Fighting, a first look at which I brought you yesterday, and which my friends at CagePotato have so astutely dubbed Not Another Teen Movie About Underground MMA, now has a trailer.  It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect, complete with shitty Linkin Park soundtrack and a Cung Le cameo.  The only surprise is that Channing Tatum’s character is more wigger-y than you’d expect.  I guess that’s supposed to differentiate it from Never Back Down, The O.C. of underground fight club movies.  But even if Fighting‘s slightly better at disguising its shameless pandering to whatever’s hip these days, I’m still giving Never Back Down the realism edge.  I just think underground fight clubs are more likely in the ‘burbs than in the ghetto.  No matter how good at Jiu-Jitsu you are, it’s still no match for Mexican Judo. …I mean, I didn’t mean to imply that only Mexicans live in the ghetto… I just meant that everyone in the ghetto has weapons. Because they’re minorities, you see. Wait! No, that came out wrong too… Crap, I’m gonna get letters about this aren’t I.
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^{Homophobic Turtle loves underground fight club movies, though his favorite is Fight Club.}

Hooray, another shitty MMA movie! I may be mixing metaphors here, but Hollywood’s gonna keep squeezing money from this stone until it shits a dead horse.  This one’s called Fighting and stars Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard.   RopeofSilicon has your first look.

Small-town boy Shawn MacArthur [WHO LEADS WITH HIS FISTS, AND OFTEN, HIS HEART!] (Channing Tatum) has come to New York City with nothing. Barely earning a living selling counterfeit goods on the streets, his luck changes when scam artist Harvey Boarden [GRR, A DEN FULL OF BOARS!] (Terrence Howard) sees that he has a natural talent for streetfighting. When Harvey offers Shawn help at making the real cash [making the cash and having the sex has always been my dream!], the two form an uneasy partnership.
As Shawn’s manager, Harvey introduces him to the corrupt bare-knuckle circuit, where rich men bet on disposable pawns. Almost overnight, he becomes a star brawler, taking down professional boxers, mixed martial arts champs and ultimate fighters in a series of staggeringly intense bouts. But if Shawn ever hopes to escape the dark world in which he’s found himself, he must now face the toughest fight of his life [the fight against a horrible script!]. -Rogue films via RopeofSilicon

GRR, STAGGERINGLY INTENSE!  With Terrence Howard as the mentor in this, I think they missed a golden opportunity.  He could come in and be like, “Hey, man, you seem like a far out cat. You like beatin’ people up? Why not try beatin’ on this djembe drum?  Ain’t nothin’ finer for spreadin’ the vibe, ya dig?  Chew on it while I rhyme a while.” Look how sad he looks in this picture. You can tell he’s thinking about watching a mountain cry.

Trailer after the jump

Following his star turn in the MMA-meets-The OC drama Never Back Down (some folks are already talking Oscar) Sean Faris is back in another hardass-sports movie, Forever Strong, about a prison rugby team ["prison rugby" is also a great euphemism for gay sex].  As a former college and men’s club rugby player and current muay thai enthusiast, I’m thrilled with the way Hollywood is portraying my favorite sports.  I expected them to cheapen and sensationalize them like they do everything else, but Sean Faris is the perfect choice.  With his high cheekbones and lanky, hairless body, he reminds me of so many of my friends and teammates who get hit in the face all day.  In fact, we all look exactly like that.  And our manager looked just like Sean Astin.  Come to think of it, I think it was Sean Astin.

Bonus observation for the other three rugby players reading this:  I especially enjoyed them showing him wearing number 14, then number 12, and then being in the front row for a scrum*.  This guy can do everything!

*Explanation for the three non-rugby players who care: Forwards, the players who are involved in a scrum, wear numbers 1-8. Backs, the players who aren’t in scrums, wear numbers 9-15. Higher numbers are reserves.

Horton Hears a Who dominated a weak field this weekend (and scored mostly good reviews), grossing $45 million – the biggest weekend of 2008 so far. 

10,000 B.C. was down 54% from last weekend to make $16 million and take number two, and Never Back Down opened with $8.6 mil for number three.  Not bad, considering it looks like it cost five dollars to make and was written by a retarded baboon.   

Though second-weekend drops of 50%+ are now pretty standard, FilmDrunkard Robby sent me this classic article about how the studio hype machine and front-loaded box office grosses sort of came of age with the first Batman movie (it’s a long article and a great read – see also: John Peters being a douchebag).

[of Batman’s then unheard-of-for-a-blockbuster second weekend drop of 25%] Blockbusters never used to fade like this – ET had stayed at the top for 10 weeks, and increased its grosses as it went along, while Back to the Future had stayed up there for 13 weeks. But Batman came and went in the blink of an eye. Far more so than Jaws, it marked the beginning of the long, slow erosion of audience word-of-mouth.  [excerpted from Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer, by Tom Shone]

Bottom line, things just ain’t what they used to be.  What with the young girls all painted up like whores and Howard Stern, rap music, all the dang newscasters are Orientals and my bum leg’s actin up again – STAY OFF MY GODDAMNED LAWN YOU MOTHERLESS HEATHENS!  

[Source: BoxOfficeMojo (stats) and IESB (picture)] 

Our buddy Sean Faris (a tough kid who leads with his fists, and often his heart) is back to talk Never Back Down and tell us how grueling life is when you’re a model/actor.

If I ever spoke ill of Faris’ acting skills, I owe him an apology. Anyone who can pretend to take this movie seriously this long deserves some credit.  Intercut with the hilariously self-serious interview are clips from the movie, in which Djimon Hounsou throws a cinder block over the moon, and Faris schools fools in an underground male-model Fight Club that just might save the rec center.  GRR, RAP-METAL!  

Man, nothing gets the adrenaline pumping like a kneebar and a Papa Roach album.

[thanks to Robby for the tip]