Niners draft ... Ricky Pearsall ... ?

I'm not really too into criticizing Shanny and Lynch's draft picks, or really most of the NFL GMs. This is because I have a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the time and resources they have in scouting and researching these kids in college.

Sometimes though, I am admittedly confused by a pick (Solomon Thomas). Sometimes it's obvious and no questions need to be asked (Nick Bosa), and sometimes it turns out to be a fantastic if somewhat surprising pick (Brandon Aiyuk, in one of their best trade ups ever).

We all know they like to take swings on WR (Pettis, Hurd, Danny Grey) and they sure like to take special teamers early. But for the most part, they know more than I do so I watch and I speculate and sometimes I cheer and sometimes I scratch my head.

So the selection of Ricky Pearsall was surprising because a. no one projected him as a first round pick - if the mock was a WR at 31, it tended to be Ladd McConkley - and b. with all the BA and to a lesser extent Deebo trade talk, this obviously only heated all that BS up. (Please don't trade them, guys.)

My best guess is they keep BA and Deebo, and Shanny, ever the innovator, wants to run 4 WR sets this season - with Jauan as the 4th, and with Kittle at right side TE. He can line Deebo up in the backfield too, or he can replace Deebo with CMC. I think this would truly strike fear into opposing defenses, depending on how deep and how talented in coverage their safeties and linebackers are.

Now, they could have already done this formation with CMC in the backfield, BA and Jauan out wide and Deebo in the slot (or JJ in the slot and Deebo out wide). Technically. Which means they see something in Pearsall's slot skills that already surpasses what we have on the team already. A lot of analysts list route running as Ricky's biggest asset, along with sure hands.

Well let's hope so, Niners fans. Cause I sure as heck wanted a tackle in the first round. (I know the best prospects were already taken, but a guy like Kingsley Suamataia for example, I've read about, and I don't think he's gonna fall to 63.)

One thing Lynch has is nine remaining picks, and we probably don't need all of those, so I'm still hoping for a Day 2 trade up. Maybe we can still snatch a solid OT prospect (Suamataia, or there is a bit of Roger Rosengarten buzz), or a CB like Cooper DeJean or Rakestraw. Actually at this point a trade up for a solid CB prospect would be great, then maybe we can snag a project like Rosengarten in round 3. But I mean, we can't actually rely on Shanny and Lynch's late round magic every year. Can we??

Civil War by Alex Garland

I saw Civil War last night. I'm a pretty big Alex Garland fan, starting with the Beach which is one of my favourite novels (never saw the movie, which he did not write, and from all accounts is not at all like the book). I also loved Ex Machina, and I really liked 28 Days Later. I thought Men was okay, and sort of liked parts of Annihilation (which, in reverse of the Beach, he wrote the movie script for - and changed the story I think for the worse - whereas the original novel not written by him is phenomenal. In his (or someone's? no one's?) defense, I don't really see how someone could read that book and then try to make a movie out of it). The Tesseract was meh. Devs was a no for me.

But I like where he writes from. But while his can hit the home run, he has a higher swing and miss or swing and chunk rate - and based on some lukewarm to negative reviews out there, I thought this might be a slight chunk.

I don't really want to say too much about the movie itself, as this is truly one where it's best enjoyed going in as cold as possible. And the thing is, a lot of it is, if not telegraphed then at least pretty standard and predictable. The major things that happen certainly, the story / plot points, these are not the surprises. Y'all can guess what's coming.

Doesn't even matter though. I loved it. I'm still thinking about it, and I'm not even sure why. (Okay I sort of know, but it's not for any of the reasons that any review, positive or negative, has focused on so far.)

To everyone who's complaining that he does not take a (left wing) stand, that the movie is meaningless if it's just sits astride the political fence: you have missed the point completely. You went in with a preconceived notion of what the movie was going to be, it wasn't that, and that's your complaint. You swung and missed.

Again, not to throw too much out there, but the movie is about Kirsten Dunst's character Lee, not Nick Offerman's president. And Kirsten Dunst, well this is gonna be an Oscar nomination I'm pretty sure. She's just phenomenal.

Cailee Spaeny is good, mostly. Wagner Moura (Pablo Escobar!) is good almost entirely. But Kirsten Dunst, holy moly.

(Cinematographer Rob Hardy also deserves some pretty major praise.)

Anyway, look. What I'm trying to say is, go in with open mind, because I can almost guarantee you'll walk out having seen something you weren't expecting to.

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By the by, during our screening, there's a scene where someone offers to buy something for $300 CANADIAN (as opposed to US dollars or whatever the currency of the seceded states). Literally everyone cheered, and one guy near the front screamed, "YEAH! FINALLY!" It was just another example of why going to the movies beats watching at home.