Vampires are still on the menu when it comes to nice sized box office morsels, as Underworld: Awakening, the fourth film of the franchise, sunk its teeth in and made its mark on the weekend take, the film series, and January openings as a whole. The only of these lists Awakening‘s opening of $25.4m tops is chart for this weekend. That’s a return for the series, whose third entry, Rise of the Lycans, debuted in the #2 spot behind Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and who can really contend with Kevin James? I mean, really?

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in his favorite Jedi robe, grabs his lightsaber and heads out to see the latest George Lucas movie…and boy does he look stupid. After realizing that Red Tails has nothing to do with the color of creatures’ backsides in the Tattooine cantina, he then dresses in his favorite “Team Jacob” tee shirt to see the latest vampire/werewolf movie. Again, he looks ridiculous. Finally, he sulks into a movie theater showing the new Steven Soderbergh film, falls in love with new action star Gina Carano and is happy.

Lots of actors have a niche they like to call home, and while it’s sometimes fun to see them stretch outside their comfort zone they often do their most relaxed and assured work with material that feels the most familiar. For Mark Wahlberg that zone is “nice guy committing criminal acts while remaining pretty damn charming.” When he sticks to it we get fun films like Three Kings, Four Brothers, The Italian Job, Shooter and more. When he veers too widely away though we get The Happening. Lucky for us Contraband falls into the former category of fun, lightweight films that take full advantage of Wahlberg’s physical appearance, under-utilized sense of humor and charismatic charm (that falls somewhere between a George Clooney and a Michael Shannon).

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr recovers from his colossal failure in getting any of his votes in the Critic’s Choice Movie Awards to count (except for A Separation for best foreign film, but who didn’t think that would win?) by engaging in therapy via multiplex. Unfortunately, it’s January, and his only choices were Marky Mark and the Smuggling Bunch or Queen Latifah going mano-y-mano with the robot Dolly Parton. He opts for the action film, but he may have also fallen asleep during it. How soon until good movies are released again?

The first trailer for Mark Wahlberg’s upcoming team-up with Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur, Contraband, has hit, and it packs just about every action movie trope that you can think of into two and a half minutes. First off, Wahlberg plays a former criminal, who “got out of the life” and started a family. Then there’s the matter of a trouble-making brother (or in this case brother-in-law) who does something stupid and draws the protagonist back into doing “one last job.” We get the development of the wife and family being kidnapped, and even a Mexican stand-off with everybody pointing guns at each other. Pretty much this movie has everything an action fan could want. Check out the first trailer after the break.

After reading that headline, fans of J. Scott Campbell’s comic books series “Danger Girl” might have had their heads explode. And even people who don’t know what “Danger Girl” is are most likely now intrigued. Say what you will about the Underworld and Resident Evil series; they’re not great, but they managed to cast leading ladies so appealing that they just keep making money and getting more sequels produced anyways. And now this new action adventure tale looks to take both of those leads, Kate Beckinsale and Milla Jovovich, and have them running around in skin tight outfits together. Plus they’re going to throw in Modern Family’s buxom and charismatic Sofia Vergara for good measure. I’ve maybe never heard better news in my entire life. Does that sound misogynistic? Who cares… hot ladies shooting guns and doing high kicks! Yeah! For the uninitiated, Danger Girl takes the James Bond concept and turns it on its head. We still get the sultry Bond girls, but this time they are the secret operatives kicking all of the ass. Danger Girl Freelance Operations Limited is kind of like the A-Team, but with hot chicks instead of grizzly old dudes and a black guy with a Mohawk. They often run afoul of a group of neo-Nazis called the Hammer Empire, and there’s even an Indiana Jones type mystical relic hunting aspect to their ongoing adventures. Basically, Danger Girl has everything.

There’s something Schwarzenegger-esque about the opening to the first trailer for Underworld: Awakening. For one, we find out that it’s Selene’s (Kate Beckinsale) awakening. For two, she goes all Terminator by curling up naked in the fetal position before finding some conveniently skin-tight clothes and then kicking a bunch of ass. The way this trailer is edited together hints at the stupidity that the film might have in store, but there’s no denying that the action looks solid. At least it was enough to turn the entire thing black and blue:

But which one of them will have a human growing out of their stomach? Collider is confirming that Kate Beckinsale is officially signed for Total Recall as Colin Farrell’s character’s wife. The more cynical of the world might believe that it’s simply because her husband Len Wiseman is directing that she got the part, but it might also have to do with her being incredibly attractive and outstanding in roles like this. Plus, with the production starting next week, they’ve secured Jessica Biel to play a woman that Farrell’s character meets in the “spy world.” As if that weren’t enough to get the blood flowing, The Hollywood Reporter is announcing Bill Nighy will be re-teaming with Wiseman and Beckinsale to play Quatto – the leader of an underground resistance. To play catch up, this incarnation of the Phillip K. Dick story will never make it to Mars. Instead, it will focus more on Quaid (Farrell), a factory worker who believes he is spying for one of the two major world governments. From the sound of it, Wiseman and company might be making it more along the lines of a confusing mystery thriller – so more Minority Report than, you know, Total Recall. This cast is strong, and sticking closer to Dick might make this re-adaptation one actually worth making.

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

This past weekend saw the cinematic glory of Resident Evil: Afterlife pushing past security to get into your local theater even though it was moving slower than an instant replay in a curling match. The absolute atrocity of this film raises a lot of questions, but one of the first and foremost is whether or not directors should work with their spouses in a leading role. Paul W.S. Anderson, who thinks Milla Jovovich is as big an action star as Sigourney Weaver, is also married to Milla Jovovich, and while we can’t prove causation for the low marks in her performance here – we can certainly point to correlation. We can also point to 9 more husband and wife teams in order to find out if working with your legally bound significant other is really such a great idea.

Kate Beckinsale is contractually obligated to appear in the fourth Underworld film, according to the folks at Bloody-Disgusting. And while this move may help her career, she appears to want out.

This week’s drinking game teaches us to lie with The Invention of Lying and how to murder people in a show storm with Whiteout… or it’ll just get you drunk.

In spite of the fact almost nothing was screened for them this week, Kevin and Neil meet in the Magical Studio in the Sky to not talk about movies. Instead, they discuss Kevin being a near body double for Taylor Lautner, Neil’s homoerotic fantasies about Neil Patrick Harris and how to tweet in Klingon. tIv cha’!

A fourth trip to the world of Underworld is in development. And while they don’t have a director, or a star just yet, they do have a writer.

‘Whiteout’ is a dull thriller that never makes proper use of its Antarctic setting or Kate Beckinsale, its star.

Kevin Carr takes a look at this week’s movie releases, including 9, Sorority Row, Whiteout and Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself..

Gremlins of all kinds invade the Magical Studio in the Sky. It’s either a sign of the apocalypse or a sign of bad movies in September. The first wave caused a glitch in Neil’s gender clarification surgery, so he had to return to the Netherlands to reclarify. Fortunately, David Medsker from Bullz-eye.com filled in.

Kate Beckinsale is in a new movie, and the trailer would rather talk about how cold Antarctica is than show shots of her breathing or standing around looking sexy or anything like that. Because learning is fun! Oh, and there’s a murder!

Coming straight to DVD next week sans Kate “Super Hot” Beckinsale, is Vacancy 2 worth checking into? Check out the answer inside.

In a recent interview with MTV, Kate Beckinsale stated that she has a new found respect for journalists due to her upcoming role in Nothing But The Truth, where she portrays a journalist who is sentenced for not revealing her source after exposing a CIA operative.