Once again its time for the list of the comics on sale from our friends at Marvel this week. Catching our interest this week are the latest issue of Punisher, Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, Dark Avengers and the new Kookaburra. As always, be sure to check out the list below and after the jump some great covers for some of these new comics.

Comics On-Sale:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612 BLACK CAT VARIANT
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612 GRANOV COVER
DARK AVENGERS #11
DARK REIGN: THE LIST – AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
DARK REIGN: THE LIST – AMAZING SPIDER-MAN HERO VARIANT
DARK REIGN: THE LIST – AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VILLAIN VARIANT
DEADPOOL: MERC WITH A MOUTH #5
DOMINIC FORTUNE #4
INCREDIBLE HULK #604
KOOKABURRA K #1
KOOKABURRA K #1 VARIANT
MIGHTY AVENGERS #31
NOMAD: GIRL WITHOUT A WORLD #3

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There’s no arguing that the proliferation of file sharing technology (e.g. BitTorrent or similar) has changed the industry for content creators. Never before has it been easier to acquire free movies or music. Or has it?

For the last several years we, the consumers, have had to endure the complaints (dare I say whining) of movie studios and the recording industry. Both industries cite digital piracy as the root cause of their financial loss. Funny how this argument rarely (if ever) surfaced during the days of analog.

Piracy of content has been going on for decades, long before the Internet was around. With the advent of the VCR and Cassette Recorder (which I guess would technically be an ACR) people have been able to duplicate content with relative ease. I remember when stereos started to come out with not one but two cassette bays for this purpose alone. Drop in a master tape, then a blank tape and copy away.

The same was true for movies. I had friends who subscribed to their movie channel of choice, and then regularly recorded movies from the television to tape for later viewing. All one had to do was hook up two VCRs and you could easily duplicate those tapes for friends. All those years of consumers pirating content and hardly a word from media moguls about lost revenue.

Fast forward to today. It seems not a week goes by without someone in the world of entertainment getting on a soapbox and crying fowl over the horrors of piracy. On the box this week: Rhett Reese, co-writer of Zombieland.

Reese started somewhat of a firestorm after commenting on the fact Zombieland is currently the most popular download on BitTorrent, “Beyond depressing. This greatly affects the likelihood of a Zombieland 2.”

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Roland Emmerich’s epic disaster flick 2012 easily destroyed the competition this weekend. Since there were no other wide new releases, 2012 handily made over $65 Million, which isn’t really all that impressive, but factor in the international box office take ($160 Million) and you get an opening weekend gross of $225 Million. Looks like the film will make back its budget (upwards of $200 Million) and then some. Playing on over 3,400 screens, the per-screen was just over $19,000.

Crowds are beginning to warm up to Disney’s A Christmas Carol, which took in $22.3 Million, and only dropped off  25% from opening weekend. This is a very good sign for the movie, indicating it will stick around a bit, particularly with Christmas coming up.

The Men Who Stared At Goats dropped an even 50%, for $6.2 Million and third place. Precious continues to be a big story. A small expansion put it in 174 theaters, for $6 Million. What’s astonishing is that the per-screen average was $35,000. Compare that to The Men Who Stare at Goats, which only had a per-screen average of $2,500. Precious will roll out a wider opening next weekend.

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There’s a lot of anticipation for the upcoming The A-Team film.  Most of the hype is probably being generated by yours truly. What can I say? I really want to see this film be a huge success.

Well, let me add to the hype machine with news that the original “Howling Mad” Murdoch will have a cameo in the new movie. According to the official Dwight Shultz site:

“We are pleased to inform you all that Dwight has actually already been working in Vancouver, where he has played a cameo role in The A-Team movie. Sharlto Copely, the South African actor who plays Murdock, is according to Dwight: ‘brilliant beyond words’. Dwight has seen his screen test and he stated: that honestly, if Sharlto is given an opportunity to do what I saw in that test, “Murdock” will be better than ever!’ Sharlto has been very kind to him on the set and Dwight must say that he has been treated very well.”

It’s great to hear the old Murdoch fully endorse the new Murdoch. Further, as cool as it will be to see an original A-Team cast member return Shultz’s inclusion will also cater to all the Star Trek fans who remember him as Lt. Reginald Barclay III. Now we just need to get Dirk Benedict and Mr. T involved to make this possibly the best remake ever.

The A-Team comes to theaters June 11, 2010

Fox’s Glee has tackled a pretty big group of hot-button subjects in it’s sophomore year on the network. So far, the show has touched on teen pregnancy, handicapped accessibility in high schools, bigotry, and this week the next taboo subject to hit is teen crushes with teachers.

In this week’s episode, entitled “Ballad”, Mr. Schuester (Matthew Morrison) splits the Club into pairs to sing their favorite ballad, but when one kid gets sick, he’s forced to step in and winds up in a sticky situation. Meanwhile, Finn and Quinn have to face the music when dinner with her parents (guest stars Gregg Henry and Charlotte Ross) goes awry.

Check out two exclusive clips after the jump. In the first, Will and Rachel (Leah Michele) sing “Endless Love” as an example of a ballad for the other students, while Rachel realizes something new about him. In the second clip, Will remembers the first time a student had a crush on him, and things got weird.

Watch Glee’s “Ballad” this Wednesday, November 18 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), only on FOX.

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In honor of Roland Emmerich‘s release of disaster film  2012 this week I decided to watch sci-fi action classic Independence Day (aka ID4). I can’t tell you on how many levels I love this film. Sure it’s campy at times but the actors seem to believe so ferociously the fictitious alien invasion is real it just works. Moreover, it paved the way for some of the best scenes of destruction ever in film history.

Fans like me have been waiting nearly fourteen years for a sequel and we may get our wish. While promoting 2012 Emmerich spoke to MTV about the possibility of not one, but two ID4 sequels:

“What we want to do in the next – it’s actually two movies – we want to do a bigger arc,” he explained. “‘Independence Day’ was always like the king who leads his troops into battle against an evil force, and that stays like that.”

As exciting as the prospect of two more ID4 films could be allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment. One reason I like the first film so much is that it’s a closed box. That is, it simply ends. No twists, no hints at a sequel, simply an ending. With so many films vying for franchise potential these days it’s refreshing to have movies like ID4 that simply wanted to tell a story-once.

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When the idea for a book called 1000 Comic Books You Must Read came about, I’d imagine that picking an author for the project would be almost as difficult as picking which 1000 comic books to focus on. Luckily for Krause Publications they had just the person right under their noses: Tony Isabella.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Isabella’s accomplishments, and more importantly (in this case), credentials, allow me to fill in the blanks for you. He’s been a writer and/or editor for both Marvel Comics and DC Comics – along with a smattering of other publishers – for over 30 years. He’s reviewed and written about comics and comics-related items for Comic Buyer’s Guide – produced each month by F+W Media, which is also affiliated with Krause Publications – in his “Tony’s Tips” column for almost the same period of time.

He’s arguably read more comics than most of us comic aficionados hope to read in our lifetimes. While judging comics always comes with the usual “how it’s interpreted” hang-up, having Tony Isabella at the helm is definitely a step in the right direction.

So how’s the book? For starters, neglecting the urge to rank said comics was probably the best decision the powers that be ever made in regards to this project. All ranked lists do nothing but fuel debate, which the seemingly endless Internet trolls love to argue and spit vitriol over. Instead, the book is broken up into sections spotlighting the various decades, ranging from the forties to the current decade.

There are two notable exceptions to the breakdown: a section for Superman’s first appearance and early issues as well as a section where Isabella talks about his pick for “the greatest comic book of all time” for an extended period. I won’t tell you which issue stood out for Isabella but I will say he makes some interesting points – both professionally and personally – as to why it was chosen.

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As we sometimes say around The Flickcast HQ: “This is some funny stuff.” And sometimes, we’re actually right about that. Case in point is this parody of David Lynch’s sci-fi “masterpiece” Dune, created by YouTube user Devho89 and his pals at Sequential Pictures.

Dune, which is, of course, a big screen adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel of the same name, was met with mixed reviews and somewhat lackluster response at the box office when it hit theaters in 1984. Well, maybe the film didn’t do as well as it could have because it didn’t have these redubbed voices in it? Sure, that’s a possibly.

Judge for yourself and check out the video after the jump. Oh, and don’t forget to put your goddamn hand in the goddamn box of pain.

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Sometimes there’s not that much going on in the world of movies, tv, comics, games and all things geek. But sometimes, we also get what some could refer to as “an embarrassment of riches.” We’ve got that second one going for you right here.

Our friends at NBC have just sent us a whole bunch of clips from most of their big comedies that aired this week. Sure, you might have already watched 30 Rock, Community or The Office this week, but if you didn’t, the following clips can at least help you ease some of the pain from the loss of these great shows. I could take the time to explain each clip and walk you thorough what happens but with the sheer volume of material, that could take a long time.

Instead, click through and just enjoy all that these videos have to offer. If you’ve watched these scenes before, this will be a a bit of a nostalgic trip for you. If they’re new to you, then enjoy them and remember to set your DVR for these shows next week.

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Adam Sandler and his ‘Happy Madison’ production company have been on a steady roll since the mid 1990s and their string of films starring Sandler himself. As of late, the company has been known for smaller, yet equally humorous, films such as Grandma’s Boy and the Deuce Bigelow franchise.

Now, the team is reuniting with Sandler’s cast of regulars and newest on-screen partner Kevin James for a brand new comedy called Grown Ups. The film is about a group of five boys who grow apart over the years and finally come together to reconnect and find their childhood once again. I like to call this one something like The Sand Lot: 30 Years Later.

Sandler takes the lead in this one, in his first comedy role since this year’s Funny People, with a familiar cast of characters joining him. David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock, and Kevin James are all in the cast as the group of boyhood friends. It almost seems like James is filling the role of the late Chris Farley here, as he’s the only one of the group who did not work on Saturday Night Live in the 90s.

The rest of the cast is filled out by Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Steve Buscemi, Maya Rudolph, and Gary Busey. Check out the first full trailer after the jump. Catch Grown Ups in theaters on June 25th, 2010.

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Whoops, somehow my DVR didn’t record last week’s episode and I missed it. But Agent Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) kills himself to stop his particular future from happening. His future being he kills a single mother in an accident and he also wants to prove that you can change things by choosing to do so.

Regardless, this week’s episode has Simon (Dominic Monaghan) and Lloyd Simcoe (Jack Davenport) play a poker game, and whatever-his-name is Benford’s Sponsor finds his formerly dead daughter still alive.

While on vacation for their anniversary the Benfords (Joseph Fiennes and the wax model known as Sonya Walger) are playing around in some house on the beach, before Fiennes gets a call asking him to come in. The reason being is someone caught some video footage of a mugging and the people doing the mugging had a triple star tattoo that Fiennes recognizes as one of the guys trying to kill him on April 29.

Investigating, it looks like the people in the mugging take a case from the muggee before shooting this victim. The witness, who took the video, is now being hunted by the muggers who kill her roommate. Nothing really comes of this besides some more of the usual questions “is this going to come true/isn’t this/are we powerless to stop it?” It’s starting to get annoying.

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Our friends at The Weinstein Company have sent us this first look, in the form of a trailer and a poster, at designer Tom Ford’s feature directing debut A Single Man. The film, which features Colin Firth, Julianne Moore and Matthew Goode, was also written and produced by the prolific Ford as well.

In case you’re not familiar with the story, it is based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood and set in Los Angeles in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. It centers on a British college professor (Firth) who is struggling to find meaning in life after the death of his long time partner.

Along the way he questions love, isolation and through a series of new relationships, both romantic and otherwise, he begins to discover the importance of smaller moments in life. The film recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival to very positive reviews and with star Firth winning for best actor. It opens in theaters December 11th.

Until then, check out a larger version of the poster, and the first trailer, after the jump.

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