Fearless, Flawless Box Office Predictions

Like I said, I'm outtie like a belly button technically, but through the magic of technology I am posting this today (Friday) even though I wrote it yesterday. It's magicalicious! This week brings us Steve Carrell in animated form using all 3 dimensions, the second weekend of the murderous Twilight: Eclipse, and Predators, which features Adrien Brody and his rippling muscles (for realz). Who will win this epic three-way? Wait, that didn't come out right.

Here's how I see it, haiku style:

1.) Despicable Me - $40 million

This is my hero.
Why? Because it will keep out
Twilight from first place.

2.) Twilight: Eclipse - $27 million

Suck on second place!
The fan base may be shrinking.
Your time is OVER!!!

3.) Predators - $21 million

I have heard good things.
No, wait, I'm serious here!
I tried, Adrien.

4.) Toy Story 3 - $17 million

Top of Pixar's list.
The other kid's flick will hurt.
You done good there, toys.

5.) The Last Airbender - $16 million

As soon as it came,
it quickly left us alone.
Try harder next time.

No wildcard this week, I feel that good about it. Okay, have a great weekend. I'll miss you all. Honest.

Fearless, Flawless Box Office Predictions

Okay, Friday housekeeping: I'll be back later with a Last Airbender review, but I know you're all taking off early to get your "blowing stuff up for freedom" on. So, be safe this weekend, don't drink and f**king drive, and don't blow your genitals off. That's about the best advice you could give for such a thing.

Oh, and maybe one more, don't see Twilight. I know your girlfriend (or boyfriend) wants you to, but you're better than that. I can allow that the books may be able to be injected with your own imagination enough to make them passable, but there's no way you can listen to Robert Pattinson and Shirtless McTinyNipples for two and a half hours and not lose part of your soul. I'm not exactly advocating that you go see The Last Airbender either. So, maybe go outside or watch Toy Story 3 again? I don't know.

Okay, last thing before we get to this: I'm a flaming liberal, as you can tell by a ton of my jokes. Somewhere along the line it became common thinking that somehow we're less patriotic or supportive of our troops than the other side. That's just not true. I love this country, from our continued commitment philosophically as a nation to beautiful ideals to the continued belief that we can and will rise above any problem at any time. And I love the troops that are far braver than me who do what I could never do in order to make people in this nation and (just as importantly) many others safer. Thank you to the troops, I love you to America, and let's do some box office haikus.

Oh, and these are for grosses from Friday through Sunday, even though Twilight came out Wednesday and Airbender came out Thursday. What ever happened to releasing movies on Friday like normal people?

1.) Twilight: Eclipse - $98 million

This title fits well.
When it comes to eclipses,
you don't look at them.

2.) The Last Airbender - $38 million

STOP WRITING, M. NIGHT!
You are a fine director,
and a shit writer.

3.) Toy Story 3 - $36 million

Kudos to Pixar
for what will be their top flick.
Keep it going, gang!

4.) Grown Ups - $19 million

I have a question.
When it comes to Kevin James,
when is it enough?!?!

5.) Knight and Day - $10.5 million

So sorry, Tommy.
You should listen to me now.
Go play a villain.

WILDCARD - The Karate Kid - $9 million

I would pay to see
Jaden Smith matched up against
the airbender kid.

Okay, that's it! Happy 4th everyone!

Ryan's Junk Drawer

What's up kittie cats? Welcome to another chance to see my junk. I know it's the moment you wait all week for, impatiently looking at your calendars, asking "is today the day? Is today the DAY I VIEW RYAN'S JUNK?!" Yes, yes it is. Now, about 90% of people asking that question are well aware that by junk, I mean "movie tidbits that aren't big enough to warrant a full post." The other 10% are really, really disappointed right now. Chin up, perverts, maybe next week. As is our special Thursday tradition, we begin by looking at the creepy, creepy ass junk drawer image from Highlights Magazine (FOR CHILDREN) above and pick an item from it to make up a weird story about. Today's item is the tiny rope in the upper left-hand corner. Despite the impressive effort it took to create such a thick, sturdy rope of appropriate length from the few strands of browned grass, Paul couldn't let things proceed. Try though he might, Paul couldn't think of a single reason that Papa Smurf wanted to kill himself that badly. "I'm surrounded by smurfin' half-wits," Papa had explained, "I need a smurfin' out, man. You don't know what it's smurfin' like here. Sweet Jesus I want to smurfin' die. I swear to you, I'm one wacky adventure away from smurfin' mass murder." Although Paul knew Papa would try to find a different way, by keeping the noose in his junk drawer, he ensured that he would never one day look down on the mushroom kingdom to find its ruler swinging in the wind.

Now, on to this week's movie nuggets!

1.) I know the title of the last episode of "Lost" - It's so ground-breaking, so shocking, so revelatory that I can't even...pretend that this is the truth. It's called "The End." Not exactly jaw-dropping, is it? On the one hand, it actually makes me happy, I mean, not as happy as this:

The reason the title brings some joy to my life is that it seems to suggest that they are at least TRYING to fully wrap up the story. I know that's what they've promised for a long time now, but they also lied to us a whole lot. Remember the whole "everything has a scientific explanation" bullcrap line? Unless Jacob is suddenly revealed to be a time-traveling robot, I don't think that's true. I do think that they'll leave numerous dangling participles and hanging chads, but for the most part, the title seems to indicate an intent to be declarative about the series' finale. That makes me happy. Not slapping-Claire happy, but happy.

2.) El Diablo strikes another deal - I love me some Diablo Cody. That fiesty ex-stripper deserves better than the backlash she's unfairly suffered for years now, and she makes a damn good point when talking about the script she just sold: Young Adult. First off, she describes it as "f**ked up," which I love. THR reports that it's about “a thirtysomething, divorced, young-adult fiction writer in Minneapolis who returns to her hometown to chase the ex-boyfriend, who’s now married with a kid, that got away.” That doesn't necessarily sound f**ked up, but that's because we instinctively think of the neutered, Sandra Bullock-friendly version that we've become accustomed to. Sorry, I know it's too soon to be making Bullock references, what with the fact that her marriage fell apart. Seriously, what's with people making such a big deal about that. Does it suck? Hell yes it sucks. That tattooed, hog-faced douche-nozzle ought to be ashamed of himself for pumping the exhaust of a tranny-looking, fake-boobed Nazi. But it's one of about a billion Hollywood marriages that have ended this way, and the global decision that we care most about Bullock's is weird to me. Anyhoodle, back to Diablo's movie. Diablo explains that the f**ked up part is that the female lead is an anti-hero. Not a freakshow like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, but more fundamentally broken a la Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. This is interesting to me. It sounds like a complex role that is nuanced and different...and it's for a female?! I know it may be older than the "30-something" that Diablo described, but I'd get Julianne Moore for this and get her an Oscar. Just my opinion.

3.) Mission Impossible 4 is for the Bird? - I won't defend Mission Impossible 3 ad naseum again (but it was really good, jerks), but my excitement for MI4 just picked up even further. So should yours. You see, HeatVision is reporting that Brad Bird may direct. Who is he? Well he just so happened to direct The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Iron Giant. Now, I know what you're thinking, but when you really stop and consider it, is directing a cartoon really that different from directing Tom Cruise? Especially when he'll be against a green screen a lot with tons of computer-generated effects. Bird isn't just a good director, he's a great one. I adore each of those movies listed above, and he has more than earned the good will to do whatever project he wants in my humble opinion. I'd get him to have a hand in the screenplay too. I think the decision to skew this franchise more towards fun was a good one, as the first one took itself far too seriously and the second one took itself far to John Woo-y. I know that nobody but me is saying it, but I'm saying it loud enough to be obnoxious: I CAN'T WAIT FOR MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4.

4.) Rewarding evil with evil - This is the world we live in: You write poopy poop poop and you get a big payday to write even more poopy poop poop. Fact is, even if you LIKED Alice in Wonderland, it wasn't because you thought Linda Woolverton's script rocked. It was because you're an unabashed Tim Burton/Johnny Depp apologist or you're 13 and gothy. The script was not just stupid, it was a savaging of the work of Lewis Carroll...for no good reason. From my perspective, this was a literary hate crime. So the fact that THR is reporting that Woolverton is writing Maleficent, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of the evil queen, fills me with all the excitement of waiting to be cut in half by a chainsaw. Plus, this only increases the chances that Tim "I'm a hack, follow me off this cliff lemmings!" Burton is going to get involved. Okay, if you get Johnny Depp to play the evil queen MAYBE I'm interested, but if it ends up being Helena Bonham Carter, I may have to genetically turn myself into a dragon and breathe fire on every print of the film. I like the "evil-perspective" concepts of stories, like "Grendel," and we haven't seen many of them. This could be good...or could have been good until Woolverton got to it. Yucky.

5.) Trailers, parked - We've got nothing but new versions of old trailers this week, but that doesn't mean they're not entertaining.

First up is the last Last Airbender trailer...okay, I don't know that, but I don't think there's much else to show. If you set aside the hatred that we've all justifiably accumulated for M. Night Shyamalan, this looks good.


Despicable Me looks slightly more Pixar than Ice Age to me, but I may be getting fooled here. I like how they've done the advertising, and I love the voice talent. Heck, I really love that the score is being done by Pharrell and Hans Zimmer. This could be fun.



Adele Blanc-Sec looks like wacky French joy to me. I liked the first two trailers and I didn't even have English subtitles. This is one I'll likely have to catch on DVD, but I'll be happy to do so.


Okay, that's all the junk I have to show today. Come back tomorrow for our usual Friday excitement...and by excitement I mean fairly boring crap. But it's all made with love.

Ryan's Junk Drawer

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the weird and wacky world that is my junk drawer, where we collect tiny movie news tidbits that don't quite warrant their own blog post (or do, but I'm too lazy). As per usual, we begin this week by looking at the above creepy-ass image taken from Highlights for Children (CHILDREN!) magazine and making up a ridiculous backstory about something we see. Today's object is the tiny pink square in the upper left corner. Had her father not intercepted the note that Suzie was going to pass to Matt, he would have known of her undying love. In fact, the two would have begun dating in middle school, briefly gone their separate ways in high-school and early college, before once more uniting at a reunion when Matt recalled the wonderful note she had given him. But with the note now trapped inside her father's junk drawer, Suzie ended up going out with Jason, who convinced her to take up huffing paint and committing small acts of vandalism. After a stint in Juvie, Suzie emerged hardened, and stabbed a math teacher when he dared correct her on her algebra. To think, if Suzie's dad had just minded his own business, she wouldn't be doing 25 to life. Oh well!

Now, on to all the glory my junk has to offer!

1.) Alicia Silverstone is not dead - Although the world thought she had perhaps died after her last failed television pilot, as it turns out, Alicia Silverstone is alive and somewhat kicking. Not only is she willing to get bare-ass naked to prove she likes vegetables (seriously, I would put images up here, but it ain't proper, google it), she's apparently going to reunite with Clueless director Amy Heckerling. Screen Daily is reporting that the pair are reuniting for Vamps, which is another f**king vampire movie. Now, even though the description of "two young vampires in New York city" sounds dumb as all get out, my hope is that Heckerling is able to bring some of the subversive genius she dropped with Clueless, but I'm guessing that's too much to hope for at this point. Instead, we're probably dealing with just another middling entry into the ever-expanding body of vampire films. Seriously, centuries from now, when our descendants finally figure out how to operate a DVD, they're going to be very disappointed in us. Very.

2.) I will refrain from all Cruz/cruise jokes - THR reports that Penelope Cruz doesn't mind scurvy...or at least she wants to hump Johnny Depp's peg leg. Why, whatever do I mean? I mean that this lovely lass:
Is going to wear an eyepatch. Or not, She's going to appear in the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie is what's actually going to happen, but she's likely going to just be filling the corset-stuffing quota. She's an improvement over the bland Kiera Knightley, that's fo sho, but why she wants to basically play a thankless supporting role is beyond me. Oh, wait, there's that whole Johnny Depp angle. Apparently, women will do all sorts of strange things to get near him, even though he looks like he would smell like the bathroom in a French bar. I liked the first of the series, didn't mind the second, and pretty much loathed the third, so here's hoping that cutting the fat (as in the skinny Orlando Bloom and Knightley) helps.

3.) Spider-man will be in 3D, so we can see all the angles of love - The only thing Avatar really did was to make everybody want to release their movies in 3D. Between Clash of the Titans going back and 3D-ing their movie and the announcement that just about any movie that can get away with it is going to dump their flick into the 3D bin, I'm about over this whole thing. It's a gimmick. It's a gimmick that they can use to charge us a lot more money. I'm not saying I won't ever go 3D again, but it's just not what gets my motor running. So news that Spider-man's reboot is going to be 3D fills me with the same meh feeling that the rest of the news about the project has left me with. Although, I would like to point out how stupid it is to drop your budget to $80 million, return everyone to high school so you can get cheaper, younger actors, and focus more on the love story...only to do this all in 3D?! I mean, seriously? Are the lovey dovey moments going to look more impressive if we see Peter Parker's emo hair flopping in all 3 dimensions? I'm guessing the device will be used like twice in the movie, so they should pro-rate the ticket price to reflect how little of it is actually in the third dimension. Whatever.

4.) Robocop is alive...but on life support - I want to see what Darren Aronofsky does with Robocop sooooo bad. I've loved each and every one of his movies and I cannot, cannot, cannot wait to see what he would do with a cyborg cop. Don't get me wrong, he can't excite me more than he already is by pairing up Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman in a carnal sense for his upcoming Black Swan, but Robocop is a distant but respectable second place. So here's some good news/bad news, screenwriter David Self tells STYD that he and Aronofsky are STILL on the project...but that MGM has its head up its ass. They can't agree on the rating (Aronofsky wants an R, because he's not an idiot...you can't do a PG-13 Robocop, you just can't) or the whole (sigh) 3D angle (here we go again). I'm not sure if this will be worth Aronofsky's trouble, or if he can deliver the movie I want him to deliver given the constraints of stupidity he's being shackled with. That said, the dream is flickering but still burning. I can only pray...and count down the days until I see Portman and Kunis and become Portikunis.

5.) Trailers, parked - Some REALLY good ones this week y'all. I'm not even going to flap my gums too much about it.

First up is Toy Story 3, and it looks as great as you'd expect. Plus, they get a "great ascot" joke AND a wonderful chase sequence. I'm so stoked, it's like I'm 5.


Toy Story 3 Trailer #2 in HD

Trailer Park Movies | MySpace Video

Speaking of children's stuff that shouldn't excite me but I'm not a real grown-up, check out the new Last Airbender trailer. Although I am a little unclear why I haven't heard the main character SPEAK in any of the trailers (oh, please don't let him be as terrible as it appears he may be), I'm very interested in a property I had never before had any interest in whatsoever. This is your last chance, though, Shyamalan. Your LAST CHANCE.

That's it folks! I hope you are having a good week. Let's meet up again tomorrow for Friday, the only day of the week that everybody loves. Sorry every other day, but we do play favorites.