Watch any regular television show these days and you’ll probably find the sets become as important as the characters themselves.  There’s comfort in knowing you’ll be returning to a familiar place from week-to-week.  Covert Affairs is no different and has crafted a number of unique locales viewers will certainly enjoy seeing each week.

Whether it’s something as innocent as Annie Walker’s (Piper Perabo) bedroom or the technology laden operations center of the Domestic Protection Division (DPD) the attention to detail is nothing short of spectacular.  While the sets we walked through are different from the locations used in the pilot episode, the modifications and “upgrades” are impressive.  Did I mention how awesome the DPD set is?  Even if I did let me say again, it’s awesome!

There doesn’t seem to be much to it all looking from the outside in.  I whole lot of wooden beams and plastic backdrops beneath dozens of lights where a ceiling should be.  Turn a corner, however, and you suddenly find yourself walking through the foyer of the Central Intelligence Agency.  It’s quite an experience and credit has to be given to the set designers and trades people that put these sets together.

On a side note, while they were not available the day of our visit I wanted to mention some of the other great actors that round out the Covert Affairs cast: Peter Gallagher (Californication, The O.C.), Kari Matchett (Leverage, Criminal Minds) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes) all bring great talent to this new series.

So, in conclusion to our coverage of Covert Affairs here are some pictures of the sets after the jump you’re sure to enjoy when the series premiers.  Also, thanks to NBC, USA Network, New Media Strategies, and the cast and crew of Covert Affairs for making our visit possible.  We look forward to the premiere Tuesday, July 13.  Make sure to check it out!

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Who would have thought that two of the best movies of the summer would be animated family fare?  First we had Pixar’s wonderful Toy Story 3, and now we are treated to Despicable Me, the debut film by production company Illumination Entertainment.

By the looks of this fledgling feature, we have a lot to look forward to with this company. Despicable Me is simply adorable, that truly is the best word to describe it. Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), is a villian who has fallen to the lower ranks of  the bad-guy pecking order in recent years.  He longs to rise to the top once again.

An enthusiastic new schemer named Vector (Jason Segel) has stolen the villain spotlight because he successfully swiped a Pyramid landmark in Egypt.  While media outlets frantically report that there is  a new villain in their midst, Gru seethes, and hatches a plan.  He will obtain a top secret machine that can shrink objects, travel to the moon, shrink it to a manageable size, and steal it.  Surely this will be the most dastardly deed ever!

Gru assembles his army of minions (those adorable yellow creatures you’ve seen in the trailers) to help him erect a spaceship and steal the device. Vector thwarts Gru once again by stealing the shrinking device from him after he successfully acquires it.

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The San Diego Comic-Con schedule continues to roll out and now Friday’s list of events, panels, screenings and more has been released. Where Thursday was chock full of diverse programming from comics to movies to a super geek extravaganza in the Joss Whedon / J.J. Abrams panel, Friday has more of a recurring theme going thought it. That theme? Star Wars.

That’s right, Comic-Con has chosen to honor one of the greatest film franchises of all time and bring you several panels and events directly related to that theme. Some of the highlights of Friday’s schedule for us include screenings of Batman: Brave and the Bold, Dimension Film’s Piranha: 3D panel, the Dark Horse Comics panel, AMC’s The Walking Dead panel and the Big Bang Theory panel.

In addition, one of our favorite shows, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, comes to the Con for the first time as well as these: Sony Pictures’ The Other Guys and The Green Hornet panel, a Girls Who Kick Ass panel, the True Blood panel and premiere screening of 30 Days of Night: Dark Days and Batman: Under the Red Hood.

Yes, Friday at San Diego Comic-Con looks to be yet another day chock full of great things to see and experience. Sadly, you won’t get to see it all because you just can’t be in three paces at once. If only they could perfect that cloning technology. We can dream. Until then, get used to some disappointment.

Click through for the full Friday schedule. Of course, be sure to check back right here for more on San Diego Comic-Con.

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With Robert Rodriguez’s Predators hitting theaters nationwide today, you can expect most eyes to turn to his next project: the impressive looking adaptation of a spoof trailer Machete.

The film stars Rodriguez’s regular troupe including Cheech Marin, Jessica Alba and Machete himself Danny Trejo. Not enough for you? Well that barely scratches the surface of this massive cast. Joining in the fun, in no particular order, are Robert De Niro, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Lohan, Don Johnson, and Steven Seagal.

This action-comedy spoof features Trejo as the titular character, fighting off evil government figureheads and more. The newest trailer even gives us a little more of Michelle Rodriguez as the aptly named “Shé.”

Check out the trailer after the jump, and catch Machete in theaters on September 3rd.

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Hey comics fans, in honor of new comics coming out this week we’ve got your first look at an upcoming book from our friends at Marvel. This one is called New Mutants Forever and looks to take on some pretty serious subjects.

Written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Al Rio, the story concerns Magneto as he joins the Hellfire Club. Once that happens, the New Mutants have no choice but to ally themselves with the Black Queen, Selene, and as you may guess, lots of meyem ensues.

Picking up where he left off, Claremont teams with series co-creator Bob McLeod, and the legendary Bill Sienkiewicz, to bring fans a series no New Mutants fan can miss. You hear that? You can’t miss this.

Check out the previews for this comic after the jump. Look for New Mutants Forever at your local comic book store on August 4.

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While its 1987 predecessor Predator took its sweet time setting up the action, Predators starts off at breakneck speed, with a man hurtling through air,  frantically trying to get his parachute open.  The wind whips around him, and as he plummets toward a certain death, he appears to be a goner.

Of course, at the last second, he gets it to open, and it breaks his fall enough to allow him to survive.  All around him, other people are falling out of the sky, but some of them are not as lucky,  and die upon impact. It’s a thrilling action sequence, and immediately sets this film apart from the original.

The first thirty minutes of this movie has a distinct Lost-like vibe to it. The survivors start rounding up one another, and it becomes apparent that nobody knows how they got to this jungle, or where they are.  One man even asserts that they must be in hell.

They discover that they are all combatants of some sort.  Most are military mercenary types, one is wearing a prison jumper, and one claimed he worked for a drug cartel.   It’s a bad-ass assortment of individuals, that much is true.

Everyone has landed with appropriate weaponry and ammunition strapped to their bodies.  The lone exception is Edwin, a bookworm type who claims he is a doctor, and seems woefully out of his element among the soldiers.

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So, it begins. The powers that be in control of San Diego Comic-Con have announced the Thursday schedule. We were going to wait and put all of these schedules together but Thursday is such a full day you might need more time to digest it.

Some of the highlights we are looking forward to include the Tron Legacy panel, a City of Heroes panel, Summit Entertainment’s RED panel, several USA show panels including Burn Notice and White Collar, Caprica, Battlestar and Beyond, the Mondo Marvel panel, the EW Visionaries panel with J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon and a panel about The Expendables. There’s also a ton of other stuff with conflicting times that’s sure to drive any fans of movies, tv, comics, games and geek crazy trying to work it all out.

Be sure to check back at The Flickcast for all of our coming Comic-Con coverage. We will be there in force to bring you all the sights, sounds, events, news and smells from Sand Diego. Now to go get in line at Hall H for the J.J. Abrams/Joss Whedon panel.

See you in San Diego! Click through for the complete Thursday schedule as of today.

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We’ve been following this one relatively closely as we’re pretty big fans of actress Milla Jovovich, ass kicking and zombie hordes. So, when those things are combined, as they are in the Resident Evil series of films, you can be we are right there to cover it in anticipation of a great time.

With three films already down, a fourth installment of the Resident Evil franchise is on the way. Director Paul W.S. Anderson returns with Resident Evil: Afterlife, which continues the story of Alice and her quest to destroy the Umbrella Corporation all while kicking those zombie asses we mentioned before. Now, we’ve got a new trailer for the film to share with you today.

In this one, our favorite heroine again makes it look easy mowing down tons of zombies, Umbrella troops, jumping, kicking and slicing all while looking great in a fancy new outfit. Plus, we’ve also got some new baddies, sword fights and the return of Ali Larter as Claire Redfield and Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine. Yeah, this looks pretty good.

Check out this new trailer after the jump. Resident Evil: Afterlife hits theaters on September 10th.

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Okay, finishing up the documentaries this week with two stellar, if unnerving, entries: 1945’s The Battle of San Pietro and 1946’s Let There Be Light. I mentioned last week that Report from the Aleutians came under some scrutiny from the Army, but these two were lucky to have seen the light of day (pun kind of eh, intended).

I recently went through John Huston’s autobiography An Open Book, which provides a lot of details regarding Huston’s troubles with Army censors while making all three of these films, and while I’m going to focus on the films themselves, the stories behind them are almost as compelling.

San Pietro was controversial for its depiction of war, and it was only through the intervention of General George Marshall, who said it’d make a good training film, that it was shown. Let There Be Light wasn’t so lucky.

The Battle of San Pietro depicts the eponymous battle between Allied Forces and the Italian Royal Army and Germany. But the actual battle is not the main focus, just as the Aleutians were not the main focus of Report from the Aleutians or the Mason General Hospital in Let There Be Light is the main focus, as we’ll see. In all three, Huston uses his setting to address a larger theme—the daily life of soldiers; the brutality of battle; the psychological consequences of war.

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Normally when things like this come out we try to do a full writeup and explain all the pics or the trailer or whatever new bit of info has surfaced. This time, however, I think I’ll let the photos do the talking for themselves — especially as those photos just happen to be some awesome new ones from Tron Legacy.

Coming from our pals across the pond at Empire Magazine, these new pics are from a new article in the magazine hitting newsstands today. Needless to say, they look pretty damn awesome.

Having just watched the first Tron again recently, I like the direction they are going with this new film. Can’t wait to see more. What about you guys? Does this get you excited for more Tron Legacy?

Check out more pics after the jump. Tron Legacy hits theaters on December 17.

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During The Flickcast’s set visit to USA Network’s new series Covert Affairs we spoke with Executive Producer Doug Liman about the origins of the show.  Following that we had the opportunity to speak with three of the show’s regulars, Christopher Gorham (Ugly Betty, Harper’s Island), Anne Dudek (House, Mad Men) and Piper Perabo (The Prestige, Coyote Ugly).  All the interviews took place on the Covert Affairs sets in Toronto, Canada.

One thing every good television show needs is a lead character that can be relatable to viewers yet embrace the hyper-real world of fiction.  Piper Perabo, as Annie Walker, on Covert Affairs blends these two elements seamlessly.  While thoroughly convincing as a rookie CIA Officer she’s equally well-rounded as a down-to-Earth friend to Christopher Gorham’s Auggie and sister to Anne Dudek’s Danielle.  In short, Perabo effortlessly draws the audience into her world of intrigue, action and drama on Covert Affairs.

As easy as Perabo makes her performance on the series look there is a significant amount of reality behind the character of Annie Walker.  While the scripts themselves carry with them a healthy dose of real world exposition, Perabo was fortunate enough to actually do her own research for the role at the Central Intelligence Agency itself in Langley, Virginia.

Interestingly enough, it was the day-to-day details of the people that worked for the CIA that became more relevant than work specifics as Perabo explained:

“…I went and I met agents who are my age who work in the field, women, and got to talk to them.  Not just about—the funny thing is the things that they can’t talk about aren’t really the things that I, you know, I don’t need to know where your stationed or what you’re doing.  But my questions were more like, ‘What kind of car do you drive?  Does your boyfriend know what you do? Do your parents?’

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The list of TV networks, studios and comic book companies attending San Diego Comic-Con keeps on growing. This time around it’s premiere cable network Showtime and their announcement of all they will be bringing to the show this year. The networks panels this year will include Dexter by itself as well as a special Anti-Hero panel featuring series star Michael C. Hall, Californication’s David Duchovny and Weeds’ Mary-Louise Parker.

Both panels will be on the first day of the con, Thursday, July 22.  In addition to the cast mentioned previously, the panels will feature producers and writers from Dexter, Weeds, Californication and Nurse Jackie. Okay, I like most of these shows and also are fans of their stars. However, I’m not really sure what these particular shows have to do with Comic-Con.

Granted, the con has become way more about movies, TV and such and less about comics, but I think the panels should have at least something to do with comics or the geek community in order to be included in the con. I can see what a show like The Big Bang Theory or Fringe, for example, are doing coming to San Diego but Weeds and Nurse Jackie? Not sure. At least Californiacation’s David Duchovny used to be in The X-Files so that, at least, makes a little sense.

Oh well, if you like these shows (and I do like most of them) and are going to Comic-Con, I guess you’re probably pretty happy now so I’ll just be quiet. Click through for a full description of all the panels and be sure to check back right here for more info than you can handle on this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.

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