Leatherheads

[MacGuffin]

Coming attractions: Clooney tosses the old pigskin around
Source: USA Today

Are you ready for some Clooney/Krasinski football?

Leatherheads is a fictionalized account of the origins of the NFL, by way of an old-fashioned screwball comedy.

The movie, directed and co-written by George Clooney, stars the Syriana Oscar winner as the coach of a wannabe pro football team in the 1920s. The title of the film, out Dec. 7, refers to the thin leather helmets of early football.

The coach recruits a World War I hero (The Office's John Krasinski) as his star player. "At that time, the NFL was just a bunch of guys smashing heads in cornfields," Krasinski says. "(He) realizes that if he can get a star college player, more people will come to see these quote-unquote professional teams."

The plan works, and crowds start gathering. But Renee Zellweger's journalist is trying to expose the star as a fraud.

She of course ends up in a love triangle. Cracks Krasinski: "All the ladies can rest assured, George Clooney will always win. I'm no match for him."

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: April 4th, 2008 (wide)

Starring: George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski, Tommy Hinckley, Wayne Duvall

Directed by: George Clooney 

Premise: The roughneck world of 1920s professional football is forever changed when a blue-collar player decides to recruit a college sensation.

[Gamblour.]

Apatow type posters?

It looks ok. I like the talent involved, but it seems like Clooney wants to do a Hudsucker-football movie.

[john]

I've heard a couple Hudsucker comparisons, so far... but I don't think the influence is that evident. I'd kept expecting this to break into a Coen-esque level of slapstick that it never seemed to attempt. And, with the exception of a couple fanciful sequences, the humor and pacing are both very delicate.

I liked it. Probably because everything that I'd feared wouldn't be restrained, was contained very well - not much indulgence in forced nostalgia, Zellweger's performance didn't seem as self-conscious as it would have been (or, really, Cooney's, either.)

Randy Newman's score was terrifically complimentary and there were even a few shots that, in their simplicity, were some of the most pleasant images I've seen in film so far this year.

[SiliasRuby]

Renee should do more films like this, she was very good. Let me say before anything else that I love screwball/quick witted films that are filled with comedy and while it had some of that in the film I felt as though it was holding back all it could do, possibly because it was afraid that it would go into absurdist coen-area. Maybe they should have gone in that area but then it would have seemed like they were imitating that style or those types of characters.

[Xx]

...

[SiliasRuby]

Well if we mentioned hawks, it would be a bit on the nose since 'leatherheads' is drenched in his style.

[Gold Trumpet]

all these comparisons to the coens annd not one mention of howard hawks? disgraceful.

Hawks isn't even the most relevant comparison. He was an every genre filmmaker so the old Hollywood reference goes to Preston Sturges.

[SiliasRuby]

all these comparisons to the coens annd not one mention of howard hawks? disgraceful.

Hawks isn't even the most relevant comparison. He was an every genre filmmaker so the old Hollywood reference goes to Preston Sturges.

or George Cukor or Ernst Lubitssch

[Redlum]

I really enjoyed this being a big fan of the genre. What are some of your favourite screwball love storys?

Mine would have to be Holiday (the George Cukor one, not Jack Black). I find a lot of these films deal with class issues of the time (or maybe it's just one's with Hepburn in).

Bogdanovich's love of them is quite infectious, his "Who the hell's in it?" is full of great anecdotes from these movies.

[SiliasRuby]

I live for screwball comedies and I'll keep that on my wishlist, the peter Bog book.