type click mailbag: what movie franchise should we plop Marshawn Lynch into?
your questions, answered (by me)
Hello and welcome to another edition of the type click mailbag. The format remains the same:
- Every now and then I will send out an email to paid subscribers asking for submissions to one of these
- The questions can be about almost anything, from film/TV to sports to weather to questions about disability/wheelchair stuff to… well, whatever else you guys want my opinion on
- I will pick out 8-10 of the submissions and blog up my answers
Pretty straightforward. If you wanna play along in the next one, you can do that by upgrading your subscription…
… riiiiiiiiiight here.
To your questions.
From Brandon!
Because I'm right there with you in thinking that Marshawn Lynch deserves to be in more things, lets say that Lynch is approached by a major studio and made the headliner in a globally recognized franchise -- but he HAS to commit to that franchise above all other engagements. Which one would get you the most excited? The obvious answer would be Fast & Furious or The Muppets, but those work partly because everyone else is already playing with ludicrous characters -- especially Ludacris -- and Lynch's natural charisma and energy would just fit in instead of being a unique tone shifter.
But what about the MCU? Let Lynch punch out evil Robert Downey Jr and it'll earn Disney another billion. Star Wars? Give Beast Mode a lightsaber and see what happens. Mission: Impossible? Hell yeah I want to see Ethan Hunt get tackled by a former Pro Bowler and then still have the wherewithal to jump out of a plane. Star Trek? The Matt Reeves Batman universe? Maybe the Paddington series needs to give the adorable little bear a fellow "new to London" best friend who also happens to be a star former running back. If Lynch only has one major franchise future going forward, what should it be and why?
(P.S. The obvious answer is Knives Out, right?)
This is such a difficult question to answer. It’s difficult because Marshawn Lynch is a much better actor than I ever expected him to be — watch Bottoms, thank you — and I want to see him thrive in his post-football career. It’s difficult because I would prefer to have him come into a situation where he adds value long-term, where he’s more than just a disposable goon for the hero to dispatch. It’s difficult because a lot of the kinds of franchises we think of for these things are (or should be) in their final laps of relevancy. Like, would he be fun in a Fast & Furious movie? Yes, of course. But adding another member to the team in the 11th movie might not be the best use of a valuable resource. Same with the MCU. And Star Trek/Wars, to some extent.
This brings us to my three suggestions…
Knives Out — Technically, this was Brandon’s suggestion but it is solid. The downside is that it would just be a one-off appearance. The upside is that it would be very fun to watch him get questioned by Benoit Blanc after a murder. Lots to consider here.
Inside Out — Cartoon Marshawn Lynch as an emotion in a teenage girl’s brain, just clanging around and swearing so much it results in the first-ever R-rated Pixar movie.
Blade — The Mahershala Ali Blade movie has been gummed up for years now. It’s time to move on. It’s time to let Marshawn Lynch play Blade.
It’s time to let Marshawn Lynch play Blade.
IT’S TIME TO LET MARSHAWN LYNCH PLAY BLADE.
This is the best idea I have ever had.
From Jen!
Who is your ideal Oscar host - who has not hosted before?
Tracy Morgan.
This is the second-best idea I have ever had.
From Bob!
Are you aware that there is a famous (well, he comes up a lot on google anyway) wakeboarder in Florida named Brian Grubb, and given the option, would you take more of a Highlander approach, or live and let live?
Oh, I am very aware of Brian Grubb, professional extreme sports athlete. It used to annoy me a little that someone with my exact name was dominating the Google results for the first few pages, but now I kind of enjoy it. It’s a nice buffer to have, a teeny shell of anonymity online that lets me know anyone creeping on me has to do the work of clicking through a few pages of stories about some dude throwing himself off of a building in Dubai before they find out what I’m up to. It ain’t jumping off a building in Dubai, I’ll tell you that much.
It’s also fun because it means the two most famous Brian Grubbs are 1) an extreme sports athlete who does death-defying feats of athleticism as a career, and 2) a disabled guy who mangled his spine falling out of a loft and now blogs about silly network television shows, which feels like a nice way to balance out our energy.
From David!
Rank the following Apple TV shows in terms of worst to best places to work. Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Mythic Quest, Slow Horses, and Severance. I was going to include For All Mankind but there are too many workplace options within the show.
From worst to best:
Severance — Evil corporation doing physical and psychological experiments on their employees’ brains and sometimes dragging them out into the wilderness. No thank you.
Slow Horses — Boss is a cranky and smelly man. No great shot at career advancement. Everyone you work with got moved out of their previous position for being a screw-up or a prick. One of your colleagues seems to die every season. No thank you.
Mythic Quest — Lovely show but everyone in that office is completely out of their mind. Also, I would not want to work for a video game company because then I would be subject to the whims of video game dorks, or at least the one who writes lots of aggressive comments about whether the female character got less hot and why that represents to fall of our society. Nope. Not for me.
Shrinking — Positives include: Everyone you work with cares about you; good salary; working with Jessica Williams seems fun; nice kitchen stocked with snacks and beverages. Negatives include: Terrible work/life balance; needy coworkers; mental health is a stressful field; I really cannot stress in strong enough terms how much I would not enjoy working with Jimmy.
Ted Lasso — Boss who cares about you. Being a professional athlete seems cool. Pay is nice. Would be fun to get Roy all riled up with long and boring stories about your day. Beats getting murdered or having your brain tinkered with by mad scientists.
From Eddie!
My question: How much do you think actors remember/care about the also-rans in their catalog? I thought of it recently watching Harrison Ford on the Captain America press tour and desperately wanting someone to ask a deep-cut Hollywood Homicide question because of how hilariously dismissive he would be at it. From your experience are there more that just appreciate the cash grab of it (Olyphant with Hitman movie) or some who treat all roles as their sacred babies?
I am possibly biased here because I remember almost nothing I’ve written as soon as two weeks after it’s been published. People will sometimes reference something of mine they liked and it’s very sweet but then I will have to Google it and sift through three pages of results about extreme sports athletes to find and remember the piece they’re talking about. I’ve got to assume most actors with extensive credits fall into the same trap. Like, maybe they remember the people they worked with or a fun story from the set, but I can’t imagine Tommy Lee Jones has any recollection of being in Mechanic: Resurrection.
He was in that movie, for the record. He looked like this.
Do I find it strange that I have forgotten entire 2500-word articles I wrote that required a week of thinking and writing and research and that I was proud of upon publishing but my brain can call up “Tommy Lee Jones was in the sequel to a Jason Statham movie” at a moment’s notice? Hmm. Perhaps. Let’s pretend it’s fine.
From Alice!
Can you do some more TV recs & matchmaking: like - what am I going to do with myself//watch//obsess over once Severance ends?
Alice, hello.
The two shows I’ve been hearing the most chatter about recently are Paradise and The Pitt. People seem to be really into those right now, especially the kind of people who enjoy a show like Severance. I cannot provide any more specific info here, unfortunately, because I have watched almost none of either show. The big twist in Paradise kind of lost me (“Lost” me, more like) and The Pitt doesn’t do it for me because I’m not great with hospital shows.
I have been watching Reacher and The White Lotus, though. If you enjoy shows where people get murdered and take HUGE swings on regional accents, you simply cannot find anything better on television right now.
From Chris!
What was your favorite part of the Mic'd Up from the Super Bowl victory of our beloved Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles?
Thank you for asking. The answer is the sack-sack-interception stretch starting just after the 13:00 mark, where Nick Sirianni is counting out the sacks on the sideline and the Eagles are starting to demoralize the Chiefs. Yes, I will link to it again.
This is my favorite television show.
From Cotton!
Which Philadelphia Eagle would make the best sandwich? I know Jalen Hurts has that cheese steak with Cooper Sharp, but personally I trust a guy like Nolan Smith. He's from Savannah and I can attest that they eat good down there.
While I do appreciate your reasoning here, I think you are forgetting the most important culinary rule of all: Do not go to a person in incredible physical condition for information about sandwiches. You need a Big Guy for that kind of thing. An offensive lineman. Preferably one who shaves at his leisure and gets ripped on Bud Light at a championship parade and shouts obscenities into a live microphone on multiple occasions.
You need, in short, someone like Landon Dickerson.
I bet that man makes an incredible sandwich. Go Birds.
STUFF I TYPED
— Severance blog for Vulture, which covers some of the ickiest love triangles you can possibly imagine
— I am so excited for the casino night cruise ship heist on Doctor Odyssey to be thwarted by Angela Bassett
STUFF I CLICKED ON
— James Bond now belongs to Amazon
— Scorsese and DiCaprio are making a movie with The Rock
— Vince Gilligan wants more good guys on television (good thread on it here)
— one of the best mustaches on television is set to return
— Jury Duty already filmed its second season, which you probably didn’t even know was coming
— Biff Wiff, the actor who played Crashmore and a few other memorable characters in I Think You Should Leave, passed away recently and I actually got very sad about it
— the gang who robbed a bunch of athletes’ homes got busted in part because they posted selfies with the stuff they stole
— people are trying to get around rising egg prices by renting chickens
— Judd Apatow wants to make a Norm Macdonald documentary
— “Pokemon fans are bidding thousands on a Charizard-shaped Flamin’ Hot Cheeto”
— the Sheetz-Wawa war has escalated
— I am so mad they killed the P00P scorebug
— John Turturro and Christopher Walken are adorable
— my buddy Andy Isaac, who many of you might know from social media as the creator of Faturday and a maniacal Detroit sports fan, is entering hospice treatment after a long fight with cancer and, while that is making me very sad, it was very cool to see all the Detroit professional sports team (and his alma mater, Michigan State) do this tribute to him over the weekend
Okay, that’s it for this week. Please share and subscribe and be good to each other.
