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LEATHERHEADS movie premiere, as viewed from an Extra
My wife, Linda and I went to one of the two Premier showings for movie Extras in Greenville, SC last night, and I did see myself in it (happily - after working 40hrs in 3 days last year). At 20 minutes or so into the movie there is a 2-3 second view of me walking out of the Historical Poinsett Hotel that Clooney has quickly pulled-up to on his motorcycle w/sidecar. Sometimes during the movie the images pass by rather quickly, but in other parts - the romantic ones in particular, the scenes are very close-up with Clooney and Renee Zellweger, where every word and facial expression have a lot of meaning, and are fun to interpret. The newbie to being in a lead role, Krasinski, does a great job in the way he conveys his confidence, his role as a football star, and as a war hero. Clooney, well need I say more? Having to play rough football with the younger guys and work on strategies for winning each game, he also shows his ability to work on a strategy to attempt to win-over Renee, the newspaper reporter. It was tough for “Dodge” to try to gain affection from the much younger “Lexie”, because he was competing over her against the war-hero and College superstar “Carter”. Renee was excellent in playing her role as kind of a sassy, but very attractive newspaper reporter starting to cover football games. She hung in there with the guys despite the occasional jokes directed at her during those games.
It’s PG-13 so it’s fun for the whole family - just a little cursing, no blood or gore that I remember. It was scripted to be just like a
Screwball/Romantic Comedy from the 1940’s with the time period being 20 years earlier. So it’s like watching a 1920’s film using 1940’s techniques. So, don’t expect any special computerized effects, bone rattling acoustics, or alien creatures and space travel! Now with that intro, I can say that it was really fun to watch, with Clooney, Zellweger, and Krasinski being quite entertaining. The movie gives you a humorous feel for what the early days of pro football were like. It starts with College football being the most exciting sport, drawing large crowds and filling stadiums with up to 40,000 fans. Back then after College the players almost always left the sport and went on to start their careers in whatever their education geared them for. But, there were a few stragglers that wanted to keep playing football, and they did - to much, much smaller crowds, and much less enthusiasm. The pay and scheduling was as unpredictable as the weather. And - most importantly they had very few rules, so alot of stunts were used to get the ball into the endzone. Many people got injured in those days, in fact one of the statistics was the number of athletes that died during a given year - because the equipment and rules were not good. Sure, leather helmets were a little protection - maybe only against the most severe of blows to the head. Technology had not really been focused on the sport, so the rest of the gear they wore was not very protective either. A few people like Dodge Connelly (Clooney) liked playing the sport beyond College, and wanted it legitimized as a profession, so he pursues this, and eventually more rules are imposed on the game to make it safer and more humane. The romantic struggle between the two football players over Lexie Littleton (Zellweger) is fun to watch the progression of, and also to get a good feel of what romance was like in those days among famous people. These three all had strong personality traits to convey in each of their roles, which involved prowess, honesty, deception, and a bit !
of sass.
I highly recommend this movie because it is fun, historical, and gives you a sense of the struggle to legitimize professional football. It helps to answer the question - how did we really develop this highly popular professional sport of football as we know it today - this game of intensity, physicality, and much strategy.
Randy Sellet