We’re all pretty excited for the next season of Adult Swim’s Venture Bros. to start back up in November. The first trailer hit the web a little over a month ago, which showed us some pretty new and exciting images. Well, there’s more where that came from, as brand new images have surfaced giving us a few more things to glaze over until November.

Last we left off, the team got quite a shake as Brock Sampson quit as the Venture family’s body guard, a team of uncooked Venture brothers clones were sent out to the slaughter during a battle, and Henchman 21 was left holding the decapitated head of his best friend, Henchman 24.

From the images you can see after the jump, we get a look at Hank’s new denim-and-mullet look, Brock is still stewing around, Mr. and Mrs. The Monarch live together in post-nemesis-depression, and there’s even a new, rainbow-donning hero making some waves.

The Venture Bros returns to Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim in November for eight episodes, followed by another eight episode run starting in the summer of 2010.

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There is quite a bit of good stuff coming out this week, most especially is the collected edition of one of my favorite current series. Dark Horse has the collected trade of Umbrella Academy Dallas. This Eisner Award winning book written by My Chemical Romance front-man Gerard Way, and drawn by Casanova‘s own Gabriel Ba is a gem of a series.

No matter what you may think of Way’s music, his comic writing is top notch. And if you’ve read Casanova then I shouldn’t have to convince you in regards to Mr. Ba.

From DC, we have the Absolute Promethea edition, its 100 bucks, but the least I can do is turn you on to the real Comics Curmodgeon’s (Alan Moore) ground breaking work with the awesome J.H. Williams III.  We also have the Sleeper Season 2 trade paperback, which if you like Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal and Incognito series for Marvel’s Icon, this is their first meeting. Trust me, you want this.

From Marvel, we have the constantly awesome Secret Warriors, and the Shang Chi Master of Kung Fu one shot. From Boom! Studios we have Die Hard #1. I just have to check this out, as this continues the adventures of John McClane in comic book form.

Could be forgettable, could not be, but at least you’ve got to give Boom credit for trying new things like this and Philip K. Dick’s Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep. As always, we here at The Flickcast care about what you read, so leave us a comment and let us know what you liked/didn’t like from this week’s comics.

For a more complete list of what comes out this week, check out the one at Midtown Comics.

Glee is one of the new shows this season that seems to keep turning heads on a consistent basis. The fact that it’s a musical show, and still able to incorporate comedy, romance, and a bit of an After School Special feel to it while still remaining popular each week in very impressive.

Tonight’s episode is entitled “The Rhodes Not Taken” in which special guest star Kristin Chenoweth plays April Rhodes, an old classmate of Will’s. Kristen is known on Broadway for her work in such performances as Wicked, and known in the TV community for her supporting role on ABC’s Pushing Daisies.

The show’s music has been doing exponentially better each week in sales. From a Fox Press release:

Columbia Records and Twentieth Century Fox Television today released select songs featured in this week’s episode of GLEE, including show-stopping versions of “Maybe This Time” from “Cabaret” performed by APRIL RHODES (guest star Kristin Chenoweth) and RACHEL BERRY (Lea Michele) and Heart’s “Alone” sung by APRIL (Chenoweth) and WILL SCHUESTER (Matthew Morrison). These tracks join 11 songs already available on iTunes, including “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which shot up to No. 1 after the GLEE preview event, as well as Michele’s “Take A Bow,” which peaked at No. 6 and “Taking Chances” which peaked at No. 11.

Check out three new clips from tonight’s episode after the jump. Be sure to catch Glee tonight on FOX at 9pm/8pm Central

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As a big fan of horror movies and the zombie sub-genre, I really wanted to like George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead and was prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. Although, my expectations were pretty low after Romero’s last two zombie movie efforts Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Sadly, this film didn’t even manage to rise up to the level of my lowered expectations and is, instead, a heavily flawed and often very bad addition to Romero’s body of work.

Still, this is the man who basically invented the zombie film genre, so attention must be paid and respect given for his enduring legacy as one of this country’s innovative artists. But something has obviously gone a bit off kilter and the writer/director seems to have lost his way. I’m not sure how this phenomenon works exactly, but somewhere along the way a director seems to lose his vision.

After several great and innovative films the later films start to get worse and worse. Unfortunately, George Romero seems to have fallen into that trap, much like another acknowledged master of horror John Carpenter seems to. Look at Carpenter’s last few films and tell me they are as good as his earlier work in The Thing, Starman, Escape from New York and, of course, the original Halloween.

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This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt go it alone with Chris on location in Austin, Texas for the Fantastic Fest film festival. Among the topics the duo cover this week are Fantastic Fest in Austin, the new A Nightmare on Elm Street trailer, Corey Feldman returning for Lost Boys 3, the elements that make a horror film, Zombieland, Gentlemen Broncos, the future of 3-D, the potential Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles DVD movie, the new Predators movie potentially begin in 3-D and much more.

Plus, Chris and Matt make some great picks this week including Matt’s pick of the Freddy’s Nightmares TV series and Chris’ pick of Michael J. Bassett’s as-yet unreleased film Solomon Kane.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

Thanks for listening.

At a ceremony Monday night hosted by Fantastic Fest co-founder Tim League, the festival gave out awards to some of the top films and filmmakers in attendance. Awards given out this year include ones for animated and live action short film, horror and “fantastic” shorts, horror and “fantastic” features and the next wave award which showcases emerging talent.

In addition, in conjunction with G4 TV and writer/director Uwe Boll, the fest gave out the “Filmmaking Frenzy” award for the best video game trailer with a “fantastic” twist. Winners of some of these prestigious awards included the comedic drama Down Terrace, which took home the Next Wave award, Human Centipede, which won for best horror film and Mandrill, which was given the Fantastic Feature award.

Check out a list of all the winners below.

Jury results – SHORTS Awards

ANIMATED SHORTS:
Best Animated Short – I AM SO PROUD OF YOU (Don Hertzfeldt)
Special Mention – ALMA (Rodrigo Blaas)

FANTASTIC SHORTS:
Best Fantastic Short  – TERMINUS (Trevor Cawood)
Special Jury Award – NEXT FLOOR  (Denis Villeneuve)

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Sam Rockwell was out promoting his new film Gentlemen Broncos so reporters took the time to ask him a few questions…about Iron Man 2 of course. About playing Tony Stark’s competitor, Justin Hammer, in the upcoming film Rockwell said: He’s a rival of Tony’s – they are competitors in the weapons industry. I team up with Mickey Rourke and we decide we want to take him down and take down the Stark legacy. He’s sort of like a cousin of the Charlie’s Angels character I played. The smarmy cousin. But it’s Mickey – he does the fighting and the kicking ass in the film.”

Alright, I know a lot of you read Charlie’s Angels and had a giant collective groan. However, the first Angels film wasn’t that bad (Did I just lose some geek cred by admitting that?) but more specifically Rockwell turned in a great performance. That being the case, I’m really intrigued by what he will do with his character given that Hammer is pretty old in the comic book series and Rockwell…well, isn’t.

He’s one of those actors (much like Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr.) that brings something unexpected and fun to the roles he takes on. To really appreciate that, I highly recommend Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. When asked about the film overall Rockwell gave us what we wanted to hear, “It’s a bigger scope. There’s a lot more action and fighting. More characters. It’s bigger and there’s a lot more to get your head around, so it’s a tougher job for [Jon] Favreau and Justin Theroux, who wrote it.”

More action, fighting, and characters?  Sounds like the recipe for a perfect followup to a fantastic film.  Iron Man 2 hits theaters next summer.

The new kids on the television block are going to be just fine, if the early return numbers are any indication. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the debuts of new shows this fall have bucked the last two years’ trend of low premiere numbers. NBC’s The Jay Leno Show, Fox’s Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show, CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles and ABC’s three-headed monster of Cougar Town, Modern Family and FlashForward have all benefited from large turnouts.

Even with the oncoming onslaught of new and “fan-favorite” programs, the CW’s Vampire Diaries continued to show promise. But not all shows are sitting pretty as the law of averages always seems to have an opinion on, well, everything. ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy – formally a ratings juggernaut – has shown signs of slipping, and you can include genre staples NBC’s Heroes and CW’s Smallville into that mix as well.

For whom the bell tolls? Fox’s Fringe and ABC’s Desperate Housewives have dropped to the point that their respective networks are beginning to sweat a bit, and the departure of William Petersen from CBS’ CSI: Crime Scene Investigations has had a similar effect on that show’s ratings. If returns don’t improve, these shows could end up like CW’s TBL: DOA.

Being the geek that I am I’ve been keeping a close eye on the slowly developing Green Arrow film, Super Max. Written by David Goyer (Blade, The Dark Knight), the film is not your average comic book fair. Instead of following the typical origin tale, Super Max plans to take super hero Green Arrow and drop him in a “super max” prison full of villains (many of which he probably put there). Wrongfully convicted, Green Arrow would be forced to work alongside his enemies to escape while trying not to unleash the rest of the villains in the process.  Think Prison Break meets Justice League.

Well, you can imagine my dismay when I read today that Columbia Pictures picked up the rights to spec horror script, Supermax by writers Mitch Rouse and Christopher Nelson. Yes, you read that right, two films with the same name (minus the space of course). Worse yet, the similarities don’t end with the name:

“The script [Supermax], a horror/action combo about a supernatural prison, ‘centers on a skilled guard who is re-assigned to Supermax. After a riot erupts, he must join forces with one of the prison’s monstrous inmates in order to survive and fight his way out.’”

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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, and not-so-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 versions of movies and TV shows like The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Monsters vs. Aliens, The Guild Seasons 1 & 2, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and Life on Mars: The Complete Series. There’s also a new DVD box set that made us laugh out loud in its awesomeness: Cagney & Lacey: The Menopause Years. Yes, that’s real.

Check them out.

Movies

Away We Go ~ John Krasinski (DVD and Blu-ray)

The Dark Crystal ~ Jim Henson (Blu-ray)

The Girlfriend Experience ~ Sasha Grey (DVD and Blu-ray)

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The animation departments of DC and Warner brothers has been on quite a hot streak since last year’s release of Justice League: New Frontier. Their releases of both Wonder Woman and Green Lantern films over the last year were both critically well reviewed and did well in the stores. Since New Frontier, this project is the first story that was taken almost directly from a published storyline, originally written by Jeph Loeb.

The great part about Jeph Loeb’s Public Enemies is he teamed up with artist Ed McGuinness, who is best known for his animated art style. This made the announcement of the direct-to-DVD feature all the more exciting. Not only was the source material well done, but casting director Andrea Romano was also able to bring back the dream team of DC voice actors to return to characters they helped make immortal.

Tim Daly, Kevin Conroy, and Clancy Brown all returned to the roles of Superman, Batman, and Lex Luthor, respectively, for the first time since the Animated Adventures of Superman and Batman nearly 9 years ago. Aside from the “dream team”, some other great names were added to the project, making this an epic animated feature.

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Little Big Planet is one of those games that PS3 owners love to go gaga for, but anybody who doesn’t own one, doesn’t understand it’s allure. It has been called one of the top adventure games of the year, and easily one of the highest grossing PS3 exclusive games to date, and news like today’s is only further reason.

For those unaware, Little Big Planet is about an 8-centimeter hero who travels through a world we never see, due to the fact that it’s so small. The sack-boy gets into side-scrolling adventures left and right and with your help, makes it out alive. One of the most intriguing things about LBP is the how deep you can customize your character. there are thousands of costumes and add-ons in the game, with more and more being released through downloadable content.

It was just announced that a new, geek-friendly set of costumes will be coming to PS3 this Thursday, in a set of Watchmen costumes. From here, you can choose to dress as lil’ Roarschach, lil’ Ozzy, lil’ Silk Spectre, and lil’ Night Owl. No word on whether we’ll see tiny Doc Manhattan, but this is still a pretty cool add-on to an already in-depth game. Those who follow the developer blog at littlebigplanet.com know that the creators are such big fans, that they even created a level based on San Diego Comic-Con this year.

Check out the full picture of the Watchmen costume kit after the jump, along with a super brief intro video showing you what they look like next to giant-sized Manhattan.

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