For those of you who like to take in the whole UPROXX experience across the entire network, you may be aware that I sometimes fill in for Vince at FilmDrunk when he’s out appearing at Champs stores as a Luke Walton lookalike. But when it comes to actually reviewing movies, I only really handle the truly horrible acts of Happy Madison, so when I was approached by a completely random stranger to review the indie film Summer League, I said, ‘Okay’. And thus the With Leather Sports Movie Review was born.

Summer League (2013)

Written by Kelli Horan

Directed by Lex Lybrand

Starring: Danielle Evon Ploeger, Kelsey Thomas, Gabriel Peña, Timothy Bowman, David Laurence, Kara Rainer

The problem with having only reviewed ungodly, terrible movies that often star Rob Schneider is that I’m not used to being able to talk about movies that I like without simply saying, “Yeah, that movie was rad.” And I don’t like talking about movies that I really like unless it’s RED, because when I talk about how much I love that movie, people get really pissed off and make fun of me, and that’s great. But even as I was wary about watching an indie film about “softball-versus-kickball”, I really enjoyed Summer League, because it wasn’t at all what I expected.

(Before I start, I didn’t agree to review this film because Brandon is in it. If anything, that really hurt its chances. Just kidding. Kind of.)

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I’ve bugged the readers of the Best and Worst of WWE Raw column about this a couple of times now, but “Brandon’s dreams are coming true” is big enough news to share on the main page proper, so here we are. We’re making a movie.

When I say we, I mean me (I wrote the thing, and it is surprisingly low on wrestling jokes) and Lex Lybrand. Lex was nice enough to put in me in a variety of host and duck-related roles in his first film, Summer League, and now he’s taking my words about blood, guts, sexual dysfunction and rural Oklahoma and is turning it into something pretty, and pretty scary. It’s called Meet Me There. It is heavy.

The other thing worth noting here is the ridiculous cast of talented people who have thrown in on the project. As you probably gathered from the header image, we cast Dustin Runnels, aka WWE’s Goldust, in a choice supporting role. Jill Thompson, a woman who has done everything from draw Wonder Woman and Swamp Thing comics to designing gear for the best pro wrestler in the world, is not only doing the art for our poster, she’s appearing in a role. Our lead actress, Lisa Friedrich, teaches comedy at a theater in Houston and is that combination of talented and gorgeous you kinda have to see in motion. Austin’s Megan Simon (who is amazing) is recording creepy hymns, and we’ll have everything from site friends The Wonder Years and Cleveland-area band Nights on the soundtrack. Yes, I am absolutely the least talented person involved in this.

To help promote the thing (and our fundraiser, which raised a quarter of our goal in its first week) we put together a little video explaining the film and why we want to make it, and you can check that out after the jump. If you’ve read about this in the column, this is totally new, so be sure to click through.

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Anyway, if you’re one of the 700,000,000,000 who’ve descended upon my grand home town of Austin, Texas, for SXSW, I have two points of business for you:

1. Pick up your trash. I mean, seriously, Jesus, what were you, raised on a barn? We aren’t Philadelphia.

2. Any chance you’d like a pair of complimentary tickets to the world premiere of Summer League, the softball kickball film featuring With Leather editor-in-chief Brandon Stroud in not one, but TWO roles, just for being a With Leather reader?

Here’s your chance, friend. The film premieres on Monday, March 18, at the Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter Lane (5701 W. Slaughter Lane), red carpet and all, and the showing is completely sold out. However, I wear a duck mascot costume for a portion of the film and therefore have hella pull and can snag you a pair of tickets.

Here’s all you have to do … shoot the film’s director, Lex Lybrand, a message on Twitter. Tell him that you’re a fan of @WithLeather and you want to see his flick. There are only two tickets to be had, so he’ll do a random drawing based on whoever’s messaged him on … let’s say, Friday, and let you know if you’re the winner. Then boom, you’re at the red carpet premiere high-fiving a dude you know from a sports blog, watching a great little movie made by some passionate locals.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen me in my duck costume, hold on to your butts:

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Back in August, I told you about Summer League, a softball-versus-kickball movie from the folks at Austin-based Greenless Studios. We were trying to raise enough money to rent a mascot costume for a crucial, duck-related scene near the end of the film, and thanks to us having the best readers in the world (and a timely tweet from the compassionate Mr. Vince Mancini) we ended up raising about a third of the film’s budget. Because we weren’t trying to scam you, Summer League exists now, and it looks GORGEOUS.

Of course, I don’t know if you just assumed this based on the fact that I’m a nerdy wrestling fan blogger, but I am not one of the beautiful, svelte ingenues on the primary poster, nor am I one of those guys behind them. I wasn’t born with that weird gene that makes facial hair grow in attractively. I did, however, make the secondary poster, and I did it in a motherf**king duck suit, because life is bizarre and With Leather is the best website ever.

That poster (the heel poster, for the record) and a Man Of Steel-quality teaser trailer, are after the jump. Share this with everybody you know so I’ll get to keep being in movies, would you?

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I know that sounds weird, but this is sports related and not a weird thing I’m into, I swear.

I live in Austin, Texas, where 60% of the population thinks sprouts taste good (they do) and 100% are working on a screenplay. My friends at Greenless Studios (the people who made the With Spandex podcast possible) are getting ready to shoot Summer League, an awesome softball versus kickball movie, here in town. They’ve set up an IndieGogo to raise money for incidentals, because that’s what happens these days.

I’m well aware that you do not come to a comedy sports blog to give money to people, and I would not dream of making a habit of requesting it from you, but I’m doing it here for two reasons:

1. This is my feature film debut (I’m playing a pub trivia master, because I’m a colossal nerd) and I want to be able to eat some tofu cutlets and shit while I’m filming, and

2. If they raise enough money they can afford to rent that duck costume and include a ridiculous mascot scene, giving me a second role in the film and turning me into Austin’s elite Internet version of Peter Sellers.

If you want to help out a good cause, consider stopping by and IndieGogo’ing yourself a DVD. I’d offer to autograph it for you too, but I am literally nobody. The thing ends in a couple of days, so if I can say I pitched in to make the thing a success, I’d feel awfully good about it.

Besides, it’s cute girls playing baseball while I stand around in the background. That’s a movie you want to see. Help us out.