rageous! - ION Arizona

y Kimberly M. Ruff
I wonder if it was a deliberate choice
for Studio Execs to release a spate
of “middle-aged guys down on their
luck” fi lms this month. If not, it seems
terribly coincidental that all the fi lms
I’m reviewing really are just that. In
a bit of a tip o’the hat to this breed of
“underdog transforms into alphadog”
fl icks, I dub this month’s column: April
Fool’s: (Or How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love My Life.)
Leatherheads
Starring: George Clooney, John
Krasinski, Renée Zellweger
George Clooney
directs and starts in
the romantic comedy,
Leatherheads, about
a football team on
the verge of collapse
when they lose their
biggest sponsor. Set
in the 1920s, Clooney plays Dodge
Connelly, the star quarterback, who
decides the best avenue of approach
is to entice decorated war hero
and favorite son, Carter Rutherford
(Krasinski) onto the team, but
nearly loses him and the public’s
support when the two fi nd themselves
competing for the affections of the
same woman: cub journalist, Lexie
Littleton (Zellweger). Now Dodge has
to dig through his playbook to fi nd a
way to have his cake and eat it, too.
An old school screwball with modern
day appeal, Leatherheads allows
Clooney to once again illustrate his
knack for comedy in the style of O
Brother, Where Art Thou? And, of
course, it’s nice to see Krasinski (aka:
Jim) get out of The Offi ce once in a
while. Release Date: April 04, 2008.
Meet Bill
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Jessica
Alba, Elizabeth Banks
If there’s a contemporary actor I just
31
adore, it’s Aaron
Eckhart. From the
souless misogynist
in In the Company
of Men to biker-witha-heart-of-gold
in
Erin Brokovich to the
smooth-talking, spindoctor-with-a-conscience
in Thank
You For Smoking, Eckhart is a “triple
A” in my book: adaptable, adept, and
appealing.
In Meet Bill Eckhart plays your lovable
doormat – a man who has gradually
allowed his life to dictate who he is.
When his wife has an affair with a
local news anchor, Bill’s complacence
is replaced by anger, and it’s this
anger that urges him to change things
with the help of a young man he’s
mentoring and a salesgirl in a lingerie
store (Alba). It’s a typical tale, but with
Eckhart in the lead, it’s anything but
stale. (Ooh! That rhymed!) Release
Date: April 04, 2008.
Smart People
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Sarah
Jessica Parker, Ellen Page
A sort of hybrid
between The Squid
and the Whale and
last year’s indiesmash,
Juno, Smart
People focuses on
widower Lawrence
Wetherhold (Quaid),
a brilliant, but depressed English
Literature professor who seems to be
meandering through his existence.
When his freeloading adopted brother
(Thomas Haden Church) drops by
for an extended stay at the same time
that he runs into a former student
(Sarah Jessica Parker), Wetherhold
is forced to take his foot off the brake
and hit the gas. Juno’s Ellen Page
co-stars as Wetherhold’s acerbicwitted
daughter. Release Date: April
11, 2008.