Top 11 Sequels?

I'm a firm believer that these days movies are all about the sequel.  At least when it comes to summer blockbusters and superhero shit.  The first movie sets up what we need to know so that we can get right into the action in the sequel.

There are plenty of films that never required a second installment.  But what if, for some reason, they had gotten one anyway?  Let's play God for a day, shall we?

11. What Else Is Eating Gilbert Grape?
Gilbert is back with a whole new set of problems and issues to deal with.  His brother, Arnie, is back too and has eaten an entire tub of radioactive goo.  Arnie, now a destructive goo monster, is hell-bent on helping his brother Gilbert solve his issues...by swallowing him and his problems!  This time, something really IS eating Gilbert Grape...

10. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Part 2
Picture it, Sicily, 2016... It's the sequel you never knew you wanted. Return to a life a solving crimes with Stallone's mom, but this time in full-on glorious 3D CGI... since Estelle Getty is no longer with us.

9. 2 Thelma 2 Louise
If you thought Thelma and Louise were on the run before, you ain't seen nothing yet.  Thelma and Louise have unknowingly gotten their hands on a rare Egyptian artifact and are in a race against time, and the law, to save all of existence from a robotic, alien, Brad Pitt-like thing.  Directed by Michael Bay.

8. Junior's Baby
The unusual comedy team of Arnold/Danny Devito are back!  This time they have to shrink themselves down to mini-size so they can enter into Junior's womb and stop him from getting pregnant by and army of vicious sperm before it's too late.

7. 8 Mile 2: Going The Extra Mile
If you didn't quite get enough of Eminem's more expensive rip off of Purple Rain, then don't worry - he's back and he's going the extra mile!  His mom's spaghetti is back too, and also going the extra mile! With guest appearances by 50 Cent, Wiz Kalifa, MC Hammer, and Niki Minaj, you'll be so wrapped up in the rap battles that you'll fail to notice this movie is just a more expensive rip off of Graffiti Bridge... assuming you ever bothered to watch Graffiti Bridge in the first place.

6. How To Lose A Guy In 11 Days
Like many romantic comedy sequels (I'm looking at you Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights) this film has nothing to do with the one you have grown to love, except that the title will try to bring you in and watch it.  This time around, though, there's a twist - Kate Hudson's character will be played by a dude who gets romantically involved with another dude on a bet from his buddies, and spends eleven days trying to get rid of him in hysterically over-the-top and just-offensive-enough ways, until he realizes that he has actually fallen for another man.

5. Return of the Son of Forrest Gump
This action epic, directed by James Cameron, needs no plot details.  You'll go see it based on the amazing title alone.  Rated NC-17.

4. Another League of Their Own
Sure, The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was a fun story, highlighting a joyous time for women's rights during the war time.  But what about that other professional baseball league you might not know about because there was no movie made about it? We're talking, of course, about the one you heard about once on The Simpsons from Mr. Burns and thought he was senile - The Negro League.  Yup, it was a real thing and a movie all about it would be fantastic.

3. More Snakes on More Planes
If you don't want to see Samuel L. Jackson scream about them mother fucking snakes on the mother fucking plane one more time, then I'm sorry, because you don't have a soul.

2. Mr. Nanny Returns
Mr. Nanny has to come out of retirement one more time to stop more past-their-prime former WWF superstars from kidnapping rich kids.  Hogan clearly knows best in this sequel, as he spends more time in a tutu, and leg drops the kids to safety. Whatcha gonna do when Mr. Nanny cuts the crusts off your sandwiches for you????????

1. E.E.T.: The Extra-Extra Terrestrial
Elliot is all grown up now, and can't figure out why his finger keeps glowing. Suddenly, he transforms into The Extra-Extra Terrestrial and has to adjust to his new life as an ugly alien in a world full of fear, and people who won't share their Reese's Pieces.  But when the world is threatened by an army of Neo-Nazis (this IS a Spielberg movie, after all) the world will call on E.E.T. to save the planet and the world's supply of Reese's Pieces.

Thanks for reading!
-ryan

Top 11 Rich People

Today we take a look at eleven rich people. Four of them just so happened to be bald. Coincidence? That could be a blog for another day. But really, if you've got all that money, you could afford a wig that at least looked real. Oh well, enjoy this list!

	#11 - Richie Rich (Harvey Comics) Sadly, Richie Rich used to be worth more than he is. Yeah, that poor little bastard spent forty million dollars in one candy shop. But don't think he's a spoiled little rich brat. While he may have inherited millions from his parents' fortune, Richie is always willing to share the wealth. Approximate Total Wealth: $2.3 Billion Dollars
	#10 - Lou Bond (Full House) Lou Bond used to live in the Tanner house when he was just a kid. After making millions in business he decided he wanted his old house back. The whole Tanner family was willing to sell, except for Michelle, who's little heart turned out to be the one thing Lou's money couldn't afford. Fucking idiot. Approximate Total Wealth: $2.6 Billion Dollars
	#9 - Lex Luthor (Superman) The only thing Luthor has more of than money is hatred towards The Man of Steel. Luthor has been able to buy whatever he wants his whole life. Women, cars, and people's morals are all possessions to ol' baldy. As the CEO of Lexcorp, Luthor practically owns half of Metropolis. Approximate Total Wealth: $3.1 Billion Dollars
	#8 - Billy Madison (Billy Madison) Billy, the heir to the Madison Hotels fortune, wasn't just handed his wealth. No, he had to work for it by re-doing his entire school career, from kindergarten to high school. Another wealthy man, with a good heart, he isn't shy about throwing parties for his friends. Approximate Total Wealth: $5.2 Billion Dollars
	#7 - Scrooge McDuck (Duck Tales) Scrooge McDuck has so much money that he can swim in it... and he does! Everyone in Duckberg wants their hands on Scrooge's money, but luckily since Scrooge is a good person he gets help from his three nephews and Gizmo-Duck. Approximate Total Wealth: $5.2 Billion Dollars + One lucky penny
	#6 - Willy Wonka (Charlie & The Chocolate Factory) Okay, the dude owns his own amazing chocolate factory. He can have pretty much anything he wants. But what he really needed in the end was a good friend like Charlie.  Though, having a glass elevator that can go pretty much anywhere is also pretty rad.  Imagine the dates you could have in that thing! Approximate Total Wealth: $7.9 Billion Dollars
	#5 - Prince Akeem (Coming To America) Akeem was so rich that he could've had anything he wanted in his home country. But he knew the only way to find true love would be to live like an ordinary man in Queens, New York.  Remember, when you think of garbage, think of Akeem! Approximate Total Wealth: $12.7 Billion Dollars
	#4 - Batman (Batman... duh!) By day he poses at Bruce Wayne, the only child of Thomas and Martha Wayne. He's the owner of Wayne Enterprises. But he takes his piles of money and uses them to get awesome gadgets for fighting crime.  You'd think he would use some of that moolah to make people forget about the awful Batman & Robin movie. Approximate Total Wealth: $19.9 Billion Dollars
	#3 - Mr. Burns (The Simpsons) If you're going to go big, go nuclear! It certainly doesn't hurt that Mr. Burns is like one hundred years old. He's had a lot of time to invest that money. He uses his money and power to watch over Springfield with his echoing vampire-like laugh. The city is pretty much already his, but the residents just don't know it yet. Approximate Total Wealth: $34.7 Billion Dollars
	#2 - Daddy Warbucks (Annie) Warbucks said it himself "I'm richer than Midas" in the song "I Don't Need Anything" from the Annie movie. He may not have the golden touch, but his billiard-ball head and oodles of money don't mean anything without his little orphan Annie.  It also doesn't hurt to have a bad-ass like Punjab hanging around protecting your assets, both physical and monetary. Approximate Total Wealth: $42.8 Billion Dollars
	#1 - "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase (WWF) When DiBiase wasn't allowed to buy the WWF Championship, he did the next best thing. He created his own championship belt. The Million Dollar Belt is all gold and diamonds. DiBiase has so much cash kicking around that he could freely stuff $100 bills down peoples throats. He has his own personal bodyguard, Virgil, that will do anything for him. And he has the most vicious sounding laugh. Everybody has a price for the Million Dollar Man. Approximate Total Wealth: $72.8 Billion + The Million Dollar Belt

Thanks for reading!
- ryan

What It's Like To Fall In Love

With Valentine's Day almost here, I find myself reflecting on the one hundred years or so that my lovely wife and I have now been together.  Did I say one hundred years?  Maybe it's only ninety-nine.  Time sure does fly.

2002.

I met my lovely wife in the summer of 2002.  We were high school sweethearts.  And by that I mean she was still in high school and I was not anymore.  I'm nearly five years older than her.  At the time I took a lot of flack for it, but hey, I ended up marrying that girl so I guess the moral is... well.... I don't know.

The first time I met my lovely wife, she was working at a convenience store.  I bought a drink and a pack of gum.  This is an important detail to the story, so pay attention. Future Lovely Wife was so enamored by my hotness and raw sexual aura that she fumbled around and only charged me nine cents for the pack of gum.

Score! 

Hey, even if this relationship never went anywhere I could at least say I got a really good deal on a pack of gum.

Believe it or not, I never asked her out.  We got to talking on the phone a lot, and on ICQ (uh-oh!) and it turned out that while she'd had boyfriends before she'd never actually been out on a real date.  Future Lovely Wife had a great rack and gave off all the right signals, so I told her I was going to take her to dinner and a movie.

And I did just that.  But first, a stop in the park - because, really, what's more romantic than taking a seventeen year old girl to a boring park when you promised her dinner and a movie?  You got it - convincing her to give you a sweet back massage in the park!  And gosh darn that was a good back rub.  This was where we shared our first passionate kiss.
(On a side note, when I finally proposed to her years later so she could become Lovely Fiance I did so in the same park.  I'm a sucker for nostalgia and tradition)

So I took her to dinner at Frankie Pesto's.  It's always been a great date spot.  Vines on the wall.  Sinatra playing while you eat.  And, since I don't drive, there's a very convenient bus stop only a few feet away from the restaurant.

The movie of choice was The Master of Disguise, starring Dana Carvey.  You may have noticed it showed up on my Top 11 Romantic Movies list, only because it was from our first date.  That movie is otherwise complete and total shit.  But, if you think about it, that movie needed to be total shit in order for us to not want to watch it.   I mean, seriously, can you imagine if your first date movie was something like Star Wars?  You don't want to actually watch the movie during a first date, but at the same time it's fucking Star Wars.  That bloody classic deserves your attention.  Unless, of course, it's The Phantom Menace, then by all means start making out.

And that's what we did, because The Master of Disguise is a waste of film, and there were only five or six other people in the same theater as us.  We sucked face in the theater during a shitty movie where Dana Carvey repeats the line, "turtle turtle turtle."  Boy, do I know how to show a girl a good time.

Our hot make-out session was only interrupted for a moment by two little girls.  They were at the movie with their parents a couple rows ahead of us and took the time to inform said parents that we were, indeed, "ewwww kissing!" And those two little girls grew up to be Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus.  Okay, that last part is a total lie, but I'm sure they remember more about The Master of Disguise than I do.
(Side note number two... I bought The Master of Disguise on DVD for Lovely Wife one year for our anniversary.  We've still never sat through the entire thing)

There was an awkward moment during the movie though.  Future Lovely Wife was concerned that I wasn't having a good time because I kept getting up, leaving, and then coming back.  She thought maybe I didn't really like her... even though I had already stuck my tongue in her mouth by this point.  Silly. In all actuality, I was starting to get the flu and I kept running to the washroom to blow my nose.  I didn't want her to see me blow my nose.  Thought it would ruin my chances of getting in her pants later.  Am I right, ladies?  Exactly.

After the movie I took her back to my place.  Okay, I took her back to my PARENTS place because I had moved back home for a little while.  This was an opportunity for Future Lovely Wife to meet my mom and dad, even though it was now close to midnight.  Mom was asleep.  Dad was awake when we came through the front door, and he was in his tighty-whities, peeing with the door open.  For the whole world to see.

This is where I'd like to end the story of my first date with Lovely Wife, and I'd love to be able to do so in some classic Disney-ish fashion, where we share another passionate kiss and promise ourselves to each other forever and ever.  Instead, I tried to get in her pants.  But that's tough to do when you live with your parents.  Some things take a little more time.

And hey, would'ja look at that - I ended up marrying her.  Now that's a love story.

- ryan of the ryan fan club

For Hallowe'en she was Supergirl and I was Johnny Depp.

5 Movies That Are Under-Appreciated

Today we're looking at five movies that are generally under-appreciated for different reasons.  Usually, you'll find people turning their nose up at these movies or just completely ignoring them without just cause.  So let's begin...

Home team!

1. Rocky V (1990)
The original Rocky flick won the Oscar for best picture in 1976.  Yes, it really did.  But by 1990, moviegoers  were pretty much done with Stallone's #1 character.  And that's too bad, because they missed out on a darn good movie.  You see, the previous Rocky sequels, while all wonderful in their own right, started following a formula in which Stallone has to square off against some bad-ass boxer for the championship.  So when Rocky V came along, everyone was in the mindset of "been there, done that" already.  What we ended up with was a great story of an athlete who is forced into retirement for his health, but still longs to be in the ring.  He's lost his wealth, and is forced to live in the poorest area of Philadelphia.  So he takes on a protege that just doesn't have the same heart and passion that he does.  This new kid is only interested in the fame and fortune.  Eventually, the teacher becomes the student and has to fight for his own pride and self-respect.  Really, if the actors were different and the characters had different names, you'd think it was the feel-good movie of the year.

Batman Returns Again

2. Batman Forever (1995)
The third Bat-flick isn't really as bad as it gets credit for.  Often times, because of it's visual style, the movie gets lumped in with that awful Batman & Robin sequel.  "Forever" is the only installment of this series that puts any focus on the psyche of Batman (which is what gets Nolan's movies so much credit) and the DVD has deleted footage of Bruce Wayne reading his father's diary that really adds layers to what makes this man don a cape and cowl.  Why it wasn't included in the film, I'll never know.  Perhaps it was too dark for the target audience.  The movie itself is up and down.  At times the story is very genuine, and then in the last twenty minutes they're clearly trying to sell us new toys.  In all fairness, the action sequences are really quite good, so most of those toys would be fun to play with.  The music is dreadful though.  They should have stuck with Danny Elfman's theme. Oh well.  I think when watching any movie of the super-hero genre, we have to remember that these movies are primarily made for young boys so we should try to let them re-capture our imagination.  The movies, not the young boys.

Crunchies & Munchies

3. The Black Cauldron (1985)
I bet you never thought a Disney cartoon would pretty much bankrupt their animation department.
Well, that's pretty much what happened.  Rumors have it that the great profits from The Little Mermaid helped recoup all the damage that was caused by the Black Cauldron.  This movie wasn't just under-appreciated by audiences, it was pretty much abandoned by Disney until 1998 when it was released on VHS.  The film certainly does not fit in with any other Disney animated feature.  It's dark, it has no ridiculous sing-along songs, and it's more aimed at boys instead of young girls who want to someday be a princess too.  Personally, I love the movie and wish Disney would take another stab at making animated features like this.  More adults are watching animation than ever before, and really, nobody does animation better than Disney, so there's absolutely an unexplored market for them to jump into.

...Doctor Acula!

4. Ed Wood (1994)
People love Johnny Depp.  People also love Tim Burton.  And people really love when Johnny Depp is in a Tim Burton movie.  So you'd think that Ed Wood would be in everyone's top ten.  But nope, it seems like nobody's ever heard of this perfect little movie.  Maybe it's because the flick is in black and white.  This is the story of the worst movie director of all-time, Edward D. Wood Jr., and how he makes some of the worst movies ever made.  It's a shame that less and less people have seen this movie (Martin Landeau won an Oscar for his performance in it) but they have no problem shelling out their hard-earned money for a really shitty fourth installment of Captain Jack Sparrow.  Johnny Depp has never been as quirky and funny as he is in Ed Wood, and Tim Burton gets the chance to pay homage to one of his inspirations.

Greatest movie ever.

5. Anything with Hulk Hogan in it
Seriously.  How did Hulk Hogan not win the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Rip, the WWF Heavyweight Champion, in 1989's "No Holds Barred"?  There's NOBODY that could play that role better than the Hulkster.  He was BORN to play that part.
And then there's "Mr. Nanny", a flick that shows Hogan's range as an actor, as he must save some brats from David Johanson (lead singer of the New York Dolls).  And wear a tutu while sipping tea.
Hulk Hogan is quite possibly the greatest actor of all-time.  I mean, he somehow managed to perform the exact same wrestling match for twenty-five years and keep people watching it.

So there you have it.  The weekend is here.  Go rent or download these movies if you've never seen them.  And if you have, give them another chance.