Leatherheads

New DVD Releases: Sex and the City, Leatherheads, and More

Fix yourself a cosmo and slip into a pair of ManoloBlahniks, because the Sex and the City movie leads offthis week's crop of new DVD releases. Also arriving on DVD today: Leatherheads,George Clooney's comic look at the early days of professional football; Deception,the blink-and-you-missed-it thriller starring Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman, andMichelle Williams; Friends alum David Schwimmer's directorial debut Run,Fat Boy, Run, starring Simon Pegg; and the horror flick Pathology,featuring the lovely Alyssa Milano.

Our DVD pick of the week is a no-brainer: FrancisFord Coppola's newly-restored Godfather trilogy, available for the first time on sparklingBlu-ray. Buy it today and remember fondly the days when Pacino and De Niro were more thanjust tired self-caricatures.

• Sex and the City
• Leatherheads
• Pathology
• Run, Fat Boy, Run
• The Godfather
• Deception

Weekend Box Office: 21 doubles down; Leatherheads punts

Vegas card-counting flick 21 took first place at the box office for the second week in a row with a $15.1 million tally, pulling off a minor upset over Leatherheads. The George Clooney football comedy earned a disappointing $13.5 million in its opening weekend, barely edging out third-place finisher Nim's Island's $13.3 million gross. The Dr. Seuss animated comedy Horton Hears a Who! placed fourth with $9.1 million, bringing its overall tally to a stellar $131 million. Rounding out the top five was the killer vine horror flick The Ruins, which earned $7.8 million in its underwhelming debut.

Source: boxofficemojo.com

• 21
• Leatherheads
• Nim's Island
• Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who
• The Ruins

Leatherheads Review

In the tradition of Bull Durham and Slap Shot, George Clooney does double duty as star and director in this tale of pro football's shaky early days.

Clooney plays "Dodge" Connelly and is joined by The Office's John Krasinski as Carter Rutherford and Renee Zellweger as Lexie Littleton.

So does Leatherheads hold up to the sports comedy classics? Read our full Leatherheads review to find out!

• Leatherheads
• George Clooney
• John Krasinski

When delaying the release date doesn't mean the movie is bad

Usually, when a studio bumps a movie's release date that is a strong sign the movie isn't, how do we say, good. However, there is a curious confluence of two movies being delayed right now, and neither are for the usual causes.

The New York Times is reporting that Paramount Vantage has pushed the release date for The Kite Runner ahead six weeks--for the safety of its cast. The movie, based on Khaled Hosseini's bestselling 2003 novel of the same name, follows an unusual friendship over the course of three decades in Afghanistan. Fears of violence against the filmmakers and its three child actors due to the film's subject matter have prompted the studio to push the date to December 14 so that the boys can get out of Kabul (possibly permanently) once school is out--for their own safety.

And Universal has pushed George Clooney's period football movie, Leatherheads, to April 4. Clooney, who directs and stars in the movie, needs the additional time because of his busy schedule, says Variety. Whether or not his recent motorcycle accident prompted the date change is unknown.

Leatherheads was originally slated to open on December 7, which would have allowed it to pick up momentum from the Oscar buzz garnered by Clooney's current movie, Michael Clayton, which opens today. Now that it is opening in April, however, it would not make the deadline for this year's competition. Poor George.

• The Kite Runner
• Leatherheads