When you write a feature titled Western Wednesday, you’d think you could actually make the deadline, wouldn’t you?  But this is the Wild Wild West and there are a lot of dangers between my keyboard and Monument Valley. Sometimes you don’t make it — but I promise you by my imaginary spurs that I’ll return to my titular day next week.

Given my tardiness, I thought this week’s selection ought to be about the necessity of speed and keeping to a schedule.  As I have managed to go through my 20-odd years without having seen John Ford’s Stagecoach, what better pick could there be?

But even if you haven’t seen Stagecoach, you know it. At its center is a classic Western image — the howling Indians shooting at a racing stagecoach, exchanging shots with frantic passengers — and its plotline has been used a thousand times over. A motley group of people are thrown together, and eventually become fast friends because their lives could end at any moment. Through the lens of the eternally optimistic Ford it becomes a miniature version of the American promise, a magical West where even an outlaw and a prostitute can find redemption and a better life.

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In the never ending quest for the perfect release schedule for big movies, studios often shift dates around in an effort to one-up the competition or, in some cases, counter-program so their movie is the only one of its genre coming out on a particular weekend. Other times, studios make changes that seem deliberately to undermine other movies. Case in point is today’s switch of Marvel Studios’ Thor movie from the original date of May 20, 2011 to May 6, 2011.

You may wonder why this is significant? Well, this is the same weekend that Spider-Man 4 is supposedly going to be released by Sony. Although, with the troubles the film is supposedly going through, it may end up getting the date pushed. Still, its a pretty interesting move on Paramount’s part.

Although this move does appear, at least on the surface, as an act of internal rivalry, the report states that Paramount simply did not want to wait on an “official” release date change for Spider-Man 4 in case other studios tried to get there first. This way, a Marvel movie still has a slot on the opening weekend of Summer. Makes sense I guess.

Even though some people may think the video rental giant is on it last legs due to competition from companies like Netflix, they still rent a heck of a lot of movies. So many, in fact, they make a list of the top rentals and we’ve got that list from last week to share with you today, direct from the official press release. Check it out.

Topping the Hit List of “Top 10 Rented DVD Titles” for the week ending Jan. 3 is Paranormal Activity. This release media includes an alternative ending not seen in theatrical version.

BLOCKBUSTER Hit List

Top 10 Renting DVD Titles at U.S. BLOCKBUSTER stores for the week ending Jan. 3, 2009:
1. Paranormal Activity
2. The Hangover
3. District 9
4. Inglorious Basterds
5. All About Steve
6. A Perfect Getaway
7. Jennifer’s Body
8. Public Enemies
9. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
10. 500 Days of Summer

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The People’s Choice Awards, which were broadcast last night from Los Angeles’s Nokia Theater, are an awards show where, you guessed it the people pick the winners. This year, which was no real surprise, the people picked vampires.

The Twilight Saga, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries all got trophies Wednesday at the 36th annual event. Twilight won four trophies, including favorite movie, franchise and onscreen team for the trio of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, who also picked up the breakout male actor award.

Winners in the movie categories included Sandra Bullock as favorite movie actress, Hugh Jackman as favorite action star, The Proposal as favorite comedy movie and Up for favorite family movie. Sacha Baron Cohen, appearing as himself and not as his alter egos Borat or Bruno, presented Johnny Depp with a special award as favorite movie actor of the decade.

HBO’s True Blood and the CW’s supernatural series The Vampire Diaries were selected as favorite TV obsession and favorite new TV drama, respectively. Other winners in categories such as movies, TV and music included Inglourious Basterds as favorite independent movie and Lady Gaga as favorite pop and breakout music artist.

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We haven’t covered the new comedy City Island much here at The Flickcast so far, but with a potentially great cast like this and direction by Raymond De Felitta (Cafe Society, Two Family House), we’re going to start. To kick thing soff we’ve got the brand new first poster for the film. On it, you meet the cast, which includes Andy Garcia and Juilanna Margulies, and get a bit of insight into the secrets these characters may have.

The film, which was also written by De Felitta, centers on the Rizzos who are, according to the studio: “a family that might get along a lot better if only they could tell each other the truth.” Of course, hilarity ensues when a person shows up and Vinnie (Garcia) character has to finally tell the truth and explain to his wife (Margulies) who this new person actually is: his illegitimate son. Sounds like a lot of families I know.

Check out a larger version of the poster after the jump. City Island, which in addition to Garcia and Margulies features Alan Arkin and Emily Mortimer, hits theaters later this year.

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With ABC’s Lost returing to the air next month for it final season, we thought it would be great if someone were to put together a video highlighting all the things you should know before the new season begins. With a show as complex as Lost, audiences who’ve been watching the show from the beginning can sometimes get confused, so we can imagine how new viewers might feel.

Fortunately, lostpediablog over at YouTube has obviously read our minds and done exactly what was necessary: put together a video giving you everything you need to know about Lost, all in 8 minutes and 15 seconds. The video is well done, funny, and actually gives you quite a bit of information, which is good. If you’ve never seen Lost or even if you’ve been with it from the beginning, watching this can only help enhance your understanding of this great show.

Check out the video after the jump. The final season of Lost premieres on Tuesday, February 2 at 9PM — and now you’ll be ready. You’re welcome.

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The Apocalypse comes early and one of the horseman, War, is blamed for it. He comes to earth fighting both angel and demon alike in an effort to find out what put the cataclysmic events into effect before they were supposed to come to fruition. It could sound like the plot of a major summer blockbuster, a comic book series from Vertigo or Darkhorse or a video game. It turns out it could be all three.

In a recent interview with VG247, creative director of the recently released Darksiders game for XBox 360 and Playstation 3 Joe Madureira said that “We’ve gotten some interest from Hollywood, we’ve talked about doing a comic series… At least a couple of those things have to happen, I’m sure.”

Darksiders has already been given a special comic book pre-order bonus from Gamestop so it’s not out of the realm of possibility for a series to be in the work, especially since Joe Madureira made himself famous in the comics industry back in the 90s. The recent string of lackluster video game to movie adaptations (like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li or Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) might be biggest factor to overcome as time and again Hollywood has shown they don’t really have a full grasp on taking a 10+ hour game story and crunching it down into only 2 while still keeping the essence of what made that game great in the first place.

But with Joe Mads at the helm as creative director, this THQ property might have a chance of making an impact on the big screen. Check back at The Flickcast later this week for more coverage on Darksiders as well as Matt Raub’s exclusive interview with Darksiders creative director Joe Madureira.

In the wake of the recent release of the Motorola Droid and HTC’s Droid Eris, smartphones featuring Google’s Android software are some of the biggest sellers in the market right now. So it comes as no surprise to geeks and Google fanatics alike that this week, Google officially unveiled its very own Android-powered smartphone:  the Google Nexus.

The device, the first smartphone completely designed by Google and manufactured by HTC, features Android 2.1 software and a host of other interesting features such as a 1Ghz processor, Google’s latest map software, an 800 x 480 display, a 5 MP camera with LED flash, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and pretty much any other thing you might want in a smartphone. For the full specs, check out this page. Of course, it is powered by Google’s Android software which also gives you access to thousands of useful applications to enhance your Nexus.

Initially, the Nexus will be released for T-Mobile or unlocked in the US but will also come to Verizon and Vodaphone later this year in the Spring. To order, head on over to Google’s very own order page and get one for yourself.

With Christmas over and the new year in full swing, Chris and Matt are back with a brand new episode of The Flickcast. This week, your favorite team is joined by Cortney Zamm to discuss all sorts of topics including new and returning TV shows such as Chuck, 24, Human Target, Caprica, Lost and True Blood. Also, the threesome talks Avatar, Sandra Bullock, “feel good” movies, Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Thor casting.

In addition, Chris, Matt and Cortney make some new picks for the new year including one of Cortney’s favorite books Silent Bob Speaks, Matt’s new favorite “blacksploitation” film Black Dynamite and one of Chris’ top ten films of 2009, District 9.

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.

The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival in Austin has chosen the film that will open its 2010 festival and its one that will surely please fanboys (and girls) alike: Matthew Vaughn’s highly anticipated Kick-Ass. The film, based on the comic by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., tells the story of teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who decides to take crime fighting into his own hands and don the moniker “Kick-Ass” while he uncovers the true darkness in the city and gets the crap kicked out of him in the process.

In addition to Kick-Ass, the SXSW festival, which runs from March 12-20, announced five other film titles making an appearance at the fest this year including Electra Luxx, from director Sebastian Gutierrez, Cold Weather, the latest from SXSW alum Aaron Katz, and the first public screening of the IMAX space film Hubble 3D. In addition, actor-turned-director James Franco’s Saturday Night, a documentary that takes you behind the scenes during the production of an episode of Saturday Night Live, will also screen at the fest.

Kick-Ass will be released by Lionsgate on April 16. More of the festival’s approximately 125 features will be announced in early February.

Be sure to check back right here for all your SXSW news.

While it was only a rumor back in December, it looks like Fox has finally tapped writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wenick, who are most notably the writers of 2009′s hit Zombieland, to pen the upcoming Deadpool film — which is spun off from last year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

While Ryan Reynolds is already committed to play Green Lantern for DC and Warner Bros, he is allegedly still signed on to return as the Merc With the Mouth. According to Variety, this contract may mean that the film is on the way, just no word on when:

There is no timetable on the Marvel property, though Reynolds has a window after wrapping the “Green Lantern” this summer. Reynolds has been bulking up to play the DC Comics’ hero “Green Lantern,” which starts lensing next month. This means he would already be in superhero shape if the script for “Deadpool” is ready by summer.

Reese and Wernick will stay true to the mythology of “Deadpool” given that Reynolds is a huge fan and protector of the property.

This is all good news coming from the Fox camp, since fans were a bit worried when Reynolds was signed as both a DC and Marvel film hero. Reese and Wenick are no strangers to the comic-to-film world, as they also penned a draft of Venom for Sony and Marvel last year.

There were reports before the holidays that there were issues on the production of the new Spider-Man film. But at the time, those rumors were shrugged off as the production just breaking for the holidays. But now comes news via Deadline Hollywood that director Sam Raimi is having some issues with the script and trouble getting financiers at Sony to back his choice for the movie’s villain.

The big news is that with all big franchise films lately, release dates are announced far before production even begins, so there’s a setup of expectation from the viewing public, and the pressure on the filmmakers to meet that deadline. Spider-Man 4 – or Spider-M4n as it is rumored to be titled – was scheduled for release on May 11, 2011. That date is starting to look like an impossibility.

Previous versions of the script have been written by Jamie Vanderbilt (Zodiac), David Lindsay-Abaire (Inkheart), and Gary Ross (writer and director of Seabiscuit), and is now in the hands of Spider-Man 2 & 3 writer Alvin Sargeant. Hopefully, he’ll have better luck, Raimi will be happy, the studio will be happy and the film will move forward again.

Until then, stay tuned to The Flickcast for more on this developing story.