I don’t know if Judge Horn was actually a real show, but I really wish it were. According to Larry, he’s a real judge, so it may not be the Perry-Mason-style show I was hoping it to be (and more likely to be a Judge-Judy kind of show), but damn, how great would that be? Especially if it were in black and white and really did feature Judge Horn yelling at the defense for not having their stuff together.

Likewise, I don’t know if Larry David was the one who dreamed up the brilliant fictional movies that peppered the Seinfeld universe (Chunnel and Firestorm being my personal favorites), but if he ever gets tired of Curb and wants a new project, in a perfect world, he could bring those gems to the screen (how many people would cheer at the line, “Everybody out of the Chunnel!”?).

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For those of you who loved Malevolence, Stevan Mena’s 2004 slasher film, you will love its gory prequel, Bereavement. Even if you haven’t seen Malevolence and just love horror films, you should see this film. It stands on its own as a visually stunning film and has some pretty believable characters as well.

In this film we focus on two different stories: part of the story focuses on Allison (Alexandra Daddario), a 17 year-old girl who has come to live with her uncle Jonathan (Michael Biehn) after the untimely death of her parents. On her daily run Allison passes a a seemingly abandoned home that happens to be inhabited by young Martin Bristol, a boy with a disease that renders him unable to feel physical pain, and his demented captor, Graham Sutter, a sadistic maniac who takes his orders from a mounted deer skull.

The two stories don’t cross paths until the third act. Until that time we follow Allison, who is full of teenage angst. While on another one of her runs, (She runs a lot in this movie) she comes upon William (Nolan Gerard Funk), a muscle car driving heart throb that lives in the trailer park with his paraplegic father. Obviously now we need a side story where Jonathan doesn’t approve of his niece, seeing this “lowlife,” so he does everything to try and stop their love from blossoming.

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At Comic Con, the Flickcast got our first hands on with X-Men: Destiny to mixed reviews from the team. While the game is still some time away, there lies a lot of potential for the game to take a turn for the better or the worse. When we had the chance to talk to Denis Dyack, who also headed up past projects such as Too Human, it helped sooth some of our concerns. Now, with PAX this weekend, the team at Silicon Knights gives us some further insight into the game with its new Powers trailer and a host of new screen shots.

In the new X-Men: Destiny screens, our main characters Aimi, Grant and Adrian can be seen in costumes different from their original character designs. The most notable are Grant fighting alongside the Juggernaut in similar wardrobe and Aimi who is wearing what looks like a New Mutants style uniform. This could be a sign that over the course of gameplay, certain decisions will not only change the world in front of the characters but the appearance of the characters themselves.

In the Powers trailer below, all three power sets that can be chosen by any of the game’s three characters are seen in action. At Comic Con, we chose the Density Control which used close by rock and asphalt to create a melee focused set, giving players an experience similar to that of the X-Man Rockslide. Energy Projection looks to be more of a sniper class where players will have the opportunity to take out enemies from a distance, playing more like Cyclops. Shadow Matter looks like it combines a mix of the two giving players some distance attacks and other close up enhancements.

Take a look at the trailer and screens below. As always, stick to the Flickcast for more on X-Men: Destiny as it approaches its September 27th release for XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Nintendo DS.

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So it turns out America is a huge fan of heartwarming tales about maids, as indie comedy The Help managed to steal the show once again, claiming the #1 spot for the second time in 3 weeks.

The film has grossed nearly $100 million domestically, and is still growing in popularity, as it beat out Colombiana, Guillermo del Toro’s Don’t Be Afraid Of the Dark and Paul Rudd’s attempt at a quirky indie comedy with Our Idiot Brother, bringing in a total of $14.3 million this weekend.

Coming in second is Luc Besson’s Colombiana, which only managed to bring in $10 million (a quarter of the film’s budget) in the domestic box office this weekend.

Just after that film, the first big horror film of the late summer/early fall season, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, was unable to open big enough to scare the masses, as the film barely managed to break $10 million this weekend, coming in just shy of $9 million.

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Let me just say, for the record, I enjoyed director Nicolas Winding Refn’s film Drive immensely. I’m going to do a full review of the film down the road, but for now, let’s just say the movie had an influence on me that few movies have of late.

Because I enjoyed it so much I want to do whatever I can to help get the word out. So, to that end, we’ve got some new stuff from the movie to share with you today.

In case you’re not familiar with Drive, it stars Ryan Gosling as “Driver,” a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman that will take any job and not ask questions. However, as is often the case (especially in the movies), he discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist goes wrong.

And seriously, it goes really wrong. They are not kidding.

Drive features a great cast who, to a man or woman, do a superb job. It includes Ryan Gossling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac, and Albert Brooks.

Check out the video and some stills after the break. Drive hits theaters September 16, 2011.

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Last week we looked at recent “best of” releases celebrating two masters of film music: Hans Zimmer and James Horner. Reflecting on the works of Zimmer and Horner reminded me that I have gone a long time with out appreciating the one composer who can rightfully be called their superior. Of course I am talking about the maestro himself, John Willaims, the single most prolific master composer in the history of cinema.

In honor of the maestro’s concert series at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend and the two new scores coming out this winter I am going to review the last score John Williams wrote for a feature film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The much maligned sequel to the popular franchise, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull still boasted a brand new, return to 80′s action style score from Williams.

The movie might have failed to live up to the high standards of Spielberg and his franchise, but the Williams brought his A game to the table. The score is right out of the vintage Williams style that influenced an entire generation. If you would have told me the music came from a lost late 80′s adventure film scored by Williams, I would have believed you. The spirit and tone of Williams most iconic era was alive again.

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As we’ve said before, for premium original content we usually look to HBO for most of our entertainment. However, Cinemax is fighting back in a big, explosive way with their new series Strike Back.

“When a resourceful international terrorist group plots an attack, a charismatic former U.S. Special Forces operative joins forces with a stealth British military unit to stop them.” That’s pretty much the way it’s gone so far. Oh, and did I mention stuff blows up pretty much non-stop so far this season? Well, it does.

This week we’ve got a preview for you of episode 3 as well as some new pics of the gang in action. The show features Sullivan Stapleton, Philip Winchester, Amanda Mealing, Eva Birthistle, Jimi Mistry, Rhashan Stone and Richard Armitage.

Check out the preview and the new pics after the break. Strike Back is on tonight at 10/9C on Cinemax.

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We now continue our rather infrequent series of car-related posts with this new one containing a video of the world’s most famous actor, Tom Cruise, putting the Red Bull F1 car through its paces. Yes, the car is fast and yes Cruise is a pretty good driver who really shows he’s got some skills.

Sadly, things don’t go completely perfect for the diminutive action star as you can clearly see if you watch. However, that doesn’t mean the video isn’t interesting, it is.

It also makes us very jealous he gets to drive cars like this and we don’t. Damn him.

And damn him for corrupting young Katie Holmes too. Oh well.

Anyway, the video is still pretty cool and we think you’ll enjoy it. Check it out after the jump.

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It’s not a good sign when you’re half an hour into the movie and are still unsure who the main character is or what’s going on. By the end, I had a pretty good idea, but to make sure (this was the winner of the Audience Award for Drama at Sundance), I checked out IMDB’s synopsis, which says, “A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager’s growing sexual rebellion and her brother’s dangerous obsession.”

Not quite satisfied, I then headed over to the film’s Facebook page, which conversely says that it’s, “the story of two vivacious young girls…discovering their burgeoning sexuality.” Finally, I looked up the film’s actual website, which stated that Circumstance “is a suspenseful tale of love and family upended by obsession and suspicion.”

Evidently, I’m not the only one who was more than a bit confused. Again, not a good sign.

None of them are flat-out wrong, and indeed the movie contains elements of all three—there’s Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemy) as the two 16-year-olds discovering their burgeoning sexuality; Atafeh’s brother Mehran (Reza Sixo Safai), the former addict who finds a new addiction in Islamic extremism; and their father Azar (Soheil Parsa), the liberal-minded man who disagrees with the old ways but nevertheless must adhere to them for his family’s safety.

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Recently film music legend John Barry past away. It was a great loss for the film score community, Barry wrote some of the most well known themes and scores of all time during his career. Most people know Barry most for his work on a large number of James Bond movies, but me personally, my favorite score is from the undereducated Disney film The Black Hole.

The guys over at Intrada Records have recently struck a deal with Disney to release some of their more classic scores and thankfully the need for a fully restored The Black Hole was high on their priority list. Beyond the quality of the score itself, the music for this movie has historical significance:

John Barry’s score was the first digitally recorded soundtrack in motion picture history and was recorded using the 3M Digital Recorder. The format was used sparingly for several years until technology moved on, and due to its limited use, finding working machines had become quite a challenge some 30 years later.

Randy Thornton’s producer’s notes chronicle the entire odyssey through the investigations and trials until successful transfer of the 32-track digital elements, with simply stunning results.  Now The Black Hole is presented in complete form with a striking clarity not heard previously.

This new release is available now from Intrada’s website.

Even though SDCC is already a month removed, we still have some games news still to cover. One of those stories is that of Payday: The Heist. Coming from Sony Online Entertainment, Payday: The Heist is a four player cooperative shooter inspired by the combination of the movie Heat, the most famous heist movie of all time, and the game Left 4 Dead, a stunning example of cooperative shooter gameplay.

This isn’t the first time Heat has played inspiration to the video game world. Anyone who got into Grand Theft Auto 4 will remember one of the best missions of the game comes from the bank robbery based off of Heat. Now, instead of a third person single player experience, gamers can team up with up to three friends to take down a bank and try to escape with their winnings a la Left 4 Dead, minus the zombies.

Players need to be conscious of everything from hostages which can be used as currency to revive killed teammates to security cameras which can be disabled in order to reduce the amount of intel available to SWAT and hostage extraction squads.

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Mel Brooks may have knocked it out of the park by being tongue-in-cheek back when he made Silent Movie, but there is no way today’s audience could possibly accept a full, silent, black & white film. Right? Well, that’s exactly what director Michel Hazanavicius has done.

His film, The Artist, is done like a classic black & white film. Movie stars, dames in trouble, tons of indoor smoking, and more dancing than you could shake a stick at. Here’s the premise:

Hollywood 1927. George Valentin is a very successful silent movie star. The arrival of talking pictures will mark the end of his career. Peppy Miller, a young woman extra, becomes a major movie star.

With films about zombies and The Help making waves in the box office, why couldn’t a simple silent movie about Hollywood in the 1920s take off? They’ve already got us hooked with the trailer, which you can check out after the jump.

Catch Weinstein Company’s The Artist in theaters on November 23rd.

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