Every so often as you begin to read a book, something in the back of your mind starts to whisper, “I’ve been here before.”  The whispering started for me at the beginning of chapter 2 of Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island and remained a nagging little voice for much of the book’s first half.

It’s 1954 and Deputy U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels has been dispatched, along with his new partner Chuck Aule, to Ashecliffe, a federal prison hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island.  Their mission is to locate a missing murderess, Rachel Solando, who has apparently managed to escape from a locked and carefully guarded cell.  She is homicidally violent and cannot be allowed to reach the mainland.

While most of the patients in Ashecliffe are dangerous, Rachel is off the chart. After landing on the dock, the marshals are disarmed (A mental hospital, remember?) and taken to see Dr. John Cawley, the hospital’s chief of staff.  They are told that the entire island has been searched and Rachel is nowhere to be found.  They are also told that, even if she tried to get to the mainland, she would never be able to make the 11-mile swim without drowning.

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Even though Battlestar Galactica is finished over at Sci-Fi Channel and Caprica doesn’t start until next year, the network has some other programming that’s worth checking out — some of which they’ve announced details about today. One such show is Eureka, a quirky story of science run a muck in small town America, which returns for ten new episodes on July 10th.

Other shows announced by Sci-Fi include the premier of a new series, Warehouse 13 and the return of Ghost Hunters. Of course, Sci-Fi also continues its “monster of the week’ trend with more “Sci-Fi Original” movies including Malibu Shark Attack starring Peta Wilson as the leader of a group of lifeguards and construction workers struggling to survive a shark attack after a tidal wave leaves them stranded.

Other original movies announced by Sci-Fi include High Plains Invaders with James Marsters as a retired outlaw who must defend a small mining town from alien invaders; Hellhounds, the story of a Greek warrior on a quest to save his young bride from the god of the underworld and Sand Serpents, featuring Jason Gedrick as an inexperienced soldier leading his men across the desert of Afghanistan to safety all while being pursued by murderous sand creatures.

For more details on these shows, and more, head on over to the Sci-Fi Channel website.

Previously at The Flickcast, we brought you news that those of you lucky enough, or adventurous enough, to be in Tempe, AZ on April 27th would get to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine before anyone else.

Fortunately, for those of you who will be waiting that long extra day for the movie to come out everywhere else, the kind folks over at Empire have posted a new clip from the film to help you pass the time and get you even more excited for the film’s release. Check it out.

Now that the dust has settled and the epic “format war” is finally over, the world has accepted Blu-Ray as the official High Def DVD World Champion. The only problem? All of us who picked the other format are now left standing with our stacks of useless HD-DVD’s dangling in the wind. Well, fear not because Warner Bros. is here to help! (could you ever imagine?)

The company has started a new project, simply titled Red2Blu, in which you can mail them your old Warner Home Entertainment HD-DVD’s and for a few dollars ($4.95 for shipping and handling to be exact), they will replace your old high-def with a shiny new Blu-Ray version. Just think, now you can finally enjoy such Warner Bros. classics as Inkheart and Firewall in all of their 1080p glory. What could be better than that?

This may not mean much for people like myself who still have their HD-DVD player sitting on top of their Blu-Ray player and can watch the movies. But some of the Blu-Ray versions do have newer, nicer features, so that’s a bonus and may cause more pople to make the switch.

No longer do you have to try and peddle HD-DVD discs on eBay or paint the cases blue so your friends don’t make fun of you when they come over. Long Live Blu-Ray!

Now if only we can do this with our Laser Discs. . .

This is the second part of John’s pull list comic reviews for the week. The first part was posted yesterday.

Kick-Ass #6 – Icon – $2.99
Score: 8.0

Kick-Ass itself is a contradiction of sorts. First, it is always one of–if not the most anticipated book of the month–even though it is usually never the best book of that month.  At the same time, it claims to be a super hero story about people in the real world, even though the actions taking place would never exist in what we consider the “real world” (or at least this writer hopes won’t actually take place).  Despite that, Kick-Ass does what all comics aspire to and sadly few consistently achieve in every issue; to please the reader and leave them wanting more.

On the surface, Kick-Ass has violence and vulgarity out the @$$ (that phrase being tamer than anything said in the entire book).  Digging down further, it is still pretty violent, but unlike a Hollywood gore film, there is substance hidden somewhere the buckets of blood and bodies, drawn with consistent art and beautifully illustrated splash pages by John Romita Jr. In the coming pages, the reader is taken through Hit Girl’s childhood and training that explain why she had no qualms about slicing and dicing criminals or loading them into car crushers in previous issues.

It’s hard not to crack an uncomfortable smile as this little girl tells her father they need to form a team, “‘Coz you’re the funnest dad in the world.” Like the rest of the series has been, this issue brings us intense imagery, including the blood-soaked cover, also from Romita, and ends on a great cliff hanger, keeping it atop everyone’s pull list for May.

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Ever since Mirage Studios published the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984, fans of the series have been hoping for an authentic, decent big-screen adaptation of their beloved shell-heads.

The first try at a live action movie was in 1990 with a dark and gritty attempt at the comic featuring ridiculous rubber suits. Due to the popularity of the cartoon, the film was a financial success, which sadly brought sequels featuring Vanilla Ice, wrestler Kevin Nash and freckled Turtles.

Well, the time has come when the dream of a decent Ninja Turtles movie may come to fruition, as there is information that another live-action adaptation of the franchise is in the works. According to an article over at Variety:

“The Mirage Group, which owns the property, is moving forward with a live-action film focusing on the origins of the iconic crime fighters. News coincides with the Turtles’ 25th anniversary celebration, which kicks off Thursday in New York as the first “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” film unspools at the Tribeca Film Festival.

[Co-creator Peter] Laird said the film will remain true to the spirit of the original comicbooks. He added that the pic may employ face replacement technology, which would allow the turtles to be much more expressive.”

2007′s CGI reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise proved to be mildly successful, but not enough to continue with sequels. So will we see more freckled turtles? Will Corey Feldman return to voice Donatello? And most importantly, will Sam Rockwell reprise his role as the pivotal character “Head Thug”? Only time will tell.

Its reboot and remake week here at The Flickcast and this time around we’ve got another one for you. According to a report at IESB, director, writer, producer, editor and steadicam operator Robert Rodriguez announced plans today that he will be helming a re-boot of the Predator franchise called Predators.

Rodriguez made the announcement at a press conference in Texas for the signing of a new bill to help bring more film production into the state. Here’s the multi-talented hyphenate’s own words on the subject, as quoted in the article:

“I’m going to be able to shoot my upcoming Machete here, a sci-fi action film called Nervewrackers, a re-boot of the Predator series called Predators, and a couple of smaller movies called Sin City 2 and The Jetsons.”

So, it seems there’s going to be a lot of production going in in the Lone Star State in the coming months and years. Maybe its time to consider that move to Austin I’ve been thinking about? Of course the real question is do we actually need a reboot of the Predator franchise?

Update: There’s new information surfacing today from ERC that there is, in fact, a new Predator movie in the works but Robert Rodriguez has not taken on the role of writer/director — at least not yet. Instead, he’s producing the film and Fox has already given it a release data: July 7, 2010. Be careful what you wish for.

According to and article over at TV Guide.com, fans of NBC’s Heroes can expect to see their favorite characters a little less frequently next season. In the article, which cites a report from AD Age, TV Guide says NBC is cutting the number of episodes it is ordering for the show’s fourth season from 25, which it had during the current season, down to 18 or 20.

The reasons given for the reduction in the number of episodes range from budget considerations to the show’s somewhat lackluster ratings of late. Also a factor is NBC having fewer hours of primetime programming space available due to Jay Leno’s new show, which will air weeknights at 10pm next season.

This reduction also seems to be part of a trend which is affecting other networks as well. For example, ABC’s Lost has seen its number of episodes reduced to 16 or 17 in recent seasons while CBS’s Harper’s Island has only 13 episodes. Or, it could just be an excuse the networks are using to and cut costs during tough economic times?

No matter the reasons, fans of Heroes, Lost and other expensive, ensamble shows can probably expect this trend to continue. Who knows, maybe one day soon the era of the large ensamble drama will be over for good and we’ll be stuck watching ridiculous reality shows and hours of American Idol every night? Those would be dark times indeed.

Okay all you Wolverine fans eagerly anticipating the X-Men Origins: Wolverine film, load up your cars or hop on a plane and head to Tempe, Arizona. Why, you may wonder? Well, according to MTV Splashpage, if you want to see the film before anyone else, that’s where you’ll have to go as its premiering there on April 27th, one day before its national release.

According to the article, it was a pitched battle but scrappy Tempe beat out several other contenders including Philadelphia, PA and Austin, TX for Wolverine premiere bragging rights . But in the end, Tempe came out on top.

So, even if you’ve already seen the leaked version of the film, I’m pretty sure you’ll probably want to see the final version as well — I know I do. However, you may want to hit the road early if you’re going to make it to Tempe on time for the premiere. Something tells me the traffic is going to be a bitch.

For those of us not in Tempe, X-Men Origins: Wolverine hits theaters April 28th.

This is the first part of John’s pull list comic reviews for the week. The second part follows tomorrow.

Pull of the Week:

New Avengers #52 – Marvel – $3.99
Score: 8.5

If there was ever a team book that could get away with next to no-action and still consistently be the best read of the week, it’s the New Avengers. Brian Bendis knows these characters and knows how to bring them to life. The amazing part is that he does it with brief action sequences and is able to dive into the personalities of the New Avengers by simply sitting them down at a dinner table and meet as a team.  Everyone fits a role whether it be a cool and collected leader, a partially insecure spaz, the quiet bad ass or the person everyone thought was dead but was actually only just abducted and replaced by a Skrull. The magic is that Bendis has such a grip on these characters that his conversations between these characters feels like they have known each other for years.

The story revolves around the team being filled in by Doctor Strange, the former Sorcerer Supreme, about the attack he suffered at the hands of the Hood. Mystical cameos seemingly abound in this issue, the New Avengers head south to find another magical character who may be the next Sorcerer Supreme (who wasn’t actually who the reader was suspecting from the clues given pages before).  Bendis exhibits great understanding of character building and does it in an entertaining way in this issue.

This truly is a book that could still be enjoyable to read even if no action took place much like Bendis’ control over the characters has proved time and time again. Also, like the last issue, the dual art teams give the book a feel all of its own. Having two art teams seems like it’d be disjointed in the story telling but by splitting the teams between the conflict of Strange and the Hood and the other team working on the rest of the book, it only helps the “magic” of storytelling.

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Even with the state of California’s economy, and all of its other recent issues, there’s still time for the Govenor to joke around and hint about his appearance in the upcoming Terminator: Salvation film. Recently, the Govenator gave a webcast interview and Yahoo news is reporting that during the interview, he all but confirmed his appearance in the fourth Terminator film.

However, his appearance may not be exactly what fans expect or are hoping for. According to the site:

The governor made it clear he had no time to shoot new footage but that the filmmakers are playing with technology to insert his image from the earlier “Terminator” movies.  Schwarzenegger says he told director McG he will come to the premiere of the movie.

So, we will probably see our favorite Terminator in the new film but it will end up being either previously shot footage or, as I predicted during the most recent episode of The Flickcast, a poster or some other identifying photo of Schwarzenegger’s character somewhere in the ruins of Los Angeles. Who knows, maybe in the new film the Govenator’s likeness is the model Skynet uses when they decide to create the Terminator in the first place? Did that just blow your mind or what?

Terminator: Salvation stars Christian Bale, Moon Bloodgood and Bryce Dallas Howard, is directed by McG and hits theaters on May 21st.

With the big screen adaptation of Mark Millar’s yet-to-be-concluded comic Kick-Ass still moving along, Empire Magazine now brings fanboys a new image from the film to wet their proverbial beaks. Meet Chloe Mortez (My Friends Tigger & Pooh),  she’ll be taking on the role of Mindy Macready (aka Hit Girl) in the new film.

In case you’re not familiar with the comic, Hit Girl is an 11-year old assassin who has been trained to be the ultimate killing machine since age 4 by her father Big Daddy (played in the film by the multifaceted Nic Cage). Though the character in the film looks pretty different from her comic counterpart, remember that we’ve played the “that doesn’t look Millar’s book” game before and ended up with Wanted, which wasn’t all that bad.

Kick-Ass is being adapted to film by writer Jane Goldman (Stardust) with Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) handling the directing chores. Kick-Ass the movie hits theaters later this year. Kick-Ass the comic book is availible at your local comic book store now.