Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray version of The Last Starfighter, Dexter Seasons 1-3 on Blu-ray and the debut of season one of Sons of Anarchy on DVD.

Check them out.

Movies

The 5 Deadly Venoms ~ Five Deadly Venoms (DVD)

Hannah Montana The Movie (3-Disc Combo Pack Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy) ~ Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Lucas Till, and Emily Osment (Blu-ray)

Husbands (Extended Cut) ~ Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, and Jenny Runacre (DVD)

Julia ~ Tilda Swinton (DVD)

Kagemusha – Criterion Collection ~ Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara, and Jinpachi Nezu (Blu-ray)

Last House on the Left (2009) ~ Garret Dillahunt, Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn (DVD and Blu-ray)

The Last Starfighter 25th Anniversary ~ Lance Guest, Dan O’Herlihy, Catherine Mary Stewart (DVD and Blu-ray)

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With the fourth installment of Spider-Man slated for production in early 2010, Sony Pictures has shown a solid commitment to expanding the franchise even more by signing screenwriter James Vanderbilt (The Losers, Zodiac) to write the Spider-Man 5 and Spider-Man 6 sequels

Vanderbilt was the first writer on Spider-Man 4, but director Sam Raimi brought on David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole) to rewrite him, and Gary Ross is currently rewriting that script. According to Variety, Raimi didn’t embrace all of Vanderbilt’s ideas, but execs at Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios have. The fifth and sixth Spider-Man movies will have an interconnected storyline, which was originally discussed when Vanderbilt was signed on to write Spider-Man 4, but the idea of shooting a fourth and fifth film back to back with the original cast was scrapped.

Currently, it is unclear whether Raimi, Tobey Maguire or Kirsten Dunst will be back for future installments. If they aren’t, Vanderbilt’s script would most-likely be the blueprint for a franchise reboot with an all-new cast. Regardless of the established talent’s future involvement, Sony’s priority will be to release Spider-Man films on a more frequent basis. The lapse between films has grown with each installment. The second film came only two years after the first, but it took three years for a third installment, and four years will have passed when Spider-Man 4 opens in May 2011.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast for future developments on the Spider-Man franchise.

i.TV is arguably one of the most useful and feature-rich iPhone application ever invented, especially if you’re a movie or TV lover. This app serves as a one-stop-shop for all your local movie schedules, TV programming — be it cable, satellite or broadcast — community news, movie trailers, ticket purchases, Netflix que management and much more. As if all these features weren’t enough, the app does all this and is also absolutely free. How’s that for a deal?

Now, the fine folks who make this very useful app have announced some details for their upcoming update to i.TV. This new version, dubbed 2.0, will offer a host of updates and improvements which will undoubtedly further enhance this apps’ already tremendous usefulness.

Some of these new features and updates include:

• A new, improved UI – One of the few areas where the app actually needed improvement.

• iTunes integration — Control movie, tv, episode, etc. purchases from within the app.

• Push notifications — Push alerts for show reminders, new episodes, etc.

• The i.TV Remote Control Framework — New support for universal remotes. Devices can be connected via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or dock-connector. The new version currently supports TiVo HD and TiVO HD XL boxes but more devices are on the way — including rumored support for DirecTV boxes (fingers crossed for that one).

Version 2.0 of i.TV is currently pending review in the Apple iTunes Store, so look for it to drop hopefully very soon. Meanwhile, take a look at the video after the jump that highlights some of version 2.0′s upcoming features.

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After playing a robotic assassin hunter in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last spring, it appears that Brian Austin Green has an affinity for cyborgs. TV Guide has revealed — and we reported back in June — that the 90210 star is returning to the small screen for a two-episode arc on Smallville. And now, there’s a picture too.

In case you don’t recall or don’t want to click the link, Green plays John Corben, a new Daily Planet reporter who becomes the comic-book villain Metallo. In the aftermath of an accident, Corben is mysteriously outfitted with a heart made of kryptonite.

Executive producer Kelly Souders won’t reveal the identity of who is responsible for the Frankenstein-esque transformation, but says Corben is turned into “a rough version of Metallo, a first attempt at the technology, and eventually he’ll get sleeker.” The future of Green’s character is unknown and he might make a return visit to the show.

“It’s Smallville,” she says with a laugh. “We’re actually throwing some ideas around right now in the hopes that we might be able to bring him back for another episode.”

The 9th season premiere of Smallville airs on the CW September 25.

DreamWorks Animation’s Oobermind has enlisted three new superheroes, with Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill  lending their voices to the animated comedy. Variety reports that Ferrell is replacing Robert Downey Jr. in the title role of a supervillain whose dastardly dreams come true after defeating good-guy rival Metro Man (Pitt). Finding life boring without an adversary, Oobermind creates Titan (Hill), a superhero who also wants to be a villain, forcing Oobermind to switch sides.

The three actors join the already signed Tina Fey, who voices the reporter tasked with keeping track of the city’s confusing superhero situation. Oobermind will be directed by Tom McGrath, co-helmer of the popular Madagascar franchise. The project would have marked the first major animation role for Downey, Jr., who exited due to scheduling conflicts.

Oobermind will be released in Fall 2010 and will be distributed in stereoscopic 3-D.

We are chock full of Vertigo Comics this week, as the mature line of DC Comics debuts its Crime Line with two hardcovers from Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets) and best selling mystery author Ian Rankin.

Azzarello offers us Filthy Rich about an ex-football player contracted to protect a mob boss’s daughter.  I’ve read a long preview of this and Azzarello’s acid tongue slips into every panel that somehow plays a jazz tune. I don’t know what it is, but just reading the pages I did I just thought I heard a Louis Armstrong song.

Ian Rankin gives us Dark Entries a crime line title featuring Vertigo’s longest running character, John Constantine, as he tackles a haunted house set up as a reality television program. I don’t know this doesn’t seem like a crime story, per se, but seems more appropriate for the main Hellblazer title.

The other Vertigo book is the first trade of The Unknown Soldier. I haven’t read this at all, but an interesting piece in last weekend’s New York Times, has left me interested in checking this trade out. For ten dollars, I’m sure there are worse things you could spend your money on.

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With director Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 making just over $37 million at the domestic box office this weekend ($7 million more than the production budget), it only makes sense that the studio and crew would be gearing up to return to the project for more. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Blomkamp mentioned that he would love to return to the franchise in a sequel.

”I would do anything to go back to the world of District 9 again,” Director Neil Blomkamp says. ”Or District 10.”

It makes perfect sense for the studio to do a sequel as well, being both cheap to make and lucrative. Also, with the story, the Robocop-style ending leaves the film open for many directions, and possibly many more films. We are even guilty of comparing this film to last year’s Cloverfield in our review, but the film has a similar tone.

The difference in this situation is that Cloverfield ends with pretty much no room for a sequel, unless you were to tell the story again from a different point of view. This would work out in the D9 universe perfectly. No word yet on how or if this will effect production on Jackson and Blomkamp’s Halo film.

There are many formulas that I like, mostly because they work. The formula for original Coke is perfect and irreplaceable. New Coke be damned.  One of my favorites, is what I call the Golden Girls formula for the perfect sitcom. I believe that any successful foursome will have the smart one, the slut, the dumb/ditzy/innocent one, and the wild card. Take a moment, and think about Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia respectively. Now think of Sex and the City‘s Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte and Carrie. How about the Facts of Life girls, or the Queer as Folk guys?  It works, right?

A few years ago, I stumbled on a Logo network show called Noah’s Arc. It chronicles the lives a four gay black men who are best friends and confidantes. Much like their Sex and The City counterparts, their love lives, careers and daily dramas play the central role. Noah (Darryl Stephens) is the main character, the Carrie Bradshaw of the group. In fact, like Carrie, he is a writer, albeit a screenwriter versus her columnist. Noah’s friends, Ricky (Christian VIncent), a boutique owner and man-whore, Alex (Rodney Chester) an HIV clinic owner and Chance (Douglas Spearman) the college professor, make up the Arc and bring their own boyfriends, spouses and lovers into the mix. Wade (Jensen Atwood) is Noah’s “Mr. Big,” and before things get good, they get bad and then worse.

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Coming August 19th, XBox Live Gold Members will get their first chance at checking out the totally new world of Lost Planet with a four player co-op demo. The game, the next installment in the popular action series, will “offer deeper insight into the world of E.D.N. III and the uncertain future of mankind. Players will follow the exploits of their own customized snow pirate on their quest to sieze control of the planet.”

This demo has been floated around E3 and San Diego Comic Con and will now be available for the first time to the entire XBox live community. At Comic Con, we got to speak to Lost Planet 2′s Community Manager as we played through the co-op demo on the show floor to get some insight in to what players can expect from the game.

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According to The Hollywood Reporter, following his recent role in Dollhouse and the feature Big Fan, comedian Patton Oswalt is now joining the cast of Syfy’s upcoming drama series Caprica as a recurring character. According to the article, on the Battlestar Galactica prequel, Oswalt “will play Baxter Sarno, a popular Caprican comedian and talk show host on whose show Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) and Amanda Graystone (Paula Malcomson), ultimately appear.”

As this character was not in the original two hour pilot, obviously as the show is currently filming in Vancouver, the producers felt they needed some sort of recurring character like this to provide some overall context to events unfolding after the first Cylon has taken its first steps. Oswalt is a pretty good choice for this type of role where his humor and somewhat abrasive style can take center stage and provide that context and commentary. Should be interesting to see what he makes of the role.

Oswalt joins a cast which already includes the aforementioned Eric Stoltz and Paula Malcomson and also includes Esai Morales, Sasha Roiz, Polly Walker and the recently announced Luciana Carro. Caprica debuts on SyFy on January 22, 2010.

Here it is folks, the brand new trailer for the upcoming sequel to Twilight, known to all fans as The Twilight Saga: New Moon. In this one we get a lot more insight into Taylor Lautner’s character and the trailer actually plays more like a mini-featurette rather than an actual trailer. Its all Lautner all the time and that makes sense.

If you recall Lautner’s character Jacob Black was a relatively minor presence in the first film. Now that he’s in the spotlight and part of the new New Moon love triangle, the sudience needs to know more about where he’s coming from. We already know Robert Pattinson’s Edward and Kristen Stewart’s Bella very well at this point so its logical to want to feature more about the new hunk on the block or, um, in the forest.

Check out the new trailer after the jump. The Twilight Saga: New Moon, hits theaters on November 20th.

And you thought nothing cool ever happens on Mondays.

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If you’re an aspiring screenwriter which, let’s face it, you may be, one way to break into the “business” is through a lab where you work with established mentors and advisers on honing your work and getting it in the hands of the right people. One of the most prestigious and famous of these labs is the one sponsored by Film Independent, a non-profit group dedicated to fostering and nurturing creativity that also produces the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Spirit Awards.

Today, they’ve announced a new group of writers who will participate in this year’s lab. Here’s all the info about the lucky 9 participants from the official press release.

Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and Los Angeles Film Festival, has announced the screenwriters and film projects selected for its 10th annual Screenwriters Lab, sponsored by the Writers Guild of America, West.  Taking place in Los Angeles from August 17 until September 16, the Screenwriters Lab is an intensive five-week incubator designed to help writers improve their craft, and take their current scripts to the next level in a nurturing, yet challenging creative environment.

Screenwriter and producer Meg LeFauve returns as this yearís Lab Instructor, and Lab Mentors and Guest Speakers include Allison Anders (Things Behind the Sun), Shauna Cross (Whip It!), Rodrigo Garcia (Mother and Child), Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints), Kay Schaber-Wolf (WGAw), Michael Sucsy (Grey Gardens), and Ligiah Villalobos (La Misma Luna).

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