Draft Day

Draft Day, the latest movie from one of my all time favorite directors, Ivan Reitman is a complete and utter bore. The world could have continued spinning if this movie had not been made and no one would have felt cheated in the slightest way. It's a yawn inducing movie with a really bad bait and switch, and the switch is so unlikely that it borders on the ridiculous. Because of that, I give Draft Day one bucket of Killer Korn.











I am a football fanatic. I love the game and play fantasy football pretty much every season. I know the ins and outs of the off season and the comings and goings during the regular season. I have my favorite team who I pull for (I won't get into that here), I do watch the draft, and I even watch the combine. I say all that to say I know the game in all it's beautiful and flawed facets, so while watching Draft Day I realized one thing, this movie is not for people like me. The hardcore football lover will laugh and snicker and maybe even boo this movie, and it earns all such derision.

Draft Day takes place in one day, draft day. It follows Kevin Costner's Sonny Weaver Jr., the General Manager of the sorry Cleveland Browns. If you've seen the trailer you pretty much knew that going in, what that switch is that I mentioned above is the amazingly weak romance between Sonny and Jennifer Garner's character Ali. First off, there is absolutely NO chemistry between the two actors, and secondly the whole romance feels like it was put together and thrown in at the last minute. It just didn't feel organic and it came across as if the writers wondered what else they could throw into the script to give it heft.

I am not a big Costner fan because basically the man can't act anymore. He used to be a fine actor when he was younger, and if the Kevin Costner who played Jake in Silverado showed up, this movie would have been far more interesting to watch. Instead this movie is saddled with and the viewer is subjected to an actor who looks like he wants to retire. We get the same old Costner, hands on the hips, frustrated, and the same facial expression throughout. How would a woman as lovely as Ali fall for a schlub like Sonny? She wouldn't and yet, the director, producers, and the writers want us to buy this garbage plot line while Sonny wheels and deals on the most important day of any football team.

And when I say wheel and deal, I mean make a deal no GM would ever THINK about making. I almost dropped my popcorn (and you all know how I feel about my popcorn) when the big trade is made. Any GM that makes the deal Sonny does in this film would be run out of town by fans wielding torches and pitchforks, then they would burn down the facilities. This movie was clearly written by people who either don't like football or don't know it. Draft Day was just all over the place, it lacked focus and purpose which makes it in my opinion a truly bad film. I have heard some comparing this film to Brad Pitt's amazing Moneyball and that is just blatant disrespect for Moneyball. The two have absolutely nothing in common, not to mention one was a true story and one was a complete waste of time. Sadly the NFL hitched it's cart to a sickly horse that won't pull it's cart to the market. I say skip Draft Day, wait for the real draft because it will be imminently more interesting than the movie and enjoy the wings. I'll see you at the theater.

And be sure to visit me at MarkEricEntertainment.com

    

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the latest film by Anthony and Joe Russo is a very good improvement over their Captain America: The First Avenger, and in my opinion that wasn't hard to do. Whereas the fist Captain America movie was a boring snooze-fest, this latest foray into Steve Rogers wasn't all that much better. I found it to be lazy and uninspired and because the only thing I liked about this movie was the score, I give Captain America: The Winter Soldier one and a half buckets of Killer Korn.









Now maybe this is Marvels doing or the writers but there was never a time in this film where I felt Captain America wasn't going to win. There was never a moment where I felt the outcome wasn't in doubt, that Steve Rogers life, The Black Widows life, or for that matter Nick Fury's life was in danger. Now again, who do I blame for the anticlimactic feel of this movie? Is it Marvel who announced weeks before this movie that they are going to be releasing Captain America 3 on 5/6/16, so you know he doesn't die, no matter how hairy the situation may be or how bad ass the Winter Soldier is, or do I blame the writers? As a writer myself I feel it is my responsibility to tell a good story and to keep the reader entertained. The onus is on me to take the reader from pillar to post and back again, to keep the pages turning, for the reader to hate when the book ends and to make them want to start it all over again. As a writer, I am God, crafting a universe of substance out of nothing, and this is the reason I say the writers of Captain America: The Winter Soldier delivered a lazy and uninspired story, saved only by big explosions, massive shootouts, great fight sequences, and chase scenes (both by foot, car, and in the air). Remove that and you have something seen before and done a million times before that falls flat. Seriously, if you didn't see Nick coming back to life then you've never read Romeo and Juliet.

The writers of this cash grab are Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and Ed Brubaker. These three men should send back their checks because while Captain was entertaining on the basic levels, it completely failed to connect emotionally. Those three men were probably hampered by the Captain America comic book storylines which never seemed to grab anyone in the first place so why not change things up a bit, the average viewer would never know and you don't hurt the Cap franchise since Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron will have Cap in it anyway? Why bring back relics from Caps past? Hydra? REALLY? Couldn't come up with something better than to have Captain fight Hydra all over again? Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier, not looking a day over however old he was when he was dropped from the train in The First Avenger. Was he given the same Captain America, woolly mammoth frozen in ice treatment too? I was expecting the Red Skull to pop back up on the screen, I mean why not?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier has made a ton of money so far, and it's gotten rave reviews, which makes me wonder what movie the critics were watching but I digress. The only good thing about this film is they replaced composer Alan Silvestri with Henry Jackman who delivers a masterful score. It's tense, dark, light, poignant, and heroic. Simply put, it tries to deliver the emotional punch the film fails too and it is masterful. Where Silvestri was over the top with the heroic themes, Jackman toed that fine line of hero worship with mournful horns, poignant piano, and energizing synths. There was no bombast here, just a sturdy score which was unfortunately married to a really uninspired film. I'm sure I stand alone in that camp, but that's fine with me. I refuse to be spoon fed garbage and say it taste delicious because everyone else on the planet says it's so. We are all snowflakes, individuals with our own opinions, and mine is Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a tepid waste of your time and a movie you should skip and save for video.