Sports Movies News: Will Ferrell goes Big Hair; More on G. Clooney and Pigskin

I went to see The Golden Compass (Chris Weitz, 2007) today. I read the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy and wanted to see the cinematicizing (not a real word!) of the armored bears. This post won’t be about this film; instead, it will concern two of the previews.

In a previous post from around Halloween, I mentioned reading about a forthcoming George Clooney film about 1920s professional football called Leatherheads. IMDB’s plot synopsis reads as follows:

“a romantic comedy set in the world of 1920s football, where the owner of a professional sports team drafts a straight-laced college sensation,” who then must “watch his new coach fall for his fiancee.”

The trailer, however, indicates that the miracle boy from college doesn’t have a fiancee. In fact, Renee Zellwegger plays a journalist who believes that the new kid on the team might not live up to the hype (misrepresentation of his past and the like).

I am so looking forward to watching this film for reasons that I expressed in my other post.

The other sports film preview that came with The Golden Compass was Semi-Pro (Kent Alterman, 2008). Written by Scot Armstrong, this sports comedy follows Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell), a basketball player-turned coach, who wants his team, the Tropics, to be integrated into the NBA-ABA merger. Genre formula mandates that in order for Jackie to get what he wants, he has to fall very far from grace and prestige. Expect many scatalogical jokes, chest hair, and satirical remarks about the professional sports business.

Here’s the trailer for Semi-Pro.

Here’s the trailer for Leatherheads:

Don’t forget to watch Sunday afternoon football this week (December 9th). The Patriots go head to head with the Steelers.