As casting news about the upcoming Thor film continues to heat up there’s a little film called The Avengers we’re all really interested in too. The comic book mega-film will bring together some of the biggest Marvel heroes ever.  So, it comes with some excitement to be reporting on potential casting news for The Avengers.

Word is Jeremy Renner, star of war drama The Hurt Locker, may be set to play bow and arrow hero, Hawkeye.  When asked about the role, Renner said:

“Hawkeye could be interesting. They’re going to send me some stuff on it, see what it is. But I think they’re pretty awesome, trying to make superhero movies almost plausible and not just some fantasy thing.”

The simple fact that Renner is being sent “stuff” bodes well for his inclusion in the film.  Another advantage is that Renner has a cameo in Thor which means he’s already on the Marvel bandwagon.  While I can’t imagine Hawkeye having a huge role in The Avengers it’s great to find out Marvel recruiting top talent to fill the hero roster.

The Avengers is set to hit theaters on May 4, 2012.

Welcome to another edition of The Pull List Comic Reviews! This week, the Blackest Night event takes center stage, Bendis and Oeming make a triumphant comeback and Archie gets married (again). As always, WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

PULL OF THE WEEK:

Blackest Night #5 [of 8]
DC Comics – $3.99 US
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Ivan Reis
Score: 9.0

The mastermind behind the dead rising stands revealed as the Blackest Night prophecy inches towards becoming true, but will the unified heroes of the world have enough to stop it? Not if a late dinner guest bearing gifts has anything to say about it.

Geoff Johns welcomes you all to hell. How could he not? In the thirty plus years that I’ve been reading comics, I can’t remember a time when things looked so grim in a story thanks to this issue. The big guns of the Justice League arrive in time to assist the Flashes – Barry Allen and Wally West – in confronting Nekron as the Black Lanterns’ power battery reaches full charge. Fast forward to the end of the issue and only two heroes remain standing while the rest are chomping at the bit, dying to feast on some good, old fashioned heart muscle. And this is only the fifth issue in an eight-issue series?!? Wow.

Johns, along with artist Ivan Reis, are obviously toying with us and giggling madly along the way. The re-emergence of “Bruce Wayne” – his name was in quotations in the issue as well – signaled that the next phase was about to begin, but what he did to heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, etc I don’t think anyone saw coming, characters and readers alike. The sixth issue cannot get here fast enough, if you ask me.

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While most folks like to sleep in after consuming mass quantities of tryptophan and sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving day, some crazies (myself included) are up at the crack of dawn the next day, waiting in line at the local electronics and DVD store to fight the masses and get the best deals.

Luckily, with the invention of the Internet comes some sly dogs who have posted most of the great Black Friday deals online, mere days before the epic sales. Thanks to sites like BlackFriday.info and GottaDeal.com, we can now sit back in the luxury of our homes to check out some of the great deals we plan on taking advantage of this Friday.

Of the many, many deals going on that day, we’ve decided to break down a few of our favorite picks for the holiday sale, just for you, our loyal readers. One of the best picks, by far, is Best Buy’s Samsung Blu-Ray Player with Netflix and Pandora support for $149.99. If you’re looking to finally upgrade to Blu-ray, that would be the machine to start with.

Once you’ve got the Blu-ray player out of the way, why not grab some good Blu-ray discs? If you don’t want to leave the house, Amazon has got some great deals including Chuck: The Complete First Season for $20.99, the Batman Anthology for $51.99, and even Ocean’s Eleven and Twelve for $9.99.

Switching over to video games, Best Buy seems to have some of the better deals (even the “best”), but only if you’re able to get to the store before noon on Friday. You can pick up Brutal Legend, Left 4 Dead 2, and Dragon Age for the Next Gen systems for only $34.99.

These are just some of the great deals going on Friday, and we hope you’re able to get out to the stores (or not) and take advantage of some of these great sales. Happy Thanksgiving!

One of the most visually stunning, action packed, clever and suspenseful of all Alfred Hitchcock movies, his 1959 masterpiece North By Northwest finally gets the Blu-ray treatment it deserves. Featuring a terrific remastering with lots of great supplemental material and beautiful packaging the movie really shines and Warner Bros. has clearly pulled out all the tops to bring this classic film to a new generation of audiences.

Just in case you’re not familiar with this Hitchcock masterpiece, it stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and a young Martin Landau in a story featuring one of Hitchcock’s signature conceits: the wrong man. Grant’s Roger Thornhill, mistaken for superspy George Kaplan by a group of sinister agents led by James Mason’s Phillip Vandamm, is taken to a county house, forceably intoxicated and almost murdered. He barely manages to escape with his life, mostly due to his high tolerance for alcohol after years in the advertising business, but this sets in motion a series of events culminating in one of the most exciting and visually stunning climaxes ever filmed, at least up to that time.

Cary Grant is funny and cool as Thornhill and the rest of the cast take on their roles brilliantly. The script by Ernest Lehman is funny, action packed, dramatic and tight as a drum and, of course, the direction by the “master of suspense” Alfred Hitchcock is outstanding, making this, if not his best work, at least in the top three right along with Psycho and Rear Window.

Mention must also be made of the stunningly exciting action sequence involving Cary Grant, a deserted county road and a crop dusting plane. For the times, this action sequence was considered the pinnacle of cinematic achievement and even today, due to its quality and innovative direction and editing, its still ranks high. Of course, now that filmmakers have almost anything imaginable at their fingertips through the use of CGI, this action sequence may seem tame to some.

However, knowing when it was filmed and how, and also taking into consideration when it appears in the film, you have already been drawn into the world of this amazing film and completely go along with whatever happens. In short, it just works. And works exceptionally well.

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When official word came that Dwight Shultz, the original Murdock, would be appearing in the new A-Team movie we were anxious to know if any other actors would be involved. Well, good news A-Team fans, because the original Faceman, Dirk Benedict, will be making an appearance as well. While no details were provided, his official website did state he would be involved:

“Dirk has just announced to this website that he has two projects in the works beginning with a cameo appearance in the new “The A-Team” film, which is currently shooting in Vancouver Canada.”

This is great news and means the only member of the original cast to confirm is Mr. T.  Hopefully he’ll come on board and make this the trifecta of casting for a film remake. Sadly, George Peppard will not be returning having passed away in 1994. However, maybe Melinda Culea, Amy Allen on the original series, may return.

Much like Shultz, Benedict brings some extra geek cred to the role having played Starbuck on the original Battlestar Galactica. I’m hesitant to even mention it though considering how angry Benedict seemed about a woman taking over his role.  If you haven’t read his “manifesto” about the new BSG series it’s pretty entertaining.

The A-Team comes to theaters June 11, 2010.

Here in the United States, where our intrepid team work daily to bring you the best in content covering movies, tv, comics, games and all things geek, it is a holiday week. Thanksgiving is just around the corner (in fact, tomorrow) so that means many of The Flickcast team will be joining family to celebrate this event. That also means that due to the holiday we will have a somewhat limited posting schedule.

This is only temporary, of course, and in a few days we will resume our usual frantic posting pace brining you all kinds of new and cool coverage of your favorite movies, tv shows, games, comics and more. Until then, be sure to check out upcoming articles from some of our contributors who don’t live in the States, which we will be bringing you during the rest of the week. Also, take a look at some of our recent articles by clicking in the list on the right of this column.

We will be back to business as usual on Monday, November 30th. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at The Flickcast.

The Road is the film adaptation of the Pulitzer winning novel written by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote No Country For Old Men and All The Pretty Horses.  Our fascination with what a post-apocalyptic world might be like has been fodder for countless books, television shows, and movies. When I was in college, I was required to read George R. Stewart’s novel Earth Abides. Excruciatingly detailed, the book gave me anxiety attacks for months, as it told the story of a grad student looking for other people who may have survived a plague that wipes out the entire population.

As he traverses the land, the minute changes that he observes in the landscape and appearance of the United States are painstakingly recorded. More recently, The History Channel presented Life After People, which depicts what changes would occur to the earth’s ecological systems and the infrastructure we leave in our wake. Quite frankly, this type of topic scares the crap out of me.

Now we have The Road, which is the harrowing story of a father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi-Smit McPhee) trying to make their way across the country by foot after some unidentified event has wiped out most of mankind. The wife (Charlize Theron) is shown only in flashbacks. The threat of a harsh winter that they most certainly won’t survive serves as the impetus for their journey southward.  There is a vague possibility of finding other people, but it is based on faith and hope, rather than concrete knowledge of their existence.

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Unfortunately, at least according to the buzz over at Apple’s support discussion forums, it seems there’s somewhat of a pattern where brand new Quad Core i7 iMacs are showing up DOA or with a cracked screen, mostly in the lower left corner. As if waiting weeks to receive a custom ordered Core i7 iMac wasn’t bad enough, now you have to deal with these issues as well. It just doesn’t seem fair.

Still, anyone buying a first generation product as advanced as the Quad Core i7 iMac should be aware that these types of cutting edge products can have issues. The first model of anything is usually not the one you want to go out and get. That is, unless you like to be a de facto “Beta Tester’ for the product.

Some around the Internets have speculated that the packaging might be inadequate for the giant 27″ computers and the bumpy journey from China to the USA is what’s causing the screen cracking issue, but one would like to think that Apple wouldn’t make such an amateur mistake, especially given their penchant for innovative and thoroughly reliable packaging. Fortunately, according to reports, Apple is taking care of customers in these situations but it is a bit of a bummer after watiting several weeks or months for a new iMac, only to have it need to go in for service.

With the holiday season upon us, its also not a great time for Apple to be shipping products with problems. Still, given their track record with sales and their ever increasing share of the marketplace, this one little (or two little) issue probably won’t have much of an effect on their bottom line. In short, I think Apple is gonna be just fine.

Score: 6.5 – XBox Live Arcade – 800 Microsoft Points ($10.00)

The name Diner Dash is nothing new to casual game players as this downloadable Flash game has been floating around for some time. Unfortunately this game has been stuck in the purchase to play sector of the casual games market, not letting players try before they buy. But now, coming to XBox Live Arcade, Diner Dash has been given a second chance to capture a new market of players.

Gameplay:

The basic premise behind Diner Dash is something any food server must deal with on a regular workday. Keep the customers happy. The longer they wait, the less happy they will be. As Flo, the player must seat customers, take orders, deliver food, bring bills and bus tables as quickly as possible to keep everyone happy.

In the early stages, the game quickly adds new elements such as changing party size so that certain parties can only fit at certain tables (much like real life). By placing customers in special seating arrangements by color, players earn bonuses. They can also earn further bonus points by doing multiple table actions at once, like picking up one tables order while busing another at the same time.

Players are also given the option to bring coffee to tables that have been waiting a long time for food or to be seated for a quick boost in their happiness factor. All of these add extra dimension and actual strategy to what could have been a simple button masher and take it to the next level.

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One film that clearly doesn’t need a remake in my opinion is The Crow. The original is simply timeless in its execution and I feel remaking it will undermine that brilliance. However, sometimes you just can’t stop Hollywood from making a buck (or millions as the case may be).

io9 spoke with producer Ryan Kavanaugh about the upcoming remake film, which according to him is “definitely going to happen.”  Such a definitive statement makes me cringe a little. That said, I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen the film.

While no actors have been attached to the project as of ye,t Kavanaugh did state:

“We’re looking. We’re in discussions….I think it’s something cool, we’re approaching it differently. It’s really a whole relaunch of the franchise, much more of a dark superhero type.”

In addition, there was one comment Kavanaugh made that didn’t make much sense to me. That is his poignant statement, “It’s not a remake it’s literally a relaunch of the franchise.”  Is anyone else getting a little tired of Hollywood executives trying to avoid the dreaded “r” word?  Reboot.  Remake.  Relaunch.  Sorry guys, it’s all the same thing no matter how you try and spin it.

That aside, The Crow story in of itself is a good one. I hope this new film will do the original justice. My only concern is that there were a lot of sequels after the first movie and a TV show, all of which flopped. Here’s hoping the new Crow will return in much better form.

As we all, know, there were plenty of 80′s and 90′s film heroes. From Indiana Jones to Marty McFly to Howard the Duck, there was definitely no shortage of strong protagonists for that decade. Which is why it was nice to get two reluctant heroes that really had no idea what was going on, in the forms of Theodore “Ted” Logan and William S. ‘Bill” Preston Esquire.

The two Bill & Ted films not only spoke to a generation, but were also pretty coherent time travel stories. Since 1991′s Bogus Journey, the dynamic duo made a split, Keanu going off to star in a few small films about a computer program, and Alex Winter switching roles to behind the camera, directing such projects as 1993′s Freaked and becoming the go-to director for the Ben 10 live action films.

We got the chance to chat with Winter about directing the Ben 10 films including the newest, Alien Swarm. We spoke about his recent passion for directing kid’s projects, and even where Bill & Ted could be headed in the future. Check out our interview after the jump. Be sure to catch the TV premiere of Ben 10: Alien Swarm on Cartoon Network tonight at 7PM E/P.

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This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt welcome special guest Shannon Hood and launch into a whole slew of new topics including the rise of fangirl power, the huge success of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the relative merits of Sandra Bullock and her film The Blind Side, some more interesting Thor casting news, what holiday movies they are looking forward to seeing, how the entertainment business is changing, and needs to change more, to stay competitive and a whole lot more.

Chris, Matt and Shannon also made some cool picks this week including Shannon’s pick of The Road, Matt’s pick of the new British series Misfits and Chris’ pick of the recent Blu-ray release of J.J. Abrams Star Trek.

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.