Trailer Blazer: 'Lost,' 'Leatherheads'

The full, two-minute trailer for season 4 of Lost seems to confirm Doc Jensen’s speculations based on the 30-second teaser released last week. There’s Jeremy Davies, as one of the new characters from the freighter, telling the Lost-ies that rescuing them wasn’t exactly his first priority. There’s Locke and Ben and the drowning Charlie, repeating their warnings from last season’s finale about the newcomers. And there’s the title cards, telling us that some of our heroes aren’t going to leave the island. (Does that mean some will choose to stay behind, or be abandoned, or die? Or does that refer to Jack, who we know will leave but who will remain mentally and emotionally trapped there?) Say, was that a glimpse of Naomi, the parachutist apparently slain by Locke, still alive? Lots of tantalizing questions; really can’t wait to see how they play out, can you?

On a lighter note, the trailer for Leatherheads, George Clooney’s period comedy about the transformation of the 1920s-era National Football League from a barnstorming group of anarchic roughnecks into a professional but much less fun organization, leaves me with mixed feelings. With John Krasinski along for the ride as the strong-but-naive rookie mentored by Clooney’s sly veteran, and Renee Zellweger (pictured, with Clooney) as the skeptical reporter who comes between them, it’s clear that the movie wants to be another Bull Durham, with a little Seabiscuit/Cinderella Man historical interest thrown in. But it all looks so rote and by-the-playbook. (Also, Office-boy Krasinski seems overmatched by his glamorous old-pro co-stars.) The actual movie is going to have to try a little harder than the familiar tactics suggested by the trailer in order not to fumble at the box office this spring.