USC and Stevie Tu’ikolovatu

Posted on by commbro

Normally, I wouldn’t write about a single transfer. There may come a day when I’m not bored during the offseason. But it is not this day. This day we write.

If you didn’t catch that reference, I am showing that I’m bored enough to have gone through the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions. Onto better things:

Stevie Tu’ikolovatu. The Silas Redd of defensive tackles.

  • Decent player? Check.
  • Thin at the position? Check.
  • Instant eligibility? Check.

You’ve seen the defensive line’s struggles last year. The beauty of football is that a single man can elevate the entire team. A good DT can draw a double-team from the offensive linemen. That frees up rush lanes for the defensive ends and outside linebackers, giving the opposing quarterback more pressure. More pressure means more mistakes for the defensive backs and linebackers to capitalize on. The better the defense works, the more chances the offense will have to get the ball. More chances equals more points. This is a slippery slope I can support. Can Tu’ikolovatu be that man—that difference maker?

Maybe. Did you just read this far for a maybe? Yes, but I think he has a good shot. Close the case! The esteemed City of Angles has given their stamp of approval!

/facetious (because /sarcasm is too mainstream).

Despite not being a starter with the Utah Utes, Stevie Tu’ikolovatu can be a huge asset to the team. Utah has had a stout defense, particular at the defensive line position group. Tu’ikolovatu has contributed to that—even against USC at some points. As noted, USC needs experience along the defensive line and Tu’ikolovatu brings that factor. In fact, he is a bit more experienced than most college players…at least in life.

The guy is actually 24, going on 25. Somehow, he managed to save some eligibility. He started at Utah in 2009 and redshirted that season. He then went on an LDS mission, returning in 2013 just to sit out with a foot injury. He actively played two seasons, rotating in for 2014 and 2015. After Utah happily invested time and energy into this player, USC swoops in to reap the benefits.

In this post-sanction reality, the logistics behind transferring and scholarships are always some of the first concerns that come up. Yet here I am answering that last. This is not breaking NCAA rules because graduate transfers are allowed to play immediately after transferring. The transfer cannot be restricted as long as they pursue a graduate degree not offered by the first school (which can easily be finagled). But what about scholarships?

USC is back up to the full 85 total scholarship player allowance, but they still have a bit until they hit that cap. So that’s not a problem. The Trojans have used up the 25 initial scholarships for the 2016 class, though. That brings us to the famed blue shirting, the latest and greatest term in a long line of the colorful college football terminology. Don’t worry, there are still less than the combinations for Oregon uniforms.

Former head coach Steve (not to be confused with Stevie) Sarkisian used it a few times and Helton continues that trend. Basically, a player starts as a walk-on, but then are “magically” bestowed a scholarship for the hard work after fall camp.

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And wow, look at that. I just fluffed up a piece about one player transferring into a 500+ word thing. The offseason is as magical as blue shirt scholarships.

By the way, I’m really not that bored. It just fit the narrative, so I ran with it. But anyway. who’s ready for Alabama?

Oh, I guess you can have some stats because I usually throw some into the CommBro Breaker:

Year Total Tackles Solo Tackles Assisted Tackles Tackles for Loss Sacks Passes Broken Up Fumble Recovery Ints TD
2015 28 15 13 6 2 2 1 0 1
2014 8 2 6 0 0 0 0 0 0

He arrives with a touchdown under his belt! How exciting.

X-Men Apocalypse: A review

Posted on by commbro

X-Men: Apocalypse

Runtime: 2 hours 24 minutes
Budget: Estimated to be $178 million

I highly considered doing a full on spoiler-filled review, but ultimately decided to keep the current format. It’s really hard to say a lot of things about this film without it.Yeah, I might be looking for excuses. But this movie’s creators should be too.

Without spoilers, I will mention some cameo moments were handled well, and some were, decidedly, not. Poor Jubilee. Even after the soft reboot, she continues to have inadequate film representation. Will she ever get a fair shake?

The film exuded more of a comic-booky feel, which is a departure from previous Bryan Singer directed X-Men films (X-Men, X2, Days of Future Past). Whether or not that is a good thing would depend on your kind of style. One unfortunate byproduct of that atmosphere were some bad puns and cringe-worthy symbolism. Much like some of the wooden dialouge.

Some of the dialogue felt seemed straight out of a rough draft of a school essay. Jennifer Lawrence certainly didn’t do much to improve those lines. While I generally like her performances in the movies I’ve seen (including First Class and Days of Future Past), her acting came off as lackluster to me in this installment. And it doesn’t stop there.

Bad dialogue can be improved by a good story and compelling characters, right? Yes, you’re right. Unfortunately, the villain was written in a generic fashion and the four horsemen were really just there to look pretty for a majority of the film. I can understand—and even appreciate—deviated from the source material to make historically good characters bad or bad characters good, but were the motivations really there? I didn’t think there was enough evidence for it. Don’t do it just to do it.

When all else fails you, there are still action scenes to keep the exciting going! Yeah, those fell flat too. Some of the fights looked like Dragon Ball Z with X-Men characters pasted over it.

It was a little higher budget than this. A little.

It was a little higher budget than this. A little.

The final fight was especially underwhelming even though that’s what most of the movie was building towards. Even when the choreography was good, it was hampered by the cuts. Their choices for transition points just didn’t help the pacing in the final sequence. It was quite jarring and left a very unsatisfying feeling.

Man, this is getting too long so I’m just going to cut to the CommBro Breaker

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The film was a mess overall, but had some extremely good elements and memorable scenes. It started out oh so promising, and then suffered. Before I start prattling on again, I’ll list a few of the big things I found good about the film:

  1. Michael Fassbender’s performance as Magneto (and various Magneto moments in the film)
  2. Evan Peter’s performance as Quicksilver (and various Quicksilver moments in the film)
  3. Various Psylocke action scenes (although far too short)

After everything negative I had to say about the film I would still sum up X-Men: Apocalypse as one word: mediocre. Just like this review…

The Nice Guys: A review

Posted on by commbro

The Nice Guys

Runtime: 1 hour 56 minutes
Budget: Estimated to be $50 million

After surviving the events of L.A. Confidential in 1953, Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger are both back at it in The Nice Guys about 20-something years later. The quiet life probably didn’t suit them, so they came back to LA to stir up crap—and stuff.

Funnily enough, the movies were made about 20 years apart. (1997 and 2016)

Funnily enough, the movies were made about 20 years apart. (1997 and 2016)

No, the films aren’t actually connected. This isn’t the Marvel Cinematic Universe here. Although, The Nice Guys was directed by Shane Black, director and co-writer of Iron Man 3. And also a Bruin.

At least they had a shot of the Felix car dealership across from USC.

A real LA gem

A real LA gem.

You could actually see the Gateway building…which didn’t even exist in 2007, let alone 1977. But since you didn’t come here for a USC history lesson…

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe put their sorry characters together to try and solve a mystery with as much grace and subtlely as Jar Jar Binks and Forrest Gump. Overall, the film was interesting and worth a watch, but didn’t do any one particularly impressively. That’s not an insult by any means, but an honest evaluation.

The screenplay was a solid one, with lots of quips and funny moments brought to you by Gosling. I don’t remember any of the jokes really falling flat. However, over-reliance on coincidences to solve their problems seemed to be almost cheating.

Gosling even brings up his apparent plot armor as a joke at one point. Maybe that’s the point. It’s supposed to be a comedy, after all. It was a little more grounded in reality than, say, The Other Guys, but very far from the aforementioned L.A. Confidential on the spectrum of serious or not. They got some kicks out of the recurring side jokes.

Sadly, while the daugther was funny and intriguing as a character, she was the physical embodiment of the script’s biggest problem. She became whatever they needed her to be at any given moment to drive the plot along.

Props (haha!) to costume designers and set builders. I didn’t live through the 70s, but the look and feel were mostly convincing—except for things like Gateway showing up, but non-USC people probably wouldn’t know the difference.

Again, the film suffered from some flaws, but wasn’t bad. If you like comedy and crime films, you will probably enjoy it. Give them credit for trying to make a movie that isn’t based on something else—unlike most of the trailers prior to the movie. Tarzan, Bourne, Warcraft, Doctor Strange, even the Free State of Jones…

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not that there’s anything wrong with that. My personal philosophy is that films that strive for an original idea should be commended. The problem comes in when films that are based on something are derided. As long as they make good films, it shouldn’t matter. CommBro out.

P.S. don’t drop mics because they’re expensive and fragile.

Captain America – Civil War: A Review

Posted on by commbro

Captain America: Civil War

Runtime: 2 hours 27 minutes
Budget: Estimated to be $250 million

In the latest Marvel film, #TeamAmerica and #WorldPolice duke it out over ideological differences.

worldpolice

Whoops. Wrong hashtags

Yeah, yeah. So it’s really #TeamCap and #TeamIronMan. But you got to admit that those hashtags are fitting.

Anyway, time for your spoiler-free review. I find the movie to be one of the best of the 13 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It took most of those films to build up the friction and tension between the heroes. The ticking time bomb finally exploded in Civil War, giving the audience an absolute spectacle. My gosh, those action scenes were intense and satisfying.

To the uninitiated viewer, it may seem like a lot of bloat and way too many characters to understand.That was simply unavoidable somewhere along the line in the MCU. If you are one that has missed a significant number of films (especially Age of Ultron), you may not get the full experience out of the movie. However, that won’t stop it from being enjoyable.

The movie isn’t just an enjoyable action flick with explosions all day. It throws in subtleties and callbacks to the other movies. There’s definitely some emotion, if you have been following the characters. The interspersed jokes were hilarious, serving to relieve some of the tension. Overall, I would rank the three Captain America movies as follows:

1-tie. Winter Soldier
1-tie. Civil War
3. The First Avenger

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I’ve got to add a disclaimer that this was one of my favorite trilogies, so may review could be kind of biased. While I fully admit it, I’m not going to recuse myself from writing a review. Just go watch the damn thing and decide for yourself.

In the spirit of Civil War, I will rank all the current MCU movies in order to bait some arguments:

1-tie. Winter Soldier
1-tie. Civil War
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. The First Avenger
5. Iron Man
6. The Avengers
7. Ant-Man
8. Age of Ultron
9. Iron Man 2
10. The Dark World
11. Iron Man 3
12. Thor
13. The Incredible Hulk

USC-NFL 2016: The Daft and the Draft

Posted on by commbro

As I was churning out this piece, I realized that it has been just over a year since I made the first post on City of Angles. My first football related post was about the NFL Draft in 2015.

Can you believe it’s already been an entire year?—And  somehow you’re still reading? WOW. Unless you just started reading. Come, pull up a chair. Don’t let me scare you away.

At the close of the seventh round, USC still leads the nation (and world?!) in most NFL draft picks from any single school. The “official” count is at 496, but we all know it’s actually 497 because of Bush (hint: we’re not talking about Jeb).

It’ll easily hit 500 after the 2017 draft. With guys like Zach Banner graduating and Adoree’ and JuJu eligible, There’s no way it won’t happen. After all, USC and Michigan are the only schools to have a player taken in every draft since 1939.

Ohio State had a buttload of draft picks and made significant strides to catch up the record. However, they’re still a long way off at third place (430). Notre Dame is the bigger danger at 493.

Before I get into all this other stuff look at all the results below:

Su’a Cravens Washington Redskins Round 2 Pick 22 53 Overall
Max Tuerk San Diego Chargers Round 3 Pick 31 66 Overall
Cody Kessler Cleveland Browns Round 3 Pick 31 93 Overall
Kevon Seymor Buffalo Bills Round 6 Pick 43 218 Overall
Soma Vainuku Houston Texans Undrafted Free Agent
Claude Pelon New York Jets Undrafted Free Agent
Antwuan Woods Tennessee Titans Undrafted Free Agent
Tre Madden Seattle Seahawks Undrafted Free Agent
Anthony Sarao Indianapolis Colts Undrafted Free Agent
Delvon Simmons Indianapolis Colts Undrafted Free Agent
Greg Townsend Jr. Oakland Raiders Undrafted Free Agent

And in case you’re interested in players that transferred away:

Former USC running back Amir Carlisle (transferred to Notre Dame) signed as an undrafted free agent to the Arizona Cardinals

Former USC quarterback Max Wittek (transferred to Hawaii) signed as an undrafted free agent to the Jacksonville Jaguars

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I’m going to preface this argument with this: I’m happy for Cody Kessler. I wish him as long and as successful of an NFL career as he wants. I’m glad he’s about to get a multi-million dollar contract.

Since we’ve gotten that out of the way, time for the honest opinion (angle) of one man. I don’t think he should have gone in the third round. It’s just another opportunity for naysayers of the world to say “oh look, another USC quarterback bust in the NFL.” Maybe they say it because they hate SC. Maybe they say it because they want to look like they know something. Or why not both? No matter what, it seems like a lose-lose-lose…except maybe for the Kessler bank account and agent.

I don’t think the Cleveland Browns are exactly the shining paragons of drafting quarterbacks well. Or of very much, actually. Kessler is unlikely to receive the support he needs to be successful at this program. Perhaps RGIII will fail in the system, then Kessler goes in throwing 6 touchdown passes like old times. You would see a post here saying, “I was wrong.” Until then, stay tuned.

For reference, Kessler was drafted higher than his predecessor, Matt Barkley (Round 4, Pick 1, 98 Overall). I think most would agree that Barkley was better than Kessler. The 2013 draft wasn’t exactly a deep year at quarterback either. The first one off the board was Florida State’s EJ Manuel at pick #16. Then Geno Smith (WVU) and Mike Glennon (NC State).

By the way, since that 2013 draft, the Browns have gone through nine starting quarterbacks. Whoever starts in 2016 will be #10.

USC Spring Game 2016

Posted on by commbro

USC vs. USC vs. USC (USC Spring Game)
April 16, 2016 at 3:00pm
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum: 23,000 (of 93,607 [As if they were going to pack out a spring game. This isn’t the Midwest])
Total Time: Approximately 1 hours 50 minutes

New coaches, new quarterback, and new athletic director make for an interesting spring. Too bad the annual “spring game” was anything but. There were a lot of 9 on 7 drills, situational plays, and just plain practice stuff during another hot day in Southern California’s eternal summer.

Eventually, they got to the good stuff with 11 on 11 and even live tackling. The only ones exempt to the hits were the four quarterbacks participating. It may not have been awe-inspiring, but we saw a few good things. For one, the vertical passing game is back and totally in style. Both Browne and Darnold completed some long passes.

Early on in the 11-on-11, Browne connected with Darreus for a large gain, but it was still iffy. Take a watch below:

Browne underthrew the deep pass, big time, but still completed it to Darreus Rogers. The three DBs present not only allowed the catch, they allowed Rogers to take the remaining 20-ish yards into the endzone. The ball traveled approximately 50 yards in the air—42 from the line of scrimmage. The added run made brought the play to 64 yards and a touchdown. Could’ve been worse, I guess. In the end, both Darnold and Browne’s stats look impressive:

Max Browne
7-of-11
114 yards
3 TD

Sam Darnold
6-of-7
63 yards
2 TD

The City of Angles advanced eye test alghorithm has deduced the following ranking of the four:

  1. Max Browne
  2. Sam Darnold
  3. Jalen Greene
  4. Matt Fink

Receivers dropping a copious amount of passes was still a thing. Luckily, they redeemed themselves a bit later on in the “game.”

The offensive line did decently in pass blocking, but allowed a few tackles for loss in the run game. Despite that, the running backs were the most consistent position group throughout.

Going back to the DBs, they clearly need some more work. They took some bad angles in the open field, and mistimed jumps. Those guys had some good pass breakups, though. Give them credit for that.

Towards the end of the day, Clay Helton gave blind longsnapper, Jake Olsen, a chance to snap the ball. He got a lot of cheers and applause for his two snaps.

CommBro Breaker

Once again, we find ourselves waiting to find out who they name as the quarterback starter. City of Angles has a great hot take. For today’s troll lineup, Max Browne should be the starting quarterback followed by Matt Fink in two years. Why? It’s quite simple. They must continue the legacy of the House of M. The QB starters that played a majority share of the season dating back to 1998 are as follows:

  1. Mike Van Raaphorst
  2. Carson Palmer
  3. Matt Leinart
  4. John David Booty
  5. Mark Sanchez
  6. Matt Barkley
  7. Cody Kessler

The House of M had some interruptions, but could’ve completed a dream of five in a row, as seen below. Instead, Cody CommBro Breaker Kessler came in and denied Max Wittek’s rightful place in the pantheon of USC quarterbacks with an M first name.

  1. Mark Sanchez
  2. Matt Barkley
  3. Max Wittek
  4. Max Browne
  5. Matt Fink

Look at the beautiful alliteration that was destroyed. Thanks Kessler.

Disclaimer: Clicking the random links strewn throughout the post should increase your understanding and viewing enjoyment.

Hardcore Henry: A review

Posted on by commbro

Hardcore Henry

Runtime: 1 hours 36 minutes
Budget: Estimated to be $250 thousand

Hardcore Henry was a movie funded on Indiegogo and bought by STX Entertainment, a fledgling studio, for $10 million. The over-the-top action sci-fi was filmed mostly on a GoPro camera. While the whole first person thing might be a gimmick, they certainly don’t survive over it. It was shot and set in Russia, starring a South African actor (Sharlto Copley) and off an extremely modest budget, just to make sure you knew this isn’t your average film.

As you may have guessed, the plot lacks substance. Basically, Henry seeks to kill the main antagonist, Akan. The film is more akin to The Raid: Redemption than Spotlight. Much like many of the video games that the movie pays homage to, the main character doesn’t even speak. Most of the exposition comes humorously through Jimmy.

The jokes in the movie probably save it from being a one-trick pony—kinda like my blog. The gags pervade every aspect of the film, down to how they display some of the subtitles. Stuff like that is where the true value of the movie lies.

Like you would expect, Hardcore Henry puts the gore on full blast. It could be awkward watch with your parents. If you’re a parent, don’t bring your kids. Send them to watch casual Henry instead. Or royal Henry on BBC, or a documentary of racist Henry building some Model Ts.

On top of the violence warning there needs to be a nausea warning. Watching things in first person tends to make a bountiful number of people sick. To avoid a bountiful amount of vomit coating the theater floors, you should all consider this in advance. I found it completely bearable, but the two others in my party had some trouble. The filmmakers went to great lengths to minimize it as much as possible.

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The movie really made me appreciate my nervous system and the immense amount of sensory input that it gives my brain. I had no idea what was going on around Henry for some moments. It really goes to show how much our senses do to give us a bearing of the world.

And because I must, I will close with one final pun: Henry must’ve been wearing one hardcore henley to not get ruined after everything he went through.

Batman v Superman: A review

Posted on by commbro

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Runtime: 2 hours 31 minutes
Budget: Estimated to be $250 million

Batman v Superman is the second DC Extended Universe (DCEU) film, following behind Man of Steel. It’s less boring than the non-action scenes of Man of Steel and was better than the Rotten Tomatoes rating would suggest. The movie sits somewhere between that and decent on the spectrum.

In case you needed a visual representation. Dug out from the City of Angles archive. Not.

In case you needed a visual representation. Dug out from the City of Angles archive. Not.

Batman v Superman had potential. Those expectations quickly changed to concern upon the first dream sequence. After pulling off an artful opening, they follow it up with a cringey scene…minutes into the movie. I felt that those dream sequences were one of the more horribly executed parts of the movie. The editing also gave it a run for its money.

Scenes, both necessary and unnecessary, kept getting tossed at you in a dizzying fashion (climax and epilogue are the biggest offenders). That really screwed with the pacing and was straight up jarring in certain moments. I understand that they had a lot to cram into the two and a half hours while also setting it up for the Justice League films. That shouldn’t be an excuse to create a hodgepodge of scenes that are confused about its own identity. However, these issues don’t stop it from being an entertaining film.

Luckily, they managed to fit in some visually satisfying action scenes. The film carries immense post-production value. The visual effects and sound editing keep it a theater-worthy experience. Post can’t save a weak script though…

The concept of Batman fighting Superman is great. There are so many reasons for them to fight. Somehow, they managed to make it feel unsatisfying. How do they spend a majority of the movie building up to it, yet make their reasons for fighting feel so contrived? Their little spat was akin to how a RomCom would play out. A simple explanation that takes a sentence or two would have cleared everything up. It’s called communication, people.But I guess not everyone can be a CommBro; it is a daunting and harrowing calling. Certainly not one taken by a reclusive rich man that saw his parents die or some alien that’s confused about his role on Earth.

RomCommBro Breaker

While I try to avoid comparing the DCEU to the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) and Fox Marvel properties, the comparisons are inevitable. However, I posit that my comparisons will be meaningless and without substance. Enjoy.

A Hydra agent (Callan Mulvey) finds new work in Metropolis after being beat up in Captain America: Winter Soldier. After you get beatdown by a super solider, why would you then move to a city where you could get beat down by a flying, superpowered alien? Curious.

The heir to the Yashida Corporation (Tao Okamoto) spends her time as an assistant to Lex Luthor at LexCorp. This is probably because she spent her entire family’s fortune to smooth over Silver Samurai incident in The Wolverine.

No, they’re not actually connected. I was found it funny that they took minor characters from Fox Marvel and Disney Marvel and brought them into the DCEU. When you’re an actor, work is work.

USC Spring Football Midterm Report 2016

Posted on by commbro

In case you're checking, yes, this isn't a recent photo. They didn't let us take pictures so this is from a 2012 spring practice.

In case you’re checking, yes, this isn’t a recent photo. They didn’t let us take pictures so this is from a 2012 spring practice.

We’re at about the halfway point in spring practice with the closing up on practice #7.The total of 14 practices culminate in the annual Spring Game on April 16.

Sadly, I’ve only been able to attend about two practices so far and I’ve mostly been watching the offense…but I’ll give you what I got. Yeah. You know that thing they say about “Don’t quit your day job“? Well, for your information, if I actually quit my day job, I’d be able to do more and write a better report. Kind of a catch-22 situation.

Since we’re on the topic, “catch-22” seems to be what Max Browne is trying out with the team. Zing! It’s one thing to try to spread the ball out amongst all your receivers, but passing to all the defenders isn’t exactly a winning formula. Okay, now that’s out of my system. But seriously, while I want Browne to win the starting quarterback job, he hasn’t done very well both Saturdays I was in attendance. The first time, he threw three interceptions, which was slightly offset by the two touchdowns. At the Coliseum this past Saturday, he only threw two near interceptions. Those were dropped by the defenders. However, he wasn’t able to complete very many passes either.

Maybe I’m the problem. Once is just life, twice makes a pattern. If I stop going to spring practices, maybe Browne will do better. Nah, forget that. I’m not the superstitious type. Let’s just cross our fingers that this isn’t a microcosm of the entire team. Wait…

Anyway, the offensive line, while improved in some areas, certainly don’t look good with the snap. A majority of them were high, wasting precious time fielding them. If that doesn’t get fixed, it’ll get real nasty in games—unless someone can pull one of these off:

The difference is we don’t have a Super Bowl winning scrambler at QB. We should sooner look for the return of Toa Lobendahn or Khaliel Rodgers. Nico Falah did decently filling in as a third-string center the past season, but his snaps haven’t impressed this spring.

There have also been quite a few drops by receivers, when either Browne or Sam Darnold have been leading the team. On the flip side, newcomer Josh Imatorbhebhe runs some of the sickest routes. His cuts are extremely crisp. I feel sorry for the DB that has to cover him—as long as he improves his focus while watching.

Lastly, Justin Davis has looked solid and consistent. He runs with authority and picked up some large gains on the ground. Ronald Jones also continues to excite. Based on the running backs’ performances during fall 2015 and this spring, I am not at all worried about this group.

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I wish I had more to report on the defense since we have a “new” defensive coordinator and all. At least I know those corners are doing their jobs!