like Superman. Although the world seems to want to bring Brandon Routh back, which is fine for me after his hilarious turn as a super-powered vegan in Scott Pilgrim, I personally would love to see them go older with the character, giving him a little more gravity. This is apparently still the rumor du jure, but then again, the Internets make up rumors about superhero casting like Fox News makes up attendance numbers for rallies they support. I'm not a Hamm fan, I'm not a Superman fan, but I'm a fan of this probably entirely fictional rumor. Why? Because I'm complicated like that.

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Supernolan?

Much like my optimism for my Chicago Bears increases during the off-season, Inception continues to grow on me the longer I'm away from it. That's a good thing, and is likely due to the sophistication of the near-hour-long climax, which culminates not only in pulse-pounding action and effects but an increasingly complex series of confrontations of the self-revealing, emotional kind. Jonathan Nolan, Chris Nolan's younger bro, had nothing to do with Inception. (That's what we in the business call a smooth transition.) He did, however, help work on Memento, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight with his big brother. When you also consider that Chris Nolan is now the overseer/godfather/grand poobah of Superman, you get the newest rumor that Jonny Nolan will be making his directorial debut with the boy in blue. People like to lie A LOT in the run up to the San Diego Comic Convention. I'm sure it has nothing to do with wanting to whip people into frenzies and guarantee enthusiastic audiences will pack presentations in the hopes of finding an answer (which is usually "no INSERTNAMEHERE is not going to play INSERTSUPERHEROHERE"). GeekTyrant may be just recycling a rumor I heard back when Chrissypants was put into the role of supreme overlord of all men Bat and Super for WB. That said, they did add a new twist, stating that he's currently working preproduction and has already screened some actors for the lead role. One of those being this guy:
That's Zachary Levi from "Chuck," who used to look like he was doing a Jim Halpert impression, but has since decided to change his look and bulk up a bit. I suppose he conceivably could play Superman, but he sure doesn't scream the part to me. Oh, and I hate him. Why? Because he starred in American Carol, which you probably have bleached from your brain but is the craaaazy right-wing, painfully unfunny spoof movie from the Zucker brothers. It's one thing to make a laugh-free comedy, it's an entirely different thing to make a right-wing puppeteered movie. Not cool, Levi. No Supes for you.