The latest Gallup Poll has 12% of Americans believing Obama is a Muslim. If I see a poll saying 12% of Americans thought "Leatherheads" was a good movie, well, I think we may have a link to outing these people. My fear going ahead with this movie was that it would be a "sports flick disguised as a chick flick", similar to "Jerry Maguire". I never thought it would be "wretched flick".

This was a movie so bad, I mentally gave up on it during an interminable scene involving a raid on a speakeasy. My mind was hoping "The End" would flash at any subsequent moment. Up to this point, they tried (Oh, how they tried!) several subplots to see what might stick. All of a sudden, during this raid, it attempts to become a slapstick movie. Can't we just play football? Wasn't there a love story in here? Hey, what about that football?

They tried to show the foibles of hero worship, the birth and growing pains of the NFL via a Red Grange-like character, football as a business, agents can be good and bad, old athletes fading away, power of the press, a salute to troops everywhere (especially "Over There"). Mix in a little romance, some football, no laughs, and there's your movie. Bah!

It's the worst movie George Clooney has directed. I mean scenes were blocked in a pedestrian manner, really a slapdash effort. For Clooney to attempt to remove himself from the Writers Guild, in an attempt to get a writing credit for this dreck, is unconscionable. Scenes to draw laughs, drew none. Characters were introduced seemingly from nowhere to further the plot. I mean, a commissioner of football was named without any cry from an owner, just so he can tell Clooney there was gonna be new rules in HIS league. He mysteriously shows up at a press conference in the back, then commandeers the microphone. Between yawns, I mustered a WTF?

(Actual "Leatherheads" Viewer)





















And I still can't tell you if Clooney was an owner, de facto player-coach, or what he was. He seemed to know the agent, played by Jonathan Pryce, as they alluded to some past experience together, but they never said how! Or maybe I was in a coma when that went down. The disappointing thing it wasn't even one of those "so bad it's good" movies. I had to agree with the Westlake ute, who shouted, "That movie sucked!" as the closing credits started to roll. Seems like a soon-to-be-hit on airplanes.

Knowing how Hollywood is, Clooney will come out of this unscathed. Most big-time actors have at least a couple of these they can joke about. This is one for him. Renee Zellweger played a character we've seen a hundred million times. To be tough in the '20s in a man's world, you had to smoke and talk like you're at the Algonquin Round Table. And probably work at a newspaper. Cue Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, et al. They did it much better. But she'll come out OK. John Krasinski is so likable, but he's got two bad starring credits already, and maybe he ultimately winds up as "Office Boy".

As Leonard Pinth-Garnel would say, “Wasn’t that perfectly dreadful?”. Word must have spread fast, as it didn't hit its box office projections and probably come in second for the weekend.

I gotta see me some Stones. And quick.

Meal of Links

As if "Leatherheads" wasn't bad enough, I stopped in at Brueggers before work yesterday and encountered this nutjob. It was one of those deals where you have two people in the lot heading for the same door simultaneously, and as I look over, me dreading every step. Now, I'm at the door.

Her: "Are you going to buy a sandwich?"
Me (mustering my best WTF? tone): "Uh...a bagel?"
Her: "Oh, because I'm going to buy more than one."
Me (mustering my best why are you talking to me tone): "Well, there shouldn't be a line."

She proceeds to buy a half-dozen poppy seed bagels, I order a rosemary olive oil with cream cheese. I see the light bulb go on over her head when I said, "cream cheese". She already had her bag, then asked the guy for some. He pointed out the tubs. Next thing I know, he has to open a lid on one to prove there is foil still on it! I shoot a look to the guy prepping mine and we were both amazed. I then politely ask God that she has money, preferably U.S. currency, to pay, so I can move on.

How to dine out for less. We've seen these before.

You know, a personal pair of 3-D glasses had crossed my mind. I guess it's now a reality.

The "Mike Wallace Interview" has his 1957 and 1958 shows online. "My name is Mike Wallace, the cigarette is Philip Morris." Here is one with Bob Feller from 1957. You know, "Philip Morris has a man's kind of mildness." Lots of early talk about the reserve clause. Pretty good stuff and Mike sure does push the heaters.

Exercise Yard

That was some NASCAR crash yesterday. And Michael McDowell walked away.



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