Early Review of Leatherheads (2008)

 

Leatherheads is a movie that will make no lasting impressions on you. A lot of smart and snappy dialog make the film entertaining to watch, but ultimately it’s nothing special.

Geroge Clooney plays Jimmy the Dodge Connolly who desperately wants to legitimize professional football.  Set in the 1920’s, football is viewed more something as joke, and not at all taken seriously. Looking at several different options to change this, Connolly recruits war hero and college football sensation Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) to help save his sport.

Rutherford and Connolly approach the came from completely different directions. Rutherford takes the game seriously and views it as an art rather then Connolly’s dirty and “anything to win” view of the game.

This movie sat frozen while studio after studio passed on the script, George Clooney ended up rewriting the entire thing and turning it into more of the slapstick comedy we have today. Clooney felt the movie was to dry and boring to ever be developed for film. Reportedly he only kept a few scenes intact that were written by the original screenwriters (who still have the only credit billing on the movie).

Even after all of Clooney’s revisions the movie still comes off as an occasionally funny film with extremely talented actors. Stephen Root is wonderful as Suds and John Krasinski is very funny as Rutherford. The movie is worth a rental if you like sports movies, otherwise, it’s to be avoided. 

April in the “D”

“April in the D, April in the D, April in the D, April in the D!”

Fox Sports Detroit latest advertising campaign, could not get more obnoxious! I want to hurl the remote at the television every time it comes on (which is frequent)! The guys in the video are “Blacklist Union,” and are from Hollywood, California.  God forbid they actually come to Detroit and get one of our talented bands for the commercial. Reminds me of how they used to film the “Detroit Sports Report” live from Seattle. 

I pray for May…

Kilpatrick Accomplishments in Office

• 2002: Kwame Kilpatrick is elected.
• 2002: Manoogian Mansion Party with Stripper Tamara Greene
• 2002: Tamara Greene is murdered exultation style
• 2003: Spent over $210,000 on city credit cards, only paid back $9,000.
• 2004: Pays sister $100,000 to run a charity
• 2004: Slander against Detroit Police Officers. Kilpatrick’s lover and chief of staff Christine Beatty is pulled over for speeding. Beatty asks the cop, “Do you know who the f*** I am?” The Mayor goes on radio and calls the pull over the “biggest piece of crap.” The officers sue the city and are awarded over $25,000.00 in tax payer money for the Mayor’s slander.
• 2005: Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick named one of the worst three mayor in America by Time magazine.
• 2005: Mayor buys Red Lincoln Navigator for $24,995, $5.00 under the need for review by city council. Mayor lied and said it wasn’t for personal use, but later confessed the truth.
• 2005: The Mayor is removed as the administrator of Detroit Water because of abuses says federal judge.
• 2005: Kwame Kilpatrick is re-elected. After nearly every poll showed him losing big. The vote was close and conspiracy theories abound on how he could have closed the gap amid all these controversies.
• 2007: May 8, 2007, Kilpatrick spent over $8,500 from the Kilpatrick Civic Fund to take his family on an all expenses paid vacation a California resort, the La Costa Resort and Spa.
• 2008: Uses the word “nigger’ during state of the city address, years after “burying the ‘n-word.”
• 2008: Mayor and his former chief of staff are indicted on 12-counts criminal behavior ranging from perjury, misconduct in office and obstruction of justice.

Exact details can be found here.

 

TV Theme Music - Part I

My good friend Heather had a good idea to list some of her favorite TV show theme songs.

1) The X-Files - One of my favorite shows, the haunting opening melody was a stoke of genius!

2) Curb Your Enthusiasm - One of the funniest shows on television, the opening theme is an extension of the fun the show has to offer.

3) The West Wing - Very soft and patriotc opening to one of the greatest drama’s in the history of television!

4) House M.D. - A fitting techo theme for House M.D.

5) Dexter - The theme for Dexter works with dark and out of place images that are associated with it.

Painting Program for Macs

When switching from Windows to Macs, a popular question is what program do I use that is equal to MS Paint. The current version of Mac OS X Leopard, does not have a paint program that comes standard with the operating system. However, I know of three really good, free, alternatives!

1) AppleWorks - This is much more then just a painting program, it’s a whole suite of applications designed for the original Mac OS X. However, it has an excellent painting program which still works on the latest version, 10.5, Leopard!

2) SeaShore - This is is techanlly an image editing program, but it is also a really neat painting software too! Give it a try and I’m sure you will agree!

3) PaintBush - From apple’s website, “The project’s ultimate goal is to recreate the basic functionality of Microsoft Paint, which has been noticeably absent from Mac OS X for years. Paintbrush can open and save to most major image formats, including BMP, PNG, JPEG, and GIF.”