Scoring's up, but not me

When your fantasy world turns upside down: How to survive Tony Romo, Drew Brees& Matt Forte woes

Tony Romo is down and your fantasy football may be on the way out.
Drew Brees is throwing as many INTs as a vintage Ryan Leaf.
Can Chad Ochocinco keep using his hands for more catching and less Tweeting?

Last week, I was tempted to write in this column about how Week Six was one of those rare fantasy weeks for me when everything falls into place. All three of my teams scored triple digits in winning handily, and I figured that I would talk about how awesome it felt when things come together like that, especially since it’s such a rare occurrence.

I ultimately decided against it, fearing that it would be show of hubris, causing the fantasy gods to show offense and immediately plague my team with locusts or floods or ACL injuries.

Apparently, even considering such braggadocio was enough to turn my fortunes against me, because I suffered through a heinous Week Seven. On the NFL’s highest-scoring week in two years, even though two of my three leagues have scoring systems so liberal that your players practically get points for drinking Gatorade, I managed to crack 50 points in just one of the three leagues and was soundly beaten in all three.

What’s impressive is that I managed to underwhelm in a variety of ways. There were poor performances by reliable players, idiotic lineup decisions by yours truly and one injury that not only ruined my week in one league, but possibly destroyed my championship hopes. Let’s take a look back at this carnage. Maybe you can take some sort of lesson from this horror show

In my NFC-only league, which I run and contains close friends and family, I came into the week at 3-3, but riding high after back-to-back huge efforts gave me the overall point lead. But my team has been notoriously all-or-nothing, and this was a nothing week, with all my weaknesses glaring brightly. My top running back, Matt Forte, was supposed to be Marshall Faulk in the Mike Martz offense but instead gets about as much carries as Trung Canidate used to. And Michael Crabtree went back in the Witness Protection Program after emerging from hiding the past few weeks. My brother’s team beat me by a jillion.

Next up was my work league, where the situation was very similar: So-so record (3-3), but solid point totals. Plus, I thought that this was the week that my first-round pick, Drew Brees, would have a bust-out day against the lowly Browns. By his fourth interception, it became abundantly clear that wasn’t going to happen. This actually was the least of my disasters, as Brees got some garbage points and Ochocinco finally used his hands for catching and not tweeting.

Still, my two heretofore reliable runners, LeSean McCoy and Rashard Mendenhall, struggled, leaving me vulnerable to a Monday night comeback by my opponent.

Worst of all was the debacle that my online league suffered. This team was unbeaten after six weeks somehow, despite the fact I whiffed in the draft with early choices on Ray Rice on Larry Fitzgerald. I caught a break by playing a guy who scored just 63 measly points, and yet my team sputtered and stumbled their way to a pathetic 34 points heading into Monday night.

It would have helped if I had Kenny Britt on my roster. Oh, wait, I do have Kenny Britt on my roster; I just chose to sit him in favor of Jabar Gaffney. Oof!

Yet I still had my quarterback in play on Monday night, and a big game would allow me to come back for an ugly victory. If you haven’t guessed that my quarterback was Tony Romo, then you haven’t been paying much attention.

By the time I turned off the TV on Monday night, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. The bottom line is that I’m probably not as smart as I thought two weeks ago, nor as dumb as I seemed last week. Who knows what this Sunday will hold?

If it’s another like last week, I’ll be switching to a Fantasy Celebrity Apprentice League real quick.

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Movie Review

Supergirl fails to take flight in a movie weighed down by grief

Photo courtesy of DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures

Milly Alcock in Supergirl.

Last year's Superman reboot brought a renewed sense of optimism for, if not the concept of the comic book movie, then at least the DC Comics universe. After more than a decade of DC films that felt mostly creatively bankrupt, the leadership of James Gunn gave the story a sense of fun. That included the brief introduction of Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, who’s now getting her own showcase in, naturally, Supergirl.

When we first met her in Superman, Supergirl was in rough shape, arriving at the Fortress of Solitude visibly inebriated. Nothing has changed at the beginning of this film, save for her aimlessly traveling around the universe with her rambunctious dog, Krypto. One of her random stops puts her in the same bar as Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who is looking for help tracking down Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a group known as the Brigands after they brutally murdered her family.

Kara is initially loath to offer aid, but when Krem shoots a poison dart into Krypto while escaping, her motivation goes way up, especially since Krem holds the antidote. Kara, with Ruthye doggedly following her, uses every means available to her to find Krem, a journey that is hampered by galaxies having different colored suns than the one that gives her powers, the yellow sun.

Directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira, the film is a big step back in the fun category, not least because Supergirl is deep in her feelings for much of the film. Her personal trauma, which is detailed in occasional flashbacks, gives a reason for her depression, but fails to land fully. The story seems to want everyone to be sad, as it includes a child trafficking ring and multiple instances of families being murdered.

Milly Alcock and Krypto in Supergirl.Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

To try to counteract that downer material, the filmmakers give Supergirl many opportunities to show off her fighting skills. While still CGI-heavy, the action scenes contain enough of a semblance of reality that they feel exciting. Unfortunately, this is undercut by the inclusion of several slow-motion sequences, giving the impression that the filmmakers didn’t trust the actors to deliver the goods on a consistent basis.

Superman (David Corenswet) makes a handful of appearances in the film, and while his presence is welcome given how well the character came across in the previous movie, it also doesn’t allow Supergirl to become her own person. Almost everything she does is colored by either her cousin or her parents, and since her powers are identical to those of Superman, there is very little that makes her story unique aside from how she’s dealing with the fallout.

Alcock (House of the Dragon, Sirens) gives an appealing performance despite her character being drunk and/or moody most of the time. She definitely sells what Supergirl is going through, so if given a better story in a future film, she’s proven her capability. Schoenaerts makes for a pretty good villain, although he’s aided by a look that includes a face full of studs. Jason Momoa has a memorable supporting role as the bounty hunter Lobo, even if his character doesn’t add much to the story.

While not a full-on disaster, Supergirl does not continue the momentum that Superman started. With a story that’s more concerned with showing audiences death scenes than a hero saving people, the film doesn’t seem to understand the appeal of a character like Supergirl or how to make her someone audiences will return to over and over again.

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Supergirl is now playing in theaters.

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