Late yesterday the SXSW Fim Festival, which runs from March 12-20 in Austin, TX, announced the full lineup of films that will be screening at this year’s event. And baby, it’s quite a list. Mixing big name films with intimate indie gems, the sheer number of films and the vast array of talented filmmakers is sure to be a hit with attendees and critics alike.

This lineup includes premieres of studio films such as Universal’s MacGruber, Lionsgate’s teen superhero actioneer Kick-Ass and smaller films like Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs, Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart and Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine. With so many films to watch, it will be very difficult to find time to seem them all during the events nine days. But hell, we’re going to try.

For more on the SXSW lineup and these films and everything related to the event, be sure to visit the official SXSW site. The complete press release announcing the lineup follows:

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival is thrilled to announce the complete features lineup for this year’s Festival, March 12 – 20, 2010 in Austin, Texas. Over the course of nine days, 119 features will screen at the festival, with 55 of those having their world premieres at SXSW 2010. These films were selected from a record 1,572 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,206 U.S. and 366 international feature-length films.

Among the major films added to the lineup are: Rogue’s MacGruber, from director Jorma Taccone, Jay & Mark Duplass’ Cyrus, Bernard Rose’s Mr. Nice, Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs, Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart, Alexandre O. Philippe’s The People vs. George Lucas, Shane Meadows’ Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine, Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas’ American: The Bill Hicks Story, Mike Woolf’s Man on A Mission, Jacob Hatley’s Ain’t In It For My Health: A Film About Levon Helm, Mark Landsman’s Thunder Soul, Daniel Stamm’s Cotton, Chris D’Arienzo’s BARRY MUNDAY, and Floria Sigismondi’s The Runaways.

They join previously announced films such as Opening Night film Kick-Ass, as well as narrative features Cold Weather and Elektra Luxx, and documentaries Hubble 3D, Lemmy, SATURDAY NIGHT and The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights.

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Tonight marks a big episode for NBC’s freshman medical drama Mercy, as TV veteran James Van Der Beek joins the ranks of Mercy Hospital as the newest doctor. Van Der Beek will be a regular after tonight, which means he’ll be there to mix things up and throw a wrench into the relationships we’ve already come to know and love.

We recently got a chance to talk with the former Dawson, and his intentions on the show.

What I heard about the character’s intentions, I actually learned from the press release: he may be a womanizer, he could have dark secrets, maybe a gambling addiction, we don’t know just yet. What I know about him right now is that he’s somebody who is completely result oriented, and he’s not at all precious with anyone else’s feelings.

If he has a goal, he goes for it, gets to it, and doesn’t really care who he steps on to get there. We’ve got some really sensitive, well-rounded characters developed around him, and he doesn’t care.

Check out more of our interview after the jump, and catch an all-new preview of James Van Der Beek on the Mercy there as well. Catch “Can We Talk About The Big Elephant In The Ambulance” tonight on NBC, at 8pm/7pm Central.

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Hold on to your implants, the Real Housewives have spawned another bedazzled and botoxed book. New Jersey hausfrau Danielle Staub has been twittering up a storm about her forthcoming tome The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey—In her Own Words, and it’s set to hit Amazon et al on May 4, 2010.

Staub, the divorced action-cougar who spends her time waiting for a wealthy man to “rescue” her and her two daughters is the evil nemesis of the Manzo sisters on the hit Bravo series. After no less than five other Housewives alum have penned their own moneymakers, Staub decided to cash in with the rest of them. Let’s review her predecessors:

Never Make the Same Mistake Twice: Lessons on Love and Life Learned the Hard Way by Nene Leakes and Denene Miller. The autobiographical story of Atlanta Housewife Nene Leakes’ struggle with domestic violence and her subsequent success as a realty diva and gay icon is sure to be a sudsy read.

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Much like other classic battles including Mac versus Windows, New Coke versus Old Coke, Nikon versus Canon, Edward versus Jacob and Democrats versus Republicans, the debate between fans of Star Wars and Star Trek rages on and never seems to be fully resolved. Fans on both sides of the isle vehemently defend their position that their choice of sci-fi entertainment is vastly superior to that other crap losers believe in.

Some fans intimately entrenched in this debate got together and decided to make a video and post it on YouTube. Of course, in this modern world of ours if you have such a debate, that’s what you do these days and this video is the result.

In the video the debate rages on between Star Wars and Star Trek. Which is superior, and why? Is Luke Skywalker a better hero than Captain Kirk? These questions, and many more, get discussed, debated and dissected in this video. Ok, actually none of that happens, but the video is still really inventive and well done.

Be sure to stay until the end. Check it out after the jump.

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In case you didn’t know, NBC is taking a little break from its regular primetime programming soon to bring you about 10000 hours of the Winter Olympics. Then, after the Olympics are over, they will bring back all the shows you missed with brand new episodes. Plus, they will be debuting a few new shows as well.

Of course, one of our favorite shows, Community, will be returning and to get to you excited, NBC is bringing American Idol alum Katherine McPhee on the show and we’ve got a preview of that to share with you today. Also, the network will debut a new show, Parenthood, from Exec. Producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and based loosely on the film of the same name, after the Olympics.

We’ve got an extended preview of that show for you today as well. In the preview, the cast, which included Peter Krause, Monica Potter, Lauren Graham, Erika Christensen, Dax Shepherd and Craig T. Nelson, discusses the show and how it will find humor in real parenting situations.

Catch Community on Thursdays at 8/7C and Parenthood premieres on Tuesday, March 2 at 10/9C on NBC.

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Welcome to another Western Wednesdays. Today is the very special installment that I promised last week in which I would reveal my favorite Western, the one that not even The Searchers can dethrone.  Yes, my love belongs unreservedly to The Outlaw Josey Wales.

As popular legend goes, Clint Eastwood wasn’t respected as a director until Unforgiven. A hard look at his directorial credits through the 1970s and 1980s can speak as to why. But I believe The Outlaw Josey Wales was a really notable moment of his career, and it’s perplexing why he didn’t enjoy the kind of watershed approval he did in 1993.

I imagine it’s because he promptly went and made The Gauntlet. Sadly, Josey Wales kicked off a very dark period of his career that it’s polite to ignore, and if you know your tabloid romances, you know why. But would it have happened if his career had been reversed, and he won all his Oscar gold for Josey Wales? Would he have taken himself a little more seriously and avoided Pink Cadillac? I’d like to think so.

Of course, that lament implies Josey Wales was a failure, which it wasn’t. But it didn’t receive any Oscar nominations beyond one for its soundtrack.  Roger Ebert even recognized it as an unusual and revisionist Western, but I don’t think that critical consensus or popular culture ever followed suit.

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This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are joined by our resident comic book expert Sal Loria to discuss a bunch of topics. Some of these include comics (of course), the upcoming Green Lantern movie and the recently released concept art, the Deadpool movie, Smallville, the Superman franchise, Zac Ephron as Spider-Man, Batman, the comic book business, the nature of heroism and a whole lot more.

The guys also make some picks this week including Sal’s pick of Marvel’s mini-series Deadpool: Suicide Kings, Matt’s choice of the Cohen Brothers A Serious Man and Chris’ pick of David Lynch’s modern classic Mulholland Drive.

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

With Avatar getting nine Academy Award nominations yesterday, it seemed to put the final nail in the coffin for any films on the bubble between 2D and 3D. Word is now coming in that Warner Bros. has confirmed both Clash of the Titans and the final two Harry Potter films will be in 3D.

This isn’t that big of a deal for the Potter films, but unfortunately sets the entire marketing plan for Titans upside down. This news means that the studio has to go back and convert the original film stock into something that can handle 3D, while still looking state-of-the art.

This conversion will set the release date of Clash of the Titans back to April 2nd, from it’s original date of March 26th. The studio seems convinced that this is the best plan of action, according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter:

“We are experienced and have been successful in the conversion of 2D to 3D going back to such hits as ‘The Polar Express,’ select scenes in ‘Superman Returns’ and the last two Harry Potter films,” Warners domestic distribution boss Dan Fellman said.

“We’re excited about 3D and look forward to bringing a rich, involving visual experience to audiences around the world,” Warners film group president Jeff Robinov said.

The production on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2 are still ongoing, which means that the respective release dates of November 19th and July 15th, 2011 will probably remain unchanged.

After so many years and millions of hours of play logged in, will players finally reach the end of World of Warcraft? Back on one of our podcasts, we talked about one young man who achieved every possible accomplishment in the game, which is the closest thing at the time to “beating” World of Warcraft.

Now the tale of Arthas, a piece of Warcraft mythology going back to Warcraft 3 and an integral part of the current status quo of WoW will seemingly be coming to an end. With the upcoming Patch 3.3.2, the story of the “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion comes to an end in perfect time for the upcoming “Cataclysm” expansion.

As they prepare for the world to cave in on itself in upheaval, the strongest and bravest venture to the throne of the Lich King for an epic battle. To give added incentive, the culmination of this battle awards players with a special cinematic cut scene detailing the end of this chapter in the World of Warcraft, but also intelligently shows how the story is able to continue for other players as well.

The final cinematic after the jump, concerning the fate of the Lich King, is pretty spoilerific so don’t say we didn’t warn you. But for those who don’t feel like grinding thousands of hours into a game to reach this point, take a peek at the “end” of Warcraft.

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Big week for international trailers, with the first one for Clash of the Titans hitting yesterday. Now the first red band international trailer for Lionsgate’s Kick-Ass is here, and it looks, well, kick ass.

We first got a glimpse at the film by Matthew Vaughn when the San Diego Comic-Con footage leaked in July of last year, then Lionsgate picked up distribution for the film and started rolling out tons and tons of promotion for the project.

With that comes the newest red band trailer for the film, giving us all of the f-bombs and headshots that we loved to see in the book. The adaptation of the Mark Millar comic stars Aaron Johnson as the titular Kick-Ass, along with Chloe Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Nic Cage, and  Sinestro frontrunner Mark Strong.

Check out the new NSFW trailer after the jump, and catch Kick-Ass in theaters on April 16.

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February is in full swing and this week brings a host of new movies and some great classics hitting Blu-ray for the first time. This week’s releases include the first time on Blu-ray Casablanca, Unforgiven, Gangs of New York, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Godfather I and II.

There are also several Dr. Who TV movies, a couple seasons of TV’s Dynasty, Volume 3 of Batman: The Brave and the Bold and the Blu-ray release of Zombieland with Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin (pictured above).

Check out this week’s new releases:

Movies

Adam ~ Hugh Dancy, Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving (Blu-ray and DVD)

Amelia ~ Hillary Swank, Richard Gere (Blu-ray and DVD)

Casablanca ~ Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains (Blu-ray)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ~ Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, Tobey Maguire (Blu-ray)

Gangs of New York (Remastered) ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day Lewis, John C. Reilly (Blu-ray)

Planet Hulk ~ (Blu-ray and DVD)

Love Happens ~ Jennifer Aniston (Blu-ray and DVD)

Mystic River ~ Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon (Blu-ray)

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While Universal is ramping up their marketing for the upcoming Wolfman reboot, and Summit is rolling around in giant piles of cash thanks to angsty teen vampires, there are still a few classic monster franchises left to be tapped. That’s where Lakeshore Entertainment and Death Ray Films come in.

The studios have teamed up and optioned the comic book I, Frankenstein, originally written by Kevin Grevioux. The book mashes up the genres of classic movie monsters with crime noir in an epic miniseries. In the book, Frankenstein’s monster has learned to control his anger and now stands as the only hope for humanity against an army of supernatural forces. Meanwhile, Dracula is a kingpin of crime and the Invisible Man lives his life as a secret agent.

With Universal and other studios revving up their use of the latter two franchises, you can expect them to not make the final cut, and focus on Frank. The film has been on the shelf for nearly a year, until genre studio Lakeshore Entertainment, who presented other cult faves as Gamer and Underworld, recently purchased the rights to turn I, Frankenstein into a film.

Original creator Grevioux, who penned all of the Underworld films will be taking on the script, while Patrick Tatopoulos, who directed the same, will be stepping in to direct. Production is set to begin this July, but there hasn’t been any rumblings as to who could play the gigantic green detective. Our choice? Tony Danza Mickey Rourke.