Before he became the junior welterweight champion, Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) had to fight his magnificently dysfunctional family. His mother and manager, Alice (Melissa Leo), seemed to only book him mismatched fights that led to an ass whooping. Dicky (Christian Bale), his half-brother and trainer, is a motor-mouthed crackhead who used to be the “pride of Lowell, MA.” Once upon a time he went toe-to-toe with Sugar Ray Leonard and managed to knock him down. Micky also has six sisters that echo his mother from the sidelines like an ugly and unwelcome Greek chorus. This is his family. When outside forces tell Micky that his family is holding him back and retarding his dreams, Micky’s only reply is “It’s my family!”

His attitude begins to change when he falls for a potty-mouthed barmaid named Charlene (Amy Adams) who suggests finding a new trainer; someone who isn’t high 24/7 and can actually spar. After about an hour of family infighting, actual training, and exceptional Boston accents, Micky gets his title shot. And the crowd rejoiced.

It’s the tried and true formula of an underdog boxing movie: the fighter has to overcome something out of the ring before he can dominate within it. David O. Russell‘s The Fighter, based on Ward’s true story, really never strays from this worn path, although there’s a few factors that keep it from feeling too played out. The acting is terrific across the board, except for Bale who is downright amazing. And the fights are shot like an actual televised event — ESPN style. They even used that specific film stock for the bouts.

I love Wahlberg and he’s great as Micky, but he takes a backseat to the other actors in The Fighter. Not because he puts in a sub-par performance, I just think that Micky was that kind of dude. He would stay quiet and do his best to shrug off his shitty family. Melissa Leo (Frozen River) turn out an intense performance as the territorial mother who doesn’t want some “slutty, MTV girl” moving in on her son. As said slut, Amy Adams busts out of the image I’ve had of her since Enchanted. She plays a hardboiled Boston chick with ease. But Bale. Whoa. He’s a chameleon once again and delivers the most moving junkie performance since Bubbles. He also serves as the main source of comic relief. A-yuk.

In the end, the awesome performances don’t save The Fighter from being a mediocre boxing movie with not that much going on. Wait for it on Netflix.

Bonus: Enjoy the “Not You” viral video above!

This review originally appeared on the Mishka Bloglin. Patrick reviews movies on there under the nom de plume Oh Mars.

Last night was a lunar eclipse. It was also the darkest day in 372 years. Did you miss it? I sure did. I was tired man! Tired! Lay off. Thankfully William Castleman has brought the world a beautiful time lapse video of the event.

Hit the jump for the video.

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Welcome once again, m’babies, to the Monday Morning Commute. Please ignore the fact that this feature is posted during the late-night timeslot. Also, there’s no need for you to know that my commute to work takes no more than fifteen minutes on a bad day. Instead, join me in celebrating the entertaining bits of existence that are going to get me through the week.

And try to remember what you learned on the playground – I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. After peeping my naughty bits, hit up the comments and show me yours. After all, it’s only fair.

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Hold it now, wait a minute, just let me catch my breath. Fall semester’s over, and I’m positively jubilant. Made it through a gauntlet of swinging axes, motorized chainsaws, and ovulating desperate women with elephantiasis of the labia. Grad school man, not like it used to be. I’m excited man, excited.

I’m in my sweatpants! Just straight kicking it. Snow is falling, Santa Claus is assuredly preparing his run, and there is scant hours before I’m nestled up to my future-wife. Is time linear? Is God watching? Is he outside time? Has he already seen my children? Are they awesome? Can someone tell me? Aquinas? Anselm? Descartes? Bueller?

I was reading some Zero History by Billy Gibson when the sudden urge to just type hit me. So here I am. Nothing really to say. But most of the time it’s like “Oh hey! Check out X thing that is totally happening! Here I compare it to some sort of genital squirting into some sort of farm animal! LOL! I tell jokes!” It’s different when I’m not strung out on Diet Mountain Dew trying to post a news article as quickly as possible. Or staring at a deadline approaching as I try to cobble together five things in the video game world.

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Some people have dope fucking jobs. Photographer Dan Saelinger was tasked by Fortune Magazine to come up with a shoot based around the concept of gaming’s demise. Dan elaborates on his blog:

We came up with a concept to incorporate still and video footage of exploding consoles and controllers, particularly Xbox 360′s, for the story. The shoot took place at a pyrotechnics studio in Brooklyn called J and M Special Effects. The location was great because they have a permanent NYC explosives permit as well as a pyrotechnician on staff. Below is a behind the scenes video of the initial set up.

The result is gorgeous. Hit the jump for a video of an Xbox 360 exploding in slow motion. For PS3 fanboys, it’s probably orgasmic. To me it’s just very, very cool.

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I’m currently in the “it could be fucking awesome!” portion of my oscillating opinion on the BSG prequel, Blood and Chrome. If it’s a high quality production tackling Billy Adama and the first Cylon War? Goodness gracious, it could be terrific.

Miss out on my earlier article about Blood and Chrome? Here you go:

Blood and Chrome takes place 20 years after Caprica and about 40 years before Battlestar Galactica.

Writer of the script Michael Taylor elaborates:

This is very much an action-adventure, war series. This is definitely dealing with people who are fighting the fight. … As you hope ‘Battlestar’ would do, it kind of comments on that process a little bit… but not in a preachy way, not in an issues-oriented way, not in a hitting-you-over-the-head way.

Hit the jump for some concept art from the upcoming series, which is slated to hit in late 2011 or early 2012.

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Thanks to NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we have the most detailed reliefs of the far side of the moon. Ever! Ever! Oh, technology. The Orbiter was capable of capturing the surface down to thirty-meters. G’damn. The trippy colors? False colors used to denote the various heights. The reds are the highest areas, the blues are the lowest.

Hit the jump for the psychedelic space porn.

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For months Hickman’s excellent Fantastic Four has been building up to what I’ve assumed is a death to one of the members of the F4. So what happens to them after the Countdown to Casualty hits? It seems a beginning.

Issue one though? Is it a new monthly? Are they rebooting the numbering of F4? I must know! I must! Know!

My ridiculous excitement over this vague teaser is a testament to Hickman’s run on F4. His ability to bring wonder back into the overly status-quo and rote Marvel universe through intergalactic adventures has me sweating the comic book every month. In a world where everything seems beaten to death, and tropes ground into paste, he has managed to make the Marvel Universe feel enormous. There’s potential behind every door, universes to explore. Whatever the fuck this is, I want in on it.

Via.

From left to right: Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis, and Coppola

Yesterday was Spielberg’s 64th birthday and the HollywoodReporter posted this photo from George Lucas’ 50th birthday party. Makes sense.

I love how everyone is dressed up except for De Palma. He totally photobombed them. It’s like he doesn’t really like Lucas but heard there was going to be free booze. What’s so funny, Ron Howard?! Sweet tie, Lucas. Coppola’s such a lush.

For the second Christmas Creep in a row, I’m putting my foot in my mouth. When I pitched the Creep to the fearless leaders of OL, I told them I would be writing up the shittiest, most painful Christmas specials/movies. Like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun and blew my load on the premiere installment, Christmas With the Turtles. Is that like Icarus? It doesn’t matter. What I mean is that after that first article, I keep accidentally watching AWESOME Christmas jams! It’s a Christmas miracle (which I didn’t think was possible since I’m engaged to a Jew). Earlier this week I enjoyed the hell out of Max Headroom’s Giant X-Mas Turkey and yesterday, over a Diet Coke and toast, Santa With Muscles (1996) tickled my bad-good movie bone. And my pecs.

Hulk Hogan plays a militaristic, millionaire grinch who gets knocked out during a mall debacle and wakes up thinking he’s Santa. He befriends the residents of an orphanage – including a 13-year-old Mila Kunis – and helps them wreck some plot by nefarious developers to shut down their facility. Along the way there’s singing, inept figt scenes, and explosive crystals. Yes, explosive crystals. Needless to say, it’s awesome.

Directed by John Murlowski, a volunteer at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center hotline *record scratch* Say wha? Hold up. I’m sure his noble activity as a suicide hotline volunteer has nothing to do with shame over the films he’s directed. Moving on, this movie is the perfect storm of ’90s cheese with a Hulkamania cherry on top. Hogan was on fire in the first half of the ’90s. Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, and the Thunder in Paradise trilogy. Near the tail-end of this streak is Santa With Muscles, his movie-fart swan song, so to speak.

The “film” also stars Ed Begley, Jr. as an evil scientist and Clint Howard as a mall cop. As mentioned earlier, a 13-year-old Mila Kunis plays an orphan and in a weird twist of TV Fate, her future castmate on That ’70s Show Don Stark plays Lenny the Elf. Fellow WWF superstar Brutus the Barber Beefcake has an entirely too brief cameo as a thug but it’s Hogan who carries this turd on his shoulders like Atlas. And Icarus. Atlas and Icarus. I guess

This might be the perfect Christmas Hangover movie. There’s enough cheese to enjoy and enough crap to enjoy heckling with your pals. Consider hunting this down online before you channel surf for some more traditional X-Mas flick.

WARNING: Performing an image search for “santa with muscles” will open up a Pandora’s Box of porn that I’m guessing does not fall into our readers’ preferred spank material.