Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Toby Maguire Unstoppable?

I love media day and the coverage of it. My favorite story came from ESPN’s Hashmark blog.
Michael Strahan was asked what actor would play him in a movie. "Someone funny," he replied. When one reporter suggested Forrest Whittaker, Strahan responded incredulously. "Forrest Whittaker!?!? C'mon man." Strahan finally settled on Will Smith: "We could bulk him up and put a gap in his tooth." As for the QBs, Strahan's choices: Eli Manning would be Toby Maguire. Tom Brady would be Brad Pitt.



First of all, sorry Mike, but Forrest Whittaker is right on.

Second, can there be a less confidence inspiring comparison? Toby Maguire vs. Brad Pitt? If for some reason Pitt was cast as the villain in Spiderman 4, I’m pretty confident that it would mean death for Spidey, as there is no way a character played by Pitt is being defeated by a character played by Toby. In the rare case that Pitt does die in a movie, it’s always a cowardly sneak attack by a much lesser character (Troy, Jesse James).

The more I think about it, though, it’s actually a pretty good call by Strahan. Eli does look a lot like Maguire and they both have the same “I’m about to cry but I’m not really sure why” facial expression. Plus, Toby always plays an underdog character. Based on his Sportscenter commercial with Peyton and Archie, I’d say Eli is a little better of an actor than Spidey. Pitt always plays the hero with an air of invincibility, which Brady clearly has.

Somewhat of a tangent, but I cannot tell you how sick I am of all the articles written about how “cool” Brady is. There was the Rick Reilly article months ago about him, in which Reilly sounded like a 13-year-old girl writing about a guy she had a crush on. Jemele Hill of ESPN.com recently wrote about how Brady was so cool that it was ok for him to leave his pregnant girlfriend for a supermodel. I know he’s a good looking guy, and has been a clutch player throughout his career, but people seem to ignore the fact that his charisma level is somewhere between Tim Duncan and Janet Reno. Brady could never do any of the commercials that Peyton does. As a matter of fact, I am recasting Brady as Keanu Reeves.

Other thoughts
-Either Johan lost his pitching hand in a shark fishing accident and everyone knows about it except for Minaya, or the Mets made the steal of the century.
-Just to echo what Pat said yesterday: I hope Brady’s boot means that he has irreparable tendon damage and will not be able to play this Sunday, but realistically, it’s pretty much meaningless. Curtis Martin once said that he could never walk on Monday after a game, so the fact that Brady decided to wear a brace while walking around New York City two weeks before game day doesn’t make me want to house to bet on the Giants. And the only reason for Schilling’s bloody sock is that he didn’t put a Band-Aid on because he was afraid it would hurt ripping it off (does anyone really think Schilling is the first athlete in the history of sports to have a shot before a game?)

-Hey Pat, now you know how I felt in the Eagles-Patriots Super Bowl


Andrew Vitelli

Picture Credits: http://www.ncaa.org/awards/honors_program/top_eight/2004/ManningEliHead.jpg (Eli)
http://www.boxofficepsychics.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/tobey-mcguire.jpg (Toby)
http://www.thesportshernia.com/football/images/brady.jpg (Brady)

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