While fans are still reeling from the “Stimulus Package” map pack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the geniuses at Infinity Ward are already gearing up for the next epic map pack, entitled the “Resurgence Pack.”

Some of our favorite maps are returning, such as Vacant and Strike, but there are also some great new maps available, including a desolated amusement park, a explosive gas station, an abandoned trailer park, and more. From Activision:

The second pack of new multiplayer maps from Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 2, will hit first on Xbox LIVE® online entertainment network worldwide on June 3rd with the release of the Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 2 Resurgence Pack. Featuring five maps, the Resurgence Pack follows on the heels of the record-setting Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 2 Stimulus Package of maps.

The pack will be available on XBox Live starting June 3rd for the same price that the Stimulus Package was set for, at 1200 Microsoft Points ($15). Take a peek after the jump at a few screens of each of the five new maps: Carnival, Fuel, Strike, Trailer Park and Vacant.

Continue Reading →

It’s official. NBC has canceled the struggling superhero drama Heroes after some internal debate about bringing it back for a shortened final season to wrap up the serialized show. In the end, given the show’s high cost, its consistently low ratings and the number of new hour dramas coming to the network next season, the decision was made to pull the plug.

However, according to reports, the network may bring the show back with a finale special or TV movie sometime next season. If so, that would be a nice gesture on the part of NBC. However, I wouldn’t hold my breath for it to happen.

The show simply went astray after the first season, characters and plotlines were introduced without resolution for existent ones. In short, the whole show just got more and more convoluted and in the end, nobody cared what happened. It really seemed the writers didn’t know what to do with the world they had created so they were just stalling for time.

Perhaps the show would have been better served by continuing the alternative timeline where Peter has a scarred face and the characters actually use their powers and fight each other? That was a more interesting story with plenty of conflict. Perhaps that was just too expensive to continue.

Another big problem with the show was that you had all these super powered beings and they never really did anything. Most of them never really used their powers very much and they never really wanted to. I don’t know about you but if I had super powers I would use them all the time and wouldn’t sit around and worry about being “normal.” Who wants to be normal anyway? Oh well, so long Heroes.

Iron Man 2 made mincemeat of the competition this weekend, decisively beating rival Robin Hood.  Dropping off 59% from its opening weekend, Iron Man made about $53 Million, easily beating  the Ridley Scott helmed movie, which made around $37 Million over the weekend.

Robin Hood has been rumored to have a budget around $200 Million, so that sub-par opening might be disappointing to Universal, but the good news for Universal is that the film is performing well overseas, which will most likely cushion the blow of the somewhat soft American opening. Robin Hood made over $74 Million in foreign markets, and seems to be getting a warmer reception.

Letters to Juliet didn’t benefit from  counter-programming as much as I would have thought. With all the testosterone at the multiplex, I thought women would eat up the romantic offering. It had a decent take ($13.7 Million), but apparently women didn’t have a strong need to see it.  Incidentally, most critics I spoke with were pleasantly surprised by the movie, and found Vanessa Redgrave delightful in it.

Queen Latifah’s latest offering, Just Wright, was not able to muster much interest, and brought in $8.5 Million for fourth place.  How to Train Your Dragon continues to hang out in the top five, and made another $5 Million over the weekend.

Today, as is customary in the network television world, NBC announced its new Fall schedule at the network upfronts. Of the shows announced several of them are returning from last year, with the notable exception of Parks and Recreation, which is being held until midseason. Also, as you may already know, Heroes will not be back, having been canceled by the network.

Here’s all the info you need to know on the new schedule. Plus, we’ve got previews of a bunch of new shows making their debut in the fall including the J.J. Abrams drama Undercovers, The Event, Chase and Outsourced.

Much of NBC’s new fare will wait until midseason. including the new series The Cape, Friends With Benefits, Perfect Couples, Harry’s Law and The Paul Reiser Show, all of which will premiere later in the season. Overall, the network has added a five new comedies, seven new dramas and one new reality show.

Check out the full schedule along with the previews after the jump.

Continue Reading →

I notice everyone in this episode has a coprophagic grimace stained across their cheeks in the interviews, like each actor is trying desperately not to laugh. And that’s totally appropriate for this episode, which is intimidating to write about because it’s not your typical Office but has more great moments than any other installment I can think of. The number of plotlines alone is worthy of the Venture Bros. and there’s so much going on and so many directions the episode takes that it’s just staggering.

Right when you think you know what’s going to happen next, some other bizarre new story will be thrust in. The cold opening where Toby begins a presentation on Radon Kits and then gradually evolves from a mean-spirited comment from Michael into the rest of the office upbraiding Michael and ends with Dwight showing how to kill three people shifts so often, I was wondering if I had missed the actual cold open and gone straight into the episode.

Following last week’s reveal that Michael was dating a married woman, the office is on lock-down mode following the breakup (apparently there’s an entire office-wide procedure for when this happens, and clearly this has happened before…many, many, many times). But when Michael arrives, he’s oddly cheerful, and Pam loses it, asking her boss directly if he’s still dating a married woman, which he confirms, and through a series of ill decisions, decides to team up with Andy to spy on Donna’s husband.

Continue Reading →

This week On the Radar bring a whole slew of new and interesting stuff. Let us know if we missed anything.

• The Flickcast’s own Elisabeth Rappe reports from the set of Jonah Hex (for another site but we don’t care, we love her).

• James Cameron says 3D will replace 2D soon. Yes, but when will substance replace style?

• True Blood gets a comic book. At least that’s better than a Lady Gaga comic. . . oh, wait.

• Heroes to get the axe? Isn’t it about time, really? The show has pretty much sucked sense Season One.

• Judge Dredd is returning to the big screen. He is the law, dammit!

• Some guys made a Mega Man movie. Why? Why the hell not?

• Hayden Christensen to help rip off The Da Vinci Code in The Genesis Code. But what about the younglings?

• Michael Bay says the Racist Robots will be banished from Transformers 3. On a related note, Michael Bay is a liar.

Continue Reading →

Apparently it’s True Blood day here at The Flickcast because we’ve got not one but two stories about HBO’s awesome vampire show for you today. Earlier, we brought you news of the new “mini” episodes of the show which have begun airing online in support of its return next month for season three.

Now, and this is almost more exciting, we’ve finally got a full blown trailer for the new season to share with you as well. In this brand new trailer, we get a look at all our favorite True Blood characters including Sooke, Bill, Eric, Lafayette, Jason and Sam as they start to experience what season three in Bon Temps has in store for them. Plus, it seems Sookie has a new friend, things are getting a bit more violent and we might even see some werewolf activity this season.

Interesting indeed. Can’t wait. Fortunately, don’t have to wait very long as True Blood returns June 13th on HBO. Until then, check out the full trailer after the jump.

Continue Reading →

Though the movie has been out for a week now, we wanted to make sure the majority of you saw Iron Man 2 before we posted anything else that could potentially spoil the movie. And then there’s this video.

For those of you you remember the trailer very well and saw the film, you might recall the scene where Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) kisses RDJ’s helmet and throws it off the back of a cargo plane wasn’t actually in the film. We also know how much RDJ and the rest of the cast ad-libbed while shooting.

CollegeHumor put together a great compilation of animated “alternate takes” that also didn’t make it into the film. It isn’t completely out of the question that some of these outtakes were actually shot.

They’re all pretty amusing, especially the potential to see a sequel titled Mask-O. Check out the animated clip after the jump, and you can still catch the rest of the movie (without the scene) in theaters and IMAX everywhere.

Continue Reading →

Given the storm of bad press and user revolts Facebook has been suffering since announcing their “Open Graph” feature to better spread its data across the web, it’s rather puzzling that the company would announce an unrelated new security feature. But, announce it they did. With well-known tech pundit and podcaster Leo Laporte deleting his Facebook account on-the-air, Facebook has announced a new security method that ties your account to certain known computers and devices.

Similar to a method already in-use by most U.S. banking entities, Facebook will recognize computers and devices you typically log-in with, however when an unknown device attempts to log-in, you will be required to answer a challenge-response question to verify your identity. Facebook users will be able to approve which computers and mobile devices are allowed to log-in, and when an unauthorized attempt occurs, an email or text message will alert the user of the unauthorized access attempt.

While this heightened security is certainly unique in the social networking world, it does nothing to address the serious privacy issues being expressed about how Facebook data is being extended and used by unknown and potentially untrustworthy third-party web sites. Even Congress is getting involved, with four Democratic senators calling on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to reconsider the recent changes in its privacy settings and asking the Federal Trade Commission to streamline guidelines regarding privacy on all social networks.

After the jump, I describe how to activate Facebook’s new authorized device/log-in notification feature, so read on if you’d like to try it for yourself.

Continue Reading →

It’s Friday again so that means all new episodes of Stargate Universe and Merlin air tonight on Syfy. Of course, as we do each week, we’ve got new previews for tonight’s episodes to share with you today.

First up on Stargate Universe, members of the crew begin experiencing disturbing hallucinations which lead them to all sorts of odd conclusions and drama. Then, on Merlin, Uther wages war on magic with the help of an infamous witch hunter. Both of those sound pretty awesome, right?

All the action starts tonight at 9/8C with Stargate Universe followed at 10/9C by Merlin, only on Syfy. Until then, be sure to check out the promos for these shows after, where else, the jump.

Continue Reading →

While most of us were under the impression that we had to wait until Sunday, June 13th for new episodes of True Blood, Vampire Christmas comes a little bit early, in the form of some great “mine” True Blood episodes.

Much like Rescue Me has done in the past, True Blood is releasing a series of original “mini” episodes that have some great content with some of our favorite characters from the show including Sookie (Anna Paquin), Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll), and Eric (Alexander Skarsgård).

Of the three episodes already released, we seem to get one of each: a character study, some amazing Mamet-style dialog, and a great comedic bit. The first, in which Eric and Pam audition for a brand new dancer at the Fangtasia, happens to be the comedic one.

After that, the minisode with Jessica and the third with Sookie, Lafayette, and Tara take place just before the second season’s cliffhanger ending, but still add to the intensity of show’s drama.

Check out the first three minisodes after the jump, and keep an eye out for new minisodes leading up to the season 3 premiere of True Blood June 13th on HBO.

Continue Reading →

On paper, Robin Hood appears to have it all: an amazing cast, beautiful costumes, spectacular set pieces, meticulously choreographed fight scenes, and a beloved protagonist. Yet somehow, I found the movie stultifying. It’s dull, complicated, and waaaaay too long.

Essentially, this serves as an origin story for Robin Hood. Russell Crowe stars as Robin Longstride, an archer fighting with King Richard (Danny Huston), who stumbles into a sequence of events that ultimately result in him being condemned and banished as an outlaw.

I was rooting for this Robin Hood retelling: after all, my last name is Hood, and I have had such a life-long affinity for the character that at my wedding reception my father made a toast about me finally meeting my Robin. I have been trying to pin down exactly why this movie just didn’t do it for me, and I offer you the following observations:

We all know the original story, but director Ridley Scott’s take is more of a historical drama. Admittedly, Scott has an astute eye for detail. That’s admirable, but most of us associate Robin Hood (the character) with swash-buckling heroics and swoon-worthy romance, not body odor and grimey fingernails. In the opening sequence, do we really need to see Robin playing parlor games? Of course not.

Continue Reading →