While James Bond gets a lot of attention on the big screen there’s another pseudo-spy that’s just as good in my opinion.  I’m talking about Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Clancy’s novels have been the basis for four films to date with various actors taking on the Ryan role.

Way back in 1990 The Hunt for Red October started it all with Alec Baldwin as the first Jack Ryan. When Baldwin left, Harrison Ford took over for two films, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. The series faltered somewhat thereafter until Ben Affleck arrived in The Sum of all Fears.

As diverse as the actors have been the series overall has held together pretty well in my opinion. While Ford was probably the closest to what Ryan was like in the novels bringing Affleck in was necessary to reboot the franchise with a younger star. Sadly, that never seemed to work out.

Fortunately, producer Mace Neufeld, who has been with the series since the very beginning, is still planning a fresh start.  Chris Pine (Star Trek) will take Affleck’s place as Jack Ryan and word is the fifth film may not be based on a Clancy novel as the other films have been:

“We ran out of books,” says Nuefeld. “Red Rabbit was the last one, and we just couldn’t seem to get a script out of it.” Red Rabbit is one of only two novels, alongside The Cardinal of the Kremlin, in which Ryan is young enough for Pine’s portrayal to be book-faithful.”

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Even though it seems like there’s quite a few awards shows these days, this one could end up being pretty cool — especially if you happen to be a fan of video games and celebrities from TV, sports and movies. Spike TV’s Video Game Awards, which premiere on Saturday, December 12 at 8PM Eastern, has announced some of its big time celebrity guests and presenters, and we’ve got the “who’s who” scoop right here, direct from the event’s official press release.

BIG NAMES IN GAMES COME OUT FOR
SPIKE TV’S “VIDEO GAME AWARDS 2009”

Academy Award™-Nominated Actor Jake Gyllenhaal, Green Day, Snoop Dogg,
Olivia Wilde And Zachary Quinto Kick-Off All-Star Line Up

Spike TV’s 7th Annual “Video Game Awards 2009” Premiere LIVE On
Saturday, December 12 At 8:00 PM ET

New York, NY, December 7, 2009 – Megastars from the worlds of video games, Hollywood, music, sports and more will gather to pay tribute to the outstanding achievements within the video game industry during the past year at Spike TV’s 7th Annual “Video Game Awards 2009.” Broadcasting in over 180 territories and countries, the VGAs will be a global celebration of all things gaming as it premieres LIVE on Spike TV Saturday, December 12 at 8:00 PM, ET (tape delay west coast).

Academy Award™ nominated Actor Jake Gyllenhaal will be on hand to dole out the night’s most prestigious honor, Game of the Year, as well as to present a special look at his upcoming Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films, future blockbuster “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.”

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Our friends at Marvel are out with quite a few new books this week, on Wednesday the 9th of course, so following is a list of them for you to make sure you’re up to date. Among the new books we’re looking forward to this week are the latest Deathlok, the latest Punisher Noir, X-Men Noir: Mark of Cain, S.W.O.R.D. #2 and the debut of Nation, which looks pretty interesting.

As always, click through to check out larger versions of covers for some of these cool new comics. Enjoy.

Comics On-Sale:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #614 (GNTLT)
BLACK WIDOW: DEADLY ORIGIN #2
DARK REIGN: THE LIST – PUNISHER 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
DARK REIGN: THE LIST – WOLVERINE 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
DARK X-MEN #2
DEADPOOL #18
DEATHLOK #2
ENDER’S GAME: WAR OF GIFTS SPECIAL
GHOST RIDERS: HEAVEN’S ON FIRE #5
INCREDIBLE HULK #605
INCREDIBLE HULK #605 DJURDJEVIC 70TH ANNIVERSARY VARIANT
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #20

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With the screen adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows getting split into two films, the first of which hits theaters next November, we’re just now getting a glimpse at the first scenes from the film.

The book was claimed to be too epic in size by Warner Bros. to be released as one film, so it will be split between two films on November 19 of 2010 and July 15 of 2011. This is the final chapter in the book’s series, and according to IMDb, the premise alone is pretty heavy.

Voldemort’s power is growing stronger. He now has control over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide to finish Dumbledore’s work and find the rest of the Horcruxes to defeat the Dark Lord. But little hope remains for them, so everything they do must go as planned.

Check out the first featurette and teaser for the film after the jump, in which producer David Heyman and director David Yates discuss working on the project. The next films also star John Hurt (Alien, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) reprising his role as Mr. Ollivander.

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With the release date of Lionsgate’s Kick-Ass drawing closer and closer, this is the time when the internet community gets treated to a slew of marketing strategies to increase awareness of the film. Much like 2008′s Dark Knight strategy, this plan involves hyping up the protagonist’s arch enemy, The Red Mist.

In the film, the crimson villain is portrayed by Superbad’s McLovin, known in the real world as Christopher Mintz-Plasse. In the books, Mist is a bad-ass, fast car driving, weed smoking, caped crusader who decides to team up with Kick-Ass before eventually showing his true colors.

The film is, of course, based on the current comic by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. In the book, a local teenager decides to take crime fighting into his own hands and don the title of “Kick-Ass” while he uncovers the true darkness in the city and gets the crap kicked out of him in the process.

The film is set for release on April 16th. You can check out the full, high-res version of the new poster after the jump. Be sure to keep it here for more details and information on the film as it comes our way.

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Most people who love a particular phone but are forced to use AT&T know that their network performance can sometimes leave something to be desired. Yes iPhone owners, I’m talking to you. Poor network performance, inability to use 3G data and the ever-present dropped and failed calls are pretty consistent issues when using AT&T — at least in many areas.

But now it seems the network is listening and is going to try and do something about it. No, they are not introducing a radical improvement to their network or anything like that. Instead, they’ve rolled out a tool for the iPhone that will allow users to report any failure to their service. This application, called Mark the Spot, uses geo-location to pinpoint your iPhone’s location and then asks the user to identify the type of problem they are experiencing.

Supposedly this data will be used by the carrier to help pinpoint trouble spots that they can then take steps to improve. While I would prefer an actual improvement in network performance, i guess this is a step in the right direction. This application is now available in the iTunes store so go it it.

I wonder if they’ll get very many reports?

Religion is sometimes a touchy subject to discuss in social situations, let alone in something as widely viewed as network TV. This is why most comedy programming vows to stay away from the taboo subject, in order to play nice with the millions of potential viewers. Luckily, NBC’s Community doesn’t seem to care about taboo, and they prove it in this week’s episode.

The mid-season break is coming up after this week, which means there’s even more pressure added to the final Community episode of 2009. The episode, entitled “Comparative Religion”, has Greendale College doing a “Christmas” theme for the last week of final exams. Also, special guest Anthony Michael Hall stops by to harass the gang as the stereotypical school bully.

The show was created by TV funnyman Dan Harmon, who’s other TV credits include Comedy Central’s The Sarah Silverman Program and the rare FOX pilot Heat Vision and Jack. Harmon also worked on several web-shorts including Laser Fart starring Jack Black.

Check out a new clip from “Comparative Religion” after the jump, and be sure to catch Community on NBC this Thursday, December 10 at 8PM/7PM Central.

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Chestnuts are roasting and Jack Frost is nibbling. It’s December already, and here at The Flickcast we’ve got another TV digest for you, ready to keep you entertained in between all your caroling, pigging out, and gift exchanges this holiday season.

This month, we’ve got the season finales of some of our favorite shows.

Glee

After last week’s huge reveal and with sectionals ahead for the Glee kids, this is one mid-season finale you won’t want to miss.  Musical tracks on the bill for the episode, which airs December 9th on Fox, include The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from the musical Dreamgirls.

Glee will return for the remaining 9 episodes of the season April 13th, 2010.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The season finale of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia airs December 10th on FX. In this episode, the gang tries to reignite their old rivalry with another local bar in a local drinking competition appropriately named “Flipadelphia.”

Finding that they are in need of some serious practice, the guys head to Dennis’ old fraternity house at the University of Pennsylvania to get their game up to speed.

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The Blind Side pulled off a pretty nifty feat this weekend. After three weeks in wide release, it finally nabbed the top spot at the weekend box office, making about $20 Million and standing at about a $129 Million cumulative total. It is on track to become the highest grossing movie of Sandra Bullock’s career.

In second place, New Moon looks like it is finally cooling off a bit. In its third week, the movie made about $15.7 Million, and dropped another 63% (after a steep drop off of 70% last week.) Domestically, it crossed the $250 Million mark.

Newcomer Brothers made a modest $9.7 Million. Starring Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhal, and Tobey Maguire, I thought the movie about an Iraq War veteran returning home would fare better. Holdover A Christmas Carol hung in for the number four spot, and made an additional $7.2 Million.  Its cumulative take now stands at about $115 Million. Old Dogs managed to land the fifth spot in the top  five.

Star-laden Everybody’s Fine (Robert De Niro, Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, and Kate Beckinsdale star) failed to find an audience, and brought in an anemic $4 Million. George Clooney’s critically hailed Up In The Air only played on 15 screens. but made over $1.1 Million, for an impressive $79,000 per screen average.

As far as I know, Paramount is testing the waters for this film, and they should be pleased with the weekend performance. Hopefully they will go ahead and open wide now rather than roll it out slowly. Overall, it was a soft weekend, which is typical of the after-Thanksgiving weekend box office.

If you happen to be a fan of Stephen King and always wished his works were available in comic book form, you surely have been devouring the adaptations of his Dark Tower series from Marvel comics, written by Robin Furth and Peter David. Now, Marvel has launched another new series based on King’s work, Dark Tower: Battle of Jericho Hill, and we’ve got a preview for that book to share with you today.

Check out all the info from the official press release. Also, be sure to click through to see a preview of several pages from this new comic as well as the cover.

Gilead lies in ruins, the pillars of reality itself begin to crumble and only Roland Deschain can save the world in Dark Tower: The Battle of Jericho Hill #1, on-sale now! The all-star, chart-topping creative team of Peter David, Robin Furth, Jae Lee and Richard Isanove reunite for the newest chapter in what promises to be the boldest Dark Tower graphic fiction series yet! Plus, this issue features a variant cover by superstar artist Brandon Peterson!

Plus, don’t miss Dark Tower: Treachery Premiere HC, collecting the red-hot, acclaimed limited series from Robin Furth, Peter David, Jae Lee and Richard Isanove, on sale now! The fate of reality rests in the hands of Rolaind Deschain and his ka-tet—but can they save the day? Find out in Dark Tower: The Battle of Jericho Hill #1, on-sale now!

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As Apple often does, everyone’s favorite fruit-flavored computer company quietly give their flagship line of professional computers, the Mac Pro, a bump in speed. They also included new storage options such as 2 TB 7200 RPM drives for the towers as well in this bit of enhancement magic. For the quad-core Mac Pro (but not the eight-core model), you can now order a 3.33 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processor which, if you don’t know, is pretty darn fast.

This baby has 8 MB of fully shared L3 cache, Hyper-Threading technology, an integrated memory controller, Turbo Boost for short bursts of speed up to 3.6 GHz and can really blow the doors off any kind of intense rendering tasks like you find in Photoshop, After Effects, Final Cut Pro or similar. In short, if you’re a high-end graphics or video professional, your job, and making those tight deadlines, just got easier.

We were wondering what had happend with Apple’s top of the line Mac since the introduction the new 27″ Intel Core i7 iMac in October. Traditionally, the Mac Pro is the performance king and it was a bit odd that the line had not had an update. Fortunately, Apple has remedied that situation now. The new Mac Pro options are available today at Apple’s online store.

Youth In Revolt is one of those movies that hasn’t really found much of a place on my radar yet. Sure, I know about it and have seen the previous articles we’ve had here which talk about it, but I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it. Or, if I’m particularly excited about the movie or not.

If you’re in the same boat, perhaps this latest trailer for the film will help you (and me) get off the fence and decide if the movie seems worthy of our attention or not. In this new trailer, we get more of an idea about the story of the film and get a better look at some of the quirkiness that will be Michael Cera’s performance of not one, but two different characters in the film.

We also get more of a look at some of the film’s other characters and actors, which include Ray Liotta, Fred Willard, Justin Long and the great Zach Galifianakis. Check out the new trailer after the break. Perhaps after viewing it you’l be able to get excited for the film’s release on January 8, 2010.

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