It’s been a while since the last wrap but I’ve finally got a little bit of time to look at what’s going down this week in entertainment. Starting off with new theater releases we have: Obsessed, Fighting, Earth, The Soloist, and Mutant Chronicles.  We also have a reward for anyone who can make a sentence using all those title words. J/k.

Obsessed looks to play the race card with a sub par thriller set up. A white woman (Ali Larter from Heroes / Resident Evil fame) becomes obsessed with her coworker (Idris Elba), a black male who she threatens to black mail. But seriously, she becomes dangerously obsessed with him and tries to impose herself into his life. The big catch is that he’s happily married to Beyonce and they have a son together.   We’ve seen this “Hand that Rocks the Cradle” set up many times before, but this time the racial tension is thrown in there for good measure. While hope for this film is a bit dim, the major highlight of the movie looks to be a catfight between Beyonce and Larter.

Fighting follows Channing Tatum as….wait for it….a bare knuckle street fighter! He has a manager played by Terence Howard, whose presence in this film is a bit confusing to me.  Howard is a tremendous actor but he seems to be suffering from Nicolas Cage sydrome in that he accepts ANY and I mean ANY role that comes his way, even projects that are far beneath the scope of his talent.  Having trained in MMA for years, I have a hard time accepting some of these street fighting movies for what they are. The movie may actually be pretty decent, but the fact that it gets associated with organized and structured MMA events just seems to hurt the public’s opinion of the sport when street fighting and MMA have little to do with one another. Moving on…

Earth is a movie based on the planet of the same name. But more detailed, it is a documentary that follows the migration of four different animal families. It is narrated by James Earl Jones who’s had so many classic roles over the years but will always be best remembered to me as the King of Zamunda in Coming to America.   The film is also narrated by Patrick Stewart, better known as Captain Jean Luc Piccard from Star Trek.  While the film is relatively low key, it could wind up being a big hit like March of the Penguins turned out to be. As long as the film doesn’t show Jones giving his narration wearing a Lion’s fur robe, it should be pretty good. Then again even seeing that would be pretty good.

The Soloist looks to offer a bit more substance than the other releases this week. It follows a LA reporter, played by Robert Downey Jr., who becomes friends with a homeless Julliard trained musician, played by Jamie Foxx. In wasn’t fully clear from the preivews but it seems that Fox’s character is an autistic savant. While the movie looks like it has oscar potential, the theater in which I saw the preview was full of chants of ” You never go full retard!” and “Blame it on the a-a- -a- a- a alcohol!” The movie still looks promising to me, as both actors have some serious skills but the premise reminds me of the movie “Caveman’s Valentine” starring Samuel L. Jackson which featured an almost identical storyline.

Finally we have Mutant Chronicles. The movie is about a future in which an alien ship  lands on earth and begins converting humans into mindless mutant slaves. The remaining humans band together to try and fight back.  For such a B-movie set up, it actually has a decent cast featuring Thomas Jane (Punisher-the first one) , Ron Perlman (Hellboy), and John Malkovich.  I’m not really sure what else to say about this one other than I’ll probably wait for the DVD.

DVD

New on DVD this week are: The Spirit, the Reader, and Splinter.  I posted up a review of the Spirit so for more info definitely check it out. The Reader stars academy award winner Kate Winslet as a German woman who teaches a 17 year old the ways of love and life.  Later when the young man grows up and is attending law school, the woman is on trial for being one of the guards at the Auschwitz concentration camp. As the case unfolds, the boy realizes he knows a secret that could prove her innocence.  This is a well acted film throughout, however it may not be for everyone. It is definitely worth renting if you’re looking for a thought provoking period piece.

Splinter is the story of a prickly parasite that moves like the blob, but has deadly porcupine like needles. While this movie doesn’t have the biggest budget or best special effects, it is being praised for being a witty, smart horror film with a good bit of gore mixed in. I haven’t checked this one out yet but it is definitely next on my list.  The movie has gotten some pretty good reviews overall despite being a fairly low key release.

GAMING

Nothing really going on gaming wise. It seems that gaming is also in a recession period for a few months with no high profile releases due out for some time. There were some additions to previously released games in the form of new maps for Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty: World at War.  Coming in May are new campaigns and game modes for Left 4 Dead.  If you’re really jonesin’ for something “new” there is  Riddick: Escape from Dark Athena and Godfather II. While I loved the original Riddick game, nothing about this new one interests me at all.  Godfather II at first seemed like it had potential, until I read that they had taken way too many liberties with the Godfather storylines. This combined with the fact that the gameplay reviews so far have been average at best and I think I may wait to borrow this one.

 MMA

This weekend is UFC 97. The main event features middleweight champion Anderson “The Spider” Silva going toe to toe with JiuJitsu ace Thales Leites. While Leites’ jits is definitely legit, I don’t see him using it to beat Silva, who is no slouch at jiu jitsu himself. Silva’s standup game and sprawl and brawl tactics are just way too much for Leites in my opinion. Should the fight go to the ground, Silva is slick enough to avoid any submission attempts and either stand back up or apply some submissions of his own. My prediction is Silva via TKO in the 2nd round.

The other highly touted bout in this event features Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell against Maruricio “Shogun” Rua. In juries and losses seem to have sapped some of the electricity out of both fighters over the past two years, with neither looking anything like they did in their primes. After being on the business end of a series of knockouts, Lidell seems to have lost the killer instinct that kept him at the top of the light heavyweight food chain for so long. Rua suffers from some of the same, only his humbling has come from injuries that seem to have taken the fire and intensity right out of his style. Another thing is that the Chute Boxe fighters that dominated in Pride seem to be having a tough time in the cage. It will be interesting to see which versions of these two former champions show up to the fight. I’m hoping we get to see two killers bang it out. My prediction is Liddell via KO in the 3rd round.

 Thats the week in entertainment and that’s a wrap.