Ryan's Junk Drawer

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

Today is Friday. Don't check your calendar, just trust me. God, how great would that be if someone failed to show up to work and gave the reasoning "this dude on a blog lied to me." I only wish I had that power. No, today is MY Friday, because it's my brother-in-law's wedding, and tonight is his bachelor party, during which I can only assume he will drink all the beerses and alcohols available. Should be fun, could be dangerous. Since I'm out tomorrow, that means no box office predictions, so just assume I got everything right.

But today is not tomorrow, and today there are doings to be done. Of course, by this I mean my junk. That's right, it's time for us to do my junk. I know a lot of people out there live their lives by the appearance of my junk (if not by the content inside of it), so I have a responsibility to provide the strongest junk I possibly can. It's a busy week, so it may not be long, but I promise my junk will be satisfactory.

Of course, by junk I mean movie tidbits that aren't fit for a full blog post and not the lewd sexual innuendo that you clearly thought I was hinting at. I'm pure as the driven snow (after a semi-truck spilling diesel drives through it that is). We begin each week by laughing at the image up top, which is creepy and belongs to Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN. I pick an item, write a wacky story, laugh at it myself, and never hear about it from anyone again. I do this every week because I am a slave to tradition and because doing so amuses me (like a fart in church). Today's item is the braid in the upper left corner. Marcus was a huge music fan, and his favorite artist was the one, the only Johnny Cash. After years of research into the origins of Johnny's music, Marcus was shocked to find that the original version of "Walk the Line" varied greatly from the finished product everyone knows. Turns out the original lyrics were "I keep my pants up with a piece of twine/if you'll be mine/just pull the twine." Obviously, the radio stations weren't ready for such progressive material, and the lyrics were changed. At an auction in Nashville, Marcus finally tracked down the item he had always sought after making the discovery about those lyrics: In Marcus' junk drawer now resides the twine that once kept up Johnny Cash's pants.

Okay, enough chicanery and horseplay, let's get to some movie nuggets!

1.) Turns out, lots of people can resist Gravity - Alfonso Cuaron has been rejected more times than a penniless Kevin James would be. He's been turned down more times than a hotel bed. He's been shot down more than a low-flying drone in North Korea. He's been told no more times than George W Bush when he asked to fly Air Force One.

Natalie Portman, ole Natty P, is the latest to flip Cuaron's Gravity the bird. So what do you do when you can't have the most beautiful, talented actress in the world? You get the lady from Miss Congeniality 2.

Sandra Bullock will reportedly be starring in the film, and must really be happy about being the director's 27th choice. If the movie is a huge hit, she gets to laugh at all the other actresses. If it turns out that the other 26 passed for a reason, maybe we get Practical Magic 2.

2.) The great and powerful Raimi? - Oz is officially open for business, as the glut of rumors and potential movies is about to birth it's first real flick from the womb of imagination and lax copyright laws. Sam Raimi is going to do The Great and Powerful Oz.

Slashfilm has a great writeup (and this awesome image above), which reminds us that (A) Robert Downey Jr may play Oz and thus make this whole thing cool, (B) the project has been flipping around for awhile now, so until we actually see it start shooting, we should treat this like rumors of your nerdy high-school friend's "girlfriend from Delaware," and (C) it could suck. It's going to be written by one of the "it" screenwriters right now, but I don't care enough to look up his name because this project disappears like aqua-phobic witches.

3.) I would have gone with SUPERROBOTSPLOSION - The new Transformers movie finally got its "after colon" subtitle. I know we were all hoping for Transformers 3: Michael Bay will still eye-f**k you or Transformers 3: You thought the LAST one was racist, wait until you see what we did with this el Camino. Sadly, it's going to be dumber and worse than all of those. It's Transformers: The Dark of the Moon, which makes no sense. They clearly were smoking something Pink Floyd would give the thumbs up to when the Transformers themselves were created, but aping a classic album title and then changing it enough to make no sense...is oddly appropriate for this series so nevermind.

Also, I find this hilarious.

4.) Hanks for the Depp - If you were wondering what Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal were doing besides shining their multiple Oscars, the answer is prepping Sleeping Dogs, a story about various dudes working on the "triple frontier" border of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. Expect mafia, drugs, and terrorists...which automatically makes you think of Tom Hanks, right? Perhaps realizing that he'd best get his shit together or this new generation of film goers will only know him as the guy from those boring church movies, Hanks may costar with a certain minority-capable French enthusiast with pervy facial hair that everyone still loves.

The story goes that Depp is choosing between another Tim Burton movie and this project. Here's some free advice: DON'T DO ANOTHER GD TIM BURTON MOVIE. Go get your Oscar. Go be in a movie that isn't a retread of what you've already done. Go earn your love and fame, which you are freely given. If Johnny Depp opts for a Tim Burton movie above this, he is hereby sanctioned 100 cool points. This moves him slightly below Matt Damon but still significantly above Shia LeBeouf.

5.) Trailers, Parked - Some really good ones this week, which is nice for a change, as I most often just plop crap here.

Faster is notable not because it's original sounding but because I like The Rock when he's mean, I like Clint Mansell when he does anything, and the movie looks pretty for a violent revenge flick. Sure it kind of resembles a WWE movie starring John Cena, but I think I may have fun. It's like Payback only with less racists.


The Tempest is like my second favorite Shakespeare play, so combine Helen Mirren, Julie Taymor, and Russell Brand and you have one of my most anticipated films this coming winter. I mean, how good does this look? If your answer was anything other than "very," you're kind of slow.


Burke and Hare is a return for John Landis to the director's chair, which is noteworthy. But not as important to me as Simon Pegg's presence. I will watch anything he does. I mean, with his permission, not like when he goes to the bathroom or anything.


True Grit...I don't really have more words. It's a new Coen movie...and...just look at it. I want to go to there. I want to go to there now.

Okay, that's it. Take care of yourselves this weekend. Behave, because I won't be. Much love.

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Ryan's Junk Drawer

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

Once more I must quote from the terribly racist Asian sidekick Short Round: "No time for love, Doctor Jones." My next 24 hours consists of seeing the midnight show of The Social Network because I missed the screening because I was at speech practice because there's a big speech meet in Manhattan, Kansas this weekend followed by doing the radio show with Steve King at 7:30 tomorrow morning before working all day before driving to Manhattan, Kansas. I'm already tired. Oh, and next week is my brother-in-law's wedding, and I love that kid, so I want to make sure I do everything I can to make things awesome for him.

What I'm saying is, you'll forgive me if my junk is not up to regular standards. If my junk isn't as impressive as usual, it's just that I'm stressed out. This doesn't usually happen to me. I always want you to say "Wow, look at Ryan's junk!" or tell others "You really need to check out Ryan's junk today." But I fear today is one of those days you may look at my junk and say "it's okay, I know you're really busy and you're probably just thinking about something else." Obviously, by junk I mean movie tidbits that are collected here because they don't merit full blog posts. Although, I think you thought I meant something else...

We begin each week by looking at the creepy image of what I believe to be a serial killer's junk drawer from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN. I choose an item, make up a story, laugh at my own story, then nobody ever comments on it again. Today's item is the screw in the middle of the drawer. Gerald was the least funny person in the world. That wasn't a personal belief. There was a poll taken, and the results conclusively demonstrated that if Gerald were to do stand-up comedy next to Pol Pot and Hitler, he would come in third. One day, while he was joylessly enduring his job with coworkers who were saddened by his very presence, he was assembling a metal scaffold. As he was working on his end, he heard a clank down by where all 10 other employees had gathered to tell humorous stories as far from Gerald the Joke Killer as possible. Gerald turned and yelled "What was that?" One employee slowly held up the screw that had fallen. Gerald saw it and was enraged, as per usual. "You think that's not important? You think we can just let parts of this fall out? You'll die if it's not properly constructed. Now get that back were it belongs or we're screwed." It wasn't intentional, nor was it particularly humorous, but at the mere prospect of Gerald making a joke, the gang burst into laughter. Gerald kept that screw forever in his junk drawer, as a reminder of the only joke he ever made, the one everyone laughed at as he fired them.

Okay, enough shenanigans, on to the movie news!!!

1.) "So, why exactly is this mission so impossible, shorty?" - I don't know the plot of Mission Impossible 4...or even the title, as some folks are suggesting they rebrand it something else entirely, a decision suggested by a stupid, stupid person who hates money. What I do know is that there will be naked, heaving bosoms complete with full nipple exposure. How do I know this? Because Josh Holloway, aka Sawyer from "Lost," has been hired as part of Tom Cruise's impossible mission crew. We all know that dude hates wearing a shirt almost as much as Matthew McConaughey, so I imagine he'll have to "seduce an enemy agent" or "disarm a bomb using only his nude abdomen." He's also likely to toss out a few nicknames, just so we remember where we know him from. If he calls Cruise anything from short-stack to Xenu, I'm going to love MI4 an MF-ton.



2.) Finally, someone feels the pull of Gravity - Honestly, I could do a Natalie Portman story every day for the rest of my life and not feel bad about it at all. Hell, I'll make up reasons to put her in this blog. "I just watched a documentary on how quicksand is formed, which reminds me how much I'd love to see Natalie Portman on the beach." I'll do it. Luckily, her agent is giving me better excuses, as the day AFTER we hear her rumored for Lois Lane, we hear she may be in negotiations for Gravity, the project that refuses to die.

I chose this image because it looks like she's being forcibly pulled into this project, which is entirely possible. Having been offered first to Angelina Jolie, then to everything in Hollywood with boobs and v-jay, Nat-Po would have been my first choice anyway. It's a project from an artistic director (Alfonso Cuaron), with an insane amount of screen time for one actress (I could stare at Nat-nat all day) who needs to show a diverse range of emotion (she's playing a possessed ballerina and stars in a stoner comedy set in medieval times later this year...boom, diversity). I'm happy this movie is getting made because I want to see it as much as I want to stop talking about it.

3.) Zemeckis tired of stealing souls - Robert Zemeckis last made a movie when Clinton was in office. Sorry, last made a REAL movie in the pre-Bush era. He did use technology to steal the souls of Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hanks, and Jim Carrey in the meantime. Having finally decided that not EVERY movie he makes needs to be motion capture, the word on the street is that the Z-Dog is returning to using humans in ways that doesn't damn them to hell by shucking their soul from their body using a PC. Supposedly, he's circling Timeless, an "action time-travel movie," which we know nothing about whatsoever...and he considered Superman! Jeez Louise, who HASN'T been offered or considered Superman? Me. That's who. I haven't considered directing Superman. Or, in Hollywood-speak, I've decided to remove my name from consideration. Z-mecks is a good director who made some classic movies, and I hope he returns in full force. Oh, and totally unrelated, but Tom Hanks in Polar Express (one of Z-bone's motion capture soul suckers) totally looks like Vikings coach Brad Childress.


4.) The casting for 360 does make my head spin around - Obviously, when you say your film is a sexytime thriller with an "investigation of sexual urges," then tell me this lady is starring:I'm in. Even if the next name that you put out there to appear in 360, which was based on a play, is a little surprising.
Uh...as near as I can tell, the last bit of acting Eminem did was convincing everyone that "Relapse" was something he was proud of. This isn't to say Slim Shady can't act. He can. I just don't want to see him acting opposite Rachel Weisz...because I'll be jealous of him more than usual. I mean, I can accept that he can headline with Jay-Z while I lack those skills, but if this is about him playing a person who wants to make it with Rachel Weisz, I promise I am more qualified. Whether or not this casting actually occurs, it's weird, right?

5.) Trailers, Parked - This week's trailers are sci-fi-riffic, as we have an emo-teenage alien drama and a "don't look at the light" aliens eating you blockbuster.

I am Number Four was the second work of fiction from James Frey, and the first one called that. It's about aliens who came to earth running from something that has to kill them in a specific order. All fear the evil obsessive-compulsive monster! Also, they are teenagers who seem mopey. That will never catch on.

Skyline looks batshit insane. But like others, I fear that we're seeing all of the effects in the trailers, as the budget was low for this. I think we're being led to believe this is a giant epic slugfest when it's really a low-budget, closed space film. I could be wrong though. And I hope I am, because if this is actually what we're getting, it looks like so much fun.

Okay, that's it for my junk this week. Hope you had fun. See you tomorrow when I am hella tired.

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You can't resist Gravity forever

The saga of Gravity has slowly ebbed from intriguing to bizarre to DEAR GOD MAKE IT STOP. Aided by the fact that it's a slow time for movie news, the daily update of who is or is not interested in the Alfonso Cuaron project about a female astronaut stranded in space has become a staple of every blog and movie-rumor-mill. And, as always, it feels good to be a part of the problem and not the solution. The latest rumor is that should the delightful Natalie Portman pass on the $80 million sci-fi project anchored by a lady, the next choice is....
Fresh off of endearing herself to the world by winning an Oscar for a mediocre performance and by getting cheated on, the sassy lady has enough popularity to make the film less of a risk. I'm not sure if she has the talent to pull off the demanding role, but Cuaron is one of the few who may be capable of stripping Miss Next Door down to her bare emotions. Also, I know that there are a lot of people out there who are interested in seeing Sandra stripped down bare. I personally hope it's still Portman, because I am both selfish in that more of Natalie in everything should be a congressional mandate and because I think, you know, she's a way better actress. But I do think that for Sandra's career and the sake of this movie actually existing, this could be the team-up we see. I know this much: They are going to offer it to any living being in Hollywood who doesn't have a wee wee until someone takes it.

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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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Weighty decision

Let's get something straight, Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity is going to be incredible. Robert Downey Jr has already agreed to star in a film about an astronaut stranded in space who tries to fight HER way home to earth. Wait, did I just use a FEMALE descriptor in that last sentence? Why yes, yes I did. Both Marion Cotillard and Angelina Jolie considered the role, and when RDJ's involvement was announced, it was assumed the script had been flipped gender-wise, but not so fast. It looks like THR is reporting that the female role will still be the lead, leading me to surmise that RDJ will be the Ed Harris to the female version of Tom Hanks in Apollo 13. So who's the lady going to be? They've narrowed things down to two:

Blake Lively, star of the upcoming and sure to be awesome The Town and the upcoming and not so sure to be awesome Green Lantern, enthusiast of dressing like a schoolgirl.

And Miss Scarlett J, the Black Widow herself, possessor of what artists and horndogs will agree may be God's finest female anatomy.

Supposedly, the two women have both been tested (not like that) and are awaiting word from Cuaron. The studio likes Lively because she's done work for them, but Cuaron has been sold on Johansson from the get go. Personally, you know I'm pulling for Scarlett, if only to finally settle the matter of whether or not she's actually talented. Landing a role once circled by Jolie and Cotillard and then actually pulling it off would go a long way in establishing her as an actual actress. If they go with Lively, I'm still there, as Children of Men earned Cuaron's future films a lifetime pass, but I'm hoping this is my chance to ogle Johansson in space.

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Seriously? Thursday? How the hell did that happen? This time warp has been brought to you by exhaustion, long summer nights, and work projects you wish would never were but looks like they will be for a very long time. Today's music has been carefully selected by The Reader's own Jesse Stanek, who enlightened me as to "Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows," the John Prine tribute CD. My morning has begun with the explicit instructions to move to the country and eat a lot of peaches. Although I'm disobeying, I think Prine really meant sit in front of a computer and create a blog that has a title intended to sound dirty.

That's right, you haven't come here to hear tell of how brilliant I find the cover of Bruised Orange by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, you've come here to see my junk. You only get to peek at my junk once a week, so this is a special time for you. I don't want to stall any longer. So, I'll begin the normal disclaimer (which is to say that by junk I mean movie tidbits that aren't big enough to warrant their own post) and the normal shenanigans (we take an item from the creepy illustration of a junk drawer above from Highlights Magazine FOR CHILDREN and make up a fictional backstory on it). Cue shenanigans: Today's item is the fuzzy string thing in the middle of the drawer. Carl was a proud man. Carl was also a reasonable man. Carl was a man in love. Knowing full well that his beloved Lucille would never consent to marriage so long as he was the proud owner of the second longest eyebrows in Guiness Records history, Carl threw away more than a decade with two snips. In his junk drawer lay his secret shame, his one ticket to instant marginal celebrity. Then again, because of his newfound hygiene, in his bedroom lay Lucille.

Okay, enough goofing around, let's get to showing the faceless public my junk!

1.) Whoa, Gravity sounds heavy! - Children of Men might be (I stress might be) the best sci-fi film of the last decade. I know I'm prone to hyperbole, but for realz yo, it's all kinds of really good. So, consider me pant-shitting excited for Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, a sci-fi movie starring Robert Downey Jr. Why am I pooping pants for this? Well, The Playlist explained that the 3D film will be 60% CGI, the opening will be a 20 minute continuous shot, and the plot will follow the survivor of a space accident desperately trying to return to Earth. I'm like the elevator in a high-rise skyscraper after a kid with ADD climbed in: All my buttons are getting pushed. Seriously, how does this not sound beautiful and brilliant. In the hands of real artists, sci-fi is the single most promising and vital genre. Why? Because the rules are gone. You can do whatever you want, however you want. Ursula LeGuin once said that sci-fi is just the artist asking "what if?" Let me tell you a "for sure" as opposed to a "what if." I cannot wait for this movie.

2.) News for Twi-hards and those who hate them - The only thing more shocking that Twilight existing is the people who like the series. I know some seriously smart, good people who love the O-negative out of the series. This doesn't change my opinion of them at all, nor does it change my opinion of the series. I'm a Cubs fan, so I get loving things that are just no good. Anyway, you fall into one of two camps: You either read all the books and love the movies and thus won't be spoiled by what I'm about to talk about or you didn't read the books and don't care at all about the movies so you won't care that I'm about to spoil what happens in the final book/movies. Just in case, I'll give you an image buffer before I really get started.
Okay, ready? The screenwriter of the final two movies that spawn out of the single book "Breaking Dawn" told the LA Times that they may not even show the childbirth scene, also known as the only reason I want to see these movies at all. If you haven't, please read Devin from Chud's rundown of the book’s insanity, because it's brilliant. Point is, some seriously, monumentally whacked out bullshit happens in these books and I am dying to know how they're going to handle it. Here's the thing, I can't believe there weren't riots by the Twi-hards when they read the concluding book. I mean, if I were reading "Lord of the Rings," and in the last book Legolas fell in love with Aragorn's daughter AS A BABY, I would have dug up the corpse of JRR Tolkein so I'd have a place to put my pee. And for the last time, there is no way to handle this appropriately. It's not plutonium that can be handled while wearing a containment suit, it's more like trying to scoop up the pieces of an atomic bomb and put them back together again.

3.) I have a fable for you about "Fables"- Okay, Pajiba lies a lot. I shouldn't say lie, that's not nice. They run stories that have less fact and truth to them than Fox News, howsabout that? I just wanted to put that disclaimer on there because the following story, while appealing, makes no sense. The scoop is that David Yates (director of the last 4 Harry Potter movies) is possibly going to direct the adaptation of "Fables" for the big screen. Exciting? No. Wait, why? Why isn't it exciting that the really intelligent comic book series about fairy tale characters living in a secret land in the modern world is going to be made into a movie? Because it deserves to be an ongoing television series (where it would TOTALLY be immensely popular, I promise), which last we heard it was going to be. This source from YEARS ago had it in TV development. Is it possible something changed? Is it possible Yates is directing the pilot? How is Yates that popular when he really hasn't done anything all that insanely noteworthy and yet in one week he's been rumored for both The Hobbit AND Fables? I don't have all the answers. I'm just a guy telling jokes in a column named after his junk. Don't pressure me. Point is, I want a TV series for "Fables," but I will take whatever I can get.

4.) I am ready to run - I enjoy running. I mean for exercise and not when something is chasing me. Of course, what I'm talking about here is the news that Alex Garland, writer of 28 Days Later, The Beach (he wrote the novel), and Sunshine, is writing Logan's Run. So, I'm on board now. I loved each of those movies, YES including The Beach. I looked on YouTube to find the clip of him in the infamous video game scene from that movie, but the only results I found were for the video "Leonardo DiCaprio - Touch Me There." Now, I like the guy, but I don't need him touching me. He's got greasy hair and starred in The Man in the Iron Mask, he doesn't get to touch me. Anyway, Garland has some really great ideas and has shown with the movies listed above that he knows how to make sci-fi and horror into something more than just popular fluff. As most of you know, Logan's Run is about a society where people are euthanized at a certain age, instead of just being shuffled to Florida to skew our electoral college. There is some obvious ground for social commentary and I am pumped that Garland is involved. There's not a lot of funny in this blurb, but I'm not your singing, dancing fun monkey, okay? Sometimes I just have some good insight. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat a banana while doing a karaoke version of Ke$ha and grinding this pole.

5.) Trailers, parked - We have a buffet of WTF for you today, so grab a plate.

First up is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which (A) yes they made already even though you didn't know it, (B) had its trailer debut on a Brazillian fan site for the Narnia series, and (C) is already coming out this Christmas (a much better time to debut religiously based materials). I don't hold out much hope for it, even though I didn't HATE either of the first two installments. That said, if I can get another poor CGI river Jesus, I'm in. See for yourself.


Okay, next up is...well, nobody knows. The Polish Brothers (finally, some respect for my people) have directed...this? It's some teaser for something that...well, look just watch it and know that the project is set to come out in 2011 even though nobody knows quite what it is or that it existed in the first place.


Next up is Never Let Me Go by...wait for it...ALEX GARLAND! Okay, so it's directed by Mark Romanek, but Garland adapted the famous novel, making this column staggeringly cohesive today. The film is weirdly creepy looking and yet really appealing. You know I'm in. Who's coming with me?


Okay, that's it y'all. Happy Thursday to you. Start getting your weekend preparations straight and I'll see you tomorrow to kick things off, proper.

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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.

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.