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some things from action movies I would like to do in 2025

this list was easy to make. almost... too easy...

In no particular order:

— learn something from a chatty driver that proves to be useful later

— have someone ask me for help with a big project and then look them in the eye and tell them I’m retired

— end up doing this one last job anyway after they insist it has to be me because I’m the best who ever did it

— use the phrase “get me the schematics”

— get chewed out by a gruff superior for my loose-cannon shenanigans

— have the same gruff superior later admit that while my methods are unorthodox I still get results, dammit

— attend a secret auction in a mansion hosted by a mysterious woman with an unplaceable accent

— slip a cell phone into someone’s pocket when they’re not looking and then call the phone a few minutes later to tell them something that wasn’t safe to share in person

— end a phone call and then immediately snap my flip phone in half and then toss the two pieces into separate dumpsters

— snoop around a warehouse while funky music plays in the background

— tell a police officer that he needs to release me because there’s a larger plot afoot that he doesn’t see

— access a hidden room using a retina scanner

— unlock an incapacitated colleague’s phone in an emergency by using their Face ID

— think I have an adversary cornered only to have him escape using parkour

— know someone who goes by The Barracuda

— uncover a plot that takes down the fat cats in city hall

— have a sinister businessman reveal his plot to me in a long monologue delivered from a desk with a tank filled with exotic fish behind it

— wear an overcoat draped on top of my shoulders with my arms not in the sleeves like an evil tycoon

— crash a gala

— initiate ghost protocol

— find out if my van can drift around corners

— tell someone that even though our goals and methods appear to be at odds, we are not so different, actually

— do the thing from the Bourne movies where I end a phone call with someone by telling them they “look tired” and thus revealing that I’ve been nearby and watching them the whole time

— use binoculars more, just generally

— hide a valuable piece of information inside a book that has been hollowed out

— find a hidden compartment in a desk that contains nothing but an unmarked flash drive

— watch an airplane soar off into the sunset and smile knowingly in a way that implies I know who is on it and where they are going

These seem like a reasonable place to start.

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STUFF I TYPED

— Vulture let me empty out my screencaps folder to hand out some very silly TV awards

— wrote about news bloopers, which I adore

STUFF I CLICKED ON

— good interview with Bill Lawrence about Shrinking, a show I enjoy

— fascinating story about the woman who controls the Bond franchise — Barbara Broccoli, great name — just being a huge thorn in Amazon’s side as they try to turn it into content

— cackled the whole way through Defector’s annual accounting of groin-related injuries

— settle in for a great long Adam Scott profile

— a really good blog about the value of being bored

— hard to explain how excited I am about the Abbott/Sunny crossover, which Alan Sepinwall spoke to Quinta Brunson about