Weekend Wrap-up: Nothing happened, so let's make a list!

I'm not going to lie to you, I love you far too much for that (don't ever leave me). The truth is that nothing happened over the weekend. Like, nothing, nothing. Like what's between Glen Beck's ears. Like what could keep me from Natalie Portman's side if she wanted me there. Like the inherent moral or social value of the Twilight saga. Nada. Not a casting scoop, not a leaked picture from the set of a comic book movie, not a rumor about how the second villain in Batman 3 is going to be King Tut or Captain Crunch. Nothing.

This is a rather unfortunate development for someone tasked with writing something about movies every day. Fear not, though, as I will not let a Monday devoid of information ruin what is sure to be a week of infinite productivity! Instead, I will engage in that time-honored tradition that all bloggers depend on when there's a void in rumors and news: I will make an arbitrary list based solely on my feeble opinion, present it here with some kind of false bravado and authority, and see if anybody finds such a thing worthy of discussion or consideration. Oh, and I'll include some pictures, because everybody loves pictures. This is actually going to be a thing I'll do more often coming up if only because news is slowing and I like making lists.

I wanted originally to start with something clever like "the top 5 death scenes involving farm equipment" or something unique like that. But it is Monday, so my brain is one step behind me, watching me from the shadows. So instead, let's give you the list that sort of started me thinking about lists these days, which is the top 5 actresses of this generation. I shall define this generation as those whose career started as early as as the late 70s/early 80s through today. Why? Because I said so. I think there are a ton of possibilities here, but let's see if I can't make something definitive and stir up trouble. Be sure to point out how wrong I am because, spoiler alert, I don't have Meryl Streep at number one.

Here we go.

5.) Naomi Watts

My serious take: Effortlessly gorgeous and insanely talented, this Aussie lass laps circles around the somehow more-respected Nicole Kidman. Her unique ability to blend naive innocence with eyes that never betray her as an actress is only exceeded by the four other ladies in this list. She may not have risen to the level of respect her talent deserves, but she's still making quality work, so there's still hope.

My funny take: In her dreams, Kidman is played by Naomi Watts.

For proof see: Mullholland Drive, 21 Grams, and Eastern Promises

4.) Cate Blanchett

My serious take: What kind of a list are you dealing with when Cate Blanchett isn't at the top of it? Yowza. Blanchett weighs all of a water-logged twinkie, but can command a scene like she's morbidly obese. Her controlled, measured voice combines with her regal look to deliver knock-out after knock-out. I truly do not know if she's capable of a bad performance. She had a look, just one look, in Benjamin Button that should have won an Oscar. She's a goddess, and we aren't worthy.

My funny take: If I met Blanchett and she told me to punch myself in the junk, I'd be speaking Alvin-and-the-Chipmunks-style for a week.

For proof see: Elizabeth, The Aviator, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

3.) Meryl Streep

My serious take: This isn't for dramatic effect or anything. Streep is untouchable. I get that. She can do anything at any time. If they wanted her to play a piece of drywall, she'd find a way. I know. She's had a flawless career, shows no sign of slowing, and is beyond reproach. She also gets all the best shots at things and has plateaued a bit. Her reputation is only slightly ahead of the massive talent she represents. Her presence is such that I'm defending why she's only number 3 on a list like this, which is pretty impressive.

My funny take: I truly believe that this is how I would really rank these talented ladies, but I guarantee if anything cheeses anyone off, it's going to be this ranking here. Streep defenders are a lethal, gun-toting bunch.

For proof see: Any Meryl Streep movie that isn't It's Complicated (and she's actually pretty good in that too.)

2.) Kate Winslet
My serious take: Who knew when she made Titanic that we would be honoring her over and over again all these years later. She's so incredible that I would have given her the Oscar for The Reader, and that was my pick for worst movie of the year. Her ability is such that she is a colossal, world-ending beauty who makes you forget that. She so fully sinks into her craft that one is never left contemplating her as a movie star, only as a character. She's incredible.

My funny take: She did a movie with Cameron Diaz and I still like her.

For proof see: Revolutionary Road, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Little Children

1.) Julianne Moore
My serious take: If you can watch the scene of her on the bed with Heather Graham in Boogie Nights and honestly tell me you're not watching the best actress of our generation, I will slap you in the face. She's breathtaking consistently and has shown that she can do comedy (The Big Lebowski), right alongside drama (Far From Heaven), right alongside action/sci-fi (Children of Men). She's a red-headed angel, a once-in-a-lifetime talent, and we gave Sandra F**king Bullock an Oscar before her.

My funny take: Sandra F**king Bullock. Seriously. Think about that.

For proof see: Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski, Children of Men, and Magnolia

Okay, so that's it for this list. It's not incredibly detailed nor is it well researched or argued. It's just my opinion on a slow-news Monday. Have at it, y'all.

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Slow news day (volume three)

This is the last one and I'm giving up. In the interest of fairness, I reported when some no-name actress joined the cast of Moneyball, a movie that Steven Soderbergh was going to direct, so I will now mention the latest actor to join Soderbergh's new project: Contagion. Before we get to the nameless dude who just signed on today, let's recap who is in this tale that sounds like Traffic meets 28 Days Later. Matt Damon and Jude Law are pulling down the dude work (with Damon pulling down more than Law...seriously, Law is so pretty that he wouldn't look flat-out manly eating a raw waterbuffalo, while rebuilding his Mustang and peeing standing up). The ladies...well, the ladies represent one of the finer collection of people I really want to be in a room with. Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kate Winslet are all in this movie that I need to be watching right now. Cotillard, fresh off of her performance in Inception, which I am going to be reviewing soon, I swear, is just so uniquely beautiful and talented that I can hardly believe we actually let her get famous. Oh, right, this is a post about the new person added to the cast. It's John Hawkes, who played the translator in this season of "Lost" and was in "Deadwood." In other words, those interested in ladies get to look at this:

And those interested in dudes get to look at this:

This completes the slowest news day in weeks.

Ryan's Junk Drawer

Congratulations! If you're reading this, you have made it to Thursday. Bravo on surviving a full week since last we met to discuss my junk (and by junk, I mean movie news that's not big enough to warrant a full blog post). I've had an insanely productive week, which means I shall reward myself at the first opportunity with meat and beer. Perhaps as early as right now. Thanks to the magic of the internets, you'll never know. As is our special tradition, before I dive headfirst into thoroughly flaunting my massive junk (again, movie news, people), we take a peek at the image above from Highlights Magazine (FOR CHILDREN), which is supposedly of an average junk drawer but is obviously the creepiest thing this side of "Charlotte's Web." Each week, we select an item from the illustration above and make up a wacky backstory for it, because it entertains me (and potentially nobody else). Today's item is the green and red pile in the lower right corner. When Claudette didn't receive the Barbie Hot Pink Fun N' Ride Ultra-Wheelie Mega Cycle for Christmas, she didn't get mad. Using the same evil genius that prevented Santa from delivering the gift in the first place, Claudette simply waited 364 days until the following Christmas Eve. Silently, ever so silently, she stealthily positioned herself just outside the chimney of goody-too-shoes Becky Butterbean's house. When she saw her chance, she sprang into motion. She was only able to catch an elf. But he would do...he would do. The terror inflicted upon that little red and green fella...is a tale best left for another day.

Okay, enough with the fun preamble, let's get to this week's peek at my junk!

1.) Because, by God, why not have a Power Pack movie? - It may sound like I'm about to disparage smaller comic book properties in the following paragraph. I am. But it's with love and a surprising amount of hope. Chud dropped the info that Marvel is going to be making movies based on some little-known characters (I mean, of course, little known to "regular" people...those who think a Ka-Zar is Obama's new appointee to watch over all things involving the letter K). These flicks are going to carry smaller budgets (we live in a world where $20-40 million is now a "small budget") and will feature folks like Dr. Strange, Luke Cage, Dazzler, and Power Pack. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Ryan, did you just f**king say Dazzler?" You bet your sweet disco-ball underoos I did. Dazzler, a superhero who was created in the heyday of disco and who can turn music to light or some such crap, is a perfect example of the the type of comic that should be made into a movie. Why? Because nobody cares about Dazzler. Basically, other than a few uber-dorks, what this move allows is for people to make aggressive, unique takes on characters with some measure of promise without the intense worry of studio suits because the budget is reasonable. Personally, I find this exciting. Then again, I own the first appearance of Power Pack. Suck on that.

2.) Robert Downey Jr is magic - Steve King from CD105.9, who is the incredibly kind and funny guy whose radio show I appear on every Friday morning at about 7:35 (you can also listen online), asked me today (I did the show early this week) about the Wizard of Oz shenanigans going on in Hollywood. They want to do something Oz-related really bad in Tinseltown, even if that means urinating on a piece of our collective cultural history so beloved that anyone who doesn't like The Wizard of Oz is either legally stoned to death by age 8 or forced to move to Canada. Personally, so long as they don't remake the movie, I don't mind them playing with the world of Oz...well, I don't mind as much. See, the LA Times mentions that the new project may involve Sam Mendes. You'll remember Sam as the guy who directed American Beauty. He's also the guy who just got divorced from this:
So, yeah, he makes bad decisions. Either Sammy the stupid or Adam Shankman, who directed the exceptionally forgettable Bedtime Stories, will likely direct Oz the Great and Powerful, with Robert Downey Jr starring as the Wizard of Oz. The script is written by the guy who wrote The Whole 9 Yards, so clearly there's no reason to be alarmed. As much as I love Downey, this can't be a good idea, right? When I said they could play in that world, I meant they could follow the misadventures of some minor character, not make a prequel to the classic film. Folks, somewhere over the rainbow, things sure suck.

3.) Spock no more - After a long, storied career, Leonard Nimoy is calling it quits. Likely because he's unable to physically beat away the groupies at his age, the man who made Spock the nerd touchstone that he is has decided to spend his remaining years out of the spotlight. He's said something similar before, but this seems to be the real deal. I would say too bad, but I feel like he's doing the right thing. Hell, at least he had the decency to go out on a good note, relaunching Star Trek. Not like Gene Hackman (Welcome to Mooseport) or Sean Connery (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). Those dudes should come out of retirement and do one movie together just to clean the poop flavor from their mouths. How do you retire on those films? Anyway, you done good Leo. You done good.

4.) Batman 3 may not be in 3D...but it probably will - First up, we have news that the real Batman 3 news will actually come in July...or May...or June. The idea being, the timetable is set up as such that if development mirrored The Dark Knight, we'd get an announcement at July's San Diego Comic Convention about the title and a major piece of casting, along with a release date. Maybe that happens before the Con, maybe it happens after. What you'll find about the third Christopher Nolan Bat film is that nobody knows anything and that doesn't stop people from talking about it. Aint it Cool News actually got some important news, in that they got the cinematographer who worked with Nolan on the last 2 flicks to say that neither he nor Nolan wants to do Batman 3 in 3D. Woo hoo! So, what will probably happen is, they'll do the film in 3D. Look, the studio isn't going to throw away literally tens of millions of dollars. They will force Nolan to do 3D unless he's willing to walk over it, which I doubt he is. The only possibility is that he convinces them that they can get the same sort of bump by just doing IMAX screenings, because he loves that format. I agree with him. The scenes in IMAX from The Dark Knight were the film's best. So there you have it: it may or may not be in 3D and it may or may not be officially announced some time in the near future. Ah, the nonsense of Bat-news.

5.) Trailers, Parked - This week brings us ladies who are killers, a lady who is killer hot, and Robert Duvall. I'll take all three please.

First up is John Woo's Reign of Assassins. Yes, it looks like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I loved that movie, so I don't care. It's been awhile since I've seen a flick like this on the big screen, so I'm ready for it. See for yourself.


Next up is Easy A. This isn't really a telling trailer, but shows off (A) how adorable Emma Stone is, (B) how charismatic she is, and (C) how poised she is to be huge. The film is actually about a high-school girl who tells a lie about how she lost her virginity and finds herself in a situation that she feels mirrors Hestor Prynne's in The Scarlett Letter. I, for one, am actually quite excited about this. Given the good casting and clever idea, this could be the next Mean Girls.


Finally, we have the killer trailer for Get Low, which looks like what would happen if you mixed a non-washed up Tim Burton movie with the Coen brothers. You had me at Bill Murray and Robert Duvall, but the trailer actually goes beyond that. This is surprisingly rising fast on my must see list.


Okay, sinners, that's it for now. Thanks for peeking at my junk, and see you tomorrow for a fun-filled Friday!

Mendes loses wife, movie

Two things: (1) You know it's a slow news week when most of my items are about news that isn't happening. (2) Despite my callous headline for this post, I do not want you to feel sorry for the rich, rich, rich Sam Mendes, who has an Academy Award, is going to direct the next Bond movie, and got to have the marital relations with the following lady for the last several years:
'Tis far better to have met, procreated with, and lost Kate Winslet than to simply have coveted her from afar. Not that I know anything about the first two parts of that sentence (I do know a looooot about the last one, though). Anyhoodle, news came down the pipe within the last day or so that Mendes has been taken off the adaptation of the brilliant comic "Preacher" due to his Bond contract (or, ahem, Bond bond). That's fine. I'm doubtful of the man's ability to deliver the slam-bang ending to the new 007 trilogy (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease don't suck), so you know I'm highly skeptical of his ability to make a compelling feature out of what may be my favorite finite comic book series ever. If you haven't read "Preacher," you're not only missing out on a little slice of brilliance, but I now respect you less (and before, I already had my doubts). Now, Devin from Chud.com hates the idea of an adaptation, stating that he thinks it's inevitable that it will get FUBARed. He may be right. Then again, he's also a curmudgeonly bastard who yesterday posted a hateful screed against "He-Man" and then publicly flogged anyone who defended it. He's never been the most generous person towards dissenting opinions (subscribing to the Rush Limbaugh ideology of "there's my opinion and there's go f**k yourself"). Still, the ardent defender of Godzilla and Tron just blasted the merits of He-Man, that's hilarious. Apparently, the only good nerd material is the kind that Devin already had some attachment to. I know this is side rant, but the man has been irking me lately. And I don't irk easily. He's normally bitchy, but lately he's just been hateful towards innocent things (we all bash Twilight, but clubbing Steve Carell...uncool). So, no surprise, I find myself once more in disagreement with the chubby, hairy, angry, angry, angry guy. I think an adaptation of "Preacher" could work. Obviously the best choice is to have it be an ongoing series on HBO, but there is a way to do a cool, R-rated movie that follows the first story arc of the comic. I won't get into it here, but I hope that "Preacher" does get made into something. It's fallen out of the collective consciousness and that's a shame because it kicks so much filthy, filthy ass.

In non-H1N1 virus news

Steven Soderbergh is an odd turkey burger. On the one hand he makes The Limey, Kafka, Sex Lies and Videotape, Traffic, and Che...and on the other, he makes Erin Brokovich, Oceans 11, 12, and 13, and an upcoming movie starring a former female American Gladiator. I'm not saying those latter films are bad, although my hopes aren't incredibly high for the unfinished one starring this thespian:
But they just seem so schizophrenic. That first group is sheer brilliance, that last group is mostly entertaining. So the real question is, which will Contagion be? It's got a straight-up stupidly awesome cast, including Matt Damon and Jude Law...and the following ridiculously hot trio of ladies.

Gwyneth Paltrow

Marion Cotillard

and (my fave of the bunch)
the lovely Kate Winslet

The film is going to be a sprawling, Traffic-like movie about a pandemic and is going to be a "thriller" with a "message." I'm not sure where in Soderbergh's body of work this is going to fall, but he has an absolutely DY-NO-MITE cast and all the skill necessary to make something that is both crowd-pleasing and wickedly cool. Also, if you put the three ladies above in a 3 hour documentary about salad, I'm there. Just sayin'.