<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/leatherheads.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Dodge Connolly (George Clooney), an aging football hero in 1925, is determined to guide his team from bar brawls to packed stadiums. He recruits college-football star Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski), a war hero with great looks and unparalleled speed on the field who seems too good to be true. Chicago reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) begins to discover that Carter's hero status doesn't pass the smell test.

The marketing for this film wasn't very enticing, but the story has a lot of heart and is very entertaining. Director Zach Snyder (300, Watchman) makes his animation debut with this fantasy adventure based on the beloved books by Kathryn Lasky.

Established in South Korea in 1958 under the name of Goldstar, LG Electronics has been manufacturing home appliances and electronics for more than 50 years. In 1995, it acquired Zenith (the company that invented the remote control) and started to gain market share in North America with cell phone technology, digital set-top boxes, and televisions. When the format war was in full swing in 2007, LG became the Switzerland of electronics companies by releasing the BH100 dual-format Blu-ray/HD DVD player. It received tepid reviews due primarily to playback glitches on HD DVDs, but you have to admire the company for attempting to appeal to a wider range of consumers.

Thankfully, with the format war behind us, manufacturers can concentrate on making great Blu-ray players, and LG hasn’t stopped its innovation. It was the first to release a BD player with Netflix streaming (BD300) and has upped the ante with its latest player by adding YouTube, CinemaNow, and 802.11n Wi-Fi.

History has a way of repeating itself, and we’re beginning to see similarities between Blu-ray and DVD. While Blu-ray’s penetration rate will probably never equal DVD’s, the prices of hardware and software are now dropping to levels that don’t turn off the average consumer. But is this necessarily a good thing? With DVD, you bought the player, and it pretty much worked until it dropped. With a Blu-ray player, you need to update the firmware the moment you unbox it, and this event repeats itself quarterly to accommodate quirky BD+ copy protection on new disc releases. Then there are the firmware updates gone awry—the occasional “fix” that introduces more problems than it solves. When that happens, a company’s ability to respond to trouble becomes critical. But if the manufacturers don’t make enough money selling players, they can’t easily justify the timely updates and prompt service their customers deserve. While I love a great bargain as much as the next guy, it’s also important to consider the manufacturer’s record of after-purchase support.