We didn't forget about this -- and received some pretty good e-mails actually when we asked you, the public, to come up with characters/comparisons for Notre Dame's football players. This off the heels of a report that Irish quarterback Brady Quinn might play George Gipp in a movie remake.
Here were some of your responses:
I want to see The Shark (Eds. note, Jeff Samardzija) as a comical villian in the next BatMan movie. Use your imagination .. the possibilities seem incredible. Just picture that big smile with his pointy teeth. Just have to come up with a clever gimmick. How about the arch-BatMan? A guy who made incredible amounts of tech money (eg Google, etc.) who has turned to crime for excitement after the money wore off. He still loves to live a rich bachelor lifestyle, but he gets his kicks frustrating Bat Man.
- JustIrish
Irish, we would have loved for you to attach a name to this, but yeah, we can see it. The smirk, the hair, the lanky frame. Samardzija would make a good movie villian. Maybe he could throw fire or something because he throws baseballs when not catching Quinn passes. But good effort.
How about Bob Morton as Ralph Malph in a Happy Days movie, or as Poindexter (Timothy Busfield) in the upcoming Revenge of the Nerds remake?? Jeff Samardzija as Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears (Jackie Earle Haley is the actor's name), or Trevor Laws as Bob's bodyguard if they ever make a Marley movie. I guess he would likely lose out on that role to Rohan Marley though...
-Tony Spilotro
Highland Park, Ill.
Tony, we like the spirit here. The Morton role is good, although he'd need to slim down a bit to pull off the part. Samardzija actually looks like a young Haley, who has aged a bit according to his IMDB profile. Look at his other pictures, though, and you'll see the resemblance. Laws, that might be the best one, especially since the dredded-out defensive tackle has stated in the past his favorite place to visit one day would be Jamaica.
How about Michael Rothstein starring as a real journalist?
-Jack's Total Disdain
Jack, we love the anonymous shot you take. We are guessing there is sarcasm laced in the statement. But in all seriousness, nice shot. We set ourselves up for it.
In other suggestions, reader Sean wanted to see Tom Zbikowski play Pat Tillman. We're sure there will be a movie at some point, but we're not sure if Zibby could pull off the accent or the hair. But that's what makeup people are for.
It also got us to thinking...and we've got some others as more of look-a-likes.
- Chris Frome as Mike Dexter in "Can't Hardly Wait." Dexter was played by Jennie Garth's husband, Peter Facinelli. Again, his IMDB picture doesn't do it justice, but scroll through the other ones.
- Kicker Bobby Renkes in a bunch of Paul Bettany roles. Bettany has been a character actor in many movies, including "A Knight's Tale" and "A Beautiful Mind."
- We would also be remiss if we did not mention a link pointed out to us by reader Ted, pointing us to a post on Notre Dame blog Blue-Gray Sky back in 2004. After looking at it, it was too good to pass up. Wanna see, click here.
That's what we got for now, but we are going to make it a weekly feature.
We're still going through the ND-UNC predictions, but don't forget to send us your ND-Air Force predictions to mrothstein@jg.net.
-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette
Sorry I couldn't come up with a name for the villian. There are so many possible spins on the character that I don't want to pigeon hole it. But I'm thinking it might be a play on the name of one of the internet moguls.
Posted by: justirish | November 07, 2006 at 12:24 PM