type click mailbag: airplane movies and skydiving rappers

big shoutout to zelma shoulders

As usual, a few notes before we begin:

• Here again is our monthly mailbag column, which you can submit questions/rants/ideas to either as comments under this post or replies to the email you’re reading now if you already subscribed

• In the seven days since last week’s newsletter about the Great Patty Melt Resurgence of 2024, I have received a slew of pictures of and/or stories about patty melts you guys ordered, and I really do have to say that it has been a very enjoyable social media experience for me

• There will be no newsletter next Sunday so I will see you goofballs in two weeks

Here we go…

FROM JEN!

What is your ideal airplane movie? Asks me, who will be flying to Italy and back with her mother shortly.

An indication of what might work for me: my favorite movies I've watched on the treadmill are Barb and Star, and Confess, Fletch (Queenpins was also OK though I kept being bothered about the tone of the movie being wrong).

So two things are worth noting here before I give my answer. One is that I have not, technically, been on an airplane in many years because traveling in a wheelchair is a huge pain in the neck and it’s easier to drive, but I still understand the general vibe of “an airplane movie.” You need something kind of chill and fun, not overly stressful or emotional so you’re not the maniac crying in the seat while you’re thousands of feet over the ocean, all of it. I love these kinds of movies on the ground so I think I can be of service here. 

The second thing is that I love that both of the examples you gave here feature absolutely iconic and unhinged performances by Annie Mumolo, and yes, this is where I post the “Woodbird and Bernstein” screencap from Confess, Fletch, which I just watched again last week and still whoops ass. 

But to the answer. We can go a few ways here. The Nice Guys is always a blast. Out of Sight is worth a rewatch every 6-8 months or so. So is Spy, even if watching it always makes me angry that no one else has really let Statham flex his comedy muscles since. I got angry just typing that sentence. It’s a problem. 

But yeah, I think the answer is Game Night, the ensemble comedy from 2018 with Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams and Sharon Horgan and Lamorne Morris and about six other people who are great. Jesse Plemons is so good in that movie. I think about this entire scene every time I see a bag of Tostitos. 

“These corporations… I don’t know what they’re doing” is a line I quote constantly, sometimes without realizing I’m doing it. Good airplane movie. 

FROM PATRICK!

What's your TV show that you're deeply, deeply in love with, but for whatever reason, it's been passed over and hasn't entered the television canon?

Like, what show makes you feel like Alan Sepinwall does about Terriers or Kathryn VanArendonk does about Kings?

Patrick there are so many. Detroiters, Lodge 49, my beloved and insane Zoo, I could go on. And I might some other day. But the answer here is Patriot, the Amazon comedy/drama about a depressed spy kind of frumping around the world doing missions.  God, that was good. I bet it still is. Maybe I’ll rewatch it all this summer. Maybe we all should. 

But until then, let’s just watch this video like 10-12 times. 

Ugggghhhh what a good show. I need all of you to go watch Patriot now. I’m serious. Drop whatever you’re doing. Call out of work. This is Patrick’s fault, not mine. 

FROM JOE!

At work today I came across an old property deed from the 1960s where the Grantor was a woman named Mrs. Zelma Shoulders. Just thought you should know.

I love her.

FROM HOLLY!

What is something about using a wheelchair that you wish everyone knew? Could be a serious thing or something frivolous but useful, but I imagine there’s got to be at least a few things you’d like to yell at people sometimes. So here’s where you can yell it!

Hmm. Holly, this is a good question. I could go a lot of ways here. For the sake of simplicity, let’s rip through this in a few bullet points:

• If you are designing a fancy suburban shopping center, please do not add little artificial texture to the sidewalks to try to recreate a rustic little downtown, even if you think it is cute, because that makes the sidewalks bumpy and then all the k-cups and body wash I just bought at Target ends up on the ground, which is an example that definitely didn’t not happen last summer that I am still annoyed about

• Seriously, for real, do not park in handicapped parking spots, even if you’re just running in and tossing your four-ways on, because there are a suuuuper limited number of those spots and even fewer with the little area blocked off next to them for the ramp to come out of my van and I assure you it is less of a pain for you to walk an extra 200 feet than for me to deal with the consequences of you taking my damn spot

• Please try to keep the floors of public spaces kind of open and roomy so I do not end up knocking over mannequins every Christmas at the mall

These are little ones but a decent place to start. 

FROM SAM!

What do we think Redman has been up to since obtaining his skydiving license a year and a half ago?

The incredible thing here is that I had somehow forgotten about this. This is not the type of thing I should forget about. It’s not the type of thing any of us should forget about. So, yeah, thank you, Sam. Here’s the tweet in question, which won’t embed here properly because our various tech overlords are huge babies with full diapers, but let’s look at the text itself…

I worked HARD for this !!

27 JUMPS and Studied Hard for my Written Exam and Passed TODAY !!

I'm an OFFICIAL A LICENSED SKYDIVER !!

I'm WILDING IN THE SKIES

… and let’s look at a video of Redman skydiving, just because… I don’t know. I don’t think we need an excuse. We deserve a little treat sometimes.

It is infuriating to me that this isn’t either a docuseries or the plot of a movie by now. We’ve had time. Give me a movie about Redman stealing priceless artwork off of a billionaire’s private jet and skydiving to safety. And give me the docuseries. Have him take other celebrities skydiving. Picture Redman and, like, Anne Hathaway up in a little plane getting ready to leap out of it. Make it a stop on every major press tour like Hot Ones is now. Call it “WILDING IN THE SKIES.” It’s incredible how fast I just went from “I forgot Redman liked to skydive” to “EVERYONE IN HOLLYWOOD SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES.”

Maybe not that incredible. It does happen kind of a lot. 

STUFF I TYPED

— my weekly Rundown column, which opens with a section about how Shogun is a kickass show we should all watch and closes with an update about the zoo in England RUINING MY BELOVED CUSSING PARROTS JESUS CHRIST

— I wrote about the new Mr. and Mrs. Smith series a few weeks ago and how much I enjoyed it but think enough time has passed that I can post these screencaps without getting yelled at about spoilers

STUFF I CLICKED ON

— Jessica Toomer interviewed two of the stars of Shogun and you should read it because I am very serious about all of us watching it

— Liz Shannon Miller wrote an important piece that I agree with fully about how Hollywood needs to stop putting huge spiders in movies

— a wild story about mobsters and flim-flam men doing some ugly and stupid fraud in Philly

— a good/long blog — I’m just gonna call fancy opinion columns “blogs” from now on — about how Hollywood is in a tailspin and needs to consider new ideas like maybe making a Nice Guys sequel (last part is me editorializing but still worth considering)

— I don’t remember why I watched the “Something Stupid” montage from Better Call Saul again this week but it’s so good I don’t think I need an excuse

 

— speaking of Bob Odenkirk I love him very much

— one of my favorite business developments in years: Wendy’s rolled out a $20 million plan to surge-price cheeseburgers and had to back off of it 36 hours later because everyone yelled at them a lot

— Lisa Ann Walter from Abbott Elementary got roasted by her son for dressing like Dua Lipa at an awards show and that is a healthy parent-child relationship in my opinion

— man busted with (actual) pythons in his pants

— important developments at the Doomsday Vault

— the see-through baseball pants controversy continues to delight me and this article and the quotes in it from Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos are a must-read on the subject

— BAD NEWS: The Flavortown Festival is canceled 

— GOOD NEWS: The Paddington Festival is ON

— an Allen Iverson crossover compilation, which was sent to me on BlueSky and made me very happy

Okay, that’s it for this week. Please subscribe and have a donut.