Home Video Exclusives

[JohnIan101]

Past Tense


Another brand new entry! This outing we get an old school romcom mixed with the early days of football in "Leatherheads"...



The motion picture opened on April 4th, 2008. It was made with a budget of $58,000,000 (estimated); counting foreign receipts it made $41,348,628. The movie bombed domestically ($31.3 million). The film opened number three at the box office, the following week it dropped to number five.

The feature opened against "The Ruins", "Horton Hears A Who" and "10,000 B.C.".

No slipcover was issued for either versions; widescreen or full screen. There was a single, smaller, double sided insert for Dale And Thomas Popcorn, gourmet popcorn. A $15.00 (paper) gift card, a coupon for use in store or online. Expired on December 31st, 2009. Never used mine, still inside.

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Can imagine that this happened since they thought this was going to be a hit. It's a George Clooney movie, how can it bomb?

Yup.

There was a single exclusive when it streeted on home video on September 23rd, 2008 - from Wal-Mart. Before I go further I want to address this - price.



Could not find the retail price on release week for the exclusive. So I had to extrapolate, based on another store exclusive with the same set-up (side packed with the bonus that came in its own DVD case), "Quarantine" (2008). This example was the closest in my archive to 9/23/08, that set streeted on February 17th, 2009, five months later. Based on this - I'm saying the exclusive for "Leatherheads" was also $22.99. This is the best I can do.

It is quite reasonable to believe this was available for widescreen. As mentioned many times over - the early years Wal-Mart gave their bonus discs to full screen only. Since this came out in 2008, that was no longer in practice. The movie was however also released as full screen... 2008 and still selling full screens of widescreen made movies and TV shows. *shakes head*

This was an exclusive that took me close to a decade to acquire. Yup, I'm a long haul collector. The movie was bought in 2009 or so. When bought, I was happy the insert was included. Only to shortly thereafter - learn that there was a bonus disc. I made various efforts and could not find the DVD on Ebay as if it never exist.

So I made various efforts, on and off for a decade. That changed on December 27th, 2020 when I saw it. The bonus 'Buy It Now' separate, still sealed. Wow! That can be so rare. Price was excellent $2.75 plus $2.80 for shipping. Yes. Yes, I want this. Ordered that night ($5.76 total with tax), it arrived on January 5th, 2021, this month.



The bonus disc has extras presented in anamorphic widescreen; minus "The Whistle Stop Tour" which used movie footage as an old time news reel. The bonus DVD has a run time of 33:05 minutes.

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Rant.

As said, this bombed - so I feel I should. What is this movie about?



The year is 1925; we follow the exploits of team Captain Dodge Connolly (Clooney), a football player trying to keep his burgeon new sport alive. There is an audience, but rules and venues were in flux. Not helping his team was losing their... only sponsor. Thinking on the fly Dodge - cons a college football star, Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) as well as a corporate tycoon, C.C. Frazier (Jonathan Pryce) to foot the bill. It works, he's a slick willie.

Krasinski is best known as Jim Halpert from the long running NBC series, "The Office" (2004).

The Duluth Bulldogs get the popular player, "The Bullet" and serious money behind them. They now have more than one ball.

But that success is on a short lease, unknown to Connolly, two things are afoot. One - The Chicago Tribune has assigned a female reporter, Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) to expose their star. The young man is too good to be true. Rutherford is a WWI hero who got a whole squad of Germans soldiers to surrender all by himself without a single fire shot. The story has holes in it.

Lexie embeds herself as a reporter covering the football circuit, the intent of finding proof that his heroics were a sham. She does this by gaining Carter's attention and accidentally Dodge's too along the way.



This turns the men into off-field rivals for her affections.

Two - Frazier is witnessing football actually becoming a national sport and quite profitable, packed stadiums. He's working behind-the-scene to exploit Rutherford's fame and successes by removing him from Bulldogs for another team who has more media potential. Leaving Dodge with his ragtag team now going against Carter and his new crew.

Lexie discovers the true story in a moment of weakness and presses forward, unmasking the deception - it was more like a misunderstanding that took a life of its own. Carter had no reason to refute it, he was making serious money on the fiction. The news send shock waves across America.



The popular sport was making an obscene amount of money based on a fraud; Washington gets involved. The investigation puts Connolly in a precarious position because his game has now changed, the newly appointed congressional commissioner (Peter Gerety) has made rules of conduct for the sport which will be enforced. Dodge in particular - is guilty of pulling improvisational antics for the audiences and his own amusement. Those days are now gone.

He's one stunt away from being expelled from the sport he was trying to legitimize. But at this point, he did it - he proved it can work.

The big game, Bulldogs can not win against "The Bullet". So in one last hurrah, Capt. Dodge Connolly pull the stunt of all stunts to win - using Rutherford's deception on himself. That twist I didn't see coming. Made me smile.

As expected he's given the heave-ho, but not empty handed. He won the heart of Miss Littleton. And he did make a lot of money with his team before and after Rutherford switch sides. Did I spoil it?

No.

This movie is a throwback, an old school romantic comedy; excellent, funny dialog and a series of adventures involving Lexie and Dodge. You got the plot here, but not the feature. See it, you won't be disappointed. The film was a blind buy, glad I made it. As said in the last Past Tense, I'm not into sports. But this is one of the few sports features that I enjoy. Should be noted...

I got the movie in 2009 found out about the bonus and got bummed - didn't watch the DVD until earlier this month. Yeah, had the film on the 'to watch' pile for eleven years! Not the longest, I still have titles I bought in 2005 still waiting to be seen. *shrug*



This movie was stuck in development hell for practically fourteen years at Universal Pictures - was written in 1993. The movie only happened because George Clooney got attached as the star and... as director - because of producer Steven Soderbergh gave him the script. The story was right up his alley.

Favorite part? Easy, early on when Dodge and Lexie first meet on the train, the dialog was rich and charming. He was being a smarta$$ and reveling in it, she wasn't sure how to respond to his hijinks.

Bits of trivia; Connelly was based somewhat on a real football player, Johnny "Blood" McNally from the 1920s. He was a character off and on the field. Rutherford was loosely based on Harold "Red" Grange. And his agent Frazier was based on Grange's real agent, C.C. Pyle.



By the way, the motorcycle that Clooney rides isn't vintage, but a replica of the 1918 Indian bike. It is an electric motorcycle, custom-built. That's pretty sway. Leatherheads? Because back in the day, football helmets were made of leather, not padded plastic composites.

My only gripe - a minor one was with casting - Zellweger was somewhat too old to play Lexie. But that's even addressed in the movie. Again, a minor gripe.

There you go, another new post for you guys. Not one of my biggest, but hits the spot. Come back here on February 11th, 2021 for another NEW entry. And yes, I did get that import DVD set - which will be talked about.