We are not exactly what you’d call a group of talented dancers. For the most part, many of us wouldn’t even be good enough to be considered bad dancers. But that didn’t stop us from picking up the most anticipated Kinect launch title, Dance Central, not surprisingly a game that involves dancing.

At Comic Con, we got our first chance to experience Dance Central and even though it was fairly embarrassing showing our moves to a room full of fellow press, we quickly realized we weren’t the only ones who couldn’t dance (with the once exception being one guy who looked like he was a professionally trained hip hop dancer who was rocking out to “Poison” by Bell Biv DeVoe).  And most importantly, it was fun.

But the question remained if it would be able to sustain itself as a full game and not just a quick burst of enjoyment for a song or two. We are happy to report that the answer is an astounding yes.

Gameplay:

Dance Central is the most perfect use so far of a world without a controller. Using the Kinect, Dance Central monitors every movement a player makes as they try to mimic the on screen dances of the expert dancer characters. Unlike other Kinect games like Kinect Adventures or Kinect Sports, the on screen character is not a direct representation of the player. Instead, it acts as a model of what the player should be doing.

There is a small box on the right of the screen showing a silhouette of what the player is actually doing. When a player deviates from the correct moves, the on screen character model will glow red over the body part that isn’t doing what it should be doing. There is also a Freestyle section of each song where players see a glowing outline of themselves dancing on screen with no direction. To add to the self-deprecation of the non-dancing crowd, the Kinect makes sure to take pictures of you during this portion.

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It’s almost unnecessary, writing a review for Jackass: Everyone who’s a fan will see it, everyone who isn’t will ignore it, and those who don’t know what it is will run screaming from the theatre long before Steve-O launches a geyser of defecation up onto a quaint, little forest scene.

For the last group, if they’re curious enough to keep reading after that last sentence,Jackass was a show on MTV that featured a handful of professional skateboarders, stuntmen, and fellows crazy and with a high-enough threshold of pain to engage in a series of dangerous and humiliating stunts, ranging from teeballs to the testicles to taunting rams with tubas to drinking the excretions from some of the most unpleasant bodily orifices.

Why? Because leader Johnny Knoxville and his band of depraved good spirits have a knack for survival, no shame, and an appreciation that, yes, there is a lowest common denominator, and that it has a lot of appeal.

It’s not really a movie so much as a venue to perform the kinds of stunts that even MTV’s censors would not allow—example: one of the stunts features a crewmember using his genitals to hit a golfball (I wonder how many takes were needed to get that final shot). Another involves copious amounts of dog doo. Still another…

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Jersey Shore may be the highest rated show on the network, but that won’t stop MTV from cranking out a whole slew of upcoming original scripted programming for their next upcoming season. It’s important to state that these are scripted, because this is the first time MTV is trying something like this since the days of Undressed back in 1999.

This decision to bulk up scripted programming can most definitely be attributed to the huge success of last summer’s newest program for the network, The Hard Times of RJ Berger. The pilot of the show brought in 2.6 million viewers, which is a network high in nearly two years. Now, with two completely different pilots, MTV is hoping to capture that lightning in a bottle. From THR:

“That Girl” follows a 15-year-old who gains notoriety after an accident leads her classmates to think she attempted suicide. The show was created and executive produced by Lauren Iungerich (ABC Family’s “10 Things I Hate About You”).

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I know what you’re thinking. What are we, a fairly well respected website that deals with the finest in entertainment news doing bringing you a new trailer for the next Jackass movie? Please bear with me for a moment.

Even though I don’t find all of this necessarily very funny, I know many people do. So, presented without much comment is the latest trailer for the new adventures of a bunch of white guys who like to get hit in the nuts and eat weird shit.

In this one the boys get even crazier, do more dangerous stunts and generally increase the bottom line for various insurance companies. However, I do like the water stunt where someone flips high in the air and people shoot at him with paintball guns. That’s pretty funny.

Check out the new trailer after the break. Look for Jackass 3D to hit you in the balls on October 15th.

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One of the most exciting aspects of working in the industry is the chance to try out new games before the general public does. With those new games sometimes comes the new emerging technologies as well. This year at San Diego Comic Con, Kinect (formerly Project Natal) was available for the press to try out in Microsoft’s private press lounge. While there, I got the chance to try out two of the upcoming Kinect titles, Kinect Sports and Dance Central.

At first glance, many people would look at Kinect Sports and say it is a rip off of Wii Sports. To an extent, their claim is warranted. Kinect Sports is a collection of minigames using the Kinect motion controls centered around various sports. One can’t fault Microsoft for creating this title. It is no secret that Wii Sports helped drive sales of the Wii above the 25 million unit mark to non-traditional video game players. Sony is also producing Sports Champions for the PlayStation Move. It’d be leaving money on the table if Microsoft didn’t capitalize on this trend as well.

The first thing you notice about the Kinect is the lack of tangible feedback. During Kinect Sports, my first instinct was to grasp the bowling ball as my avatar’s hand went over it. The game responds by automatically grabbing the ball, regardless of whether you actually close your hand around it. For a moment, it catches you off guard that you aren’t really holding anything.

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While the Summer might be ending, great television for the year is just beginning. That’s why Cortney’s TV Digest returns to The Flickcast this month, where we’ll be bringing you some great shows from our favorite networks, including Showtime and MTV.

Mad Men

AMC might not have a lot of television shows, but what they lack in quantity they certainly make up for in quality. Breaking Bad just finished up a fabulous third season over the Summer, and that means it’s time for Mad Men. Season 4 started last month but continues on this month, as Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce begin to establish their new, but struggling, ad firm.

Mad Men is on every Sunday at 10/9C on AMC.

Weeds

Our favorite pot-dealing, crime-scheming Nancy Botwin is back, as Weeds enters its sixth season. It’s so hard to write about this show without absolutely spoiling everything, but to be discrete, this episode picks up right after the last one left off, and looks like this season is going to be a doozy as everyone in the Botwin pack deals with the implications of Shane’s actions.

If you’re a new-comer to Weeds, you’ve got about two weeks to catch up on all five of the previous seasons, but the episodes are so good (and, luckily, short) that it won’t take you much time at all to see what all the fuss is about. Weeds begins its new season on August 17th on Showtime.

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While it may not seem like it, MTV still appeals to kids. Though they aren’t the same cut of “kid” that was watching Twisted Sister music videos (or music videos in general), they’re still the #1 demographic for the network.

With that in mind, it was no surprise that Twilight: New Moon took home nearly half of the awards from last night’s MTV Movie Awards. A few other upsets included Ken Jeong winning for Best WTF Moment, and international superstar Rain being crowned Best Badass.

Aziz Ansari managed to hold together the night, bringing the same amount of energy and seniority that Andy Samburg brought to the awards show last year. A few fun surprises like Sandra Bullock and a drunk Peter Facinelli were entertaining. The newest go-to gag of Betty White and yesterday’s go-to gag Will Ferrell delivered, as usual.

Biggest surprise of the night has to go to Tom Cruise reprising his Les Grossman role from 2008′s Tropic Thunder. 2008! That would be two years ago. Long enough for it not to be relevant, but not far away enough for it to be retro. That would be like Owen Wilson doing a bit as Marmaduke 3 years from now. Not entirely necessary.

Check out the full list of broadcast winners from last night’s show, and be sure to catch the worthwhile clips of last night’s ceremony all over the web.

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It’s that time of the year when the regular award season comes to a halt and those “other” award shows start picking up the slack. The quotes are in place due to the fact that awards like the upcoming MTV Movie Awards are only awards in the sense that the chosen winner gets a trophy. It can’t even be called a popularity contest anymore as it’s more like the ”Twilight wins while people promote their upcoming project” awards.

Last year, Twilight collected a record four awards, which is a third of the categories given. This year, there are a few others hoping to knock the shiny vamps off of the hill like Avatar and Alice in Wonderland.

Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari is hosting this year, so expect some solid written material for the opening monologue and more. Check out the site to vote for your favorite film and actor/actress, and be sure to catch the 2010 MTV Movie Awards Live(ish) on June 6th at 9PM/8PM Central.

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This week, things are getting a bit weird on Fringe, which is an understatement if you’re a regular viewer of the show. This week, things get turned around as we’re told a story of our favorite Fringe characters in the style of a classic crime noir–with a musical twist. From Fox:

While Walter (John Noble) deals with some very upsetting news, he tells Olivia’s niece, Ella, a fairy tale in which the entire gang gets caught up in a mysterious new adventure that includes musical performances by Olivia (Anna Torv) and Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick).

So in order to set itself apart from previous musical episodes of supernatural dramas, this one in particular will take place in a 1940′s noir film. A nice touch. Check out two different sneak previews of Thursday night’s episode, entitled “Brown Betty” after the jump, and be sure to catch the episode on Fox at 9/8C.

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In the past decade or so, comic and movie fans have gone from just guys drawing their favorite scenes in their basements, to people actually becoming pretty good at the art of Photoshop, and churning out some impressive pieces. Of course fans took to their laptops as soon as Ryan Reynolds was cast as Green Lantern, and now they’re looking to Marvel’s upcoming films.

First to hit the web was a cool image brought to our attention by our friends at MTV Splash Page. The “poster” is a cool compilation of all the different actors signed to play their parts in the upcoming Avengers film, including a first look at Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America.

Next, fans thought that Thor needed a bit more focus, so one put together an image that was half drawn and half manipulated digitally in order to come up with a cool render of Hemsworth as Thor.

And finally, the piéce de résistance, as fans over at Film School Rejects put together their idea of what Chris Evans’ Captain America should look like. These images came out to be nearly flawless, and you can check them all out after the jump.

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It’s a grab bag of items on the radar this week. Wolverine and Sabretooth have dinner together, Bruno himself could be the next Man in Black, and in honor of The Flickcast crew attending SXSW some Predators love (of which they may get a taste).

Predators get dark and scary…finally!

Robert Rodriquez‘s Predator reboot, Predators, is starting to get some buzz.  While the first film of the series was a great sci-fi/action hybrid subsequent films have been less than stellar.  Predators star, Alice Braga talked a little about the new film and what we can expect:

“The new Predators are dark. They are really, really scary. So I think the fans are really going to be happy with it. I hope so. The director Nimród Antal, he’s a fan of the Predator films. So it’s like a fan directing this, [it was] like a kid on set, and having that energy was very special. I wish I could tell you more.”

Here’s hoping “dark” and “scary” means an R-rated film and not a watered down PG-13 movie.

Conan will square off against Avatar villain

As an update to our last ‘On The Radar’ article, it has now been confirmed that actor Stephen Lang will indeed play Conan’s villain, Khalar Singh.  Speaking with MTV, Lang stated:

“I have no idea how I’m going to do it,” Lang laughed. “First I’m going to find out how I’m going to sound. I’m going to get back on a Mongolian pony and ride like the wind. I’m going to flash my scimitar. I’m going to cut the nuts off Conan and his father.”

That last threat may seem really out there, but after seeing Lang’s bad ass side in Avatar I have no doubt he can make good on it.

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This week on the radar we’ve got news on Steven Spielberg’s potential return to dinosaurs, the status of the third Mortal Kombat film, NBC gets a Gold in the ratings competition, and what comic book legend may show up on one of our favorite shows, The Big Bang Theory.

Let’s see what blips are on the radar this week.

Boba Fett, finally the deadliest action figure in a galaxy far, far away

If you’re like me, you grew up on the first generation of Star Wars toys and action figures. You know the ones, they had a massive (sarcasm) five points of articulation. Well, one figure that was sort of an urban legend was the missile-firing Boba Fett.  We all heard of it, but rarely saw it.  Well, now it can be yours with the purchase of five other figures!  Offer expires 3/31/2011, while supplies last, only valid in US and Canada…and a whole lot of other legal fine print I’m sure.

Tron: Legacy viral campaign starts to gear up

Disney teased everyone at last year’s Comic Con about a Tron viral campaign. With the highly anticipated film set to open this December online viral goodness have started to trickle out.  The first is a new site with a somewhat enigmatic theme to it.  Can you figure out what it is?  I don’t want to ruin it, but if you must know check this link out.

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