Music
There is a fine line separating a male artist who expresses his longing for love in his songs and one who sings about his desire for sex. Usher, happily married and enjoying fatherhood, manages to tip-toe along that border often in “Here I Stand,” his fifth album and his first in four years. He includes a song called “Prayer For You,” about his new baby son, and also one called “Trading Places,” which has nothing to do with the old Eddie Murphy movie but rather is a bedroom strategy. The rest of the album is filled with heartfelt soul and R&B from one of the finest practitioners working today, with help from friends such as Jermaine Dupree and teams Dre and Vidal, and Dream and Tricky Stewart. Some people can’t have it both ways. Then there’s Usher. (Jive)

Movies
Being an accomplished martial artist isn’t always about kicking bad-guy butt and impressing the ladies. Sometimes it can be a mechanism for coping with personal upheaval, such as a wife leaving, as is the case in the low-budget comedy, “The Foot Fist Way,” a hit at the Sundance Film Festival. Mr. Simmons (Danny McBride), a tae kwon do instructor in a strip mall, finds out his spouse has been kicking it with others. He goes on a downward plunge, abusing students and himself, before deciding to go on a journey of self-discovery with some students and a wacky friend to find his hero, martial arts champ Chuck “The Truck” Wallace. It’s sort of “Napoleon Dynamite,” only with more misdirected testosterone. (Paramount Vantage, opens Friday)

Television

Alex Wong / Getty Images file

Whenever I see a whiz kid on television spelling words I’ve never heard of, I have the same reaction most people do: I wish he had been around when I was in elementary school so I could have cheated off him. Ah, just kidding. I wouldn’t do that, and you wouldn’t either. The contestants this week on “The 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee” may be annoyingly brilliant, but they’re also worthy of our respect and admiration. In an age when most people work on computers that have spell check and therefore put little emphasis on getting words right, it’s refreshing to see some old-fashioned scholarly prowess at work on a big stage for all to see. And just because this particular written passage happened to pass through spell check doesn’t mean I couldn’t have been right up there with them if I wanted to be. (ABC, Friday, 8 p.m.)

DVD
Do you sometimes have dreams about big, ugly, hair monsters? About creatures that are half-fish, half-bird? About mysterious beasts with burning eyes and massive heads? Indeed, going to the DMV can bring on such visions. But there is an entire culture out there obsessed with things that might be part myth and part reality, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and many others. “Monsterquest: The Complete Season One” is a show on the History Channel that each week visits far flung corners of the world to track down these legends and examine in scientific fashion whether there is any truth to them. “Monsterquest” is on DVD this week with 13 episodes worth of giant squids, dinosaurs, bizarre-looking dogs and the like. It’ s never been more fun to explain the unexplainable. (A&E Home Video)

Books
Salman Rushdie is probably best known for penning “The Satanic Verses,” which got him into a bit of trouble with a certain group of readers. All that is over now, at least I hope. This week his 10th novel, “The Enchantress of Florence,” is out, serving as a reminder that one of the most vital and important writers of our time is still alive and well. This book goes back in time to tell the story about a mysterious European beauty believed to possess magic powers at the time of the Mughal empire (it reached its peak around 1700, controlling much of the Asian subcontinent, some of which is now Afghanistan) who sets off on a trip to the city of Florence, a journey that has everybody buzzing over its possible consequences. Rushdie’s book will be available just about everywhere, except maybe the Barnes & Noble in Tehran. (Random House)

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